[Spirit of Lust 2] Chapters 282 & 283. (Patreon)

Chapter 282: Magic and tests.

We gathered around the table with the board in the middle. I said hello to Frey, and she greeted us back by moving the piece to the word ‘HELLO’. We had made contact again.

“Frey, can you cast the enchantment you told me about?” I asked her.

“Sh-Should we really just ask that straight out?” Noelle asked.

“I bet she would rather not waste time,” I told her.

The wooden piece moved.

YES.

S-H-O-U-L-D-I-?

“Please,” I said.

T-H-E-T-E-R-M-S

A pause.

M-I-L-A-N-A

D-O-Y-O-U-A-G-R-E-E-?

She was asking Mila explicitly. The Russian girl flinched when she read her name, but soon she steeled herself.

“Yes,” she answered.

G-R-A-C-E

D-O-Y-O-U-A-G-R-E-E-?

“Yes.”

S-A-R-A-H

D-O-Y-O-U-A-G-R-E-E-?

“Yes.”

N-O-E-L-L-E

D-O-Y-O-U-A-G-R-E-E-?

The redhead swallowed nervously. “Y-Yes.”

A-L-I-C-E

D-O-Y-O-U-A-G-R-E-E-?

The president breathed in deeply and let it out slowly. “Yes.”

The wooden piece then began to move… I want to say erratically, but I doubt that’s what it was. It went from one letter to another, and while we tried to make out what it was spelling, we couldn’t. Maybe it was another language, but later Alice proposed that Frey might have been drawing a shape on the board instead of spelling words. We couldn’t confirm any of it. We were too distracted.

Little by little I began to feel something, and when we talked about it, the others told me they felt the same. It began with a warmth in my chest, then a sudden chill down my back. I started shaking, my vision blurred and my head spun. It was like all of that lasted a couple of seconds at most, then it all stopped, leaving only the warmth in my chest spreading throughout my body, then slowly cooling until I was feeling normal again. The wooden piece had stopped moving by the time the… symptoms were over.

I felt normal. No dizziness, no stiff limbs, no euphoria, nothing out of the ordinary except for a single, harmless thing. A belief in the back of my mind, an idea I had full trust in, even while recognizing it was brand new and knowing it had come from Frey’s magic. It clashed with old memories, but it wasn’t as bad as one would think. Still, I was sure the same question was going through our heads.

‘Why did we ever bother hiding our relationship?’

We knew why, of course. Before Frey did… whatever it was she did, revealing we were in a polyamorous relationship would’ve caused word to spread. News would turn into rumors, rumors into gossip, gossip into bad mouthing. We would’ve faced criticism, and very likely pushback from our families as well. Now, though… We knew we wouldn’t be hearing much of that.

“Is it done?” Mila asked.

D-O-N-E

I swallowed. “Is there anything else we should do?”

NO.

W-E-A-R-E-D-O-N-E-H-E-R-E

“Then… Goodbye, Frey. See you around?” I asked, unsure of my own farewell.

P-E-R-H-A-P-S

GOODBYE.

We remained quiet for about two full minutes, maybe more, getting used to the new knowledge, making sense of how it meshed with older paradigms. The bell rang, and as we looked at each other, we saw Mila smirking.

“I wanna test it,” she said.

So did I.

***

We performed the first test that first recess, or rather, Mila and Sarah went ahead and did what they always wanted to do without regard for possible consequences, catching even me by surprise.

I was in the middle of putting away my books when I noticed the two girls were flanking me. Then, Sarah sat on my left leg and hugged me by the waist while Mila sat on my right, wrapping her arms around my neck. Grace sat on my desk, watching the reactions of our classmates, and… yeah, they were watching us alright. Their wide eyes and loud whispers made my face burn, but the girls seemed to be enjoying it.

“So they really were dating?” said someone.

“Sheesh, go get a room,” said someone else.

“Is Grace dating him too?”

Maybe to clear away all doubts, Grace turned to me with a sweet smile and began to caress my cheek with the back of her fingers.

“You’re so red,” she told me, giggling.

Of course I was!

