Chapter 71 – Settling In

Although neither Vel nor myself really knew our way around the Varsen Estate, it wasn’t all that hard to flag down one of the maids and ask them to show us to our rooms. Apparently, we were actually quite close to them as it was, which was probably part of the reason that Sophia felt fine leaving us here without further direction. That and with the number of servants wandering about, it would be incredibly hard for us to get lost so long as we were willing to ask for assistance. As such, it was only a few moments later that we were being led down a hallway by a fairly average-looking, brown-haired woman dressed in a stereotypical black and white maid's outfit.

"The room on the left is Miss Valenya, and the room on the right is Miss Evelyn’s." The maid announced, gesturing to a set of doors on one side of the hallway, which took me a little by surprise as I was expecting us to just stay in the same room as we had been before, back at the log cabin. "Mistress Sophia has organised several sets of more appropriate clothing for you, waiting in your rooms. If there is anything else you need, I and the rest of the staff are here to serve."

"Is there someplace where we could get cleaned up and washed before lunch, a bath, or a shower at least? I could do it with a nice relaxing soak in a bath before lunch. What do you think, Vel?" I said as I looked around at the hallway and the doors to our rooms, trying to remember their locations because much of the manor's winding hallways looked the same and I didn't want to keep asking for directions every time I wanted to come back here.

"Couldn’t you just use your freshen up skill on us?" The young elven woman responded with a conflicted look. I had a feeling such internal conflict wasn’t because she didn’t want to take a bath with me, something that would no doubt coincide with a bit of lewd fun. No, it was more likely that she was still a bit worried about Saph being on their own.

"Don’t worry about Saph," I said as I reached forward and caressed my girlfriend’s arm. "They are a big, all-grown-up slime now and can look after themselves. Besides, they are probably being just as pampered as we are going to be. We can go see them together after dinner."

"Okay, yeah… A bath actually does sound rather nice right now." Vel relented as she ran her hands through her hair, only to find a small leaf that had been hiding in there from our run through the forest earlier in the day.

"Very well, if a bath is what you want, I will lead you to the bathroom and have someone fetch a set of clothes for you to change into after." The maid nodded her head before walking off, expecting us to follow her.

After a few turns and a staircase going down to the first floor, we eventually arrived at the bathroom, or at least a little changing room before the bathroom. Instead of the private, one or two-person type of bathroom that I was expecting, this seemed more like a communal type of thing, as there were benches in the middle of the space with various boxes set into the walls to hold our clothing and other such personal belongings. Still, though, much like the rest of the place, this room was just as lavishly decorated.

Communal bathing must be much more common than I expected in this world. That or it's just a thing Sophia is into, which I wouldn’t put past her.

With a nod of her head, the maid left us in the changing room to strip off as she went further into the bathroom, no doubt preparing the water for us. Seeing no reason to dilly-dally, I immediately removed my clothing and placed it in one of the provided spaces. After everything we had gone through today, they weren’t in the best condition, and getting new clothes to change into after our bath, clothes that were no doubt going to be more my style than the clothing I had to make do with, was something I was really looking forward to.

Once I was completely naked, shamelessly letting my amble breasts just bounce and jiggle around in the open without a care in the world, I turned my attention over to my cute little girlfriend. At this point in time, though, she had only removed her dress, which she was putting in the provided space on top of her magic stone box to better hide it from sight.

With a perverted smile on my face, I found my way over to the young elven woman wearing only a pair of panties. Of course, my hands slipped around her body, one reaching for her sensitive, little breasts as the other slid over the top of her panties. Embracing her from behind like that, my hands weren’t the only thing that was touching her as my lips kissed their way up her neck to her ears, causing her to let out a few short and sweet moans.

Now that we were safe and secure in the privacy of Sophia’s estate, having a little fun with Vel was just what the woman needed. For a moment, at least, it would distract her from her worries. Sure, her father's being in a rather dangerous situation wasn’t the best thing in the world, but I was sure he would be fine and it was just a matter of time until he found us again. There was little we could do to speed it up, and worrying about him wouldn’t help anyone.

My touching and kissing of Vel were soon interrupted by the sounds of the returning maid, who stopped in her tracks and blushed profusely at the sight of just what it was that I was doing to the young elven woman in my arms. The maid was so taken by surprise that she couldn’t even either of us in the eyes as she said. "The bath is heated up and ready for you… Will you be wanting someone to help wash you?"

"Not today, maybe another time though. Today, I just want to spend some time alone with my cute little girlfriend." I answered, all the while continuing to touch the young elven woman in my hands, something which seemed to only spur her enjoyment. Although Vel might be kind of shy at times, apparently she liked being touched and showed affection while in front of others like that.

"Very well…" The maid said with a bit of a sigh, but her disappointment about not being able to join us was not lost on me. "I’ll go fetch you both some clothes to change into and call for you when dinner is ready. Please enjoy your bath."

Soon enough, the maid was finding her way out of the changing room, leaving the two of us alone inside. Of course, my attention immediately turned back to my girlfriend as my fingers slid into her panties instead of just on top of them. The fact that Vel was extremely aroused was as clear as day, and it was a good thing she would be changing out of those panties soon enough as they were practically ruined by how wet she made them.

