The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

THE HONEYMOON MANOR, CHAPTER 01

“Well, we’re here.”

Ricard looked askance at his adventuring partner. The lanky Felix had his hands on his hips and was grinning across at an entirely empty clearing.

Ricard looked to the clearing. Then back to Felix.

Ricard cleared his throat. “Ah... Felix, your imagination can be ineffable at times. I fear I’m quite lost here.”

“Hm?” Felix glanced back at Ricard, looking puzzled. He gestured in front of them. “Didn’t you say we were looking for a ring of stones?”

“Yes?”

Felix’s head tilted. “Really, now, Ricard. And here I thought I was the airhead.”

Ricard blinked. His head tilted.

And he slapped his forehead. “Of course! Felix, you sparkle-headed old spider, there must be some sort of illusion going on here! And you, with your resistance to magic, clearly stand immune.” He grabbed Felix by the arm, grinning. “Is it true? A ring of seven white stones?”

Felix chewed his upper lip, examining the clearing closely. “I count eight.”

“Ah. Don’t be absurd, Felix.” Ricard chuckled, tapping the map. “The map clearly marks for seven. A magical number—the number fortune follows like a lovesick waif. Definitely seven.”

“Uh, maybe, but I’m just saying, there’s eight stones.”

Ricard let out a low sigh. “Felix, I don’t mean to malign those fine hazel eyes of yours, but perhaps your numerical facilities have turned pixillated.”

Felix considered this, and carefully re-counted. Twice. “I don’t think so, Ricard.”

Ricard’s mood was souring a little, but he tried to stay in good spirits. “Felix, Felix, Felix.” He rubbed his eyes in a great show of weariness. “I’m telling you, the map clearly says—”

He opened his eyes and glance down at the parchment. He took a beat.

“Does it say eigh—“

“Ah, yes, Felix, I can confirm that it is eight. No need to doubt yourself.” Ricard patted Felix on the arm. “We are, indeed, here. This is the Honeymoon Manor.”

“Great!” Felix strolled into the clearing, lips pursed. “But you heard the part where it’s just a bunch of rocks, right?”

“It’s an enchantment, my leviathan friend.” Ricard smiled, following after. “For now, yes, we have essentially acquired the world’s most isolated rock garden as our winnings. But give it an hour...” He pointed up at the stars above. “Give or take a few cricket chirps, and there it will be, open and ripe for ravishing. The Manor reveals itself to those who wait.”

“Really! How polite of it.” Felix glanced to the side. “Say, what’s that?”

Ricard took no notice at first, reaching out and feeling cold, rough stone where he could see only air. Fascinating. Delightful. Lucky he’d taken the lug along, really.

He looked over just in time to see Felix approaching a ring of bright crimson mushrooms. He coughed. “Ah, Felix, I wouldn’t—wouldn’t advise—stop!”

Felix froze in place. Stiff as a board.

He didn’t actually seem to be doing anything aside from looking at the mushrooms. Still, Ricard couldn’t be too careful with Felix. For a locksmith, the fellow had the discretion and patience of a highly impetuous goldfish—the sort that failed to flee when its owner tapped the glass, and instead stared openly and defiantly at the owner until the owner felt ashamed and walked away. And all the culinary caution of a goblin’s fiance.

“Poison?” Felix asked, still not moving. “Because it’s not as though I meant to eat it, Ricard. Really, now.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sucking candy, giving it a crunch. “I was just wondering if it was one of those ‘fairy rings’ we’re supposed to watch out for.”

“And not go near.”

“Well, yes...”

Ricard gave a long-suffering sigh and smile. “Felix, those fairy rings are back doors. We are trying to avoid going through them.”

“Why not?” Felix stuck his tongue into his cheek, but he took a step back from the ring of fungi. “It seems to me—and, well, I’m not any sort of expert on doors, after all, except the locked kind, which I’m actually a licensed expert on—that if one is, uh, breaking into a house, the back door might as well be a front door.”

Not if you don’t have those doors listed on the map you need to navigate the anti-euclidian mass of winding rooms that the Honeymoon Manor can become, Felix.” Ricard reached up to Felix’s shoulder and gently tugged the fellow away. “We already have our route, and it involves the front door.”

“Okay, sure.” Felix shrugged. He had an exaggerated and elegant way of shrugging that, with his long arms, rather reminded Ricard of a bird about to take flight. “So we wait?”

* * *

They waited.

Felix ran out of candies an hour or so in. He was, naturally enough, feeling rather sour about it.

After about a half-hour more of unbearable tedium, the Honey Moon rose over the forest.

Felix immediately saw where the moon got its name from. It was a particularly orange crescent moon. Only occurring on the weeks after the Autumn Equinox—quite an abnormally lucky happenstance, Felix had to admit, considering when they’d gotten word of this place—it was quite a pretty sort of thing.

