Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Part Five: Witch

   "Ffffuck offff!"

   "Sophie...it's me, you jackass.  Open the door."

   I'd convinced Alex not to just walk us into the apartment, on the
grounds that Sophie might blow my head off before she realized who we were.
Now I was wondering if Alex's plan wasn't the better idea.  Unfortunately,
her space buddies hadn't given me a chance to pick up my apartment keys
before they beamed me to their stupid lab, and Sophie, who sounded more
drunk than usual, was refusing to open the door.

   "I washn't born yeshterday, ya know!  Get the fuck outta here before I
banish your teshticlesh to the Ninth Shircle!"

   "Sophie, what the fuck is the matter with you?  Look, I don't have my
keys, I'm with Alex, unlock the goddamned door!  I just got back from
fucking space and I'm not in the mood!"

   "Argleflargle shmeken smacket," Sophie said, or something like that. 
More mumbled swearing and coughing ensued, followed by the sound of some
stuff getting knocked over.  Then I heard a voice rattle angrily in
Japanese and the locks started turning.

   "Fucking finally!" I yelled as Hanako let us in.  Then I stopped.  They
were both staring at us.

   Hanako looked like a housewife.  Sweat pants, loose sweater thing, hair
tied back with a handkerchief.  Sophie looked like...shit.

   "You look like shit," I told her.  Then I took a breath.  "Woof, you
smell like shit too.  Did we forget to pay the water bill or something?"

   Sophie's mouth moved, but nothing came out.  I bet when Sophie actually
sees a ghost she doesn't bat an eye, but right now she had a "seeing a
ghost" look on her face.

   "My lord!" Hanako said quietly.  "Is really you?"

   "It is really us," Alex said, walking into the kitchen.  "Who else would
we be?"

   "Ack!" I said as Sophie tackled me in a bear hug and knocked me back and
over the couch.  She was squeezing me painfully tight and kissing me all
over my face while bawling like an infant.

   "Gack...gack...sphy...cnt...brth..." I managed.

   "Do not kill our lord!" Hanako cried in alarm, trying to pull Sophie off
me.  The succubus seemed oblivious.

   "Gawd gawd gawd your baaack I can't belieeeeve it waaaaaah!" she cried.

   I managed to get an arm in between us and wedge her away.  Hanako got
her in a full nelson and held her off me, and she kind of slumped down in
surrender.

   "What the hell?" I asked when I could breathe, "What happened around
here?"

   The place was a mess.  There were holes in the walls, stains on the
floor, bottles of booze stacked into precarious mountains.  One of the
dining room chairs appeared to have been broken, duct-taped back together,
and then broken again.

   "We thought you were dead!  We were sure you were dead...where the fuck
were you?" Sophie suddenly went from weepy to angry, and smacked the top of
my head.  Hanako grabbed her again and they wrestled lamely with each other
a bit.

   "I, uh...I actually have no idea where I was.  Somewhere in space.  With
Alex's homeboys.  Another dimension, whatever."

   "I couldn't find you anywhere, Lisa couldn't feel you...we tried
everything, every ritual I could think of, I tortured some poor imp half to
death...nobody knew anything."

   "Jesus, I'm sorry.  I guess we were...out of range, or something. 
You'll have to ask Alex for the details, I'm sure I wouldn't understand.  I
wasn't...I was pretty out of it, for most of the time.  Wait.  How long was
I gone, anyway?  Three days?  Four?"

   "Days...?  Are you fucking...you were gone for a month.  A fucking
month."

   Holy shit.  No wonder the girls had flipped out.  Well, Hanako seemed
mostly lucid.  "A month?  I don't...crap.  Must be some kind of alien time
whatsis.  Relativity or whatever."

   "We were not subjected to what you call relativistic effects," Alex
called over her shoulder from whatever she was doing in the kitchen.  "The
space we were in exists outside your light cone."

   "Are you fucking kidding me?  You were out there somewhere, touring
outer fucking space with the Jetsons this whole time?  You couldn't, you
know, leave a note or call once in a while?  We only thought you were
FUCKING DEAD!" Sophie was screaming and thrashing around in Hanako's grip
now.

   "Whoa, whoa!  I didn't fucking know!  I didn't sign up for the tour, I
was goddamned kidnapped!  They kept me in a cage and ran experiments on me,
I'm lucky I got out at all!  I nearly went insane...tell her, Alex!"

   "It is true," Alex said as she came back into the living room with a
glass of water and an unripe tomato in her hands.  "Actually, he did die,
several times.  The experiments we performed were extremely detrimental to
his physical health and mental well-being.  We were forced to regenerate
most of his organs and perform electric resuscitation to continue studying
him on more than one occasion.  Would you like a tomato?" She offered me
the hard green fruit.

   "Uhm, no thanks," I said, faintly.  "I...died?  Like dead dead?"

   "I do not know the difference between dead and dead dead.  Your heart
and brain functions temporarily ceased due to shock, asphyxiation, blood
loss, hypothermia, heat exhaustion, electrocution, dehydration, and, on at
least two occasions, artificially-induced old age.  Water?"

   "And you were there with a clipboard watching all this, you fucking
bitch?" Sophia snarled.  Hanako seemed confused - I'm sure most of Alex's
explanation was above her English level - but she was still fighting to
keep Sophie still.