"What do you think of that maid? She was clearly into us. What do you think about having a threesome with her and me sometime later? Is that something you would be interested in, baby?" I teased her both with my words and my fingers.

"She was?" Vel gasped in equal parts surprise and pleasure. "I didn’t notice… I was a little distracted. But I wouldn’t mind it if that was something you were okay with. That said, although we talked about it being okay for you to sleep with other people, we never really established clear boundaries for me."

"Oh, do you want to fuck her without me present?" I said as I slid a finger inside my girlfriend’s pussy.

"No, I ah… Gods above, it's hard to talk while you're doing that to me…" Vel moaned, but when I slid my fingers out of her again so that she could speak without such a blatant distraction, she was clearly unhappy with that development. "I didn’t say stop, I was just saying it's hard to think straight while being fingered."

Without a word, I slid my fingers back inside her, continuing where I left off just as she continued where she left off. "No, I don’t really want to sleep with anyone individually, other than you or Saph. But threesomes with other women and even me sleeping with Saph is not something we really talked about, and I don’t want to hurt you. Are you sure you are okay with it all?"

"As long as you continue to stay in love with me and be my girlfriend, I don’t really mind who you have sex with. I’m quite happy with what we have going on right now, I wouldn’t change it for the world." I explained, speaking truthfully from the bottom of my heart as I continued to play with her.

"That said…" I went on. "I would like for us to be completely open with each other, both about sexual things and more mundane things. If you ever do feel like sleeping with someone other than me and without me present, then please don’t hide it. The secrecy and lying would hurt more than the actual sex, which again, I would be completely okay with. On the flip side, if you want to know about anything I do or get up to, ask and I will tell you. I won’t hide anything from you, not anymore."

"I love you, Eve." Vel said as she pulled away from my embrace from behind so that she could turn around and kiss me.

"I love you too, baby." I returned as I kissed her with every ounce of passion I had.

Although quite deep, the kiss we shared was one of love above all else. Our hands merely held tight to each other, clinging on to the one we held most dearest in our hearts, instead of fondling and groping away with our perverse desires. That said, soon enough, the passion and feeling of love began to take a back seat as those perverse desires took over once more.

Instead of just going at each other right here and now, there was a much more convenient place to do it only a few metres away. As such, I pulled my lips away from Vel’s and whispered. "Why don’t you take those panties of yours off and we get in the bath together, baby?"

Vel didn’t say anything in response to my suggestion. Instead, she just reached down in a hurry, slid her panties off and threw them haphazardly over her shoulder, not caring where they landed. Now that the two of us were both as naked as the day we were born, we wasted no time heading into the bathroom, a bathroom that wasn’t quite what I was expecting and left me rather speechless. Sure, the Varsen estate was large and ostentatious at times, but this was ridiculous.

The bathroom reminded me of what I had heard about Roman bathhouses from ancient Earth, but if that was stepped up a notch. You see, the space beyond the changing room wasn’t so much a bathroom as it was a bathing courtyard. There was no roof over this space, as it was all pretty much open to the clear blue sky above. That said, there was a little bit of a walkway around the edges of the bath, which was covered by the nearby shelter of the second-story overhang, but that area was in the minority.

The vast majority of the space was taken up by the steaming, crystal-clear water of the bath. A bath that was so large that it was more like a pool than a bath and could no doubt accommodate more than fifty people at a time. However, that was just a guess. I had no clue how many people it could actually fit at once, but I was sure it had never seen so many people. Not unless Sophia was throwing some really wild parties, which given her profession, she might have been, but I doubted she held them here at her home. Such things were much more likely to happen at the Red Den.

The part of the bath that really left me speechless wasn’t its size, but the ostentatiousness of its decor. Unlike the more old-style feel of the rest of the manor, this space was made entirely from pristine, white marble, giving it a much more unapologetically glamorous look. In addition to that, rich, vibrant silk cushions and drapery surrounded the edges of the bath and along the walls of the covered walkways. Every now and then there was a colourful potted plant or a suggestive painting hanging on the wall.

"This is amazing!" Vel gasped as she ran over to the bath and slipped down into the steaming water, which caused her to let out a relaxed sigh.

Meanwhile, I took a much more relaxed approach to getting into the bath, not only because I was awestruck by the decor, but also because I was curious about how much effort it would take to maintain and keep such a bath ready. Given that the maid only disappeared for a few seconds earlier as she readied the bath, she must have some class skills for heating and cleaning the water. That or there were magic enchantments at play that I couldn’t see. Although there were none of those tell-tale lines of enchantment visible anywhere, Sophia did mention earlier that it was possible for those to be hidden, so who knew how the water was being kept hot?

However, as I slid into the steaming hot water, letting its relaxing warmth wash over me, all such wonders and thoughts fled me. In fact, I was so relaxed that I forgot all about why exactly it was that I had come here. That was until I felt a pair of delicate and slender fingers caress their way over my skin, towards my overly large breasts.