And as it rose, Felix’s eyes shone with understanding as the eight stones blended together and poured through shadows, spiraling like liquid light atop one another, rising and swirling and spreading.

And soon, the clearing was a little bit larger than it had been before. And in front of them was...

“The Honeymoon Manor,” Ricard breathed. “Lovely.”

Felix stared up at it. It was a true feat of architecture. A true marvel of the artistic inspiration of the Fair Folk. Piers, wings, walls, all that important stuff.

“Why do you suppose they call it the Honeymoon Manor,” Felix remarked, “and not the Honey Moon Manor? With a space separating the words, I mean?”

Ricard ignored him. Felix grimaced. Probably folk customs simplified it, he told himself, trying to push the intrusive question away for now.

Because there were definitely priorities. Carved into the strange mix of ivory, wood and stone that made up the Honeymoon Manor were many windows of crystal and diamond and glass, and many strange crooked chimneys...

… but there was only one door.

The door was cut out of a single sheet of aspen bark, but it somehow managed to be the most elaborate and strange part of the whole house, covered in eye-like scars and knots that made it strangely difficult to focus on. Felix considered it skeptically. Not exactly a traditional door.

But the seventeen locks on it looked normal enough. He grinned, whipping out several lockpicks. His long, delicate fingers fiddled with some picks as fine as hairs.

“Felix, if you would do the honors?”

Felix stalked over and crouched down, considering the contraption. The locks were intricately connected to one another through fine brass weaving. It was actually really remarkable.

His brow furrowed. This was an amazing feat of engineering, but also a very frustrating one. It was a puzzle. No doubt, there was an order to the locks. Or perhaps he had to undo every single lock at once. Easy enough for the Unseelie Court, who could always find ways to cheat physics when it suited them, but a bit trickier for a humble ex-witchhunter.

And Ricard was probably not going to be quiet while he worked.

Felix got down on his knees and set to it.

“You know,” he remarked, “I’m basically just breaking into someone’s house right now. I keep feeling like a guard is going to start yelling at me.”

“If a guard comes by, I’ll just tell them you locked yourself out.”

“I think you’ll run if you see a guard coming at us.”

“Felix!” Ricard sounded offended. “Really, now. That’s a real rough scratch against our friendship!”

“Oh, sorry, Ricard. Love you too.” Felix was only half-paying attention. “So are we just gonna steal the furniture and paint rude words on the walls, or...?”

And then he had it. It was actually very easy, once he looked at it the right way. His eyes lit up, and in seven deft motions, every single one of the eighteen locks gave a click. He sprang to his feet, beaming with satisfaction... and nudged the door with his foot.

It slowly creaked open, beckoning them inward.

“Well done, Felix!” Ricard clapped him on the shoulder, his manner once again sunny and bright. “Ah, only fair that you get first crack at whatever we find in the foyer, no?”

“Sure, sure.” Felix sighed and nudged his way in.

The walls glistened in the moonlight from a prismatic sunroof overhead—or moonroof, Felix supposed. The windows bore a kaleidoscopic effect, creating dazzling colors reflected on the walls and floor. They had entered into a vast foyer carved of marble, crystal and color.

The foyer was quite well decorated, too. A critical burglar might have dared to call it ‘cluttered’. Aside from the twenty-five doors—Felix noted the number without even pausing to count—there were brooding statues and grimacing gargoyles and all sorts of things seemingly designed solely to send properly paranoid adventurers into fits of panic. A great crystalline chandelier hung from the ceiling, and from each candle sparked a different-colored pastel flame.

Several statues in particular, depicting gorgeous humanoids all in various compromising positions, had Felix suspicious. They had been placed in the far corner, but the breeze from opening the door blown the sheet off of them, exposing them to his view. Each had an expression frozen in a look that could only be described as rapture.

At the center of the room, a gorgeous fountain depicted what appeared to be a gorgeous woman of solid crystal. She had one arm outstretched, as if waving an unseen handkerchief, and was clad only in a toga that covered exactly half of a breast and two-thirds of a groin.

She was incredibly beautiful, and the light shimmered with special radiance as it struck her. Small transparent cubic crystals covered the edges of the basin.

Felix turned to Ricard. “Don’t touch any statues,” he instructed firmly. “Especially not the salt mephit in the fountain.”

Ricard nodded. “Understood.”

“Great. Just making sure.”

A sputtered, indignant, “What!” came from behind him.

Felix turned back as Ricard entered behind him.

The salt mephit in question was plainly incensed. Her sculpted features were screwed up in an expression of impotent rage as she leaned over the edge of the fountain. “How did you know?” She waved both arms, the toga exposing slightly more than half a breast in the process. “I go through all the trouble of getting a lovely little fountain, I cover the fucking toys with a sheet, I even got rid of all the stupid pepper shakers the little fairies left in here, and—AGH!”