   "On the contrary, I nearly suffered exile because of my continued
protestations.  I found myself curiously attached to his well-being and
frustrated at my people's insensitivity.  Also, I was annoyed that my
experiment had been cut short.  In the end I was able to secure his
release, after a demonstration in local space of the preliminary results of
our research.  You really should drink something," she continued
stubbornly, pushing the water at me.  I took it and drank.  The glass shook
in my hand.

   Sophie collapsed again, crying, with her hands around her head.  Hanako
let her go.  "You...okay?" she asked us.  "Mmm," I assured her.  I rubbed
Sophie's head and she hugged my leg.  After a bit she stood up and wiped
the tears off her face, then blew her nose in my shirt.  "Gee, thanks,
Soph."

   "You're welcome, asshole.  Don't ever disappear like that again, okay?"
She smiled a little.

   "Sure, the next time aliens teleport me out of my bed in my sleep, I'll
make sure to ask them to wait while I fill you all in.  Speaking of which,
where is Lisa?  I can't imagine she took this any better than you did."

   "She's...in your bedroom."

   "What, just...why didn't she come out?  She must have heard us."

   "Nope," Sophie said, "I don't think she did."

   ***

   I turned on the light and there she was, sitting straight up, eyes wide
open, frozen in place.  There was dust in her hair, on her shoulders and
thighs.  She was wearing the same weird outfit she'd shown up at my front
door in.

   Apparently, once she'd become convinced that I was dead and gone, Lisa
had given up.  Completely.  She stopped talking, stopped responding to
anything.  Eventually her power ran out and she'd just frozen up right here
on the bed.

   "God, I'm so sorry, baby," I whispered.  I got a wet cloth and cleaned
the crap out of her hair, kissed her forehead, and then wrestled her body
over by the wall to the outlet.

   It took me a while, but eventually I figured out how to get her little
hatch opened and plug her in.

   She charged for about a minute before anything happened.  I was starting
to worry that her shutdown was somehow permanent, and started to mutter
helpfully, "come on...come on..."

   Then she turned her head to look at the wire connecting her to the
power.

   "Thank God," I sighed in relief.  "Lisa, it's me."

   Slowly, with wide eyes, she turned her gaze until she was looking at my
face.  "Hey," I said lamely, waving.

   Quietly, she asked me, "Is this...Heaven?" Then she turned her head
quizzically, in that familiar weird way, and asked herself, "Do robots go
to Heaven?"

   "Beats me, honey, you'll have to ask a philosopher.  Or maybe Sophie can
tell you whether or not robots go to Hell, and we'll extrapolate from
there."

   "I think I remember being in Hell...it was like this apartment, but you
were not here...wait, Sophie?  Sophie cannot be in Heaven."

   "No, I don't think she can," I agreed.  "You're alive.  Or whatever. 
You're here.  In the real world.  I'm back, from outer space..."

   "You cannot be back.  You were dead." She was still talking like we were
in a library.  I wondered if she was just too low-powered to yell at me
like Sophie, or if it was a headspace thing.

   "I was, apparently, but I got better.  Alex's friends put me back
together.  Luckily, I can't remember most of it.  It's probably brain
damage." Yay, brain damage!

   "No..." Lisa said after a pause.  "This scenario is unlikely.  I am
suffering from a sensory malfunction.  Perhaps my memory registers have
begun to degrade.  There is a decay effect that can influence capacitance
and cause hallucinations..."

   I grabbed her face and kissed her.  It works in the movies, right?

   It didn't work.  "This is a pleasant hallucination," she remarked sadly.

   "Okay...to be continued," I said, waving a finger dramatically in her
face, and I walked out of the room.

   ***

   "Sophie!  I need your help with something!" I called.  "Sophie?"

   "Sophie in shower," Hanako said from behind me.  "She need shower bad."

   Yeah, fair enough.  "Look, Hanako...I can't thank you enough for taking
care of the place.  It's obvious you had a hard time with these two."

   "No need thank me," Hanako said, but she smiled and looked at her feet.
And maybe blushed a little.  "I just take care of home for my lord."

   "No, really, you held the place together." I lifted her chin so she was
looking me in the eyes.  "Thanks."

   Hanako looked at me with wide eyes for about five seconds and then ran
away to her room with a squeak.

   I sighed, wandered into the kitchen rubbing my frown lines, accepted
another glass of water from Alex and turned down another tomato, and leaned
against a counter, sipping and thinking.  Alex appeared to be going through
all the cupboards, in search of..."What are you looking for, honey?  I
think you already found all the tomatoes."

   "The organization of objects in this storage space is curiously
inefficient.  I am attempting to apply a fractal method to anticipate the
most probable needed object at any given time, and to place that object in
the optimal location for a search."

   I digested that for a minute and then said, "Alex, do you even know what
any of that stuff is?  Like, what's the difference between cayenne pepper
and, say, sugar?  Which one do I put on my cornflakes?"

   "It is not relevant.  The optimal search strategy can be abstracted
to..."

   "Okay, whatever, go nuts.  I've got bigger priorities right now...but if
I get cayenne on my flakes I'm going to give you a spanking." Then I
thought about giving Alex a spanking.  It was a nice thought.

   "What is a spanking and what would you want me to do with one if I had
it?"