So… These may not have been the reactions we would’ve gotten before, but that didn’t mean people were indifferent to what was happening. Old rumors had just been confirmed, and even if the polyamorous aspect of the relationship was accepted, the fact remained that three of the school’s most notorious, most attractive girls were clinging to the class’ outcast.

A group of people came up to us. Amanda, Mark and Lena, the girls’ friends, looked less shocked than the rest of our classmates, but they seemed a little more outraged.

“So you ARE dating!” Amanda, the slender blonde with the pixie cut, pointed an accusative finger at us. “Why’d you keep denying it?”

Sarah shrugged. “We had our reasons. Now we don’t need to worry anymore.”

Lena crossed her arms and frowned. “You could’ve told us, at least. We would’ve kept it a secret.”

Mila smiled wryly. “Sorry, Lena. It was complicated.”

Mark rubbed the back of his neck. “So… how long were you hiding this for?”

“Mmm… About four months?” Grace answered.

Mark flinched and winced. “Shit. No wonder you got so mad at me when… uh…”

“Nah, I would’ve chewed you out regardless,” Grace said easily. “You were a plain asshole that time.”

“Question,” Amanda said, looking at me this time. “You guys have been hanging out with the student council president and her secretary, too. Oliver, are you…”

My chest tightened. I didn’t need to hide it anymore, but having to say it still caused me some uneasiness. “Y-Yeah. I’m… seeing them, too.”

Amanda whistled. “Man, you caught yourselves a big group of beauties, didn’t you?”

“No, no. Amanda, you don’t get it,” Mila told her. “We caught him.”

Amanda and Lena laughed. “Yeah, that makes more sense,” Lena said.

Word spread like wildfire throughout school. Soon, everyone knew I was dating five girls, yet it wasn’t the number of girlfriends that stirred conversation, but the people I was dating.

************

Chapter 283: A bit of PDA and unexpected side effects.

It didn’t end with the first recess. Like I said, word spread fast, and by lunch break, practically everybody at school knew. All eyes were on us while we tried to eat our lunch in peace at the cafeteria.

…

Well, not exactly. Noelle and I were the only ones who felt awkward under the gazes. Alice seemed to find it amusing while Mila, Grace and Sarah were thoroughly enjoying it.

“Say ‘aaah’,” Mila told me, as she fed me a tiny sausage from her own lunch.

My cheeks burned, the multitude of eyes watching weighed heavily on me, but dammit I was gonna eat that sausage if it was the last thing I did.

“Aaah.”

When I ate it, Mila giggled giddily again.

“Are you planning on letting him eat his own lunch?” Thomas asked her from his seat across from me at our table.

“He’s a growing boy. He needs to eat a lot,” Grace told him. She was sitting to my left and held a cherry tomato with her fingers for me to eat. Of course I ate it, too, but feeling Grace’s fingers on my lips made me dizzy. It was too damn much.

“Give it a rest. You’re killing him,” Isabelle told them. “He likes it, but you’re killing him.”

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed. “I’m happy that you guys no longer have to hide, but you’re going a little bit overboard with the PDA.” He looked around the cafeteria and sighed. “You girls have your fans, remember? I see some of them seething already.”

“And if you continue, we’ll get scolded by the teachers,” Alice added. “There aren’t any policies against dating, but still.”

“It could be worse, you know?” Sarah said, smirking devilishly.

“That doesn’t mean this is okay,” Noelle told her, nervously looking around as well. “We’re making people uncomfortable.”

“Alright, I have to ask,” Thomas said, resting his arms on the table, leaning forward and whispering. “This… What did you do to make this happen? Why aren’t people freaking out more?”

We stopped and tensed up.

“You can tell something off, too?” Isabelle asked Thomas. “Like, people aren’t shocked that you guys are in a poly relationship. They’re shocked that Alice has a boyfriend at all.”

The president blushed bashfully. “Is it that weird?”

“You usually turn down every guy who asks you out on a date,” Isabelle told her. She then chuckled. “They’re saying it took the hottest guy in school to win you over.”

Excuse me? “Hah!?”

Alice’s eyebrows shot up. “T-That’s not why I…! Ugh, I mean he is, but…!”

