Chapter Text
Oh, blessed status quo: they’re arguing again all the way up the hill to the disposal facility.
“What do you mean, there might be streaking?”
“It’s not my fault!” Jill snaps, shoving a junk-laden wheelbarrow along. Lithe and wiry, she has to put forth so much effort that she looks like a strongman pushing a car. “You just ditched out and left me with the mop! I was still dusting!”
Between them, Piper casts a thousand-yard stare at the opened shutter up ahead, and sighs with the weight of a small mountain.
“I didn’t ditch out, you little shit,” growls Ellen. “Did you conveniently forget how Rina needed me for the disposal job?”
“Oh, now you’re hiding behind Rina?” The goalposts are always moving. To argue with Jill Dehré is to chase the endless horizon. Slippery, hard to pin down. “Do you ever fight your own battles, Ellen?”
“Do you wanna find out for yourself?”
Piper grits her teeth, knuckles tightening around the wheelbarrow’s handles.
“Oooooh, scary shark. Talking a lotta shit for somebody who sleeps as much as–” Abruptly, the lilting sneer turns tentative; Jill cocks her head, twintails bouncing, as she watches her colleague stop to push a large crate from the detritus. “...What’re you doing?”
“Last time we came here, there was a power short and the door closed on us,” Ellen grunts, bringing the crate underneath the shutter’s threshold with steady shoves. “Just making sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“...Ah. Right, makes sense.” A beat, and then they're back to normal: “Last thing I want is to be stuck in here with you.”
She recognizes statement that for precisely what it is, and has to fight to suppress her grin mid-retort. “Oh, word? Why, is there something you’re scared of, Jill?”
The other Thiren opens her mouth to retort, but a sudden, clanging echo of metal makes them both jump as Piper dumps her wheelbarrow into the landfill, significantly harder and hastier than necessary. She turns stiffly on her heel and sets her fists on her hips, glaring at the two maids.
“Can the two of you please dump out the trash and let us get outta here?” Her good-natured drawl sounds strained to the absolute limits of civility. “The sooner we get it done, the sooner we can get back on the road.”
Jill rolls her eyes. “Easy, Grandma, we’re–”
At last, the dam bursts. “Now!” orders Piper, stamping a foot hard enough to make the pair jump in alarm. “Quit dancin’ around and get it done!”
The wise fear the anger of a gentle trucker. Both maids scramble to get their wheelbarrows hauled, nearly colliding in their haste to get to the edge and tip the payloads over. So sudden and distracting is the chaos that they don’t notice the lights flickering at first, and it’s only when the walls begin to groan and tremble again that Ellen pulls back from the landfill’s precipice and realizes what’s about to happen.
“Another power surge,” she says. “It’s okay, the crate will–”
On cue, the shutter bangs loose and drops like a guillotine onto the crate…splitting through the corrupted rot in a burst of splintered wood and purple sparks. With a crash like a gavel falling, it slams back into the floor and plunges the room into darkness once again.
A heartbeat passes, and then she hears Jill’s familiar trill next to her: “...Awesome, Ellen. Great plan. Ten outta ten.”
“Will you shut the hell up?” Whipping out her phone, Ellen activates the flashlight and shines it around - yup, sure enough, an identical situation to last time. “I didn’t realize it’d do that, okay? I thought the crate would keep it blocked!”
“Why would you think that?” the other Thiren hisses at her. “You don’t even know how long it’s been here, getting all grodey and corrupted!”
“And? I didn’t see you offering any genius ideas!”
“Enough,” says Piper, firmly enough to make them both zip it. “Look, there ain’t any sense arguing over whose fault it is. Everybody’s tryin’ their best here. Now, Lucy’ll send a rescue team once she realizes we haven’t come back, so there’s no call for worry.” She plods across the disposal room and finds an overturned locker to sit down on. “No sense gettin’ all worked up while we wait for rescue.”
Annoyance prickles at Ellen’s awareness, not just at the octobrat but at herself for not making absolutely sure she’d securely propped the shutter up. Maybe she should’ve pinned her shears in there instead? But then how would she get them out for the trip back? It doesn’t matter; either way, they’re stuck in here again, and to her frustration it’s without Rina, meaning it’s also without their means of escape last time.
