A Little Present for Ara

Whether Ara slept in more than usual or simply decided to not get out of her bed the next day might be a topic worth of discussion, but this probably isn't the best place for that. As a matter of fact, anyway, Oberon didn't get any reply when he knocked on the door of her room a little past midday. He thought about it for a while, then decided to walk in anyway as the room wasn't locked. Her performance clothes were lying on the floor, while her usual ones were placed on a chair. The curtains were closed, and by the look of it Ara was actually really sleeping. He called out her name a few times, but since she didn't wake up from that he got closer and raised an hand. Shortly after Ara woke up, a weird feeling in her mouth. She slowly got up, still dizzy, and then she saw Oberon standing next to her bed, one of his arms outstretched towards her. She followed it with her eyes as she realized that what she was feeling in her mouth was actually his index. At a loss of words, she simply stared at him.

"Good day" he said as he pulled his hand back.

"G... good... wha... "

Then Oberon moved his index, partially covered with her saliva, to his mouth. At which point Ara almost literally jumped at him and grabbed his arm to stop him.

"Wait! What do you think you're doing?!"

"Does it troubles you?"

"Of course it does!"

"... why?" he asked, genuinely confused.

"It does!"

"I... " Oberon started replying, then decided that maybe it was better to drop the subject "Lunch will be ready in a short while. If you want to come down like that, there are no customers at the moment in the menagerie"

"Like that?"

Her face turned red as she remembered that she had gone to sleep wearing only her underwear. She let go of Oberon and reached for her coat, using it to cover herself as much as possible. Without saying anything else, Oberon walked back downstairs. A few minutes later Ara entered the kitchen as well, though the only ones there were Eve and Ferdinand.

"Sleepyhead as usual" the owner of the place commented before taking a bite of a dish Ara couldn't really recognize.

"Nice to see you too" Ara replied, suppressing her thoughts while taking a seat.

"The performance was a success, you should be proud of yourself"

"That's nothing to be proud about!"

"Why? It was a job and you did it perfectly"

"Ugh..."

She tried to ignore that by eating, also because she was really hungry.

"I'll have Oberon show you around the fair later if you want"

"I'm... not sure I want to show myself around after yesterday..."

"There is a place you would probably like though"

"And said place would be... ?"

Much to her own surprise, the remaining days of the fair turned out really nice for Ara. She actually almost only ever went to what was called the "Tea House", despite tea not really being the main reason why people went there. Said reason was actually chess. And while there never were that many people there, it also was never really empty. As a matter of facts, Ara ended up causing more people to gather there, partially because the rumor of a newcomer going undefeated -in best of three matches, that is- at the Tea House sprout interest. But mainly because Ara refused to play at even the most -sexually- tame variation of chess aviable -that would be strip chess- and only had normal matches instead. That said, she did try out a few variations that didn't involve anything... embarassing. As weird as it may sound, that was incredibly rare at the fair. She was actually a bit troubled by how many people started to gather to look at her play during the last few days, but nowhere near enough to stop coming. Oberon wondered if he should have started playing as well. By the last day of the fair, Ara became renowned as the Chaste Butterfly -due to the motifs on her mask as well as the hairpin she used during the fair- of the Tea House. Eve chuckled whenever she heard the first part of that name though, and Ara herself was a bit... embarassed by that nickname.

Oberon, on his part, was relieved that Ara never got word of neither the Torture House nor the Slave Dealer. Or any of the other similar activities present there. He was sure things would have gone south really fast if she found out those activities were held there, and because of that he had tried to keep her away from those places, thankfully succeeding at it.

Eventually, the fair reached its last day. Eve, Rena and Ara were having dinner together at the menagerie. There were a couple of boxes which were left unsold, because those who preordered them either couldn't come to the fair due to other commitments or simply forgot about it, but aside from that everything went smoothly. Rena decided to go to sleep early, while the other two stayed up a while longer. A long, long while. It actually started with a simple game of chess, since it had been... probably a few months since the last time they played, and Eve actually was one of the few people who could match Ara at that. At the third game, however, the owner of the menagerie suggested to drink some alcohol whenever one of them lost a piece. After the fourth game, maybe because Ara was getting tired as it was almost midnight, she managed to convince her. Eventually, things escalated and Ara found herself in quite the predicament.