“The fountain is very nice,” Felix said, trying to be kind, “but it’s a little, uh, big. And in the middle of everything. It’s clearly the centerpiece of the room.”

“The chandelier is bigger!” the Unseelie elemental fey snapped.

Felix shrugged weakly. “I mean, by volume, but it’s, um...” He gave an awkward laugh. “I mean, we’ve all heard of cursed fey fountains, but what kind of a fey inhabits a chandelier?” He gestured with another, slightly more awkward laugh. “Especially one with such, ah, tacky colors.”

The translucent woman glowered. “I made that chandelier.“

Felix blinked.

“Ahem.” Ricard stepped ahead of Felix, smiling broadly. “I think what my less-than-charismatic crane fly of a colleague is getting at, madam, is that you are the most eye-catching object—or, well, subject, of course—within this room by far. Your sheer beauty renders inconceivable the notion that Felix, who is a tragically inattentive fellow at heart, could spare more than a passing regard for the... intricacies of that lovely chandelier.”

“Hm.” The salt mephit’s head tilted curiously. She seemed somewhat mollified. “Well, you are a polite sort.”

“My curse is amiability, even in the face of all danger.” He cut an elaborate bow. “Why, even in this most unfamiliar of locales, I cannot help but be stricken to chivalrous countenance by the sight of a lovely fey wonder such as yourself.” He winked.

“Ha.” The salt mephit’s sour demeanor was rapidly melting away, replaced with a look of sly delight. “Well, you have the most lovely smile, don’t you, young mortal?”

“It pales even before your frown.”

Oh! Such a charmer.” She tapped her chin, a thoughtful grin slicking onto her symmetrical face. “I could just freeze that smile in place and stare at it all day long.”

“Um...” Felix raised a hand, smiling apologetically. “Sorry, but I was wondering... what are you actually doing out here in this nice little foyer?”

“Indeed!” chirped Ricard, not even missing a beat in the change in direction. “Why would such a specimen as yourself be consigned to door greeter? Has the Court lost its high regard for the wondrous crystal mephits?”

The salt mephit grimaced. “Well.. let’s just say that not everyone here cares for my particular flavor these days. Which reminds me.” Her eyes seemed to sparkle in the moonlight, and she cast Felix a winning smile. “I hope it’s not too forward, but the two of you are... delicious to the eyes.“

“Oh! Well, thank you.” Felix stepped closer, examining the fountain itself. Curiously, the fluid was not water, as he’d first thought, but some sort of milky liquid.

“It seems you have taken an interest in me, as well.” The salt mephit gleamed beneath the many-hued lights like a stained glass window. Her eyes glistened with rapturous attention as she beckoned. “So why not a kiss?” she cooed.

“Um, sorry, miss.” Felix smiled politely up at her, abandoning his inspections for a moment. “You’re very lovely, but that’s not going to work on me.”

He couldn’t deny a small hint of regret. The mephit was gorgeous. Her body really was perfectly sculpted, and her curves, only partially concealed by the toga as they were, were prodigious and enticing. But he knew that kisses from a mephit would bind the mortal to see the world through their element—in this case, salt—and he didn’t much fancy turning into one of those statues in the corner.

“... Mm.” The mephit sounded distinctly put out, but she put on a brave face and giggled as she turned to Ricard. “Hello, there, lovely one! Perhaps you will be less cruel to a damsel in distress?”

Ricard sounded unsteady for a moment as he answered. “Ah... well, with the... it would truly be my pleasure, madam, but I fear it won’t do.” Felix turned as he tugged his collar back, revealing the brand. “I happen to be spoken for,” he said, giving a bashful grin.

“Oh my fucking gods.” The salt mephit rolled her eyes as the vulgar mortal speech crossed her transparent lips. “So this is really how it’s going to be? Very well, then.” She returned to her pose atop the fountain. “Have fun solving the puzzle, boys!”

“Puzzle?” Felix’s eyes lit up, and he straightened. He examined the many doors in front of them, then walked back, glancing over Ricard’s shoulder at the map. The route was clearly visible, but as he drew nearer the door they were meant to go through, he noticed a strange lock contraption atop it.

The lock itself seemed fairly ordinary. Massive, yes. Devoid of a visible keyhole, oh, definitely. But it wasn’t the lock that caught his attention.

No, it was the door. Specifically, a very tiny door inside the larger one. A big, bulky sort of metal box protrusion about a foot from the floor. Felix rubbed his chin. A small rectangular pipe led up from the box and into the large padlock.

He examined the tiny door-box, eyes narrowed. “How peculiar,” he murmured. He glanced back at Ricard and the mephit, then returned his focus to the door. He could see an even smaller lock on the tiny door, but surely not even the deftest of hands could manage that. It wasn’t even the size of a shrew’s paw!