She storms over to the vent in the wall, where they sent the Bangboo through last time. A foolish, delusional move, as if it might somehow have transformed in the past hour. Nope - still not wide enough to accommodate her, or even an average person. Piper might be able to theoretically manage it, but that sounds like utter claustrophobia hell, not to mention the chances of the whole thing going nightmarishly wrong.
“Well, we don’t have Anastella or Drusilla to go through here and reactivate the shutter this time,” she announces, “so I guess we don’t have much of a choice but to wait. How long do you think it’ll be?”
“Mmmm…” Pausing to yawn, Piper stretches out and unfolds like a slinky onto the locker’s surface. “Probably about two hours, if I had to guess. Another thirty minutes for help to actually arrive.”
No… Ice creeps into Ellen’s veins, cruel realization stealing the breath from her lungs. Seriously? Hours here, trapped in this little room with these two, waiting for somebody to show up and break them out? It’s not a death sentence, but it might actually be worse. She’s got to deal with all the worst parts of Jill (which is most of them), and with Piper here, she won’t be able to enjoy the best part (which, of course, is making the other maid eat her words). This might actually be the kind of scenario that drives her out of her mind.
Strangely, Jill is quiet for the moment. She’s crouched by a pile of refuse, tentacles wrapped corset-like around her lithe body, lips pressed thinly together. Her eyes dart to the vent in the wall as Ellen watches, some unseen calculus running between those bleached twintails.
“Anyway,” continues Piper, who has pillowed her arms under her head and gotten into position for a comfortable nap, “since it’ll be a while, lil’ ol’ me is gonna recharge. I suggest you girls find a nice spot to curl up, and the wait’ll be over before you know it.”
Ellen finds another crate and (after carefully testing it with a palm) sits down on the edge, letting her tail spread out over its surface. The temptation to follow Piper into blissful rest is tempting, considering how much energy she’s used pushing that wheelbarrow up here from the truck. Maybe she could afford to take just a short–
“No, fuck this.” Jill shoots upright in an instant, storming across the room in furious mincing steps. “I’m not gonna sit here and wait two hours to go back to Cheesevana or whatever it’s called.”
Somewhere in the dark, Ellen hears Piper let out a quiet noise of anguish. Slightly muffled - she probably has her hands over her face.
“I mean, it’s not like we have a lot of options,” she says, not wanting to argue for once. “Unless you spot a way out that the rest of us missed, we don’t have much choice but to wait.”
“And then we’ll have to finish everything we haven’t already done,” the other girl counters, “which means, what, overtime? Gross. I’d rather die. Lemme look around.”
Ellen’s head snaps up; she opens her mouth to argue, but a second later, the power lurches back to life and sterile fluorescent light floods dimly back into their little space. At least they can see what they’re working with now, even if the door is shorted out again. She stands up and crosses the room, gesturing to the circular air duct they used earlier.
“Take a look.” There’s a challenging note in her dulcet voice - never doubt me again - as the two of them survey the opening in the wall. “The ghosts fit through just fine, but none of us stand a chance. I mean, maybe if–”
“Not in a thousand years,” says Piper.
“–alright, none of us stand a chance.”
“Tch, speak for yourself.” Leaning in, Jill begins to carefully examine the duct opening. Ellen watches her bend over the vent; her maid’s apron rides up to expose a strip of pale flesh in one of her uniform’s side slits, and there’s a flash of pink as her tongue swipes over her lips in concentration. At last, she straightens with a grimace: “Okay. I, um. I can do it.”
Ellen does a double-take between the other girl and the duct. There is no way in hell. It’s just not possible, like… maybe Jill can fit in there, but it’ll end up like one of those cave diving disaster videos that Rina likes to watch on Inter-Knot.
“...No the hell you can’t,” she says flatly. “C’mon, look at it.”
Jill shakes her head. “If I can get my head and shoulders in, I can get the rest of me through,” she says, a surprising confidence in her tone - but then, looking down at her uniform, it falters. “Uh, although…ah, hell…”
Following her gaze, Ellen’s brow furrows - until at last the realization sinks in. The frilly skirt, with the buckles and ruffles…even if Jill can fit in the duct, she can’t squeeze through it with her uniform on. It’ll have to come off before she even tries. And because of what they got up to earlier…
…Oh, shit. And Piper’s sitting right here.