Ara had basically passed out at one point, not really because she had lost too many pieces but because the alcohol Eve had picked was really, really strong. When she opened her eyes the first thing she saw was a glass of water being brought to her mouth. Still dazed, she sort of went along with it and let whoever was holding the glass slip the drink down her throath, not as forcefully as that sentence made it sound though. Turns out that wasn't water, water neither tasted that bad nor cleaned away drunkness that quickly. Being mostly back to her senses, the first thing Ara noticed was that the one in front of her was Eve -her face was a bit flushed-, and that they were in her room. Immediatly after that she realized that she was tied.

No, not again...

Rather than simply tied, she was actually suspended. Her arms were bound in a box tie behind her back, the rope also squeezing a bit the base of her breasts, while her ankles were tied rather tightly to her thighs. To add to that, she was actually in her underwear.

"Eve, what are yoaaahh!"

Her question was interrupted when Eve lowered her with a crank, causing her to drop on something cold and hard, and also rather damp. She looked down for the first time -she probably should have done so earlier- and saw what seemed to be a wooden horse, just made of ice. That most likely wasn't ice though, it was too warm to be, albeith it was definitively colder than her skin. And since the crank had been left unlocked, that was the only thing keeping Ara up.

"E-Eve, what's this?!"

She walked up to her and placed an hand on her shoulder.

"Didn't we agree to have a little fun?"

"... I beg you, whatever you made me drink earlier, take some yourself"

"Eheheh" she replied, her cheecks red from the alcohol -how did that even affect her in the first place?- as she ran a finger on Ara's belly "You're cute when you blush"

"I'm serious, Eve, drink some of th-"

For the second time she was interrupted, though this time it was because Eve had pushed her back. Granted, the... icey horse wasn't pointed, but with her whole weight resting on it, the pressure on her... privates was rather strong. That, and the horse was rather short, meaning she'd fall down were she to be pushed to far in one direction. Eve laughed softly again as she moved Ara back and fort, enjoying her troubled face as she forced her voice to remain down her troath. At first Ara thought she had started sweating, but then realized it was actually the ice that had already started to melt, albeith slowly. Relatively slowly. She felt like it was actually making her feel hotter though.

"E-Eve, this isn't ice right?"

"The short version is that it's frozen aphrodisiac"

I knew it...

She then moved behind Ara and cupped her breasts, poking at her nipples trough her bra.

"E-Eve, stop, really..."

"You're enjoying this though" she replied while looking at the white that had started to appear on Ara's hair.

She tried to lift herself up from the block of ice with her legs, but it was too slippery for that. Eve, on her part, kept fondling her breasts, occasionally licking her ears or poking at her clit through her panties, wet for more reasons than the ice melting. The aphrodisiac, combined with Eve's constant foreplay, was proving rather effective, at least judging by her white hair and red eyes. At one point, however, she pulled Ara's panties aside -almost tearing them due to her position- and shortly after she felt something poking against her entrance.

"W-wait, what's that?" she asked, worried. Her breath was a bit ragged.

"Take a guess" Eve replied, chuckling. Though the fact that that block of ice wasn't exactly see-through, combined with Ara's position, made it pretty much impossible for her to actually see what was exactly beneath her. Not that she didn't have an idea at that point.

In a relatively short time her fears were confirmed, the tip of a dildo slowly emerging from the ice as it kept melting. It had probably been an hour since she had woken up in that situation, and at that point she was rather... frustrated, but she felt like asking Eve to be rougher would have had unpleasant consequences. That, and it would have been a bit too embarassing. When she suddenly grabbed her ears -her fox ears- however, Ara let out her voice. She then tried to get her composure back, and at the same time Eve grabbed her hips too and started moving her back and fort over the dildo, causing it to bump into her privates repeatedly. To make things worse, the whole horse had started to vibrate, albeith weakly.

"Having fun?" Eve asked.

"S... shut up..."

She then slid an hand under her panties and started softly teasing her entrance, though Ara managed to not squirm, to avoid making the pressure on her crotch even worse. Eve had stopped moving her, and she started trying to adjust herself over the vibrator, hoping Eve wouldn't notice. The penetration was excruciatingly slow, and added to everything else it was rather surprising that Ara was still managing to not ask Eve for a more... intense stimulation. However, she almost jumped when she felt her ears being bitten. She slipped off position, and since Eve closed her hands over her chest she couldn't even bring herself back on top of the dildo.

"E-Eve, let me go... for real..." she said, her cheeks red.