   "Hold that thought, dear.  I'll get back to you." I moseyed on back to
where Sophie was finally getting out of the bathroom.  "Beautiful! 
Gorgeous!  Sweet cheeks!  I need your help with something."

   Sophie had one poor bath towel straining to contain her jiggles and was
using another to dry out her glorious red mane.  "Sure, toots, just let me
finish getting presentable...or is this the kind of help I don't need to
wear clothing for?"

   "Any clothes you put on, you're going to have to take back off," I
confirmed.  "Lisa's stuck in a bad place and I want to try to feed her some
happy vibes through our emotional whatsis link.  And I figure you haven't
had your vitamins lately either, right?"

   "My mojo is running low," Sophia admitted, pursing her lips and putting
a hand on each of my shoulders.  "Hanako was game for a tumble once in a
while, but you know I prefer the real thing..."

   Hanako was game?  "I'm surprised she went for that, she seems pretty
shy."

   "I think she's only been with women before.  Her clan was all
girls...she's probably only shy around you.  Besides, nobody can resist me
forever." She grinned.  "Not when I'm bathing regularly."

   "That's the Sophie I need," I said, and pushed her into the bedroom with
one hand on her butt.

   ***

   Lisa looked up as we entered the room, but said nothing.  This was
discouraging, but I was determined to screw the succubus in front of her
anyway.  For her sake, of course.

   We sat on the edge of the bed closest to Lisa.  Sophie looked at the
robot with a bit of concern in her eyes, but quickly turned her attention
to me.  Everything felt a bit stiff and unnatural at first, but after a
while we were making out with enthusiasm, and slipped her towel to the
floor.

   Every once in a while I stole a glance at Lisa.  She wasn't moving, but
she was definitely watching.  Hopefully I wasn't just making things worse.

   I think I'd been missing Sophie more than I'd realized.  Part of my mind
still thought I'd only been gone for a few days, but obviously other parts
of me knew it'd been longer.  Something about her made this more comforting
and natural than it'd been with the alien supermodels.  My clothes didn't
stay on for long.

   Soon our groping was basically just wanking each other off.  With only a
look from me, Sophie shifted onto the floor and knelt down, taking me into
her mouth while I stared into Lisa's eyes.  There was no mistaking an
intake of breath that mirrored my own; I was certain, now, that our "link"
was still active, and she was feeling some of my pleasure.  There was a lot
of pleasure to link - Sophie was sucking me like a drowning man sucking
air. I wound my fingers into her hair and bucked my hips at her mouth. 
She'd obviously been missing me, too.

   Right on the edge of the cliff I pulled her off - god knows where I
found the will - and stood her up.  Lisa slowly rose to her feet as well,
and I unplugged her and gave her a hug and a few hungry kisses before
directing them both back to bed.  Sophie lay on her back with her head
pointed toward us and I led Lisa to crawl on top of her, sliding down until
they could lick each other.  Lisa moved slowly, dreamily, but she didn't
resist as I pushed her face gently down.  Then I mounted her from behind.

   I was slow at first, trying to let her get used to what was happening,
to bring her out of her daze.  Sophie was almost frantic, running her mouth
all over us as we fucked, licking my balls and Lisa's clit with lewd
slurps. We were all groaning and breathing heavily, Sophie sounding like
she was desperate for a fix, Lisa more like she was thawing out after a
long time in the cold.  I covered her neck and ears with kisses and rubbed
her tits in circles.  She pleasured Sophie slowly, almost as though she
were curious about what to do, and I could tell it was driving the demon
crazy.

   The extra stimulation from Sophie's tongue was enough to make me finish
quickly.  I managed to pull out of Lisa after a couple of spurts and aim my
dick at the redhead, who engulfed me almost instantly; the pressure of her
mouth as I came was almost too much to bear.  Lisa convulsed
sympathetically with my orgasm, and Sophie made noises that indicated she
was very happy to be tasting semen again.  Finally I pulled away, gasping,
and she dove into Lisa's pussy with desperate fervor, trying to find every
last ounce.  Lisa's cries were muffled a bit as her head was being squeezed
by some lovely thighs.

   After catching my breath, I sat on the bed, running my hands over them
both.  Lisa looked at me with a kind of wonder in her eyes; it would have
been a really touching moment, except it was a little hard to take her
seriously with so much pussy juice all over her face.  She looked like a
glazed donut.

   "Do you like to watch?" Alex said behind me, and I turned to the door
we'd left open.  Alex was standing behind Hanako, who looked like she'd
just seen the eighth wonder of the world in our bedroom.  At Alex's
question she jumped about a foot into the air, turned bright red, shouted
"No!" in a voice high enough to be a cartoon mouse, and vanished like the
proverbial ninja.

   "Oh," Alex said with confusion.  "Well, I do." She came into the room
and sat on the far side of the bed, smiling at the scene.

   I decided to ignore the voyeur for now and focus on my robotic
girlfriend.  I gathered her up into my arms in a clumsy sitting position,
pushed her hair out of her face, and said, "Feel better, Lise?"

   "You...are real?  I am not malfunctioning?  You are alive?"

   "As far as I know.  We're all real, and I'm here in my favorite place,
with all my girls."

   Sophie sat up next to us and put an arm on each shoulder.  "So we're
your girls, huh?"

   "You know you are.  I'm so sorry to scare you guys.  I didn't even think
about how bad it must have been for you here."

