[Spirit of Lust 2] Chapters 474 & 475. (Patreon)

Chapter 474: Prom and summer.

“Yeah, enough of all this doom and gloom!” Mila said, smacking the table. “What’s the point of anything if we’re not enjoying ourselves? I mean, sure, talking about this future stuff is important, but we need to have fun things to look forward to as well, right?”

“Uh. Mila is actually saying something wise. Time really does fly by, huh?” Grace said teasingly, but nodded in agreement with her friend. “But yeah, she’s right. We have two big things to look forward to in the near future. Prom and summer vacation.”

“We ARE going to prom, right, guys?” Mila asked us, her tone leaving only the smallest space to argue.

Noelle chuckled with a wry smile. “Do we have to? I’m not good with big parties.”

“Same here,” Alice said. “I don’t know how to dance. I’ll just make a fool of myself.”

“We’ll just have to learn,” I told her with a resigned smile of my own. “I’m not big on parties, either, and I always thought I’d just ignore prom, but…” I moved my gaze to Mila, then Grace, then Sarah. “They like parties and prom is basically our last big high school party, right?”

“Relax, it’s not like that exaggerated stuff you see in the movies,” Sarah said.

Noelle tilted her head, confused. “You’ve… been to prom before?”

“No, but Grace helped organize the one from last year.”

“Oh? Did you?” I asked her.

“One of my friends was on the committee and asked me for help. Ended up doing more than I was asked, but it was kind of fun. Things went smoothly that year and I like to believe it was thanks to me,” Grace said proudly.

“Prom will be here in our own gym,” Alice said. “Some students ask for it to be at a fancier venue but the teachers argue that we have more than enough space, so we better use it. They’re hiring a DJ, there will be dancing, some food, tables for groups, soft drinks and I think even a few contests. The classic voting from prom queen and king, too.”

I winced at that last part, then looked around the room to all the girls. “W-Who do I vote for?”

“Not me, please,” Noelle said. “I’m very close to fulfilling my goal of going through high school without drawing much attention.”

“Aww, come on, Noelle! You’d make for a great prom queen!” Mila encouraged. “Besides, nobody REALLY cares much about that stuff. I think I remember something about the year before last. There was this really fat guy who thought everyone in school hated him, so two senior classes agreed to get him elected prom king along with the girl he liked. The guy had a good time, though I don’t know if anything happened between him and the girl.”

“Oh, I heard that, too!” Alice said, smiling. “They ended up meeting in university, apparently. They’re dating now.”

Sarah clapped her hands once. “And everyone lived happily ever after!”

“How do you even know that?” Mila asked, laughing.

“The girl’s younger sister is our treasurer. I’m telling you. People come to me with gossip I don’t ask for and I don’t know why.”

“I’m going to make a bet,” I said. “My sister is going to be prom queen.”

The girls went quiet, looked at each other, then collectively went, “Yeah, sounds about right.”

I mean, Isabelle and I don’t hang out much at school. Or outside school. Even if we had fixed things between us, we still made our lives separately. What do you think she does everyday? Well, she has like a million other friends.

“Anyway, that stuff aside, we can just go to prom as a group, right?” Sarah said. “Let’s go, dress up, have fun, mess around for the last time in high school, then leave and have our own celebration at a nice hotel.”

“Yeah! I already have a dress ready for prom!” Mila said, beaming.

Wha…?

Oh.

Oh no.

Ooooh nooo!

“Hold up! Mila, you… You’re not actually wearing that, right?” I asked her.

Mila burst out laughing, even holding her stomach. “Holy crap! You remember!?”

“What? What did we miss?” Grace asked, for once totally out of the loop.

“Our first date,” I told her. “Mila took me shopping and she tried on this seriously risque dress with a very low cut. She said she’d wear it to prom but I obviously thought she was joking.”

“Mila, you slut,” Sarah said, laughing.

“So… I can’t wear it? I thought you liked it!” Mila said, smirking teasingly.

“Can I veto that dress? She’s gonna upstage us all,” Grace said. “Unless…” She looked down at her own chest and heaved her tits.

“You know what? Wear whatever you like,” I told them, raising my hands in defeat. “Guys are gonna stare at you no matter what you wear. Just remember this is still technically a school thing.”

“What he said,” Alice said, smirking. “I’ll go for something modest and wear my see-through underwear for later that night.”

“Okay, fine…” Mila sighed. “So that’s prom. Anyone have any ideas for summer? You know, beyond crashing Sarah’s pool.”

Sarah and Alice shared a knowing look. “We kind of do,” the president said.