"No-pe. Eh eh"

Ara groaned -mentally, but maybe vocally as well- when she felt the dildo start to slide against her belly, meaning it was too late to get on top of it. To make things worse, Eve was now pushing her up against it, resulting in her clit being bressed right against it, to make sure she was getting as frustrated as possible from the weak vibrations. After what probably was another couple of hours, the ice had mostly melt, and the dildo was almost completely out of it. Eve had tinkered a bit with the crank to make sure Ara wouldn't end up too low. She had changed the way she was teasing her, going from fondling her chest to licking her belly to caressing the base of her tail -she had grown one, the second one probably being anything but far from appearing as well- , to caressing her thighs, to several other things. Shortly after, Ara found herself resting pretty much only on top of a sort of rather high stool on which the dildo was attached, with some of her weight also being supported by the ropes. The aphrodisiac had melted pretty much completely and, as if to make fun of her heightened sensitivity, the vibrators had grown weaker.

"So, Ara" Eve said "Is there anything you want at the moment?"

It wasn't the first time she asked her that, but rather surprisingly Ara had managed to keep herself from asking for it. Up to that moment, at least.

"I... j-just... put it... i-inside..."

"Put what inside?" Eve asked -her drunkness had actually gone away since quite a long while, but that didn't mean she wasn't having fun-.

"The d... dil... the dildo..."

"You just had to ask"

Then Eve moved behind Ara, out of her field of view. Which meant Ara didn't see her putting on a strap-on. A few moments later she felt her pulling her panties aside as something poked her butt.

"W-wait, what are you -mmhh!"

She tried to hold her voice in as the second dildo entered her rear, her tail waving nervously as her ears twitched.

"Just what you asked, Ara" Eve replied as the strap-on started vibrating, with as much strength as the first one.

"T-this is not what I meant!"

"I'm afraid you should have been more specific then"

Eve then started moving, but slowly, far too slowly for Ara to get close to an orgasm from that.

"E-Eve, pleas -mgh?!"

"Don't act spoiled now, you had your chance" Eve said as she fastened a gag around her mouth.

At that point Ara tried to scream, much to Eve's delight. She kept teasing Ara like that, occasionally bringing her on the verge of orgasm and promptly stopping whenever she got too close. Well, Ara wasn't in any sort of pain at the moment so even if she did accidentally manage to get off, it would have simply heightened her frustration. Eve laughed softly when Ara grew a second tail. Eventually, however, she got tired of that, so she took off the strap-on and used the straps to sort of fix it in place in her rear. It wasn't exactly firm but given the situation it would have probably been enough, she couldn't shake it off anyway. Instead she blindfolded Ara, right before taking off the gag.

"I just remembered I have a few things to do, Ara. I'll be back in a short while"

"W-wait, you can't..."

Then she heard her footsteps.

"Eve! Eve, stop! Eve!"

Ara's screams fell on deaf ears however, and she heard the door opening then closing. Obviously, both the dildos were still vibrating weakly. She squirmed around, with enough force to almost fall down, the ropes being the only reason she didn't, the stool swaying beneath her. Aside from all the stimulation, she was also tired. She had no idea what time it was, but she was sure it was way past midnight. She could feel her thighs being drenched with her own juices, and while she couldn't see it, the floor was wet as well, and not only because of the melted ice. She tried to move around again, this time not to get out of the restraints but to see if she could somehow heighten the stimulation, maybe by humping the dildo, and that failed too. By the time Eve came back, Ara had... actually passed out, her two tails lying on the floor, her chest calmly moving up and down with every breath. She quickly ran over the last few hours and realized that probably she had given her too much of that drink to make her sober up, and a side effect was exhaustion after a few hours. Well, that or Ara was simply too tired, that was a rather plausible possibility as well.

She had Oberon -who had been sitting against the wall behind Ara the whole time- untie her legs, remove the dildo from her rear, place her on the bed, then use another rope to tie the knot behind her back to the bed to make sure she wouldn't get off it. Then he pulled the curtains on the sides of the bed to block off vision, and lastly he went back to sit on the edge of the room, out of Ara's sight. Eve, on her part, got on top of the bed and slowly slid two fingers inside her, the palm of her hand turned upwards, and started gently rubbing the upper wall. When her fingers found the right spot, Ara immediatly woke up with a loud moan, her tails standing straight up as she instinctively tried to get up. She failed at it though, if only for Eve holding her down.

"E-Eve!"

"Ara" she replied simply as she lowered her face.

Her attempts at getting away crumbled into inutility when Eve grabbed her hips and brought them up a bit, just enough for her entrance to meet her mouth. She started sucking and licking her through her underwear, causing Ara to forcefully squirm against her, more teasing being the last thing she wanted at the moment. Then, suddenly, Eve stopped.