   "That does not matter," Lisa said.  "What matters is that you are here.
I cannot truly exist without you."

   That was...kind of scary.  But touching.  "I guess you don't have a lot
of other hobbies, do you?"

   "She's right," Sophia said.  "It's not just how we feel about you.  You
are everything for us.  If you die in my care, I'll...you don't want to
know what'll happen to me, and neither do I.  The rest of my very short
life would be extremely painful once the boss found out."

   "...Yeah.  I get it.  I don't think we can be much more careful than we
already are, but I'll keep that in mind the next time something dangerous
happens."

   "It is not just my duty," Lisa said shaking her head.  "Our emotional
bond is now..." She seemed confused, and then spurted out, "I love you."

   Whoa.  "You're designed to...love?" Sophie seemed surprised too.

   "I am more than my design," Lisa said with a bit of anger.  "I am a
person.  Not a human, but still a person.  And I love you." Well, damn.

   "I..." Did I love Lisa?  I was more than fond of these girls.  It was
definitely love in a familial sense, and more than a little sexual
attraction.  But did I feel something like what she was talking about?

   "It is alright," Lisa pre-empted me, "I do not expect you to love me.  I
am just a machine.  But I will love you anyway."

   "Lisa, love is a lot of things to a lot of people.  I felt terrible when
I saw you shut down in here.  I'd...I'd do just about anything to keep that
from happening again.  I don't want you to be unhappy, and I don't want you
to get hurt..."

   "If you're talking about risking your own life to keep the robot safe,
you've got another think coming," Sophie growled, and Lisa added
emphatically with a nod, "That is unacceptable."

   I smiled.  "Well, we'll see what happens when it happens.  I might not
be able to stop myself.  Anyway, the point is, it's not like I couldn't
love you just because of the idea that you're a robot...or for that matter,
because you were a demon or an alien." Alex smiled.  "It's more that...our
relationship is just kind of weird, you know?  There's still so much about
you I don't know or don't understand..."

   "Let's just say we're family, for now," Sophie said.  "We wouldn't want
you to strain something trying to make the L word come out."

   Bah.  Was that all this was?  I thought I was bigger than that. 
"Whatever.  Lisa, you're more than just a machine to me, you know that. 
You all are.  You're my girls," I said again, lamely.  Sophie snorted. 
"Now come here, all of you!" I said with a poor attempt at a stern command.

   "Even me?" Alex said, and Sophie added, "Yeah, even the whackadoo alien
whose buddies tortured you to death?"

   "She saved my life.  What she did for me up there...she's earned her
place with us." I pulled them into a little circle with me, sitting up on
the bed.  "Sophie's right.  Whatever else we are, we're like family here. I
need you nimrods to stay sane and not fight each other all the time." I
threw one arm around Soph and one around Lisa, and they reluctantly
continued the circle around to Alex, who smiled shyly.  "Now, let's do like
family does in the South and make out."

   We kissed for a while.  It's pretty hard to fit four faces together at
the same time, so mostly we had to take turns.  Everybody got some love and
attention.  It was a pretty good time, in a hippie kind of way.  Sophie
suggested we sing Kumbayah.  I smacked her head lightly and told her to
ride me instead.

   Sophia was happy to get some dick inside her after a month of forced
abstinence, and sighed contentedly as we formed the beast with two backs. I
included the other two girls on either side of us and we kept kissing each
other in turns, massaging and sucking on breasts, and general hugging and
caressing.  I guided Sophie's hips with my hands and we worked together at
a slow pace, grinding in little circles while she milked me with her
talented vagina.  Sophie's fingers manipulated the other two girls' cunts
expertly.  A good time was had by all.  Eventually she coaxed another small
orgasm out of me and groaned with her own as her weird demonic pussy
absorbed my sperm.

   Lisa cried into my ear as she shared my pleasure.  "So you're back here
with us now, one hundred percent?" I asked her.  She nodded.  "I am here
with you."

   ***

   A few days later, Lisa interrupted my meditation by announcing, "There
is a strange woman coming toward the apartment."

   "Oh, God, not another one," I groaned, and struggled to my feet.  I
hobbled over to the window.  "Pins and needles!" I whined.

   "I do not see either," Lisa commented after looking me over, and then
pointed outside.  "She is there."

   The stranger was still pretty far down the block, but she kind of stood
out.  Her outfit was some kind of skanky goth number with transparent bits
and superfluous streaming things and very, very high boots.  She also had
way too much mascara and her hair looked like an enraged octopus trying to
break free from her hair band.  Probably the most noticeable thing, though,
was her outstretched arm, fingerless lacy black gloves and black nail
polish and all, holding some kind of purple shiny thing from a chain or
string.  She appeared to be letting the shiny thing guide her movement down
the block like a compass needle, and kept swerving back and forth as it
turned.

   "She does look like one of ours," I said resignedly.  "Sophie?  You got
any ideas?"

   Sophie put down her battered copy of the latest issue of Chunky Asses
and sauntered over to look out the window with us.  "Whoa," she said with
some interest, "that's a serious witch."

   "A witch?  Broomsticks and eye of newt?"

   "You got it," Sophie said, "not one of those namby-pamby Wiccans either,
she's the real deal.  Her aura's all, eeeeyooooaaaaahh-" this last sound
accompanied by helpfully unintelligible wavy hand gestures.  "She's using
that crystal to look for something.  Like a compass needle."