“This could take a while,” he remarked aloud. “Ricard, maybe we should start, um, gathering stuff up.”

“What, really?” Ricard looked around, sounding miffed at the idea of that kind of busywork. “This is really more of an attic than a treasure trove, Felix.”

“I’m right here.”

“Oh, pardon me. What I meant was that the, ah, the value of this trove lies not in gold, but in the delicate, skilled hands that crafted it.”

“Oh, just fuck off.”

She’s very foul-mouthed for a fey, Felix thought idly. Then again, she is a salt mephit. “I know, Ricard, but you don’t have anything better to do. This could take hours for me to work out.”

“More waiting?” Even without turning, Felix could tell Ricard was making a face. “Much as I know you enjoy these games, Felix, I fear a more expedient solution may be required. Miss?”

What.

“I don’t suppose you could...” He cleared his throat. “I mean, ah, Titania would surely be distressed if I were to...”

Really?” The laugh the mephit gave was half rueful, half giggly. Felix turned to watch her. “You’re going to pull that on the first room?”

“Ha.” Ricard bowed. “I would not be tempted if the bearer of secrets was not so fair.”

“Mm.” The salt mephit smirked. “My, I can see why Titania favors you. She’s a real sucker for saps like you.”

Ricard winked. “Well, one might say that some sap can be sweet enough to entice even a Fairy Queen.”

Felix rubbed his belly sadly. He already missed his candy. A sucker sounded pretty good right now.

“Fine, fine. I wouldn’t want to be the center of an incident.” The mephit winced, as if the prospect left a bitter taste in her mouth. “It’s really quite simple.”

Felix took out a notepad and pen. They always said that.

“This building is split.” As the salt mephit spoke, she gestured, forming images with her hands that Felix couldn’t quite understand. “One size won’t fit. If you want to travel through, you need not one, but at least two. Two doors, one hole, two sizes. When one descends, the other rises. Bold, wise, strong, quick, the Honeymoon Manor has claimed them all. If you wish to ravish the Manor, one must be normal—but the other quite small. Sink, sink, sink, drink. Take a sip, and start to—“

“In non-rhyme, please?”

The salt mephit stared at Ricard, who gave his most innocent, endearing smile.

“One of you has to drink some milk,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It makes you small, so you can take the key through and unlock the doors for the other. The keyhole is... look, let’s just say it’s non-Euclidean and pretend that explains it. The locks aren’t normal locks. Really, a big part of unlocking is just... going through. Usually we have fairies do it.”

“Non-Euclidean.” Ricard snapped his fingers and nodded wisely at Felix.

“You know, if you hate puzzles and mind games, it’s not too late to go loot a dwarven tomb like the other adventurers.”

“And miss your fair visage, dear lady?” Ricard asked sweetly.

“You realize that mephits are strong, right? I’m made of rock, even though I might seem soft when I want to. I could just beat you up. Or the tall one, anyways. The Unseelie would probably banish me for crude behavior, but, I mean, they already made me a glorified doorstopper. I mean, really, I don’t see why...”

The mephit continued to mutter darkly as Felix walked over, filled his waterskin with milk, and stepped back hurriedly. “I think we’ve made her a bit mad,” he whispered to Ricard as they approached the door together. “We should get a move on. I’ll bet she won’t be the only fairy frustrated by us when we’re done.”

“Oh, no doubt.” Ricard chuckled, then gestured to the door. “So, I take it you grasped the puzzle?”

“I think so.” Felix frowned. “One of us has to go through and basically undo the security system from the inside. And possibly also pick some weird locks. So...” He raised the waterskin. “Which one of us is going through the ‘keyhole’?”

A heavy silence hung over them, broken up only by the salt mephit’s dark muttering and unflattering references to marble mephits’ gaudy makeup and shallow personalities.

“Aha. Well...” Ricard cleared his throat. “I had thought—you being the lockpicker, after all—that that would clearly be your task, Felix.” He sighed, shaking his head sadly. “I do wish I could accompany you! But, alas, it seems that this insidious Manor is deliberately designed to scatter us to the winds, and... after all, this is your area of expertise. It seems only fair you be given the easy task, while I brave the greater share of the peril. It’s only fair.”

“Okay.” Felix snorted. “Sure. So... see you on the other side?”

Ricard sketched a short bow. “Until we meet again.”

And Felix raised the waterskin to his lips and drank deeply.

As he drank the beverage—which was cool, refreshing, and just so slightly sweet—he wondered how much was safe to drink. Did this potion make him the size of a mouse, no matter how much he took in? Or did it make him smaller and smaller, depending? If he kept drinking, would he become the size of an ant?

He stopped drinking quickly after that. Felix had never liked ants. Ants crawled all over his picnics and got all over his pastries and candies. Extremely frustrating. Aside from the many more obviously pressing issues of being ant-sized, he didn’t want to be small enough that he might be forced to face an ant in a fair fight.

