[Spirit of Lust 2] Chapters 831 & 832. (Patreon)

Chapter 831: Diana officially moves in.

That Monday, as planned, Diana and I woke up at around 6:00 am and left the house by 7:00 am. We went over to her house to oversee the loading of the moving truck she’d hired to get her things. Since her plan was to rent the house, she wasn’t moving everything. Just some important furniture, plants and boxes with everything from clothes to old notebooks and decorative items. She stood there in the living room, watching as her house emptied out, leaving only things like couches, tables and a few kitchen appliances we already had at home.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, standing next to her.

She sighed and reached to take my hand. I held it firmly, reassuringly. “Yeah,” she said. “I told you I’m not too attached to the house itself. I only lived here for like seven years. It’s just… shocking to see, I guess. And counter intuitive, in a way, she chuckled. “Leaving a house I own to live in yours.”

“It’s your home, too, if you let it be. You were in the plans before you even agreed to move in.”

“Not to mention I already made up my mind.” She shook her head. “Don't worry. It’s a strange feeling, leaving this place behind, but I’m excited to live with you all.” She then smirked, squeezed my hand and whispered. “How much time do you give Fern before she wants to move in with us?”

It was an awkward question because, if it were up to me, she’d be moving in tomorrow, but… “A year?” I said sheepishly.

Diana scoffed. “Six months, and I’m being generous. It’d be easier for her since she’s living with her parents and they support her.”

I guess that’s true. Fern did try to live alone for six months. The loneliness and the stress overwhelmed her, which was the reason she moved back with her parents, who welcomed her back with open arms. With that in mind… I’d have to guess that Fern wouldn’t move in with us until she felt like she could stand on her own two feet.

We drove back home with the moving truck following behind us. They left everything outside the house, meaning it was up to us to move things in. By then, the girls were awake and they’d be the ones moving in boxes and placing Diana’s framed paintings, potted plants and other decorations around the house. A lot of those went to the main entrance, which made it look a lot more welcoming than before.

The only one not helping with that was Sarah, whose job was, instead, to help me leverage some of the bigger furniture as we took it up the stairs. Thankfully, I could carry the weight on my own, but holding things like her wardrobe was a bit too awkward due to size alone. Sarah helped me by keeping it from falling off my back.

“We should’ve disassembled it first…” she told me.

“It’s old and glued together, so…”

“Ah.”

We carried things to what would be Diana’s official bedroom, the same one that used to be her unofficial bedroom that barely saw any use. She would normally sleep with me whenever she came over, but now she’d need her own space. Which reminded me that I’d have to tell her to take her shirts and underwear she’d been leaving here from my own drawers.

We had a late lunch, but we still did something a bit more interesting than usual. I made homemade pizza for us. Five, to be precise. I’d been wanting to try my hand at it and Diana’s welcome party was a good excuse. Making the dough took me a while and it wasn’t perfect… but the hunger from the work we put in made up for it. There wasn’t a slice left.

“Ugh, I want to take a nap…” Grace said, leaning against Alice’s shoulder as we sat in the living room after eating. “I’m tired and full. I don’t want to go to university tomorrow, either…”

“A nap does sound good,” Fern said, stretching her arms and shoulders. She looked more away than the others, though. “But then I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, and I have classes early tomorrow. Not to mention a shift at the coffee shop right after.”

“Mila’s about to fall asleep already,” Diana said, chuckling while looking down at Mila, who was laying on the couch with her head on Diana’s lap. The older woman smiled and gently moved Mila’s bangs out of her face. “She did move a lot today.”

“I’m not sleeping…” Mila said with the voice of someone just seconds away from passing out.

Noelle also let out a big yawn. “I’ll hold out, but I think I’ll go to bed really early tonight.”

“You girls wouldn't be this tired if you worked out three times a week instead of just one,” Sarah told them.

“I’m still going to argue that sex is a fairly good workout,” Alice said, her giggle interrupted by a yawn of her own.

I looked at my phone to check the time. I didn’t want it to be, but it was already 5:30 pm. So against my own wishes… “Hey, Fern? Should I drive you home now?”

Fern grimaced, too. “It’s that time, huh?”

“You sure you can’t stay until tomorrow?” Alice asked her. “We’ll all be leaving early, anyway.”

Fern shook her head. “I didn’t bring another change of clothes, or my notebooks and textbooks. Besides… I don’t want to impose anymore.”

“Can someone smack her on the head so she’ll finally understand she’s not imposing,” Grace said with a yawn. It’s true what they say, they’re contagious.

Noelle was the one who stood up, gave Fern a harmless smack on top of the head while she was on her seat before hugging her from behind.

Fern giggled. “Alright, sorry. I’ll stop. I do need to go back home, though.”

“Okay. Shall we?” It’s not that I was in a hurry for her to leave. Rather… it would be a two hour trip to and back.

“Yes.”

“Oliver,” Alice called my name, reached into her pocket and lobbed a key towards me. I caught it… and noticed it was the key to her car. “A promise is a promise.”

I got a little nervous, but I admit I got excited. “I’ll be careful with it.”

“You know, in Alice-Speak, that means you two are already married,” Sarah said.

“Jealous I beat you to the punch?” Alice teased.

“A little, yeah,” Sarah admitted with a chuckle.

Fern said goodbye to everyone and the two of us left the house in Alice’s RX-7.

Honestly never expected this day to come… and the pressure of driving her precious car was making me reconsider ever borrowing it again.

