CHAPTER 5 — Applejack Breath #2
My insides curl with heat. I should be horrified that I just watched him lock lips with his other wife and was offered an endearment among his many other women basically in the same breath, but I must not be feeling possessive of him yet.
Which is weird of me, because back home, if I had slept with a guy then watched him kiss another woman the morning after, I’d have stabbed him in his dick and sent him crashing to the curb.
With this bizarre greeting bestowed upon us, Roarg saunters back outside, leaving me staring after him.
Ulda quietly shuts the door behind him, and gives me the brightest, most shocked smile—a smile!
—I never ever would have expected. She holds out her hand for everyone to see, and her eyes slide to her sister wives.
“Just look at this. Look! He has that massive sword order he needs to fill for the Trog army, but Roarg’s set his work aside and made her a set of these after only her first night pleasuring him in his bed! ”
“What did you do?” Namak?ga asks, eyes wide and gaze curious as she stares at me.
“Oh my Eternal!” Joktepitha cries, gaping, bouncing her baby on her shoulder, patting its onesie-covered back and throwing me a grin that makes me want to run from the room. “And he made them from silver, to match your necklace.”
I glance down at my necklace, then at what Ulda is holding, stunned. “What are they?” I ask.
“They’re tres?s.”
At my blank look, Ulda explains, “Braid rings. For your hair.” She gives me a meaningful, wide-eyed look. “An Orc male gives hair adornments to his wife if she’s done something sinful to him between the sheets.”
My gaze bounces from woman to woman, unable to stop myself from noting that all three of them are bedecked in braid rings.
“It took me a fortnight of sucking to earn these,” Namak?ga says wryly, seeing my attention on her adorned hair.
I make a noise.
Undeterred and impatient, she throws out her hand, beside herself with disbelief. “What. Did. You. Do?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “There are babies present, can we please not talk about this?”
“They’re both infant brats,” Ulda points out. “And my heaven above, you have me curious.”
“Me too,” Joktepitha says.
“Seriously,” I tell them, dropping my hands from where I’d covered my eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
Joktepitha sighs and sets her baby down. “You know, if you quit being uncomfortable, this won’t be uncomfortable. But all right. We’ll help you arrange your hair after breakfast. Do you need koekje cream?”
I give her a nonplussed look.
She gestures at me. “For your…” She glances at the baby lying on his stomach on a blanket and rolls her eyes at me, like I’m ridiculous. “For your raw parts, since you spent the night being ridden harder than a firehouse horse.”
My ‘parts’ do feel raw—but I balk. “Uh, no. Thanks though. I…”
All three women give me disbelieving, expectant looks. “You don’t want koekje cream? You’re going to limp around like that all day?”
“I’m not limping…” I start to say—but I just about am. Roarg is a big motherfucker, and he went at me so hard, my hip started making a concerning squeak sometime this morning.
I would have been more worried, but at first I couldn’t hear it over the rhythmic squeaks that were escaping my mouth.
With stiff muscles, I move for the food laid out on the kitchen table, trying not to mince. I grab a chair, pull it out, and slowly, slowwwwly, oh so carefully drop into it.
The contact of my nether regions on wood makes me give an involuntary wince, even as a thousand little replays of the last eight or so pleasurable hours flash behind my eyes. I suck in a breath, my ears turning hot at the expectant silence that’s fallen. “Okay,” I exhale. “Is it safe for humans?”
“Koekje cream? It’s safe for babies. It should be safe for a sensitive otherlander.”
I close my eyes and thunk my forehead down on the table, mumbling, “Then thank you. I’d like the cream for my abused parts, please. Oh, and hey?” I raise my head and glance around pleadingly. “What do you guys use to brush your teeth?”
Five minutes later and I’m in the bathroom, which I figured the Orcs probably had some crazy Orc-word for, but when I voiced this thought aloud, Ulda looked at me like I was stupid and explained that since everybody bathes in it, they simply call it a ‘bathroom.’
Rolling my eyes at the memory of her objurgate stare, I plant one foot on the lip of the tub, one foot on the floor, and gently cup my bruised vulva as I tell myself that rubbing slimy Orc cream all over is totally going to be safe and I have nothing to feel undignified about.
And then the cream touches me and I don’t care if this is undignified.
It goes on smoother than I expect, like coconut oil, although the smell isn’t quite that awesome.