Felix was good at fighting, but he knew quite well his equals. If ants were the size of cats, he often speculated that they would rule the world.

All of these thoughts filled his head at the same time as a mild tingling. Then a buzzy static overtook his vision.

Felix clutched at his eyes, groaning. It didn’t hurt. It just felt... emptier. Like he was turning into fog. His stomach heaved unpleasantly, but as soon as this sensation filled him, it was gone, replaced by a pleasant hum throughout his whole body.

It felt warm. Soft. Like sinking into cotton. Felix rubbed his eyes, then opened them. “That’s re—whoa.

He stared up at Ricard, blinking. Ricard—a man who was by no means unusually tall—towered over him. Felix blinked. “Ricard! Someone’s caused you, and the whole point, to grow quite a lot larger!”

And indeed, everything seemed very much enormous right now. Felix was relieved to find he was not ant-sized—perhaps six-to-eight inches or so.

Ricardo smirked. “Felix, let me tell you, it is a heady feeling to be taller than you for a change.”

“Well, only in the sense of technical inches.” Felix crossed his arms. “If you think about it in... uh, in a sense of ratios, I am still much taller than you. If you think about it obtusely enough.”

Ricard raised an eyebrow. “It’s somewhat reassuring to know that your general manner isn’t just brought on my the thinness of the air at your standard altitude. Come, Felix.” He stooped, allowing Felix to hop into his palm. Felix smiled brightly as his adventuring comrade lifted him swiftly up towards the small door. It was sort of fun being carried. “So, what are we planning? Are you just going to unlock the doors, while I stroll—erm, battle my way through to claim the reward?”

“Well, ideally, it’s less of a claiming and more of a retrieving.” Felix tapped his lockpicks together as he came level with the door. This lock was really quite simple, now that he was small enough to manage it, and it wouldn’t take him long at all to crack. “After all, heh, it’s not your treasure. We’re splitting it forty-sixty, remember?”

Ricard shrugged, causing Felix to stumble slightly. “As long as you remember that you’re the one who that rate.”

Felix knelt and got to work. “Well, you did fight that acid-spitting hydra to find the map. I’m not about to insist we get an equal rate! Besides, I hardly ever get sick and the innkeeper gives me a great discount for saving his inn from that pesky locust, so I really only need money to buy more food.”

“Candies aren’t food, Felix.”

“That reminds me.” Felix scowled. “I’m out of candy.”

“However will you endure?”

“I’m sure I’ll get by.” Felix giggled in delight as the lock clicked open. He straightened and opened the door, peering inside.

A miniature spiral staircase wound upwards, going straight up that rectangular pipe. Felix cocked his head, then stepped through.

* * *

The salt mephit watched, eyes slightly narrowed, as the little adventurer made his way into the workings of the Honeymoon Manor locks.

Her eyes glimmered with excitement. Below, her fingers delicately tickled the opalescent skin around her half-exposed pussy. As soon as these two were gone...

Will you ‘get by’, little one? she thought, licking her lips. And you, favorite of Titania. I wonder... whatever will they do to you?

She couldn’t wait to find out.

In the meantime, she planned to dedicate quite a lot of energy to guessing.

* * *

Felix made his way up the stairs, humming softly to himself in time with his footfalls.

The humming was a bad habit. He kept stopping himself when he caught it, but all too often, he lapsed back into it without thinking. He knew it was a safety hazard. He just forgot sometimes.

There weren’t too many stairs, but enough to be bothersome, and it was a welcome relief when he reached a large door. The door had an oddness to it, and it took him a moment to recognize that it was, in fact, keyhole shaped.

“Funny,” he murmured.

There was no doorknob; only a thin slot. He hesitated, then reached towards it. Was this some sort of trap? A spinning metal disk, maybe? Or a gas dispenser? Or maybe...

A paper card slipped out of the slot and fluttered right into Felix’s hand. He looked down at it, perplexed. It depicted a rather silly-looking fellow, very gangly and tall, dressed in highly colorful garb and wearing a belled conical hat. Ten red diamonds drifted around the fellow, and before Felix’s eyes, they seemed to shift and undulate, circling around the prancing fool.

He grimaced. “Well, what a rude notion. That doesn’t look anything like me.” He stooped and slipped the card through the slot. “Another, please.”

The card slid in automatically. Felix heard a brief whirring sound, and then the keyhole-shaped door... fell over. On Felix.

It was made of cardboard.

“Ow,” Felix said, knocking the papery portal off of him and stepping into the room. “Funnier and funnier. Well, this is really too mu—uh—hm.” He stopped stock-still, looking around in wide-eyed wonder.