"Let's make a bet, Ara. If..."

"I don't want to" she interrupted her as she closed her legs to protect herself.

"If you want another five hours of edging, that's fine for me" she replied as she placed her hands on Ara's knees to pull her legs back open.

"W-wait! Not... not that..."

"Perfect"

Eve then got off the bed and went to grab a couple of things. When she came back into Ara's field of vision -she had managed to get on her knees in the meanwhile- she put a chair in front of the bed, where Ara could see it, and placed on top of it an hourglass.

"If you can hold your voice in and not moan until the time is up, I'll give you a nice present and also let you keep the belt off for one more day"

"W... what if I can't?"

"Just do your best" she replied as she turned the hourglass upside down.

Right after saying that she got on the bed, went behind Ara and started fondling her breasts. Her nipple were still erect from before. That lasted for hardly a couple of minutes though, as Eve's hands then moved down, her fingers sliding underneath her underwear and into her butt. Ara almost jumped, her ears twitching a few times, but she managed to not make any sounds. Things got more difficult when Eve pushed her other hand against her entrance and started slowly rubbing her clit. The aphrodisiac's effect had yet to fade, and combined with the prolonged edging she had gone through, those mild stimulus were enough to get her close to an orgasm. She started biting her lips as the pleasure got more intense, and she tried to focus completely on the hourglass to distract herself, with mixed results though. Then Eve suddenly turned Ara around, taking the hourglass out of her sight as she pushed her down, resulting in her butt sticking out in the air, and in that position she slid two fingers inside both of her entrances.

Ara almost said something but then immediatly closed her teeth on her lips to stop herself from doing that. When something started vibrating inside her panties she almost pierced her lips from the surprise. She could feel her orgasm getting dangerously close, and... were she to keep biting her lips, it might have felt too intense for her to actually hold back her voice. On the other hand, she needed something to help her remain as silent as possible. And so she switched from her lips to the blankets, mere moments before the pleasure started to spread through her body in waves, her tails trembling slightly as a groan echoed through her mind, the fact that she had willingly given up a satisfaying orgasm after that much teasing making the whole thing feel even worse.

Eve then moved the vibrating egg from Ara's entrance to her insides, and started rubbing it against her walls. She started to hear a few sounds from her, but they were probably too weak to be called moans, and decided to let them slide. She then started caressing her butt, before spanking her a couple of times. She almost jumped, but still kept her voice extremely low. Eve was quite entertained by that. Leaving the vibrating egg where it was, she turned Ara on her back and placed another one on her entrance, right before lifting one of her legs up and pushing her own entrance against hers. And then she started rubbing herself against Ara, who in the process had accidentally let go of the sheets and was now back to biting her lips, which were actually a bit too much in pain. Eve then grabbed Ara's face to make sure she wouldn't look away, which made the situation even more embarassing for her. She had never even done anything like that before, but the fact that the way Eve moved made it look like they were having penetrative sex made her even more flustered.

"You're not bad..." the menagerie's owner commented, the faintest shade of red on her cheeks.

She kept moving as she placed a third vibrators against both herself and Ara -though she still had one inside her and a second one underneath her panties- and turned it on, the added stimulus taking Ara dangerously close to a second climax. She was sweating, and quite a lot, but Eve didn't seem to mind. Maybe to provoke Ara, maybe to make a little fun of her, or maybe simply because it was a natural reaction -as natural as it could be for someone made of metal- Eve started letting out a few moans, weaks but perfectly audible, and they got louder when she pushed herself against Ara with more strength, pushing both vibrators even more against her privates as a consequence.

At that point Ara was in a panic. She knew her next orgasm was close, at most a few minutes away, and she feared it would have broken her control over her own voice. Maybe if she managed to turn around just enough to bite down on the sheets again... she tried, but Eve held her in place. The pleasure was rising, her limbs were starting to tremble weakly, her ears were twitching. Her tails -all three of them- were waving as much as they could considering they were partially beneath the two girls. At the last moment, Ara decided that she had a better chance at keeping her voice down if the orgasm didn't felt too good, and so let go of her lips. A few seconds later, her whole body trembled as the pleasure spreaded like a wave, from her entrance all the way to her fingertips. And then she moaned. Her mind froze, but her voice, once released, kept coming out for as long as Eve kept rubbing their privates against each other, the vibrations constantly sending additional jolts of pleasure through Ara's body until the motion stopped. Shortly after, all the toys were removed.

"Ah... I... w-what... now..."