“There’s a resort where my mom used to work. In the middle of the mountains, fresh air, indoor and outdoor pools, game rooms, spa, gourmet meals…” Sarah said as she listed everything with her fingers. “But just before that there’s a one-day hike. A fucking gorgeous path through forests and green hills, passing by rivers and ponds and watching the white waterfalls… You guys NEED to see it.”

Noelle smiled at first, then began to fidget with a conflicted expression. “Um… That sounds incredible but also expensive. Shouldn’t we… You know, save our money?”

Alice sighed. “That’s what I thought too, but…”

“My parents want us to go,” Sarah said, “Mom insists she’ll get us a group discount and my dad says he’ll pay for the whole thing. A graduation gift, he says.”

“Okay, even I think that’s a bit too much,” Grace said, grimacing. “I think I could convince my dad to pay for part of it too, if not for the argument I’m sure we’re going to have. Can’t exactly ask for favors now.”

“Not to mention…” I stared. “Well, I don’t want to leave Diana out of those plans.”

“Of course!” Noelle said. “That goes without saying.”

Sarah sighed. “Well, give it some thought. If not that, then we can rent a cheaper cabin and go to the beach. It’s far, but it’d be cheaper than the resort.”

“I still have my savings from work,” I said. “I’m sure we can do something fun. I’m just not sure that luxury resort is… right for us right now.”

But then again, if working with Luke went well, then… maybe we could afford it. I needed to know a more specific number for how much the house was gonna cost, first.

But yeah, Mila had hit the nail in the head before. We needed things to look forward to, and boy was I looking forward to summer.

************

Chapter 475: Potion making.

That Friday I went home right after school to get changed into regular clothes, played with Cake for about 10 minutes to let time pass, then went out again. My destination? Pleasure Lake Hotel.

The day had finally come.

I was meeting Luke and his team there for the big project. It was time to begin the experiments and see if I would actually be getting the job that would make my dreams a reality.

Honestly, I was nervous. Luke was confident I was the key to his little project, but what if I couldn’t do it? What if…

Yeah, just stop. Been in that ‘what if’ mentality a million times before. I still fall into it from time to time, but I’d gotten better at just pushing through it. You never know what’ll happen until you do the thing.

Pleasure Lake Hotel was closed that day. No guests and no regular employees, meaning Diana wasn’t there, either. Luke said that alchemy was generally a very safe process unless one was dealing with already dangerous substances, but that it was better to be sure. Didn’t quite understand what that meant until later that day.

I called him when I was outside the back door and he went to open it for me. He was dressed in something more casual than the suits I usually saw him in yet still noticeably elegant. A pink shirt with the first button undone and his sleeves rolled up and black corduroy pants.

He opened the door for me with a smile already on his face. “Oliver, right on time! Excellent! Come on in!”

He looked excited, almost like a kid ready to open Christmas presents.

“The others will be here shortly,” Luke said, guiding me along the hallways and down to a basement. “For now, let me explain what we’re about to do.”

We went into a… Um… I want to call it a lab, but really it looked more like a kitchen. A restaurant kitchen. There were empty glass jars, flasks and test tubes but everything seemed recently bought. There were small opened boxes on the counter with things like roots, herbs and leaves. There were also a couple of jars of honey and two bottles of… liquid with dead snakes inside them.

“Um…”

“Ingredients,” Luke explained with a chuckle. He walked over to the counter and pointed at the roots. “Red ginseng, reported to have strong aphrodisiac effects.” He pointed to the leaves. “Coca. Yes, the leaves used to make cocaine, but widely used on its own in South American countries. When chewed, it acts as a mild stimulant, suppresses hunger, thirst, pain, fatigue, and I’m told it helps with the headaches and nausea that come from being at extreme heights.” He pointed at the bottle with the snake in it. “Snake wine. It’s found in many Asian countries and it’s used for its medicinal properties, the enhancement of sexual performance being one of them.” He pointed to some herbs, now with a pretty goofy smile. “And then there’s the one with my favorite name, the horny goat weed, so named when farmers saw the effects it had on goats who ate them.”

“Oooh. Okay, now it starts to make more sense.”

“You see, Oliver, alchemy is, in concept, very simple. You use magical energy to extract and strengthen the effects naturally found in the ingredients. Technically speaking, sexual performance enhancement potions already exist. They are made using these same ingredients we have. However…”

“They’re not enough?”

Luke chuckled. “Not for the skill it takes to make them and the price they have to be sold for. They also have some undesirable after-effects. Nausea and headaches like the worst of hangovers. Basically, they’re not worth using, and therefore not worth making. But that’s where your abilities come in. See, the theory is that sexual energy will act as a sort of glue, harmonizer and enhancer, stabilizing the potion, removing the nasty side effects and increasing the potency by 20 times.”

I nodded in understanding. This was all good to know. “So we’re not working blind here.”