A few things immediately stood out to him. Felix had once had the misfortune to enter a mirror maze, and he’d experienced what it was like to stare into a mirror with a mirror at your back. This room was like that. It felt enormous, and yet somehow cramped and intimate. And it was hot. And humid. Felix had also once had the misfortune of falling for the classic “enter into a cave, turns out it’s a giant snake whose mouth someone propped open with a stick, run out screaming” trick, so his first instinct was to make sure the floor was solid.

It was, to his relief. Maybe a bit wet, but it was the ordinary dampness of cavern stone.

Another thing he noticed was the strange window that beckoned off in the distance, in the direction of the foyer Felix had left. Felix could see, what felt like infinitely far away thanks to the mirrored effect, a large keyhole. Through it, he briefly caught a glimpse of a pacing Ricard talking to the salt mephit.

“Well, this defies at least a few laws of physics,” Felix muttered to himself.

A card settled at his feet. Felix picked it up. Upon it danced an academic-looking woman with wild white hair wearing a lab coat. She, too, wore a jester cap, and seemed to be fretting with a series of equations that clearly didn’t add up.

“You don’t take scientific theory very seriously, do you?” he asked aloud, turning to the room’s native occupant.

In virtually all respects, the occupant resembled an ordinary human woman—albeit an oddly stationary one. She was dressed in a small miniskirt and a slim, form-fitting red top that made her prodigious assets quite plain to see. Her hair was a lovely black, contrasting with the red of her eyes and clothes, and her impossibly lush lips were painted a brilliant sunset crimson.

She had especially long and dainty fingers, Felix noticed. Almost like a doll’s hands. Porcelain. Perfect.

She smiled slightly at him, but said nothing. Instead, her right hand twitched, brandishing a single card.

Felix hesitated, then advanced. The card waved in front of him, catching his eye with its bright colors. He couldn’t help but be curious.

He took the card. She beamed.

His face went red. The card depicted the young woman in a very explicit position, totally naked, with a tight, drooling sex visibly on display, her lips pursed in a o-shape, and her left hand ornately detailed as it seemed to tickle the air. Her eyes were heavy-lidded in a look of suggestive desire. Three crimson keyhole shapes surrounded her.

Felix blinked.

“Well, that seems a bit much,” he said to himself. “But... if I’m not quite confused, should I assume you’re the Three of Locks?”

She batted her eyelashes at him.

He frowned. “This would be a lot easier if you could just speak, you know.”

She rolled her eyes. Her right hand flicked, and three cards seemed to appear from thin air. Felix took them.

As he did so, her fingers grazed his palm, and he flinched. It was surprisingly ticklish.

The first card depicted him once again, but in a rather unsettling situation: Drowning in what looked like mud, or some sort of amber goop. But he was not even trying to escape in this card. His eyes were filled with a hypnotic swirl. His tongue lolled out, and a disembodied hand was spooning something indistinct onto it.

Another hand dangled a pair of milky-white orbs before his eyes.

Two hands brandished feathers and tickled his ears.

A fifth hand held a rose beneath his nose.

“What a peculiar image,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “It doesn’t exactly answer my question, though. I guess the feathers are supposed to be hearing, so what about touch? You’re missing a sense, surely.”

His eyes flicked to the sitting woman, who smiled coyly and slipped the second card to the front. This card depicted her, but now instead of the visible pussy, hand and lips, three padlocks covered each. Six hands floated around her.

“This is an interesting deck,” he remarked. “This is, what, the Six of Senses? Are there noble cards? A king? A knave? A queen?”

She silently giggled as the third card slipped to the front. Two more followed suit. Felix stared at them uncertainly. He was sweating now; it was very hot in here.

Each card depicted him kneeling, open-mouthed, eyes glassy and heavy-lidded, before this fey... creature.

One showed his hand held daintily in hers as she appeared to tickle his palm. He bit his lip, remembering how her fingers had tickled him earlier from just a momentary touch. One showed his fingers immersed in her pussy as juices spilled all over it. It was drawn in startling detail. The third showed him kneeling, gazing up at her, as she leaned down and tenderly kissed him.

In each, she wore a majestic crown. In each, he wore a jester’s cap.

“Y-you know,” he murmured, straightening, “I don’t think I like this deck of yours very much.”

She pouted her lush lips up at him.

“So you’re the key,” he said to himself. “Or... the lock? The three locks. Three of Locks.” He started pacing, mind racing. “Hand, pussy, lips. The entrance door was like this, just less... er, sexual. Had to solve all three locks basically at once. It could be a trap, but... but I don’t feel like they would go to such trouble for a ‘lock’ that didn’t open. Sort of a, uh, lack of payoff to that joke. And their fairies could probably solve this easily.” He bit his lip. “No, this must be the real lock.”

He glanced back, eyes narrowed. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not a trap, right?”

