Chapter 1 - Roll in the Hay
I was kneeling on soft hay—my wrists and neck locked in a knee-high pillory. Glass milking devices pumped away at my breasts and girlstick. In front of me was a book that my goblin significant other had left. Given my … aroused state ... it took me a few moments of confused reading before I figured out that something was wrong with the story.
It seemed this book was the sequel to one I hadn't read.
The minor mistake got me thinking. About my life now as some sort of sequel to a thirsty book of awkward kink and cute polyamorous relationships. About how I might summarize everything up until now.
About a year before, I had mysteriously teleported from my terrible life on Earth to a world of fantasy and pervitude. I quickly found myself enrolled at a university meant to teach people how to get in touch with sex-based magic. There, I met new friends, lovers, and nemeses. And together, we had stopped a plague by the power of my healing milk!
Nah ... it was a terrible book idea. And who in their right mind would ever make a sequel? Only the type of obsessive psycho would end up making it into some sort of ... six-part epic series.
A soft crackle of thunder got my attention, sounding far outside the barn.
I thought it might just be a distant summer storm, until the sky darkened. Heavy raindrops began to pelt against the tin roof. Followed by wind ... at first whistling ... and quickly escalating to a bluster.
“Hey Lilly?” Daava, my goblin partner, called out. "The sky is looking bad; we should end early for the day and get inside."
As if to answer her, the entire barn was suddenly illuminated with white light. A terrible crack rang in my eardrums. Only in retrospect did I realize that lightning had struck right in front of the barn.
I tried to pull away from my bindings.
I briefly saw Daava's silhouette in the dark and rain. Braced against the wind as she approached. However, another gust of wind slammed the barn door shut in front of her. I could hear straining from the other side, but it would not open.
Fuck!
“Lilly, are you okay?” called Daava from the other side of the barn door, now sounding worried.
“I-I’m ...” I replied, beginning to struggle for words.
Another flash of lightning illuminated the room—less only for the door now being shut.
Followed by a boom.
“Shit!” Daava swore, loudly from the other side of the door.
My teeth chattering, it occurred to me that I wasn't the one in danger. So I called out, “I should be fine here. Just ... go inside until the storm is over!”
"I've got a better idea!" Daava then shouted. "I'm going to use my magic. I just need to get back to the house!"
Thunder rumbled ominously, overhead.
I nodded and just tried to breathe. The wind blistered against the side of the barn so hard I could hear the boards creak. And the rain pounded the roof so loudly that I couldn’t hear myself think.
Then, the entire house began to shake. Followed by a noise like a freight train that, having grown up in the deep South, was much too familiar.
Tornado.
However, a black portal began to open in the middle of the barn.
As fast as it had opened, it began to shrink.
No ...
The barn was rising from the ground! Leaving the black portal behind!
The last thing I saw was Daava's green face carrying the same expression of surreal disbelief that I now felt. Watching in horror as I was carried into the sky.
Panic won, and I slipped into something like sleep.
-O-
I awoke after some unknown amount of time, feeling floaty as I remained in a kneeling position at the pillory. Everything was quiet now, settled. And it seemed that the barn had not collapsed into rubble with me inside.
I heard shuffling, followed by metallic clanking from the pillory latch.
“By my own shriveled cock, why do they have to make these things so difficult to open?" muttered an unfamiliar, deep voice. "Sorcerers and your me-damned enchantments.”
Finally free, I stood and faced the unfamiliar entity who had helped me. My heartrate slowed down a bit, and my breathing finally became manageable.
I quickly realized that the floating I had noticed earlier wasn’t just in my head. Rather, my legs were having to adjust as if … as if I were on a boat?
My rescuer ... stood taller than me by a few heads. From head to hoof, he was covered in coarse, brown fur. The only exception was a patch on the inner part of his chest and arms which were tan, humanlike skin. And unlike any other satyr, his sheep-like eyes, with rectangular irises, shined with cyan luminescence.
“Th-thank you,” I forced myself to say, almost like I was trying to normalize a situation I had no idea how else to normalize.
The satyr waved off my thanks with disinterest.
As if in response, a dark, miniature cloud formed behind him from the mist. As quickly as it had appeared, the little cloud began to glow. It sent a miniature bolt of lightning at the satyr’s tail–igniting it!
The satyr howled, hopped, and landed on his backside to snuff out the flame. He looked at it in protest and said, “Come on, you know I'm not good with mortal stuff.”
“Mortal?” I asked, my eyes widening.
The satyr sighed, looked near the door of the barn–where hay had piled up during the storm–and fell back into it as if it were a beanbag. Only then, with a disinterested look, did he face me again and reply in the flattest of tones, “Yes, it is I … god of this world … the mighty Kavtagro … yada, yada, yada.” He said, waving his hand dismissively.