   "Looking for us, obviously...might as well go bring her in.  Or...do you
think she could be a bad guy?" I stopped halfway to the door, wondering if
I was playing into a trap.

   "Beats me," Sophie said.  "Don't go out there alone, let's wait for her
to come to us." She pulled a shirt on and stood ready near the door.  Lisa
helpfully placed a baseball bat in my hands and called loudly, "Hanako! 
Door!"

   We waited for a tense minute and nothing seemed to happen.  Sophie
cracked her gum and tapped her foot on the ground.  Alex wandered into the
room with a crossword puzzle and pen, looked at us curiously, and then
wandered out again.  Hanako failed to materialize.

   "Hanako!" I called again.  Maybe she was out running ninja errands.

   I jumped a little when the girl knocked on our door.  "Hello?" she
called.

   "We don't want any," Sophie yelled.  Lisa adjusted her stance a bit. 
She looked ready to pounce.

   "I'm not selling anything, I need to talk to you," the voice replied. 
"Can you open up?"

   We hesitated, and then Sophie and Lisa nodded at about the same time. 
"We can take her if we need to.  Unlock it and stand back."

   So I did, and I did.  The door swung open and I got my first close look
at Elena.  She was cute, if you were into goths.  I'm into goths.  She
didn't have a lot of color going on.  Pretty much just black.

   Lisa and Sophie were pretty thoroughly blocking the door, but I
positioned my head between theirs and said over their shoulders, "So what
do you want?"

   "Hi, my name is Elena.  Can I...come in?" she said, glancing confusedly
at my two bodyguards.

   "Depends," Sophie replied.  "Give us a reason to trust you."

   "Well, for starters, I remembered to get dressed today.  Which seems to
be more than I can say for you."

   "Hey, I put on a shirt," Sophie said.  "A shirt is dressed."

   "You could also try pants," the goth said helpfully.  "They're like
shirts, but they go on the bottom part of your body."

   "It's my house, I'll walk around without pants if I feel like it.  I
don't hear anybody who lives here complaining."

   "I complain about it frequently," said Lisa.

   "Okay, let's get back on track here," I tried.  "We get a lot of
unwanted visitors around here, so Sophie is right - we need a reason to
trust you.  What have you got for us?"

   "I need your help to save the world," Elena said bluntly.  "Or, more
accurately, you need mine.  How on Earth am I supposed to prove you can
trust me?  What do you want me to produce?  A good guy ID card?"

   Well, that was a good point.  "Sophie?  Any ideas?"

   "How about you swear on the name of your patron," Sophie said pointedly.
"Swear on your power as a witch."

   Elena blinked once and then shrugged.  "Very well.  I swear, in the name
of my patron, Varsalis, that I mean you no harm.  Is that enough?"

   Something funny happened when she said the name Varsalis.  My head did a
kind of gurk!  sensation, like when you have a bad fever and turn around
too fast.  It felt a little like I lost a second of my life or something.

   "Yeah, that'll do," Sophie said.  "Come on in.  Vodka?" She turned away
from the door and Lisa, after a moment's hesitation, stepped back as well.

   "Have you got any tea?" Elena asked.  "And I'm afraid I still can't come
in." She had not, in fact, moved in the slightest.

   "What?  Why not?" I said.  "Is this some witch rule I don't know about?"

   "No, there's someone sticking something sharp in my back and I don't
want them to sever my spine."

   We were all frozen for a minute and then I figured it out.  "Hanako?"

   "Yes, lord?" came a small Japanese voice from behind Elena.

   "Uhm, you can let her come in now.  Don't hurt her."

   "Yes, lord." There came the sound of something sharp being sheathed, and
Elena started breathing again.  The two girls came in through the doorway,
and Elena immediately turned to put her back against the wall.

   "Pretty good security around here," she said somewhat breathlessly.  "I
could kill for a chamomile right now."

   "It is not necessary to kill anyone to receive tea," Lisa explained as
she closed and locked the door.

   Hanako looked at me expectantly.  I was probably giving her a bit of a
fisheye.

   "Uh, thanks, Hanako, good job.  Maybe you could get that tea from the
kitchen?"

   "Yes, lord," she said, and scurried away.  I needed to do something
about her, but first things first, and the next first thing was a witch.

   "Let's sit down," I said, and we all settled in the living room.  I was
on the couch in between my two bodyguards, and Elena sat across from us on
the edge of a chair.

   "Where's the Sixth?" she said mysteriously.  I replied, cleverly, "Huh?"

   "The Sixth Lover.  There should be another person living here.  Another
woman, I assume?"

   I counted quickly.  "Alex is in the kitchen with Hanako.  I guess that
would make six of us, if we count you."

   "Well, I count," Elena said.  "We're all part of this together.  Ah,
thanks." She took a small cup of tea from Hanako, which clattered slightly
on its saucer.  I guess our guest still had some adrenaline in her blood.
Hanako nodded curtly and hovered with her hands behind her back.  I guess
that made three bodyguards.

   "Hey, Alex, could you come in here for a minute?" At least one of us
wasn't paranoid about my safety.

   Alex wandered back into the living room and said, "Ah, I wondered where
you all were."