She beamed and slowly shook er head. She waggled her fingers, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

Felix rubbed his palms. He could do this. It was just an ordinary lock, really, except for the strange things about it. And it wasn’t as though she could mind control him. This trap was probably designed for someone who could be mind controlled. Hypnotized by her touch. Brainwashed by pleasure that left mental defenses vulnerable. Not an ex-witchhunter.

He slowly advanced on the young lady, who bit her lip with excitement and slowly spread her legs. This caused the skirt to climb up and reveal a tight, shaven, already dripping pussy. She looked up at him with wide, almost needy eyes.

He reached down, settling his fingers between her legs. She did nothing—only smiled and nodded eagerly. He leaned down, his face inches from hers. He could feel her warm breath, but still she did not act.

Finally, carefully remembering the orientation of the cards, he took her left hand, leaned into the kiss, and slipped his finger into her dripping cunt.

How dangerous could it be?

* * *

It felt like she was devouring him, messily, desperately, and yet with perfect technique. Her lips were soft, wonderful, sensuous and wet. Even before her tongue had entered, nothing about this kiss felt chaste.

His knees felt weak as she instantly took control of the kiss, running her lips over his sensitive skin, and he felt himself spiraling deeper and deeper into her.

Then her tongue slipped between his lips, and she started to spiral into him. He moaned, leaning in closer, feeling the pleasure soaring inside him, the pure passion and power.

She moaned back.

* * *

Her pussy sucked at his fingers like a mouth, and before he knew it, he had ssliped two nside as he third stroked her clit. Hr juices tingled pleasurably on his skin. His fingers felt so... so sensitive. He mewled, unable to stop himself from rapidly pleasuring her as her pussy suckled at his fingers.

She mewled back.

* * *

Her fingers danced on his palm, faster than thought. Felix had always been more ticklish than he cared to admit to strangers—as one or two pickpockets had been mortified to discover—but her fingers told him she already knew, and somehow, it was even worse. Her fingers skittered like feathers across his palm, tickled the joints in his fingers, stroked along the lines. His hand shook, and she held it tightly, affording easier access with her incessant ticklish fingers.

He squeaked, overcome by the exquisite torment.

She giggled.

* * *

Through it all, as Felix half-knelt there, hands and lips lost to sensation, his mind was abuzz with new information.

He could see the locks. Or... could feel the locks. Almost like a temperature difference. He trembled with the effort of visualizing them. There, in her hand, right at the center of the palm. It was a childishly simple set of tumblers.

And her mouth! He needed to stick his tongue in, to kiss her back, to take control. It was so easy. A lock for an apprentice smith, not an experienced safecracker.

There, in her pussy, her clit. If stroked just right, slick and smooth and easy...

Dimly, he realized that what he needed to do was make the Keyhole Maiden come.

Pleasure. Pleasure was his three lockpicks here.

But how could he even hope to wield the lockpicks when she was already tumbling him into fragile ecstasy?

Desperately, he sped up his attentions to her clit. She started to whimper and moan against him, and her attentions on his fingers slowed down a little. His hand trembled, still recovering from the tickle onslaught.

Unfortunately, her kissing did not ease up. If anything, she was kissing more hungrily than ever, desperate to heighten the pleasure he was bringing her.

He was melting into her kiss, but he stroked faster. Had to distract her. Had to occupy her. Had to pleasure her.

Her fingers were still trickling along his palm in slow, smooth lines when his own fingers settled on her palm. He felt her gasp against him.

She started to pant, and he pressed the advantage, stroking her palm in his own spirals. Her hand twitched and trembled. Her hips were weakly bucking against his fingers.

He was trembling, too, desperately working her clit, building her. His tongue started to slip into her mouth, and her squeals took on a sharper and sharper pitch—

And she came. Juices spilled over his fingers, and his fingers were momentarily immersed in strange delights as her pussy rapidly suckled them all the way up to the knuckle. She squealed against him, trembling all over.

And in his pleasure-dazzled state, Felix thought he’d won. He’d picked the lock. It was over, and in his triumph, all he felt was soft, sweet pleasure.

He relaxed, just slightly.

And she struck. She started to devour his face with her luscious lips and questing tongue, wrapping her fingers in his hair and clutching him to her. He felt her purring with delight.

He could only whimper. She was so soft, so... so...

Her hand started to dance on his, again, retaking control. He was melting against her, shaking uncontrollably with barely-contained giggles. Those touches made him feel so weak, so... so... He couldn’t even think straight!

He felt her laughing against him. His knees quaked.

Came too fast, he thought, his heart pounding. I need to... to edge her, to pick them all at once. Need to—

As soon as he’d thought it, the thought was replaced by delicious, sparkling pleasure as her pussy suckled his fingers up to the base, covering them with that wonderful, tingly, sucking sensation.

His cock, he realized with growing nervousness, was beginning to bulge against his trousers. He was practically cumming from this.