“It isn’t…look, you don’t have to,” she manages, trying to quell the unexpected rush of heat that rises in her core. “We can wait it out. It’s just two hours, I don’t mind–”
This was apparently the wrong thing to say if she wanted to spare Jill’s dignity. “Just two hours? No, no, no, the hell with that. The cleaning isn’t done yet–” After a moment of flailing in impotent fury, the junior maid throws her hesitations aside and bulldozes ahead: as Ellen watches in shock, she practically tears her apron off, then unzips her bustier and begins undoing the buckles on her skirt. “–so if we have to waste two hours sitting around here, that means two more hours of overtime when we get back. I’m not doing it. It’s not happening.”
“Wait, come on–”
Jill steps out of her shoes and begins pulling the uniform over her head. “It’s not happening.”
Fuuuuuuuck. Unless Rina manages to finish everything in the time it takes to rescue them - which is possible, but would make Ellen feel terribly guilty about pushing so much of her duties onto her guardian/boss - they are in fact going to have to stay late to make up for this. Making Jill take one for the team is starting to look more and more palatable. Although, really, once Piper sees the very specific things written on Jill, it’s hard not to think that Ellen will also be taking one for the team.
“Huh?” Speak of the devil, Piper’s weary suspicion grows louder as she trundles over to join them. “What kind of plan are you two brainstorming? Think there’s–” She pauses quizzically, catching an eyeful of Jill stripping off layer after layer of lacy ruffles, and a mystified expression steadily spreads across her dainty features. “U-um…”
“She, uh, she says she can squeeze through the duct,” Ellen explains weakly, feeling her face grow hot. “I-I don’t know if…I mean…”
The uniform nearly hits her in the face, tossed forcefully. Ellen catches it with a flinch, and is treated to the sight of a furiously embarrassed Jill, stripped down to only her stockings and underwear, arms and tentacles alike drawn inward as if to cover herself.
Try as she might, though, there’s no covering up the fruits of their earlier play.
Well, the twin MINEs are concealed by her strapless bra, at least, but everything else is on full glorious display despite Jill’s best efforts - and she has kept them unsmudged, for the most part, meaning all the writing is still quite legible, streaked in glorious rosewood across smooth, pale flesh. Ellen sees Piper mouth the phrase shark bait in bafflement, then her vivid green eyes pop wide in her head, flicking involuntarily to Ellen’s tail. Shock and realization sink in with a furious rush of blood to her cheeks.
Which of the three is the most mortified at this precise moment? If you compared how deeply red they’ve respectively turned, it’d be too close to call.
Jill throws her shift down in a huff. “Not a word!” she snaps, leveling a manicured finger at both of them as she storms over to the vent in her skivvies. “Not a single word.”
For once, Ellen keeps her mouth shut, guilty eyes wandering across the room, trying to focus on the lights, the floor, really anywhere other than directly at the octopus Thiren as she…
…oh wow. Holy crap, she wasn’t kidding.
It’s almost like watching something out of a pre-capital cartoon, with the squash and stretch style. Jill’s got a skeleton - Ellen knows for a fact she’s got one, god only knows she’s had every opportunity to find out - but you might not know that from seeing how she backbends in front of the duct opening. Her upper tentacles touch the edge of the duct first, reaching in and latching on with their suckers, and then…impossibly, contorting her thin frame and drawing her shoulders inward…she begins to steadily disappear headfirst into the opening like a noodle slurped by a hungry diner.
Ellen’s vaguely aware her mouth’s hanging open. She doesn’t bother closing it.
“Oh, gross, it’s so dirty in here!” The shriek echoes, distorted by the inside of the duct, back out at them as Jill’s waist squeezes through the opening in one steady pull. “God fucking dammit Ellen you owe me so bad when I open this door–”
Stockinged feet kick in a comical flailing motion and then slide inside the duct, and Jill disappears altogether. An uneasy quiet settles, just the distant sounds of bumping and swearing from inside the wall. Ellen squeezes her fist shut until her knuckles pop; her palm is cold with sweat.
At last, the moment she’s been dreading arrives. Piper turns to cast an appraising eye over her. Looks back to the vent. Back to Ellen. One eye narrows, her nose scrunching pensively.