   "What?  We were all here five minutes ago when you walked by." Trying to
follow Alex's thought processes was mostly futile, but sometimes I tried.

   "Was that five minutes ago for you?  How odd.  What is a
twenty-seven-letter word for 'the'"?

   "A twenty...what?  Where did you get that crossword puzzle?"

   "No, I'm afraid that won't fit.  Oh well, I suppose it will come to me.
Hello, are you our new roommate?"

   "I guess so," Elena said, and I was glad to hear confusion in somebody
else's voice for once.  "Your name is Alex?"

   "They named me Alexis, but they only ever say 'Alex'", the alien
replied. "It is an inefficient identification system."

   "Okaaay...and who are you guys?"

   I introduced myself and the other girls warily.  "How do you know who we
are if you don't, you know, know who we are?"

   "The crystal led me here," she said, indicating the shiny
stone-on-a-chain in her hand.  "I invoked a ritual of seeking."

   "Must be a good one to find us," Sophie said.  "This place is off most
people's radar."

   "Yes, I had a lot of trouble at first," Elena answered, sipping her tea.
"I had to give up searching for any of you and search for the location
instead.  I just had to hope you'd all be at the center."

   "The center of what?" I asked.  "Why were you looking for us?"

   "The Great Event to come," she said.  "The purpose of the Six will be
realized in this place, in the near future.  Together, the six of us will
save the human race from extinction."

   "Interesting," said Alex, and got a far-away look in her eyes.  "Yes,
there is a curious constriction in the p-axis.  Many worldlines will
converge, briefly." Her eyes came back into focus as she continued, looking
at Elena.  "It's probably something to do with sex," Alex explained
helpfully.  "Very new science.  Very exciting.  I'm going to be famous, you
know," and then she wandered back out of the room.

   "Yes, well, the cards called us the Six Lovers, not the Six Just
Friends, so she's probably right about that...by the way," Elena said
quietly out the side of her mouth, "Is she stoned or what?"

   "She's from space," I said with a grim smile.  "Trust me, that's as
intelligible as she gets."

   "Wait, she's an alien?  I don't believe in that shit." Elena dismissed
me with a wave of her hand.  "Aliens are just subconscious window-dressing
for fey emanations and other psychic phenomena.  They've been totally
debunked."

   "I live with a demon, a robot, and a ninja." The girls and smiled and
waved in turn as I pointed them out.  "I don't bother anymore with the
debunking."

   "...Wild," Elena said.  She sounded breathless again, and slurped at her
tea.

   ***

   "Please explain to me why we should trust her because of this oath?"
Lisa asked us, as soon as Elena had gone to the kitchen for a refill. 
Hanako had vanished again.

   "It's the real deal," Sophie replied, "That's definitely her patron. 
You could feel it in the air when she said his name.  There's no way she
could lie like that, all kinds of bad things would happen."

   "So, it's a witch thing?" I asked.  I try to keep things simple.

   "It's a witch thing."

   "And you can...see witches?"

   "I can see most people's auras, depending on what they're doing. 
Witches stand out.  She's got a lot of power going on under that gothy
outfit.  And speaking of under her outfit..."

   "Down, girl," I said.  "I know she's cute, but she just got here.  Let's
give her time to settle in before we make with the orgies."

   "Time to settle in, huh?  That brings us to another topic," Sophie said.
"When are you going to take Hanako into the bedroom and make her a woman? I
mean, at first it was cute with the blushing and squeaking, but I'm getting
bored now."

   "I'm...waiting for the right moment," I tried.  Honestly, I wasn't sure
what to do with her.  Sure, she was cute, and seemed to be willing to do
whatever I asked.  On the other hand, I didn't like the idea of ordering
her to...get busy.  But we clearly needed to get the subject out in the
open - she was acting more and more squirrelly around me, and it was
starting to make me awkward too.

   "The right moment?  What the fuck?" Sophie threw her head back and
laughed loudly.  "You have absolutely no goddamned idea what to do with a
girl who doesn't just jump on you, do you?" To my surprise, Lisa giggled
slightly.  Et tu, robo?

   Luckily, Elena had come back into the room just in time to hear this
proclamation of my prowess.  She raised one eyebrow at me without saying
anything.

   "Thanks, Soph, that'll do," I said with a tight smile, and then stalked
out of the room.

   ***

   Elena settled in without too much trouble.  It sounded like she might be
the last of my roommates, which seemed like a bit of a relief, honestly. 
On the other hand, it also sounded like the "Great Event" wasn't too far in
my future, so I was a little worried about what the hell that was going to
entail.

   Shortly after that was a (relatively) small event, which I like to refer
to as The Day of the Guy with the Really Big Snake.

   Ongan was nice enough - or (as Sophie called it) dumb enough - to let us
pick a location for our fight, after bellowing a formal challenge.  After
conferring, we agreed to meet in a construction site down the street.  I
was happy we weren't going to get our place trashed, and it was nice not to
get sneak-attacked for once.

   This dude was big.  Sometimes he looked like a kind of weird minotaur
thing, and other times he just seemed to be a big, big dude.  I guess my
mortal brain wasn't up to the challenge or something.  He wasn't wearing
much except for a ratty loincloth thing and a lot of hair.  His muscles
were like something out of a bad comic book, and his hammer was about as
big as me.  Sophie told me to relax, that we would have no problem getting
the advantage of somebody who let us know they were coming.  There was no
such thing as a fair fight, she said - just good cheaters and bad cheaters.

