Here are quick replies to the nice reviews:
Tenniyo, you're fast! I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter. Thank you very much for the dark chocolate, but please don't throw it so hard next time.
Amechan, your whole review is strange, but I think I understand what you said. Thanks for the dark chocolate. I guess I'll have to add a few more of the methods for contacting me to my bio as soon as FF.net'll let me adjust my settings.
Claudia and Blue Quartz, both of your questions will be answered, for the most part, in the story itself. However, while Quartz's question is answered this chapter, Claudia's will have to wait a few more chapters and take a while to fully answer even then. Meanwhile, Claudia, I'm glad you like all my stories and particularly like this one. Thanks for the dark chocolate, too!

Slayers is the creation of Hajime Kanzaka and Rui Araizumi. I don't own it; they and a lot of other people do. I'm not making any profit off of this story.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Blue Lotus
By Ryo Hoshi

Chapter 3 First Impressions (3)

Zelgadiss smiled slightly at Daisy. "Thank you, but I really would like to just bathe and leave. I'm sure it's quite late..." He knew better to say that he was certain that the brothel would be closing soon, if it hadn't already.
She smiled, and he couldn't help but notice how sweet and pretty her smile looked. "I...we do have a bath, Zelgadiss-sama. You don't have to leave so soon, though. You're welcome here anytime, so, please, have breakfast with me. I'd really like your company..."
Zelgadiss looked at her strangely. Did that mean...? "About last night, Daisy..."
"Oh... Was...was I any good? I can't really remember anything past my third or fourth glass," she admitted with a blush.
Zel stared at her. "You don't remember?" She shook her head. "Then, never mind." It would be pointless to apologize to her for something she didn't remember, and that would explain why she seemed to want to have his company for longer than necessary.
Completely oblivious to his train of thought, she cheerfully said, "If you say so, Zelgadiss-sama... I wish I did remember, though. You're really a very nice man, and you've been very considerate of me, at least during the parts I can remember. I'm really very lucky to have you..."
Zelgadiss blushed, feeling both flattered and extremely guilty, and decided to change the subject. "Where is the bath? I do need to bathe, even if I am staying."
She nodded. "It's on the other side of the bedroom. It's a traditional style one, and rather nice though it's not very big since we're in the attic and it had to be tucked in under the roof."
Zel stood up and followed Daisy, since she seemed determined to lead the way. It was simply coincidence that he also got to watch her walk while wearing only a clingy robe. "I do know how to use a traditional bath. Rezo prefers them to the 'foreign' ones that have been fashionable lately."
She slid the door to the bath open, letting light flood into the previously dim bedroom, giving Zelgadiss a glimpse of a white room with white-draped four-poster bed and what were presumably French doors with thick dark drapes with white curtains peeking out from underneath. The color scheme seemed very appropriate to a girl with the working name 'White Daisy'.
The bathroom continued the color scheme. The walls were covered in white tile, except for a line of black tile at the point where the slant of the ceiling met the short long wall. The room was taken up nearly completely by the tub and 'sunken' washing area that was produced by having a long step up right in front of the door. The size didn't keep it from having some luxuries, though, as the small tub had a nice, wide ledge for sitting on inside, niches in the wall and a few ledges along the walls intended for storage, and the ceiling was almost entirely taken up by a frosted-glass skylight.
Distracted by a search of the niches in the wall to find one that held bathing supplies instead of candles, he didn't consciously notice Daisy joining him in the bathroom until he heard the door slide shut. He turned to see that she had abandoned the robe, but had brought in a small pile of towels and a bucket of bath supplies, some of them looking quite familiar to him. She smiled at him, and said, "Apparently somebody had expected you to sometimes bathe here, Zelgadiss-sama, since I'm pretty certain some of these bath supplies are for you."
Zelgadiss blushed; it was quite obvious that the wire cutters and steel wool were for him. "Thank you..." Uncomfortable, he decided to change the subject. "So, why aren't you walking awkwardly or hung over? Did you use healing spells on yourself, like you did on me?"
"Yes, Zelgadiss-sama," she said cheerfully as she started the tub filling. "I've become good enough at curing hangovers and dealing with...stretched and bruised muscles that I can cure them in my sleep. White magic is very useful!"
He tried to force his eyes away from her chest; he couldn't help noticing that it bounced very attractively when she was being enthusiastic and posing like she had been towards the end of her short speech. It just wasn't right to do that to her, after having hurt her badly the night before simply for his own drunken pleasure. "I haven't learned any white magic, myself."
She stared at him, surprised. "But aren't you Rezo-sama's heir, Zelgadiss-sama? I can't believe that you, of all people, would not know a single white magic spell! Certainly you must have some talent for magic, and you could never have trouble finding a teacher!"
Zelgadiss shrugged slightly, feeling a bit embarrassed for some unknown reason. "I never was particularly interested in white magic. I hadn't thought that it was that useful. I'm much better at shamanism, though, and I have studied black magic."
Daisy nodded as she went back to laying things out for their bath. "I had studied some basic shamanistic spells before... But I've not really gotten to try that many of those spells, since it was felt that it was more important that I know white magic than any other form. I would really like to learn more, though."
Zelgadiss barely managed to resist offering to teach her. It wouldn't work; not only was she a prostitute, and would probably be only harmed by knowing anything more than healing spells, he knew he shouldn't really spend more time around her. The night before had been a mistake, and he was lucky she didn't remember most of it.
Letting Daisy set up in the washing area first, he realized that he'd been too distracted to object to her bathing with him -- and that part of him didn't mind it at all. Sitting on the floor of the washing area, he reached to claim his 'wash cloth' and the bottle of soap...and, as he drew his hand back, elbowed Daisy. Blushing, particularly because of where he had elbowed her, he apologised, and promptly elbowed her again to his further embarrassment.
"Maybe we should try washing each other?" she suggested, faintly shy about the idea. "We'd not have to worry too much about getting in each other's way, then..."
Zelgadiss considered the idea. On one hand, it would mean that he'd have to allow her to touch him, and he wasn't quite comfortable with the thought of being touched by anybody just then. On the other hand, he'd have an excuse to touch her without the risk of her making any awkward assumptions about it and, though he'd deny it even to himself, her breasts looked very tempting.
Well, while he didn't want to be touched, certainly there was no problem with touching her? He said, blushing, "I'll wash you, but I prefer to bathe myself, so you can soak while I take care of myself."
"If that's what you'd like, Zelgadiss-sama, then I won't complain," she said with a blush matching his own.
Carefully putting his steel wool 'wash cloth' down on a nearby ledge so it'd not get rinsed unintentionally or pose an unwanted hazard, he took Daisy's own wash cloth and started gently scrubbing her. As he became more comfortable with it, he realized that she was slowly relaxing and becoming very accepting of his touch.