The coolness is where it shines: it’s instantaneous relief, and the release from the discomfort makes me slump and my raised leg slides to the floor.
The efficiency of the primitive-seeming Orc product makes me blink.
Orc sex is intense, and I was feeling like my pussy got punched a thousand times.
Also, beard burn on inner thighs. It’s yowch.
I mean, I liked it—loved it, actually—but the morning after was shaping up to be less enjoyable.
With the cream applied, I’m able to simply bask in the post-sex satisfaction.
I wash my hands in a bowl set on the small table in the bathroom, and I turn to my Orc toothbrush. It’s a stick.
Called a miswak twig, it’s the size of a pencil, looks a bit like dried bamboo, and Joktepitha told me to bite the end of it until the fibers squashed apart and turned bristly.
When I’d given her an uncomprehending look, Ulda had huffed, snatched it from my hand, and chomped on the end of it, grinding it flat and turning it into a splayed twiggy brush.
A gel leaked out of the fibers to coat the end of it; Ulda gruffly told me that it has healing properties and kills things that should die. Antimicrobial was my takeaway.
I have a toothbrush cup that Namak?ga gave me, and I pour a little water into it to swish the stick around in. Then I bravely set it against my teeth and gently scrub it over my pearly whites.
And it feels like a toothbrush. Well, it does if toothbrushes were shaped like flattened paintbrushes, but I’m very happy to discover that it works on my teeth just as effectively as I need.
A taste begins to fill my mouth as I work, and it’s welcome, pleasant and crisp, and kinda tastes like sassafras—and root beer. Like Roarg.
He did say something to his wives last night about badgering him to brush before they sent him in to me. That was thoughtful of them.
So is this toothbrush and my lady-healing cream.
I’m very happy to not be waddling as I leave the bathroom and make my way back into the kitchen for breakfast.
“All better?” Namak?ga asks knowingly.
I sigh to dispel my discomfort. “Yes, thanks for the cooch cream, okay?”
Her eyes narrow. “What’s wrong?”
“It makes me feel uncomfortable to talk about it.”
She looks at me like I’m weird. “Because…” she trails off, then sucks in a breath, clearing her face. “My Eternal. Were you a virgin before last night?”
Ulda’s eyes slam wide like the thought hadn’t occurred to her, and Joktepitha covers her mouth to hide her tusk-filled wince.
“Nooo,” I say wryly. “Thanks for thinking to ask now.”
She presses her lips together like she’s trying for diplomacy points. “Are you from a prudish society?”
“No!” I huff, unable to believe I have to spell this out.
I cast my gaze around at the three of them, Ulda at the table chopping up something and feeding bits of it to Opkug, Joktepitha using the end of the table as a baby shelf; she’s got a crocheted length of netting laid out across the bare surface and she’s carefully wrapping her son into it.
I shrug helplessly at them. “I’m sorry, but I’m from a society that doesn’t discuss how sore their junk is with the spurned wife of the man you spent banging all night.”
“Spurned?” Ulda echoes, nose wrinkling, head going back so sharply her earrings jingle—they’re metal and not bone today. “Roarg hasn’t spurned us for you. He’s only added you to—”
“His bed?” I supply.
“—our family,” she finishes slowly, like I’m simple.
Joktepitha turns to Namak?ga. “Oh, is she ever strange. I want the full story. Why did you bring,” her eyes tap me, “our new sisterwife home with you? You’ve been acting shifty instead of gloating for how happy you’ve made our mate. Out with the real reason, now.”
“I haven’t been shifty more than I’ve gloated,” Namak?ga defends. “But…” She bites her lip, tusks strongly framing her mouth, and Joktepitha’s eyes brighten with intrigue.
“Tell me,” she demands.
Namak?ga sighs, wiping her hands on a coarse-woven towel.
“At first, I put in a small bid for her. Very small. Let’s say relatively nominal.
Everyone was calling out numbers, you see, and I admit excitement got the better of me.
But I also put in a bid because I thought she might cheer Roarg. And then a Dragonkind—”
Joktepitha, Crushosh now swaddled against her back in his netting, drops the huge pan she’d just started hefting out of the sink. Chopping vegetables or whatever she’s doing beside us, Ulda hisses.
“—outbid everyone, and I was forced to spend a purse of coppers to save her from him. The whole purse.”