Ellen braces herself.
“...Are you kids doin’ some kinda BDSM thing?”
It’s so much worse than she was bracing herself for. The cringe sinks down deep into the marrow of Ellen’s bones, permeating her very soul from the inside out. She clenches her jaw and takes a slow, trembling breath, maintaining total composure with no small effort.
“...Yeah,” she manages at last.
“Oh,” says Piper. “So then…oh. Ohhh.”
A tense, profoundly awkward silence descends. It feels like her face is on fire; it's probably a deeper red than her eyes by now. Ellen grits her teeth, tense and rigid, fists balled at her sides.
“Soooooo, does that mean–”
“Can we not talk about it?” she breaks in, eyes nailed to the wall and determined not to even glance Piper’s way. “Like…a-at all? Let’s just hope she gets the door open and we can go back to Blazewood and never bring this up again.”
“Arright, arright.” Palms outward in a placating gesture, their tiny escort steps back in retreat. “You know what, lil’ ol’ me is gonna mind her own business. Here’s hopin’ that girl doesn’t get stuck in there, cause I have no idea how to get her out.”
As if in answer, the shutter lurches and begins to rise into the ceiling again. Ellen scoops up the discarded uniform and rushes over, heart in her throat and Piper in tow. She holds her breath as the door finishes retracting…and is rewarded with the sight of Jill on the other sight, half-naked and filthy, covered in grime and illegible smears of lipstick. She sputters with humiliated rage, ducking under the shutter before it’s even fully finished rising so she can snatch the uniform away.
Ellen, stunned at the sight, lets the uniform slip through her hands. “Holy crap,” she exclaims, gaping in awe as Jill furiously stuffs herself back into her clothing. “You actually did it! Not saying I doubted you, but…I mean, that was wild.”
“Can we just go?” the other girl spits, yanking her apron into place with scalded, jerky motions. “God, I need a shower so bad, and we still have to get back to the civilized world…” She brushes her uniform off in furious swishes of her tentacles and stomps over to grab a wheelbarrow’s handles. “Well?”
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” says Piper, scrambling to follow suit.
To her surprise, Ellen finds herself oddly moved to comfort Jill - perhaps it’s gratitude for bailing them out of this disaster - but that’s clearly not what her colleague wants. Even if she doesn’t mean to rub it in, there’s no need to risk doing it anyway; Jill’s exceptionally prickly when she’s upset, and has a tendency to lash out almost mindlessly.
(“How is that any different from the norm?” you ask. Just like earlier, after that overheard talk with Lucy, the vibes are different. There’s prickly, and then there’s prickly. Like much of this, Ellen finds it hard to explain. She’s a creature of instinct, of intuition.)
So for now she falls in line, wheelbarrow in tow, and follows them back to Steeltusk in stony silence. But all the way back, the gears are turning in her mind, processing, percolating - continuing toward some new understanding of herself and this weird game they’re playing.
As much as she used to sleep through class, Ellen learned enough to make it out of high school, mostly thanks to Monna’s borderline-obsessive management of their study group. One of the things she picked up was the scientific method: you form a hypothesis based on evidence, then test it to see if it’s true.
Right now, as Steeltusk lurches out of its rut and begins pulling away from the disposal Hollow, she’s busy putting together a hypothesis.
To set the stage: they’re in the back of the truck once more. The long-suffering Piper, unable to tolerate another half-hour of the girls’ antics, has conveniently closed the partition door between the cab and the passenger bay. (“I’m gonna put on some tunes - don’t wanna disturb you two” was her explanation. Sure, okay.) Jill, disheveled and filthied (there’s a comical streak of dust across her right cheek, which no amount of rubbing appears to have cleared out), is sitting across from her and currently sulking a storm up.
Ellen thinks about the ride out here, which started with Jill doing much the same. This is…unquestionably a worse mood, all things considered, but now the question poses itself: will she respond to the same approach as last time?
“Hey.”
It’s a second before Jill looks up, annoyance flashing on her face. “What?”
Ellen leans back in her seat, studying her. “You smudged up all my artwork,” she reminds the other Thiren, head cocked. “Remember?”