"Congratulations, Ara" Eve said as she helped her get up while pointing to the hourglass "Time ran out a short while before you started moaning"

"..."

She headbutted Eve, and while she did hit her for once, who got more hurt from that was arguable, though flesh against metal didn't sound like a fair match up. Not that Ara was normal herself, though.

"H-hey now..."

"Why didn't you stop then?!" Ara shouted. She was angry also because she ruined her orgasm herself for nothing, though she avoided mentioning that.

"I need some relief too every now and then, you know" Eve replied as she adjusted her clothes "Here, I'll walk you to your room"

"I can go there by myself. If you'd be so kind as to undo these" Ara said as she turned around to show the ropes around her arms.

"Just let us get there first, alright?"

"Oh, come on..."

"Trust me"

"... for real?"

She really wasn't sure she had too much trust left in Eve. Maybe.

"Just follow me, alright?" she asked as she walked to the door.

Ara followed her, albeith rather unwillingly, her tails giving away some of her annoyance. And frustration too, that was anything but gone. She walked out of the room without ever seeing Oberon, who on his part was ever so sligthly annoyed at Eve having ordered him to simply sit there in silence. In case something happened, she said.

While they were on their way to Ara's room, she looked out of a window whose curtain wasn't completely closed. By the look of it the sun would have come up in around an hour, which would explain why she was so damn tired.

"Here" Eve said as she opened the door.

After they had both walked in, she started undoying the ropes. Meanwhile, Ara's gaze fell on something.

"... what's that?" she asked as she forced herself to stay awake for a little longer, her eyes pointed to a rather large box sitting right next to her bed.

"Your present, of course. I was going to give it to you regardless of the results of our little bet"

"Why you..."

"Here, done" Eve said as she finished taking off the ropes. Ara's arms were a bit sore, but not enough for it to be a real problem.

"I left the instructions here" she said as she took a few sheets of paper from the table and handed them to Ara "I'll be on my way now"

"Instructions?"

Left alone, Ara wondered whether she should have opened the box or went straight to sleep. She decided to at least give a look at the instructions to see what was inside there, curiosity momentarily winning over sleepiness. The first line said "I've planted a small ai in it, but it can only perform very simple actions. Anything more complex and it would no longer be usable as a replacement body, and a completely new one takes both time and money to make. So while it's more interactive than a doll, it's still not that much better in that regard. For my standards at least"

"... eh... ?"

Partially confused, partially curious, she kept reading.

Around three and a half hours later. Eve was in the kitchen when Rena walked in. There was a cable going from one of the sockets to Eve's head, but it wasn't the first time the elf saw her recharging herself that way. According to her, it was more efficent but less pleasant than eating.

"Up already?"

"I'm leaving" Eve replied as she unplugged the cable "I have other things to take care of"

Which explained why both Ferdinand and Ophelia were waiting on the door, each carrying two suitcases.

"Sure. And... what's that?" the elf asked while pointing to a metal box resting against a wall, large enough for a person to easily -maybe not comfortably- fit in, a small groove running right in the middle of it.

"An experiment. If things go well it won't cause you any problem, don't worry about it"

"... which means... ?"

"Exactly what I said"

"Yeah, sure... where is Ara?"

"Probably sleeping in her room" she replied as she gestured Oberon to go check on her.

He did so. He got no answer when he knocked on the door, but considering how last night went, he wanted to make sure she was at least sleeping on the bed and not on the floor next to it. While not really the norm, it wasn't too weird for Ara to roll around in her sleep when really tired. At least that's what he said to himself. And so he opened the door and walked in. The lights were turned off. As for Ara, she was sleeping on the bed, although she wasn't under the blankets and her tails were gone. There were two things, however, that caught his attention. The first one was that she was wearing only her bra, her panties and every other piece of clothing lying on the floor. The second one was that she was hugging his substitute body -the one with the appearance of a... very young male- as if it was a small body pillow. He saw the instruction sheets on the table and gave them a quick read. Then he took the key of the room, left it on the table then walked out, locking the door behind him with another key, without giving himself enough time to notice anything else. When he walked back to the kitchen, Eve was gone. Rena, instead, was having breakfast.

"She's still sleeping I guess"

"She locked herself in. I think she doesn't want to be disturbed" he replied as he took a bottle of wine -a strong wine-, sat down and started drinking.

"... you know, this might be the first time I see you drink something"

"Is that so..."

For the first time in his life -and maybe taking example from Ophelia- he drank the whole bottle in one single gulp.

Thank you for reading.