Amelia sighed happily. Zelgadiss-sama's hands on her body felt wonderful. His hands were gentle, and she could tell that he was worried he might hurt her. He was clearly more concerned about her than she had expected any customer to be, and that made her wish even more that she could remember the night before. "Zelgadiss-sama?"
He paused in his washing. "Yes?"
"You're really kind to me, and I feel lucky that..." She smiled, trying to cover the awkwardness of their relationship's nature. "Thank you, Zelgadiss-sama."
He blushed. "But... I'm a chimera, a freak. How could you feel lucky about having me? Are the other...men so bad?"
"No, Zelgadiss-sama, though some are horrible. You're gentle towards me, even though you don't have to be, and when you're not frowning you're very handsome. You can be very scary-looking at times, though."

Zelgadiss winced. He didn't know what he found worse, that she had said that he could look scary sometimes or that he couldn't pretend that she was only saying things to flatter him. It would have been easier to not come back, and to not feel so guilty about having hurt her, if she wasn't so nice.
Perhaps he had better change the topic, before she did anything else to make it hard for him to never come back. With a slight smirk that he wasn't aware of (caused primarily by the part of him that had encouraged him to wash her in the first place realizing what was left to scrub), he resumed washing her. "It's a bit awkward to keep calling you 'Daisy'; don't you have another name?"
She stared at him, her blue eyes wide (and far too cute for him to resist). "Zelgadiss-sama! We only met last night! Madame and the girls told me to never tell a man my real name unless I knew him extremely well and was willing to trust him completely! Until I know you better...that is a secret."
Zelgadiss froze for a few seconds, and then started to scrub her a bit less gently than before, her startled squeak not quite registering. "Please don't use that phrase. It reminds me of somebody I don't like very much."
She moaned softly. "Whatever you wish, Zelgadiss-sama," she said, almost breathlessly.
Zelgadiss looked at her, worried. Her eyes were closed, with a faint flush decorating her face, and she was panting softly. He realised why as he saw where he'd been scrubbing her. Blushing, he moved the washcloth away from her crotch and prayed that she'd not say anything.
He quickly finished scrubbing her and rinsed her, glad that she was willing to respect his desire to not talk about what had just happened. Once she was soaking, and he no longer had to worry about elbowing her, he washed himself as fast as he could. He didn't know which made him feel more awkward, the fact that she was watching him or that she was apparently enjoying getting to watch him bathe.
Zelgadiss decided to skip soaking and go straight to breakfast. He didn't want to have to think too much about how it felt to have a woman who seemed to actually like how he looked. It was easier to just get dressed as quickly as he could, and get breakfast over as soon as possible, only observing the niceties.
He wasn't quite sure when promising to see her that night became one of those niceties.

As Zelgadiss left the apartment, he almost ran into the madame. She nodded politely to him, clearly recognizing him from the night before. As she went into Daisy's apartment, he paused, and then decided that there was nothing wrong with waiting outside the door so he could talk to her about possibly keeping a robe and some spare clothes there for himself. And if he happened to hear anything, well...
Feeling slightly guilty from the start for merely listening, he felt progressively more guilty as the conversation went on. He knew he really didn't deserve all the complimentary things Daisy was saying about him. He was, after all, standing outside her door with what was, if he was honest about it, a flimsy excuse for eavesdropping.
The only real benefit to it was that he now knew that the madame, at least, called her Ami. Such random information as the fact that she hadn't even been added to the public roster of the house's available girls, mentioned in passing when the madame remarked that some man had come early that night and tried to buy Ami's first night, really wasn't important and knowing those kinds of things made him feel extremely embarrassed.
Zel wasn't sure how he felt about discovering that her complements were not empty flattery but completely honest, though, and he decided that his talk with the madame could wait until that night. He wanted some time alone to think.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

The women owned by the brothels are usually given a working name which reflects both the role they play and the brothel's theme. For example, all the girls at the Blue Lotus would have names referring to colors and flowers. Another brothel might choose to call its girls after various birds, and yet another might choose to use precious stones.
The main reason for the customers being given a pseudonym is to protect those girls who manage to leave. There's quite a few horror stories circulating among the prostitutes about girls who successfully gained their freedom only to end up getting stalked by one of their former customers who had managed to find them.

Reviews and dark chocolate are welcomed, and will encourage me to work harder on writing this story.