“Haha! Of course not. I wasn’t twiddling my thumbs while I looked for someone like you. I was getting ready. That includes finding the skilled alchemist who will be working with us.”

Now… I know I’ve told you all a lot of things. Private things, intimate things, personal things. I’ve gone into very explicit detail on the things I’ve done with the girls I love, even. However, I don’t feel very comfortable telling you about the two alchemists we worked with.

Don’t get me wrong. They’re super sweet people that taught me plenty of things, and that’s why I’d rather not talk about them. They are more deeply connected to the supernatural underworld than I am and I think it’s safer to keep their names out of my ramblings. You know, just in case. Luke is in a similar position but he doesn’t give a damn what I say about him.

Well, what’s important is that the professional alchemists arrived, introductions were made and we quickly got to work. I saw them gather the ingredients, set them aside in small portions inside jars and flasks and do… Well, they worked their magic. I saw their hands glow as they handled the components and felt a strange heat that was oddly familiar. I suppose that was magical energy. But hey, I was there to work, too. So what was my job? It was to put the finishing touches on the concoction the alchemists had made. That meant it was Frey’s turn.

On the counter, right in front of me, was a flask with a clear, greenish liquid. Following the alchemists’ instructions, I put my hands around it. The actual magic was up to Frey, so I did as we had agreed to. I was ready. I closed my eyes, emptied my head of thoughts and felt like I lost consciousness for an unknown amount of time. I saw nothing, felt nothing and thought nothing for what might as well have been a split second. It was extremely unsettling, but when I came to, everything was exactly the same. Everything but the flask in front of me. The greenish liquid had turned a purplish blue.

“That’s the reaction we were hoping for, correct?” Luke asked the alchemists with an excited, hopeful smile.

“Not quite,” one of them said. “According to first-hand testimonies, the latest working vials of the lust elixir were a deep purple. We’ll need to make several vials using different concentrations of components and sexual energy and later test them on the rats to see the results.”

Luke sighed, composed himself and nodded in agreement. “Right. We knew that. Oliver, how are you feeling? Think you can do that again?”

Honestly, I didn’t even know what I did. Given the reactions of the people around me it couldn’t have been anything flashy. Frey had said she would temporarily take control of my body to work her magic through me, and after seeing what the alchemists were doing, I assumed it was something like that.

I checked myself. I didn’t feel tired or feel any sort of discomfort. “Yes, I can do it again.”

We worked for about three hours and ended up with six vials of differently colored liquids. Just being in the room and hearing the alchemists talk helped me get an idea of what they were doing, but I didn’t look like it was something I’d be able to replicate without specialized training. Still, this was all good information to have.

The alchemists tested the different products on the lab rats they brought. Actual lab rats, by the way. The effects were… nearly instantaneous and very similar from potion to potion. 

While Luke and the alchemists took notes on the potency, duration and effects of the different potions, I was… um… just a little put off watching the results. I mean… Rat sex. Somehow I think Diana, country girl that she was, wouldn’t bat an eye at seeing this stuff. Me? Not a fan.

We finished our first day of experimentation with the alchemists taking the rats with them. They wanted to look for side effects that could pop up hours after consumption or after repeated doses, all in the name of safety.

Regardless, something was confirmed. My powers, Frey’s powers, worked the way Luke and the alchemists expected them to. In Luke’s words:

“Even if the potion ends up having unexpected side effects and it’s unfit for consumption, you’ve done your part, Oliver,” He told me. “What I needed from you was to provide the final key ingredient, and you have. You will be paid what I promised you, even if this whole thing ends up a failure. Of course, I’m confident it won’t, so I hope you’ll keep working with us during experimentation and eventual production.” He laughed and patted my back. “Take it from me! Having a harem isn’t cheap, and yours is bigger than mine! Hahahah!”

I chuckled along, if a bit awkwardly.

“So? A house, was it? Are you sure that’s what you want?”

I nodded. “Yes. That’s my goal right now.”

“Then we better get started as soon as possible. Leave it to me. I’ll gather a bunch of options for you and your girls to look through. You’ll have your house before you enter university, Oliver.”

And Luke Allen kept his word. Always, has, really. Looking back, I feel like a bit of a fool for not trusting him from the start, but I had no way of knowing he was actually so trustworthy.

Now… There was something else I had to do that day. Something that was, believe it or not, more important to me than a job paying for my new house.

I exited the hotel through the back door and went to a nearby parking lot. There, Diana was waiting for me, leaning against her car, fidgeting nervously, dressed in a white sleeveless blouse and blue jeans.

With a sympathetic smile, I went up to her, hugged her and kissed her before asking her a question. 

“Ready to meet my mother?”