The Gamer Chapter 1355 – Gal Talk (Patreon)

“Ya wanna talk about it?” Rave asked Hailey.

John was sitting with his favourite cat girl’s crossed arms in his lap and her head on the crossed arms. Rave had chosen that particular pose, he was certain, just so everyone could have a nice view of her ass in spandex. Not that the tiny hotpants even hid half of her magnificent backside. As the days ticked by, clothes seemed to become more and more optional around Hailey. Even John didn’t bother to put on more than his boxers.

To be fair to everyone, Hailey answered to the changes in kind. Thursday was just as hot as Wednesday and so she had rocked up in what John could only assume was the ultimate consequence of Eliana’s whisper to the country gal. A bikini top, blue on one side, red on the other, of fine leather covered her sizable bust, letting John finally drink in the sight of her tits without clothes or a bad situation distracting him.

They were big. Big enough to compete with Undine. Quite firm as well, something that John could judge just from the look. Those leather tops did not do a lot for actual support. The light colour was in stark contrast to her sun-marked face and arms. It was the only part of her aesthetics he didn’t outright dig. Mostly because the tan lines were in such boring places. If she were to stick to that outfit more, that would change dramatically.

A nice pair of breasts was not all she was blessed with. Hailey’s crossed legs showed the softness of her thighs and a good amount of bare ass. The bottom she wore, denim hotpants, failed just as much at containing her balanced bubble butt as Rave’s did. Her ass was damn near perfect, just a little too much on the big side for John’s tastes. A tiny, little bit off that flawless roundness of his girlfriend’s butt.

Hailey caught him staring and winked. The typical reaction, these days. She even leaned back a bit in the foldable camping chair, presenting her midriff. Working, crafting, and having a diet largely based on the eggs she got for free most days had sculpted her into an impressive specimen and her genetics sorted out the rest. She was nicely toned, without entering the domain of outright muscular. That would have required a specialized training regimen she did not have time for.

“Do I wanna talk about what, do tell?” Hailey asked and sipped on the cold beer that Aclysia had handed her not five minutes earlier. “This stuff is delicious.” With those four words, she put the can back to her lips and downed the rest.

“Ya know, all of this?” Rave responded in a thoroughly unhelpful way. The country gal’s initial response was to loudly burp from all the fizz she had just put inside her. “Nice one,” Rave complimented.

"I do apologize,” Hailey drawled an apology made out of habit not because she believed in it. “For the burp and because I still ain’t got a clue what ya talkin’ about, Ray.” Another one of Hailey’s nicknames.

“No one ever knows what she’s talking about,” Copernicus chimed in. The solar jaguar was curled up near the grill, enjoying the sun that fell in through the hole in the roof. “If she ever ordered her thoughts, she might even be able to say something smart.”

“Love ya too, Cappy,” Rave chirped.

The feline just grunted and turned on his back, letting the sun kiss his belly instead.

“Anywherzels, where was I?” the Lightbearer asked, feet drumming on the moss bed. “Right, all of this. Like, can we stop pretending ya ain’t gunning to join us and actually talk about what ya think about being a harem gal?”

Hailey had no immediate response to that, in part because she was distracted by Aclysia bringing over a new beer. “Thank you kindly, Aclysia.” The country gal took great care in pronouncing the weaponized maid’s name correctly.

“It is my pleasure,” she responded with a gentle smile. “Thank you for your efforts.”

“T’is the least a gal can do,” Hailey responded in an upbeat tone. Three times she tapped the top of the new can, while Aclysia took away the old one for recycling. The escaping gases hissed. Hailey slurped the foam from the top. Then she put it into the armrest and stretched. “I dunno.”

As an answer to the question, that was rather unsatisfying. ‘She seems receptive enough today,’ John reckoned and pushed, “You’re hanging out here every day, past the test hours typically. You’re clearly comfortable…” His eyes went up and down her curves again, to underline the point. “…and there’s nothing more I can give you at this point. Your parents are making a recovery, right?”

“It’s a miracle,” Hailey looked down at her hands. “Well, ‘cept for the part where it’s all thanks to you, purddy man.”

“Delicia. The health potions you can thank Delicia for,” John corrected her.