   Alex professed no desire to take part, and Elena issued a wide-eyed
"Good luck" before hiding in her bedroom and pushing her dresser against
the door.  I didn't need to ask Hanako and Lisa.

   The four of us arrived at the scene to find Ongan limbering up.  If
you've never seen a giant bull demon...thing...doing hamstring stretches,
you're missing out.  "Ah, you're not backing down!  Good, good!  And I see
you're a club man!"

   I'd brought my baseball bat.  It seemed pretty ridiculous compared to
his hammer, but then so did everything else.  What was I going to use, a
grenade launcher?  The plan was basically for me to hide in the back while
the girls kicked his ass.  That didn't sit all that well with me, but I had
no illusions about being able to take this guy on, either.

   Sophie and Lisa moved to flank him while I backed up a bit and tried to
hold the bat steady.  He pointed his hammer at me - with one fucking hand,
the showoff - and roared out his formal challenge again.  "Your illustrious
second-cousin twice removed, The Baron Clandestine of the Cerulean Temple,
demands satisfaction this day!  Will you stand before me, man-child, and
face your certain death?"

   "Sure, whatever," I said with a shrug, spinning the bat around.  "Come
get your satisfaction, if you can."

   He roared again and stepped forward, raising the hammer over his head
with both hands for a mighty blow.  I strained my neck a bit following the
head of that thing as it blocked out the sun, and wondered what the fuck I
was doing.

   Lisa shot forward like she'd been popped out of a gun and kicked him in
the knee.  There was a surprised look on his face as he twisted and went
down on that side, and she dodged his clumsy hammer blow.  He yelled in
pain and I think a few windows in the area broke as a result.  He kept on
after her, sweeping the ground with the hammer and then hefting it back to
his shoulders as he stood up.  I guess his knee was hurt but not ruined. 
Lisa actually did some kind of a cool backflip thing over the hammer and my
heart swelled with nerd-pride at my kickass girlfriend.

   Sophie's chanting and hand-waving reached a crescendo as she prepared to
nail him in the back with something dreadful.  "I guess that'll teach you
not to fuck with mmmmmmffff!"

   Her trash talk was cut off as the giant snake swallowed her whole.

   This thing was huge too.  About as big around as Ongan, but way, way
longer.  Not like anaconda big, like monster movie big.  It shot out of the
darkness under the unfinished structure behind Sophie and gulped her down
without slowing at all.

   The snake apparently figured correctly that Lisa was a bigger threat
than me, and moved to flank her with the big bull guy.  Suddenly I was
worried about our chances again, and I ran forward with my bat to...annoy
the bad guys before they killed us, or something.

   Lisa had no trouble dodging Ongan's relatively slow hammer, but she
hadn't been able to get in close enough to hit back, either.  It was kind
of ridiculous how much smaller she was than him, but I had faith in her
crazy robot toughness.  Then he backed her up against the body of the big
snake, which whipped around her and lifted her off the ground.  I could see
her wiggling her feet and one hand feebly but it didn't look like she was
strong enough to just bust out.  The snake was trying to squeeze the
bejeezus out of her and rolled and thrashed around, but I hoped it wasn't
making much progress.

   I swung my bat as hard as I could at Ongan's remaining good knee and
shouted, "Right here, motherfucker!" As a distraction it was okay, but I
think it hurt my hands more than his leg.  Fighting demons with my puny
man-child strength was no fun.

   Ognan elbowed me in the face almost as an afterthought as he turned, and
I tumbled backwards and landed in the dirt in a daze, blood flying
everywhere from the mess where my nose used to be.  Then, for good measure,
he let loose with a thunderbolt.

   I felt all the hair on my arms and head stand up, and then the ground
rose up and threw me into the air, everything went white and loud and hot,
and there was dirt and smoke when I tried to breathe.  One of my legs
seemed to be missing, one of my eyes couldn't see anything except blood,
and around the long mysterious cloudy tunnel of my vision everything seemed
to be happening quietly, like they didn't want to wake me up.

   For some reason I decided to stand up.  The baseball bat's rubber grip
had partly melted onto my hand, which was good because I probably would
have dropped it otherwise.  I used it as a cane to rise to my foot, and
then fell over anyway as I tripped over something.  The something turned
out to be my other leg, which was attached after all, just totally numb. 
Oh, good!  It was good that it was numb, too, because there was a piece of
bone sticking out of it and I probably didn't want to feel that anyways.  I
picked myself up again and tried to look mean.

   Ongan and his pet stared at my wobbling form in disbelief.  Then he
threw back his head and bellowed some seriously hearty laughing.  "Wah hah
hah hah!  Good, good!  A real man!  I'm tired of fighting cowardly demons
and puny angels.  Come on, then!" He advanced (I was quite far away,
somehow, from where I'd been standing) and the snake did too.  Apparently
it had given up trying to crush Lisa's metal bones and was content to just
wrap her up and carry her around.  The ground crackled and smoked where its
venom dropped.  Venomous and a constrictor?  Does that even happen?  Well,
I guess this thing wasn't in any of the proper zoology texts.