His heart was pounding. The stimulation was driving him wild. He was lost in the kiss, drifting into space.

And the worst part was, it wasn’t hypnosis. He was fully in control! And still he was helpless against the way she made him feel.

Her pussy stroked his fingers. Her fingers stroked his palm. And her lips... her kiss seemed to suck all the energy and will out of him, replacing it all with pure, erotic touch. He was left drifting in her arms, drowning in stimulation.

And she was laughing. Not cruelly. Just... laughing. She owned him. He was practically swooning into her arms, sinking into her lap.

She was cumming again, and he limply cursed himself for his weakness. Her orgasms offered no respite. Her pussy just sped up, emptied his mind of any thought of taking advantage, and then she went right back to kissing, her tongue exploring his mouth, her fingers stroking his palm, drawing little spirals that drained all thoughts from him and made him nice and submissive and hungry for more. Needy. Horny. Addicted.

He felt her unbuckling his belt. Felt his pants sinking to the ground, and realized he was now sinking half-naked into her lap. His cock was at full attention, ready for her.

If she touched him, he realized with dread, he would melt completely. He was too sensitive now. Too sensitive to his lover’s sensuous affections.

But then something occurred to him:

Judging by the way she grasped and gasped, the Keyhole Maiden was just as sensitive as he was.

Breathing heavily, he struggled once again to take control. His fingers started twitching and grazing over her hand, frantically, desperately. Her fingers seemed to react, flinching back, and he pressed this tiny advantage.

As his cock continued to throb from the stimulation, he moaned. But he thrust his tongue into her. She let out a squeak of surprise, and he leaned in, trying to overpower her with his sheer hunger. He harnessed his lust into energy, kissing her desperately, not even thinking about picking the lock—just trying to pleasure her...

She was starting to whine, faster and faster, rocking back and forth against his caresses. But now her fingers were descending down his chest, and he whimpered with every touch.

This creature was coming to life, and soon her fingers would touch his manhood, and he would stat to cum uncontrollably. And he would be hers. He would never be able to leave this pleasure. It would feel too good to even think about the notion.

For a moment, he was lost in that fantasy.

But then he started tracing the spirals in her palm. She was whimpering, flinching away. He kissed her hungrily, messily, overpowering her. He slid his fingers in and out in slow motion, edging her, barely keeping himself from stroking her clit until she screamed. Slowly, he was gaining ground.

But it still felt so good. His efforts ebbed and flowed unevenly as she poured pleasure back into him, stimulation repeatedly overpowering his frail mind like the repeating waves of the rising tide.

He felt himself wearing out, felt his cock throbbing. He needed it so bad. Needed to feel her touch. To feel her. To feel.

To only feel.

And then her finger touched the tip of his cock, and he realized he was out of time.

But as his cum started to shoot out, her eyes widened, and the Three of Locks screamed.

His hands and lips went into autopilot even as hers went limp. He kept kissing, kept stroking and spiraling, as she thrashed and moaned. She was cumming.

She was unlocking.

The pleasure wrenched through him, made him moan and scream with her, but her finger had already fallen away, and she was squeezing her breasts through the cloth. Her eyes were wide, tearful, almost transcendent in her erotic bliss.

Felix heard three clicking noises.

He fell off the living lock, still twitching a little bit, clutching his tingling hands. His cock kept twitching as the last bits of cum dribbled out of it. Everything about him felt unbearably sensitive. He could barely breathe.

But when he finally looked up at her, she was back to her stationary pose. She had a disappointed pout, and a single card hung suspended in the air before her.

He staggered to his feet, pulling his pants up—he didn’t dare try to clean himself off, not when his whole body was still so sensitive—and took the card.

The adventurer blinked.

The card depicted the Keyhole Maiden lying back on the ground, moaning and wriggling, face flushed bright pink.

A single topaz ring dangled above her head on the card. An Ace of Rings, apparently.

Felix blinked, then looked up.

The Maiden was gone. He was in front of the keyhole-shaped door once more.

He frowned. “Funnier and funnier and funnier.”

Unsure what else to do, Felix slipped the card into the slot.

There was a whirring noise.

The keyhole door dissolved into smoke, and there was the room again. Only the Keyhole Maiden was gone. In the chair sat a large cupcake with pink frosting, covered in little sugary sprinkles in the shape of hands. Underneath the cupcake was the same card he’d just slipped into the door.

Felix advanced on the cupcake and picked it up, eying it critically. “The sprinkles are a little creepy,” he said to thin air, “but I suppose it’s still a nice little reward.” He took the card as well, feeling oddly sentimental.

He then turned to the primary new feature in this room: Another spiral staircase, this one very, very tall, leading up into darkness.

He sighed.

“And it’s nice to have something to eat before I get going,” he muttered, taking his first step up the stairs. Hopefully, it would all get easier from here.

* * *