Hailey chuckled and fixed her trucker cap. That was the only part of her regular outfit that survived her stripping out of most of it. Honestly, John found the hat unfathomably attractive on her. “Ya ain’t pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down, John.” She leaned all the way back, tilted her head slightly and gave both him and Rave a side glance. “You can’t waltz into a gal’s life by saving her by teachin’ some no good boys a lesson, show her she’s got some magical gift, save her parents and be handsome while doin’ all of that and expect her to feel nothin’.”

“I did expect you to feel something, I was honest about the reason why we met,” John reminded her about the prophecy.

“Yeah.” Hailey’s tone reflected that she hadn’t forgotten, just failed to mention something that was always on her mind. She reached for the can and took another sip. He would have been worried that she would get wasted soon, if he hadn’t seen her drink with Lydia before. “Don’t have to tell y’all that’s complicated. Your lives are lots more colourful than mine ever was.”

Rave rolled off John’s lap and walked over to Hailey, taking the country gal’s hand. “Not even gonna pretend I haven’t fought more difficult battles than the one in your head right now,” the feline Lightbearer told Hailey. “Me having to do stupid stuff that’s harder ain’t meaning ya haven’t got it hard. I’m pushing ya because I think ya shouldn’t be alone with that.” Rave glanced over to John for a moment. “I can tell tiger to leave for a minute if ya want to have the girl talk.”

“Between us two interestin’ly accented, would be more of a gal talk,” Hailey joked and shook her head. “No, I do not mind if he hears. I just do not know what to tell y’all.”

“We can take this from the top,” John raised his voice softly. “Wha-“

“Tiger,” Rave interrupted him with a silencing glance. It seemed while his presence was welcome, he still was not to get involved. Trusting his girlfriend, he shut up. “Whaddaya think about when ya consider coming here the next day?” Rave asked. “When ya lie in bed, ya gotta wonder about things, right?”

“Yeah… I keep playin’ out the fight I’ll have with paw-paw in the mornin’.” Hailey let out a long sigh, as she finally let that out. “He ain’t even noticin’ he’s gettin’ better - too angry about me tanglin’ up with a taken man. Threw me out every day since I told’im.” A dry chuckle. “Still sittin’ on the breakfast table the next day.”

“That’s pretty bad?” Rave asked.

“Nah, bad would be if he drove over here with his shotgun or him refusin’ the money.” Hailey looked over to John. “He ain’t thinkin’ ya bought me, I got that in his stubborn ol’ skull.”

“So he just… keeps telling ya you’re thrown out and ya keep wandering back in?” Rave asked.

“It’s a thing he says when he gets angry. He’ll stop when he settles in the situation.” Hailey turned the beer can in her hands. “After I play that out, I start thinkin’ what li’l ol’ me can even offer ya.” She first wiggled her fingers, then gestured down at her body. “I know the answer to that, ain’t like y’all been shy about anythin’.”

“Glad you understand tiger ain’t the only one who wants you,” Rave purred assuringly, patting the country gal’s knee. “Keep going.”

“After that it’s what you can offer me… and that’s even more obvious.” Hailey gestured at the world around them, filled to the brim with the wonders of their short-lived stay. “I go through all the reasons every night, wonderin’ if I’ll find anythin’ logical to dissuade me… then I just arrive at the same question again. Am I willing to be one gal in a harem?”

“Yeah… so wanna talk about that?” Rave asked.

“I guess,” Hailey drawled half-heartedly.

Rave stood up and grabbed one of the camping chairs, sitting down across Hailey. The two started wrestling with their feet, for some reason. When Aclysia had brought Rave a beer of her own, they stopped. “Not gonna lie, I can’t entirely understand the struggle ya have,” the feline Lightbearer said over cracking open the can. “I’m an Abyssal. Dad sometimes told me that I gotta find one guy to treat me right. I grew up around plenty of people that said monogamy was the name of the game, but I never really cared much for living the way people expected.” Rave winked over to her boyfriend. “When tiger here asked if he could dabble in the whole sleeping with other girls thing, I had a few conditions. Part of the reason why I let him is ‘cause I was always more than a little bi-curious.”

“Met more than one gal in my day I found cute,” Hailey admitted freely. This was not a space anyone had to hide any same sex attraction in. “So that just… worked?”