The moment of truth. They lock eyes, and she sees the way Jill recoils in indignation, her expression shifting to disbelief. But there’s that split-second hesitation. And then she says “...Seriously?” but it's not in her usual tone, not a dressed-up way to say are you fucking kidding me. It's more like really, you’re still interested after all of this?
Maybe it’s even are you sure?
It’s clicked. Ellen gets it now. Kayfabe.
She takes a breath, and then replies: “Did I stutter? I told you to keep it intact, and then you messed it up when you went through the duct.”
The other maid sits bolt upright, eyes blazing a furious blue-green. “When I saved all three of us, you mean?” Her hands are on the seat by her thighs, hesitant, fingers drumming at the seat with anxious energy, gaze roaming up and down Ellen’s curves even as she argues. “You’ve got a weird way of showing gratitude.”
Confidence is a wildfire beginning to smolder in Ellen’s chest, the exhilarating thrill of understanding, of self-discovery. It’s like finding a codex for an entirely new language - suddenly, so much makes sense.
And so she slams both hands down on the seat and pushes herself up to her feet, looming over Jill in a sudden burst of motion. “I don’t remember saying I gave exceptions,” Ellen snaps, reaching down to seize the other girl by her uniform’s apron and yank her off the seat. She sends Jill sprawling between the two rows, stalking after her with the smooth grace of a predator in motion. “And even if I did, you called my tail fat earlier. Don’t think I forgot about that.”
“I-I…”
There’s no further in the aisle to go; Jill comes to a halt on her back, tentacles splayed out to keep her balanced, and glances up wide-eyed as her senior looms over her like a guillotine about to fall. She can see straight up Ellen’s skirt from here, all the way to the wet spot beginning to blossom on the front of the other girl’s underwear.
Watching for it this time, Ellen sees the shift - the way her aborted attempts at escape quell down as soon as she's cornered, how the active resistance swiftly dials itself down to a sort of eager, barely-contained anticipation.
“I said what I said.” She swallows hard, raising her chin in performative defiance. “And those tights make you look like a whale shark.”
Ellen glares balefully down, teeth gritting. “You know what?” She raises a leg and kinda-sorta-but-not-quite steps on Jill’s outstretched arm - see, her heels are just high enough that the point and the toe of the shoe bracket the other girl’s skinny wrist, like a set of red-soled patent leather handcuffs. “You’ve been running that mouth off all day long–” Her other foot steps into place, pinning Jill’s matching wrist. “–and I’m thinking it’s about time you put it to some actual use.”
“Ow, what?!” Jill squirms, but (and Ellen’s keyed into these little details now, drinking them down thirstily wherever she can spot them) not so hard as to unbalance the other maid. “W-what do you mean?”
She knows, of course. But she wants to hear it.
Ellen makes her wait to hear it anyway. She reaches down past her skirt and hooks her thumbs into the waistband of her underwear, shimmying it - along with the offending tights - down the thick curves of her thighs. Side to side, up and down, really giving Jill a show as she peels them all the way down to her ankles. At last, dipping into a half-squat over the other girl’s face, she pulls it all to the side to reveal her bare pussy: smooth-slick with arousal, already flushed pink and aching to feel something against it.
“Tongue out,” she orders.
Jill groans in protest, her heels drumming uselessly on Steeltusk’s deckplates. “This isn’t faaaiiiir,” she whines, but she’s sticking her tongue out as the sentence ends, flicking it lewdly up at Ellen in a way that makes her cunt throb with excitement and her knees go momentarily weak.
“Life isn’t fair,” Ellen replies, keeping the tremor out of her voice with no small effort - and then without further ceremony, she settles her weight in place and lowers down onto Jill’s waiting mouth. “C’mon, eat it. Get to work.”
She has no point of reference, but even if any of Ellen’s previous partners had bothered giving her any head, she suspects they still wouldn’t have lived up to this; regardless of Jill’s worse qualities, she eats pussy like she’s starving for it. She doesn’t even wait for Ellen to fully settle onto her before craning up to get started, licking a long lusty stripe up the other girl’s slit and practically motorboating her face around in there. All the way back down she goes, and when Ellen’s weight bears down, Jill’s tongue slips up into her effortlessly, where it begins to swirl in wild, jittery strokes that make her thighs shake.