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

Chapter 832: Driving Fern back home.

Call me Captain Obvious, but driving a powerful sports car felt a lot different from my bulky, slow van. Can’t say it wasn’t tempting to push a little harder on the gas, but I thank my mom she raised me well and I’m not an idiot.

“You’ve been to the mountain pass with Alice, too, right?” Fern asked me as we drove to her house. “Wasn’t it cool?”

“Yeah, it was. She’s amazing, isn’t she?” I said, feeling extremely proud of something I had nothing to do with. I guess I just like when people praise my girls. “Speaking of whom…” Fern flinched, laughed awkwardly and looked out the window to avoid my eyes. I chuckled. “I’m happy, you know?”

Fern sighed, giggled shyly and nodded. “Thank you. So am I. Um… I feel a bit childish thinking about it this way, but I really want to be friends with everyone. I wasn’t expecting… sex to help with that. I was scared it would do the opposite.”

I nodded. “I don’t know if it has to do with Frey’s powers or not, but… intimacy helps us grow closer. It’s been like that from the start, now that I think about it.”

“I’m… glad it does,” Fern said, grinning and biting her lip. “I end up thinking about sex all week and get really horny. Doing that stuff with Alice and Noelle… Do you really not mind?”

“I’d mind if it was with people outside our group,” I admitted. “But if it’s within… I’m more than okay with it. Hell, it even takes some pressure off my shoulders,” I told her, laughing.

Fern laughed with me. “You really should look into learning to make a clone, then.”

“I told you, I don’t even know if that’s possible. That, and I only really have one other person I can ask. Frey loved the idea, but doesn’t even know how to start going about it.”

“Boo…” She pouted, crossing her arms.

I chuckled. “You’re feeling more comfortable with all this magic stuff, then?”

“I guess I am,” she said. “It just… sounds fun more than anything else. Although I understand why you’d be worried about having kids who could use magic.”

I nodded. “Luke doesn’t have kids. I wonder if he doesn’t because he knows about this.”

Fern smiled. “You want kids, though, right?”

I grumbled. “...Eventually.”

“Boys? Girls? How many?”

“I don’t know how many, but all boys,” I answered firmly.

“Oh. I didn’t expect that. Why all boys?”

“Because if I have even one daughter, I fear I might become a murderer if something ever happened to her…” I groaned. “I keep thinking about the things you girls have had to go through and it makes me believe I actually do have in me the capacity to do terrible things.”

Fern sighed with a small, amused smile. “And you wouldn’t do that for your boys?”

“They’d be fine after a pep talk and a pat on the back. And if they were the ones causing harm I’d… take heavy disciplinary action.”

“Oliver…”

“I’m joking, of course. Mostly. Both boys and girls have the capacity to do damage to others. I suppose that’s where raising them comes into play. And genes, if you subscribe to that theory, but even if it’s true that children inherit some of their parents’ personalities, then I don’t have a lot to worry about. Well, not much except that they might turn out too much like me. God, I hoped they’d take more after their mothers…”

Fern laughed some more, even though I was very serious about that last part.

“Hey, Oliver…” Fern spoke, sobering up and getting a bit serious, yet still smiling. “Do you ever… wish you could go back in time? To do things differently?”

“...” I had to give it some thought, only to realize the thought itself had never crossed my mind. “I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it, but now that you ask… I suppose it would be tempting.”

How different would my life be if I could go back a few tears with this level of confidence? If I could just tell myself to push through my fears, to understand that most of them were just irrational and knowing that the world won’t end just because I stuttered during a conversation?

“Right?” she said softly. “Being with you, hanging out with the girls, and mainly going to therapy… It’s made me understand so much. About people, about how we function. Sometimes I really wish I could go back and do something differently, say something different. It hasn’t been too long, but since around the time I started working at the coffee shop… I feel like I’ve grown a bit, and that the person I am now would handle things differently.”

I chuckled and nodded. “Yeah… I can relate. But we are where we are because of the people we were before, right? I’d be scared of a butterfly effect, where doing one thing differently would make us end up somewhere else.”

Fern giggled. “I suppose you’re right. Maybe I never would’ve met you.”

“Or maybe you would’ve had a boyfriend already,” I told her.

She gasped. “Or worse yet! You could be living a Christian, monogamous life!”

I shuddered. “Okay, I wasn’t liking this game but now I REALLY don’t want to think about it.”

Fern laughed again. A beautiful sound I was hoping to get very used to.

We finally reached her house, and I stopped by for a minute to say hello to Mr. Carlos and his wife. Felt like I had to, especially since Fern told me her dad missed not seeing me at the gym. I admit I also missed seeing him. Lifting weights is not the same without him yelling at me. Also, it’s not that I don’t trust Sarah as my spotter… but she can’t lift half of what Mr. Carlos can.

After sharing a cup of tea, I texted the girls and asked them if they needed me to buy something on the way. With a reply that there was nothing to buy, I began making my way back home.

Something delayed me some solid 20 minutes, though. An accident on the road. A car had apparently crashed against a utility pole. It seemed recent, and the police and an ambulance closed the road for longer than I expected.

While I waited, though, I thought I saw something that caught my eye. A woman riding slowly past me on a motorcycle, going the opposite direction. What caught my eye was that the bike looked just like the one Alex and I had been working on.

…

Yeah, alright. It was the bike… and the fact that the woman riding it was wearing an almost skin-tight riding suit that showed her slender and curvy figure. It was still mostly the bike, though, I promise.