I just stared at him–slack-jawed.
The satyr continued, “What’s important is that you, mortal … and your little orgie of playmates … are getting the world all worked up.”
My face went flush and my body began to heat up with frantic energy. "But I … I didn't-”
Kavtagro raised a hand to stop whatever I had been about to say. “Don’t take it up with me. I was happy to keep invisibly watching you get milked and fucked by your lovers." He gestured up at the cloud. "Like I said, it’s my lightning-happy cosmic colleague here with the issue.”
I ... what?
Kavtagro shook his head. “Look ... I really don't like exposition. But it’s no me-damn wonder everything’s a wreck. All the stuff you’ve got going on ..." He gestured at all of me before rubbing his temples. "Yikes."
My cheeks went red.
Kavtagro sighed, and for a moment, the casual mask he wore slipped. And he seemed to almost be speaking to himself when he whispered, “You don't understand at all, how could you? When I barely understand, myself. You're just ... afraid."
But then Kavtagro's normal tone came back. "I’ll give you the short version. I don’t control things here, per se, neither of us do.”
They ... didn't?
“You see, you're from a seed planet," Kavtagro continued. "A world meant to rapidly birth biological matter. People, plants, animals, the works. This world instead cares for those who happen to be here. Personally, I think she was a sex-therapist before she became a world."
I blinked several times.
“Don’t worry about it,” Kavtagro said and waved the matter off. “The important thing is that your soul is basically doing backflips to get the world's attention.”
“But … I never ... I didn't-”
“Yes, yes,” Kavtagro replied. “Look, I would have happily left you to your backflips. But the World has taken an interest. So you've all been scattered as part of an .... application process.”
I walked on wobbly legs to the back barn window. With a trembling hand, I opened it. Outside was my worst nightmare. As far as my eyes could see in every direction … was water.
Ocean.
Slowly as I dared, I shut the window, turned around, and slid down the wall until I was sitting. “This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.”
“Yeah, I hate having to go outside too,” Kavtagro said and then looked over and his eyes widened. “Oh, you mean the whole water thing. Yeah, the World felt bad for letting you get hit with that new phobia while you were here, so … it’s giving you prolonged exposure therapy. So, maybe I should have opened with a song? Something smug about how ‘you’re welcome,?'”
I glared daggers at him.
A delighted smile played on Kavtagro's lips. Almost as if my anger were the pleasure he had been missing when I had tried to thank him, earlier “Hot ... which brings me to why I'm here explaining at all.
"It's the whole consent thing," Kavtagro said. "You’re going to have to do the typical character growth spiel. But there’s two routes. One involving a life-changing encounter with nature and all that jazz. Or … and this is my preference … the kinky route.”
“The kinky route?” I asked, barely able to process the idea of sex at that moment.
Kavtagro nodded. “Through a bunch of different islands that … for various reasons … kind of had to be isolated from the mainland for everyone’s mutual wellbeing. And a lot of them go by Other Place rules.”
The Other Place … the city of consensual nonconsent. He was proposing a path by which I would enter more lands where an understood “yes” was the default.
“Of course, your safeword magic will still work if at any point things go too far,” Kavtagro added. “But ... you did seem to enjoy the time you did have in the Other Place.”
It was true, I had enjoyed my time there. But that didn't change the fact that I didn't want any sort of adventure. Even if my "soul," whatever that was, disagreed. I had worked hard to make my life feel safe after everything I had gone through. Now we were scattered because I had applied to some program on some unconscious level?
I wanted to cry ... but the last thing I could handle was vulnerability in front of Kavtagro, the stretched-scrotumed ass-weasel god of dipshittery.
“Ooh, that’s a good one, I’m writing it down for later tonight,” Kavtagro said, almost lustily. So he could read minds. But almost like he was trying to comfort me ... in his odd way ... his voice gained some warmth. “Is it possible that you, Lilly, are the chosen perv? Given two roads for you to be ridden, would you take the one less traveled?”
I shook my head and looked at the ground. As much as I hated any situation that would play into this god's pleasure, I knew myself. “... fine.”
Kavtagro took on a wide smile. He stood, walked over to the barn door, opened it with a godlike lack of effort, and then said, “Between this and the creative blasphemy, you may just find yourself in the unlikely position of being my favorite mortal.”
I extended my middle finger toward him.
“Now that's … just lazy, that,” Kavtagro muttered with a shake of his head. “You try to give someone constructive criticism …” He continued mumbling as he exited the door of the barn, leaped, and disappeared.
Leaving me looking over the deck of a ship ... and an infinite sea.