“Oh, that’s good,” she breathes, savoring the steady, insistent pressure between her thighs. Her tail drapes down the length of Jill’s body like a blanket, its caudal fin settling in her lap. “Yeah, right where I like you. Keep going.”
The temptation to grab those twintails like reins is powerful - a little funny, a little humiliating, a little sexy - but Ellen’s just remembered something even better. She reaches into her apron and pulls out her last remaining lollipop of the shift. It’s grape. The best flavor.
“Mmm…”
One hand threads its fingers through blonde tresses, letting her guide how the other maid’s tongue worships eagerly at her cunt - or at least trying to. The other pops the sucker into Ellen’s mouth. She glances down to meet Jill’s eyes, giving her a diabolical grin around the lollipop’s stick. Yeah, that’s right. Get a good look.
Then, steadily, she starts to roll her hips in tantalizing circles, really savoring the slow ride.
Here’s another thing Ellen’s learning: she really likes being on top. Likes the way Jill feels pinned and writhing under her, moans humming against her clit as Ellen rides her face. Likes being able to force eye contact, holding her steady, possessive, demanding. Most of all, she likes the feeling of that tongue, hot and wet, punching up as deep into her as it can go and fluttering against her walls with the sort of reckless abandon that characterizes everything Jill does.
Girl fucks like she’s driving a stolen car, she thinks, and then blushes at herself for having such a vulgar thought. It’s hitting her in waves now, a growing heat that threatens to engulf her altogether. She pulls back and pumps into the motion with a little more aggression, smearing Jill’s whole face around between her thighs; little shocks of arousal race through her as the other girl’s lips and tongue and nose catch on all kinds of sensitive spots - even a brief flick to her clit on the way back up.
She sucks in a sharp breath. “Good girl. That’s it, right there…”
This position’s easier to hold than she thought it’d be - Ellen’s got a lot of core strength, and she doesn’t even have to use most of it since Jill (along with her tail) is supporting much of her weight. For all her complaints and arguments, she’s a remarkably pliant partner - enthusiastic, reactive, and shockingly generous considering how unpleasant she is outside the bedroom.
One, two, three times she turns the lollipop in her mouth, savoring the tart grape on her tongue, and smirks insouciantly down at Jill, or at what little she can see of her, which is pretty much the top of her head and her eyes - predictably, they roll in annoyance at the sight.
This is… great, actually. Not just the head, although she has no complaints there - it's the casual dominance, the sheer indulgent ego of being able to enjoy her favorite candy while face-fucking her frustrations out of the person responsible for them. Like being the queen. The head bitch in charge.
I could get used to this, she realizes - an odd feeling, but a welcome one.
Steadily, her grinding becomes more urgent, hips stuttering as the pleasure begins to crest and threaten to spill over. Ellen allows herself a single, trembling moan of delight, her fingers tightening in the other girl’s hair. Maybe she’s wrong, but it feels like Jill senses what’s coming too, eating her out with renewed, almost mindless vigor. She can feel herself getting closer, an undeniable heat beckoning, tempting her to grind down harder and crash over the finish line…
“Mm, easy, easy, not so fast,” she manages, panting despite her best efforts, as she pulls up from Jill’s seeking tongue. A strand of saliva trails between her cunt and those luscious full lips, shimmering in the lowlight. “I like to take my time with it.”
This gets a scoff in response, sudden cool air against Ellen’s soaking pussy. “Oh my god,” the other Thiren spits, utter disdain in her voice, “you are so gay.”
Ellen almost laughs at this - almost - but, again, kayfabe. “Tch. Rude.”
She hovers for a split second, ignoring the strain in her knees, and then hammers down in a long, languid grind that really drives in deep - but Ellen doesn’t stop there, no. Onward she goes, tentative now, not quite as confident in her motions, as she drags the flat of Jill’s tongue through her dripping folds and then all the way up the cleft of her ass, an abrupt shock of wet heat that makes her shiver. It’s sudden, surprising even herself - Ellen’s definitely never tried anything like this before but what are they doing today, if not exploring new frontiers?
She twists the lollipop from her lips with a sloppy pop noise, casting a stern look down at the other Thiren. “Keep it out,” she says, but it’s hesitant. Almost a question.