Joktepitha’s eyes are wide. “Ohhh, Roarg is going to beat you…”
“I KNOW!” Namak?ga wails.
“Wait,” I cut in, worried. “Will your husband really beat you?”
“Our husband,” Ulda says firmly. And it takes me a second to realize she’s correcting me, expecting me to claim possession of him too, right in front of them, no less.
“If he beats me, even over this,” Namak?ga says with a sudden flash of teeth—a smile as her posture turns loose and her eyes go heavy-lidded. “He’ll make sure I enjoy it.”
I shut my eyes and press my fingers to my temples. “You’re bragging about the kinky sex you expect to have in the future with the guy I slept with last night...”
Ulda snorts. “All that racket until the morning hours? You lie. The two of you did no sleeping. In fact, we best plan to replace the rope frame on Roarg’s bed. You two sound like you nigh wore it out last night.”
I slide my hands from my eyes to my ears, trying to block her out. How can they be so chill about this?
“What shall we get you for a sister gift?” Joktepitha asks excitedly.
“Isn’t sharing your husband enough?” I ask.
“Our husband,” Ulda stresses, tossing me a stern look.
I turn to her, but I make sure I look at all of them. “Okay, I guess I need to say this to you guys too. I told Roarg last night, and I’m telling you now—I really, really thank you for buying me, but—
“Oh, no, you didn’t tell him what I paid for you, did you?” Namak?ga asks, aghast.
“No,” I say quickly. “I did not disclose the price in the course of our discussion.”
Joktepitha’s brows crash together skeptically. “How did you manage that? This is Roarg we’re speaking of, yes?”
“Yeah, we are. Just—” I huff out a breath, dragging a hand over my face. “Guys, I’m not staying long.”
Joktepitha’s head cocks. Then she leans over like she’s peering around me. “Have you been tasked with something?” She looks expectantly to Namak?ga.
Namak?ga shakes her head. “I haven’t given her any orders yet.” Her eyes flick to Ulda.
Ulda is glaring a hole through me. “No. I haven’t set her to any task that would take her from here. So, dear sisterwife, what do you mean when you say you aren’t staying long?”
“I mean I’m going back home as soon as I can figure out how.” I gesture around us. “I appreciate that you guys have taken me in, but I don’t belong here.”
“Annnd…” Joktepitha says cautiously, gaze flicking from me to Namak?ga and Ulda, “what did Roarg say when you announced this desire of yours to leave him?”
I feel my face heat. “Well, he—”
Namak?ga throws back her head and guffaws. “THAT is why he made her scream like that last night! Oho!” She bends over as much as her stomach will allow and slaps the air like she’s hitting her knees, if her midsection wasn’t one big inflexible beach ball. “He’s determined to change your mind!”
“Ahhhh,” Joktepitha murmurs, face clearing of confusion, a sly smile beginning to shine. “You’re making him work for you.”
“I am not!”
“Ohhh, whether you intended to or not, you’ve issued him a challenge,” Namak?ga singsongs.
I shake my head, chest constricting. “No, I really didn’t, and it doesn’t matter if he takes it as a—as a challenge. I’m not stay—”
“Enough of this talk, all of you,” Ulda bites, tone scathing.
“YOU,” she growls, rising from the table to grab me by the ear and drag me to the chair closest to where she’s doing food prep.
“You need to eat.” She reaches under a towel in the center of the table and retrieves a steam-covered plate of eggs and bacon and bread.
She plunks it in front of me. “Do you want jam?”
“Jam?” I ask in confusion, rubbing my ear, although it doesn’t really hurt. My eyes lock on the food. There’s a ton of it, and it looks delicious.
“For the bread—just, here,” she growls impatiently, shoving a jar of jam into my hand. “You were late to rise, and that’s understandable, but try to push Roarg off of you sooner so you don’t miss breakfast tomorrow.”
My cheeks are on fire. I try to spit out a comeback, but my throat just squeaks—which sort of hurts. Apparently, I did a lot of shouting, oh, all night long.
“After breakfast, you’ll have a saltwater bath,” she goes on bossily. And then she pats my shoulder almost gently. “It’ll help your cunny.”
I freeze my face and try not to cringe. Cunny? Really?
“Thanks,” I mumble. Because I’d kill to have a real bath—there’s just no substitute to be found in a bucket—and it’s an awfully thoughtful gesture, even if this is the absolute weirdest morning-after I’ve ever, ever endured.