Thomas laughed. “I’ve been beat! I used to hold that title, but I guess you’re a worthy successor, my friend.”

“Shut up,” I told him. “I’m not…”

“You are,” Mila, Grace, Sarah and even Noelle said in unison. I had no choice but to shut up.

“I’ve also been hearing some stuff,” Thomas continued. “Things like ‘that guy actually tamed that trio of troublemakers’.”

My jaw dropped. “T-Tamed…?”

“Not completely wrong,” Sarah said, shrugging it off. “Grace in particular has chilled out a lot.”

“I guess,” Grace herself admitted, sighing. “I’ve had to keep a lower profile, but I got used to it already.”

Isabelle turned to Alice. “And they’re also saying that it makes sense that you and Noelle have been hanging out with this group now. Still, it seems they don’t know what to make of it. Some are you’re getting corrupted, others that it’s proof that Mila, Grace and Sarah have been ‘tamed’, as Thomas said.”

“They need to mind their own damn business,” I spat. Seriously, hearing all this stuff was beginning to piss me off.

“I agree, but it’s how things work here,” Thomas told me.

“The point is that no one seems to care that Oliver is dating five girls,” Isabelle said. “And even I kinda… How do I put it? It’s like I know it’s not a big deal, but I remember that it should be.”

“Yeah, exactly!” Thomas agreed. “How come? Does it have something to do with what we talked on the rooftop the other day?”

I sighed. “...Yes. I’ll give you the details later.” I turned to Isabelle. “And… I’ll tell you everything tonight, after I’m home from work.”

Isabelle frowned, but seemed to understand that this was serious and didn’t comment any further.

I thought I should’ve been more worried about this finding, but I wasn’t. Thomas and Isabelle were both aware that something had changed while no one else seemed to realize it. Why was that? Could it be because they knew the girls and I were dating before Frey let her magic happen? It was possible. Maybe the spell wasn’t all powerful and it had its limitations. If that was the case, there were only three other people who knew. Thomas said he’d speak to Kevin and Ben to see how they reacted. As for the third person, I’d get the chance to see what she thought later that day.

***

At first I thought I was imagining things, but when all the tables at the coffee shop were full on a Thursday, Maria and I had to admit something strange was happening.

“Was there some kind of event around here or something?” she asked me as we were finally able to catch a break from serving customers.

“Not that I know of,” I told her.

“It’s mostly girls your age, too…” Maria said. She looked at me with a disapproving look. “What have you been up to, young man?”

“N-Nothing! What WOULD I be up to?”

“You aren’t leading all these girls on, are you?

“Of course not! It’s just… people at school found out I’m d-dating five girls.”

Maria’s eyebrows shot up and she covered her mouth in shock. “FIVE!? I thought there were only three! Why didn’t you tell me!?”

“I had to tell you?”

“Of course! I love gossip!” She giggled and lightly elbowed me in the ribs. “You’re such a ladies man!”

“I swear I didn’t plan for it to turn out this way…” I said, sighing tiredly.

“Hmm, then are all these girls…?”

The moment one of the tables became available, another group of girls from my school entered. It was my turn to wait on them, so off I went.

“Welcome,” I greeted them with a polite smile as they sat down, putting all the cups and plates from the previous group on a tray to carry them. “I’ll be right back to take your orders.”

I took the cups and plates back, wiped the table and took out my notepad. I took the others of the first three before the fourth one, a senior from Isabelle’s class, I think, went and smiled at me with some serious bedroom eyes.

“I want to know if the waiter is available for a date this Sunday,” she said.

A chill ran down my entire body, but I couldn’t tell you if it felt good or bad. It was extremely weird. She was a slender brunette with a moderately sized chest and faint asian features. Regardless…

“The waiter is already in a relationship,” I told her with a small, wry smile.

“I’m sure you can ask your girlfriends for permission, no?” The girl sexily bit her lower lip. “If you can keep those five all happy, then one more couldn’t hurt, could it? Come on. I promise you’ll have a great time with me.”

Yeah, no, this definitely felt good, and that was a bad thing.

A very bad thing.