And sure enough, there’s a muffled noise of annoyance…but Jill doesn’t stop either, doesn’t display even a fraction of Ellen’s trepidation. It evidently doesn’t matter what she’s eating as long as she gets to do it; as soon as their adjusted position settles Ellen’s asshole down against her lips, she’s licking it with a fervor that borders on desperation, running the tip of her tongue around that tight little ring in firm, eager circles.
It’s…it feels strange, but in a hot way. Tingly - and something about the taboo and the thrill of new frontiers gives Ellen goosebumps all the way to the base of her tail. “Whoa,” she breathes, cheeks darkening with equal parts self-consciousness and arousal. “Oh, th-that’s…mm…okay…”
Score another one for spur-of-the-moment ideas. Ellen’s pussy throbs, momentarily neglected, demanding attention as this new unfamiliar sensation stokes its flames. Returning the sucker to her lips, she reaches down between her thighs and lets her fingers glide along her soaked labia, firm little pumps up and down.
A gasp escapes her around the lollipop. Oh fuck.
She bears down a little harder, testing how much of her weight she can settle on Jill (a surprising amount, as it turns out), and the dual sensations of her fingers teasing her clit out while the other girl rims her deep…it’s enough to drive her right to the edge. Ellen finds her hips moving again, practically bouncing on Jill’s tongue while she fingers herself in shaky rhythms.
It’s coming back now, so much stronger this time. She’s not gonna be able to hold it off and ride the wave any further - this is happening, one way or another. Ellen gives in and lets herself go, rubbing faster now, harder against her clit, feeling the wave crest inside her…
“Ah…right there, don’t stop–”
The orgasm comes on just the way she likes it: not sudden, not all at once, but gradual, a nice slow burn that flares up into a wildfire. Ellen throws her head back with a strangled yelp, lucky that she’s got the lollipop in her cheek because otherwise she’d probably choke on it, and hammers out her climax in frantic circles. Her knees tremble, weight faltering, and she nearly loses her balance for a second but manages to catch herself on a hand and stay braced. It’s not comfortable, but it’s manageable for the moment and it keeps her in place while the world falls away in a haze of mindless pleasure.
Even after the last few thrills have faded, she lingers there a moment - enjoying the silence almost as much as the feeling of Jll’s tongue lapping placidly against her asshole - before, at long last, Ellen lifts up enough to separate them. She grins down at Jill’s flushed face panting beneath her, admiring how wrecked the other girl is, watching the way she squirms with unsated need. God, how turned on is she from being made to do that?
“Ellen,” Jill breathes, rasping out her name like Ellen’s never heard it before - shivers, sudden and weird and trembly, down her spine. “C’mon… please…”
For her part, Ellen pauses, transfixed, still shaky in the aftermath of her climax. It takes her a moment to come back to herself. Then, plucking the half-finished lollipop from her lips, she pushes up and rises to her feet.
“Nah,” she says with a shit-eating grin. “Next time.”
“What?!”
The indignant shriek is so loud that Piper probably still manages to hear it all the way through the cab’s partition. Ellen doesn’t really care; she steps over her downed colleague, pulling her underwear up with her tights in one smooth wiggle of her hips.
“You think that makes up for all the crap I’ve been putting up with today?” A scoff. “You’re not done yet. Tomorrow, after we finish our next shift, then I’ll get you.”
Jill throws an actual honest-to-god tantrum at this; horny to the point of derangement and furious at being denied, she kicks her feet in rapid-fire drumbeats against the floor and clenches her fists at her side. “Are you kidding me?!” she practically howls, glaring up at Ellen in furious disbelief. There’s an odd tremor to her voice, almost as if she might burst into tears. “You bitch, I swear to god I’m gonna put needles in every single one of your tampons–”
No. No, that’s not crying, Ellen recognizes that noise from when Corin got stuck in the washing machine. It’s barely-suppressed laughter. She’s trying not to laugh.
“Enough whining already.” Leaning down, she sticks the lollipop in Jill’s mouth to silence her. “We’ve only got like five minutes left in the drive anyway - it’s not like you would’ve had time to get off, with how long you take.”
“Mrrmmph!”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s not a denial.”
When at last they arrive back at Cheesetopia, Piper opens the passenger door to Steeltusk’s bay, letting down the gangplank. She steps inside and glances from Jill (squirming and red-faced in her seat, sucking on the remains of a grape lollipop) to Ellen (sprawled languidly and looking as contented as can be).