“Kinda yes, kinda no.” Rave slotted the open can into the holder in the armrest. “Start was a bit bumpy. Poor communications were the first problem, that we sorted out pretty quickly. Down the line I got a reality check. I naively thought that, whatever happened, there ain’t never anyone competing for my place in tiger’s heart. When it became clear that ain’t the case that… messed with me a li’l bit. That was the only time I ever thought about calling all of it off. I realized that I wasn’t the only one above the rest, I was the first among a bunch. Part of that harem, not elevated above it or anything fancy like that. Ya following me?”

“Yeah.” Hailey nodded.

Rave paused for a moment to drink. “That hits the spot.” She let out a carefree sigh, evidently trying to keep the mood light. “Anyway… I ain’t a pondering gal, but even I got to thinking from that, and I worked out why I didn’t either put my veto in or walk away at that point. See, most of the time, when people open their relationship, it ain’t out of love. It’s just greed. People wanna have more than they already have. Pretty sure what motivated John and I to start this was also greed…”

The feline Lightbearer paused again, this time because the Gamer had walked over and knelt down next to her. He was keeping quiet, but he was still present and even in silence he could express his love. He took Rave’s hand and kissed the finger that he would put a ring on one day.

Smiling, she continued, “…Whyever we started this, we fell in love with the other girls. It ain’t normal, I ain’t sure everyone could do it, but we got enough love in our hearts. Heard one time that some people that sleep around have a motto to ‘not catch feelings’ but otherwise it’s fine to sleep around. That ain’t how we live our life. When John wants someone new with us, that needs to be fine with all of us. He can catch feelings all he likes, as long as we all catch them together… Well, we kinda still get to sleep with girls outside the harem sometimes…”

“Maybe we should end our one-night stand policy,” John suggested when he heard that. The words left his lips before he could consider the current situation. Since the damage was already done, he continued, “I’ve been thinking about this for a while and, well, a particularly wise girlfriend I have pointed out that I want a harem because I love many women, not because I have a greed for more bodies to entertain myself with.” He rubbed the back of her hands with his thumbs. “Fun as it was, it’s time to stop doing something that’s not in line with who we want to be.”

Rave smiled at him radiantly. “I wasn’t even jealous, but… yeah, I think that might be for the best. I’ll talk to the others about it, later.” She turned her attention back to Hailey. “We ain’t perfect, but we try to keep this working. Problem with the word harem is that ya might be imagining some kind of corner in a palace where we get to hang out and then he calls us for sex when he wants it. This is just… one big relationship. It’s messy, it’s complicated, it’s not for everyone. You’ll have to be fine with having barely any true alone time with your man. In exchange, ya get a bunch of girls that’ll be just as close to ya.” A hand on John’s head, she scratched the back of his head. “Ya shouldn’t think of being a harem gal as being one of many to John, that ain’t what we’re about. Ya gotta wonder if ya fit in being an equal part in our weird social group. If ya want part in the oddities of the way we deal with each other, the awesome sex, the closeness, and all of that.”

“Ya make that sound pretty great,” Hailey pointed out.

Rave shrugged and giggled. “Obviously I like it,” she responded and took her beer. “Hope that helps ya figure things out. Ya have feelings for John and I think ya could love all of us too – even Bae and Siena.”

“Hey,” John complained on behalf of the two least agreeable members of the harem. Their teasing and particular mannerisms made them difficult to the uninitiated, even more so than Scarlett’s abrasiveness or Nia’s blank faced oddity.

Before he could elaborate his complaint, Rave flicked his forehead. “I ain’t done talking here, tiger,” she chastised him. “So?”

Hailey hummed and kept turning the can in her hands as she thought. “That’s a bunch for me to think about,” she responded, the conflict inside her clear on her face and her voice. “You aren’t gonna press me for an answer today, are ya?”

“Nah, just wanted to give ya a bit of help on figuring things out. If ya need any more, just ask any of the others. Some of us had a really easy time getting into this harem, others did struggle a bit.” Rave chuckled into her raised can. “Ya gonna be surprised how much ya can have in common with an ancient, slutty dragon goddess.”

“Will do… Gotta keep the advantages of the harem life in mind, huh?” Hailey drawled.

“At least when it comes to our little group of lovebirds. Again, we’re here ‘cause we love each other, not because we entertain John here being greedy.” Rave took a deep gulp, then put the can in John’s hand. She dragged the foldable chair back to where she had taken it from. On the way back, a sudden realization showed on her face. “Right, ya wanna tag along this weekend? We’re going on a hot springs trip.”

“…I’d love to,” Hailey confirmed after some consideration.