A pause.
Piper sniffs the air. Glances between them again. Stares in horror.
“...you didn’t."
Ellen doesn’t quite have it in her to feel guilty, but she’s a professional - it doesn’t reflect well on Victoria Housekeeping if they get caught, plus she really doesn’t want to have any Big Significant Talks with Rina and Lycaon. She opens her mouth to deny the whole thing. “No, uh, we–”
Jill stands up, cutting her off in mid-sentence, and stomps off toward the exit. “We stayed off the upholstery,” she says dismissively, heading right past Piper and down the ramp. “It’s still clean.”
Ellen blushes fiercely, casting an apologetic glance at their driver - but at this point, Piper is long past the point of dealing with any of this horseshit. She throws up her hands in disbelief and abandons ship altogether, storming away from Steeltusk. “That’s it! No more! I need Nitro Fuel, and I need it now!” The furious ranting rapidly fades into the distance. “Makin’ my sciatica act up! Ohhhhh, kids were never like this back in my day…”
Thankfully, “Nitro Fuel” turns out to be a beverage and not a euphemism for filing a complaint with management, because no punishment is forthcoming. More importantly, it turns out Rina’s gotten a great deal of the remaining tasks finished in their absence, which means she and Ellen can double-team the rest while Jill catches a much-needed shower at one of the Sons of Calydon’s facilities.
Once everything is complete, they line up out front for the debrief and Lucy transfers the second half of the payment over. Ellen stands behind Rina, with Jill at her right; the octopus Thiren is technically dry but utterly bedraggled, her twintails undone and trailing down her back in an unkempt waterfall of damp blonde hair. At least the dirt from the duct is gone, even if her makeup’s gone with it.
“It appears Victoria Housekeeping’s services were worth every Denny,” says Lucy, arms folded. The little boars scuffle behind her, ramming into each other like sumo wrestlers. “One must admit, Cheesetopia’s grand opening will be nothing short of superlative thanks in part to your efforts.”
“We’re happy to have been of service,” says Rina, dipping into a curtsy. Thankfully, the juniors aren’t expected to join in - Ellen isn’t sure Jill would anyway, with the way she’s staring a hole through Lucy. “Please consider leaving us a review on Inter-Knot, and if you wish to hire our services again in the future, we do offer loyalty discounts.”
“Mm, good to know.” Turning, their client gestures with her bat towards the all-terrain car parked by the roadside. “Ah…Piper’s already drunk for some reason - that’s not like her, I’m not sure what’s going on there - so I’ve taken the gracious liberty of calling a car back to New Eridu for you three.”
The car in question is quite nice, as it turns out - either Lucy really does appreciate the work they did, or she wants to impress them. Maybe some of both. While the conversation continues, Ellen piles into the backseat, and a moment later Jill flops down next to her, hugging herself and looking like a soaked cat in her maid uniform. She’s dry-ish, technically, but desert evenings can get surprisingly chilly, and even as her tentacles are buckling the seatbelt around her, Jill’s actual arms stay close to her sides in an effort to keep warm.
Rina notices, even mid-conversation, because she’s Rina. “Here you are, dear.” She drapes a blanket over the younger maid’s lap; it unfurls long enough to overlap a little with Ellen, too. “We’ll put the heat on for the drive back - just give me a moment to finish speaking with our client.”
“Thanks, Rina,” Jill says, unusually quietly.
It’s quiet for a moment as the head maid floats back to finish speaking with Lucy, leaving them alone in the backseat for the moment. Ellen shifts, inching just the tiniest bit closer, making room for her curled-up tail on her other side.
“Today didn’t totally suck after all,” she concedes.
The other girl considers this for a moment and then, despite her out-of-sorts state, gives a begrudging nod. “Yeah, not totally.” A beat. “So…see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow.” Without really thinking about it, Ellen reaches beneath the blanket draped across their laps and grabs the other Thiren’s hand: sudden, forceful, just a tiny bit of a possessive squeeze. “And don’t touch yourself before then. I’ll know.”
Jill’s face sours with disdain at the bluff. “God, I hate you,” she drawls, and like always, her words are practically dripping venom.
But under the blanket, she squeezes Ellen’s hand back.
end