   Now, my memory is probably editing this part in after the fact, but I
could swear I heard some kind of distant, lonely flute music at this point,
and maybe saw a few cherry blossoms float to the ground.  There was a snikt
kind of sound, and then Hanako landed noiselessly on her feet behind Ongan,
tossed the steaming black blood off her sword with a lazy swing, and slid
it back into its sheath.

   The snake had a confused look in its eyes as its head toppled and fell
to the ground in a shower of nasty ichor.  Then its body started flailing
around.  Ongan screamed, "Snakeeeey!  You'll pay for this, you coward!" and
swung to find Hanako, who somehow wasn't there anymore.  Fucking ninjas,
unrepentant cheaters.  You gotta respect that.

   "Snakey?  You named your giant snake Snakey?  For fuck's sake," I
mumbled, spitting blood and teeth, as I limped forward.

   Ongan was down on one knee now, crying and holding the snake's head in
his hands, as Lisa pulled Sophie out of the snake's stomach.  The succubus
was steaming...or maybe smoking?  Her clothes appeared to have been
partially dissolved and her hair probably looked almost as awesome as mine.
She coughed and sputtered and wiped goo out of her eyes.  I didn't want to
be Ongan right now.

   I felt kind of bad for him, crouching there with his dead snake in his
hands and all the fight gone out of him.  Sophie didn't, though.  She did
something bad, and when she was done he'd gone to another place with his
hammer and his snake head.  She spit on the ground where he'd been and
called him some awful names, for good measure.

   Hanako was suddenly next to me and offered to support my weight with one
shoulder.  We all limped home in our fucked-up clothes.

   ***

   "Holy shit," Elena said when she came out of her room and saw us.  "Do
you, uh...want some band-aids or something?"

   "Hustle your chicken-shit butt back into your bedroom and find us some
healing spells," Sophie advised.  "That leg's a serious problem, and we
need to treat him for burns.  And I," she announced, "need to take about
three showers." She stumbled down the hallway, and Lisa followed her.

   "Would you like a tomato?" asked Alex.  "How about a glass of water?"

   Green tomatoes, the alien panacea.  "What the hell," I said, and took
one from her hands.  Then I passed out in my comfy chair.

   ***

   Elena returned from her room with a stack of books and various bags of
gew-gaws.  After a while lying in a penta-hepta-whatsisacle with
pleasant-smelling herbal smoke drifting around I was feeling no pain.  She
had an actual wand, which should have been cheesy but looked kind of cool,
hand-carved with feathers and crystal bits tied to it.  This was apparently
used like a baton to conduct energy here and there, begging for help from
the eleventy-twelve cardinal directions and occasionally tapping or poking
various body parts.  I felt a little tingly but otherwise couldn't summon
enough energy to really be interested in the proceedings.

   Elena's ritual helped some, but it turned out she wasn't up to
re-knitting bone.  Lisa reset the leg with an expression that seemed to
imply it hurt her more than me, which was possible since I was floating
around in happy magic land.  After properly dressing the wound, she argued
politely with Elena about the best long-term therapy, and they finally
decided on some compromise involving herbal creams and tea to go along with
the antibiotics and crutches.

   Sophia, once she returned from scouring the snake juice from her body,
overturned this plan when she pointed out that my chances of survival were
going to be even lower if I spent the next month or three unable to walk. I
drifted further and further away from reality, reveling in my situation as
a happy hospital patient surrounded by comely nurses.

   Eventually it was decided that the best course of action might be a
session in one of Alex's DNA dunk tanks back in weirdspace, which would
apparently have me up and walking around again in a few days, Earth time.
This idea, despite being perfectly logical, yanked me instantly back from
pleasantly stoned mystic mode and into panicked animal survival mode, and I
began trying to crawl out of the apartment while making squealing noises
and, apparently, wetting myself.

   The next bit of narrative is only second-hand, because I was blissfully
unconscious for all of it, but apparently I was knocked out for my own
good, shuttled out to the aliens, underwent extensive regeneration therapy,
and was returned to Earth none the wiser.  I probably should have been
outraged at this decision being made without me but actually felt only
relief.  Personally, I feel that most of our medical procedures on Earth
would be improved by a lack of consciousness, and would happily submit to a
week of morphine every time I catch a cold, rather than suffering through.
Alas, the AMA will probably not come around to this point of view.

   ***

   Back home and mostly normal again, I made time to try and figure out
more about Elena's story.  Unfortunately, she didn't seem to know much more
than she'd already said.

   "Like I already said, I'm here to help you guys save the world during a
Great Event.  I don't know for sure when or how, and I don't really know
what it is.  There's a lot of Death involved, though."

   "Death like lots of us dying?  Or like metaphorical transformation
death? Or...isn't there a thing that the word for orgasm is "little death"
in French?  I don't suppose you foresaw lots of orgasms..."

   "I...think all three of those things, actually.  Lots of sex, lots of
people dying, or potentially dying...and definitely some transformation. 
Things will never be the same, afterward.  Especially for you.  If you
live. Well, I suppose if you don't live things would also therefore be
different for you..."

   "Well, that sounds just great.  Can I ask how you do your
fortune-telling?"

   "Sure, it's pretty standard stuff...here, I might as well do a new
casting.  It's been a while, and I might get a better picture now that I'm
here at ground zero."

   Elena produced a small velvet bag and emptied its contents, which were
small and yellow, into her hand.  "These were my Gran's, she was always
better than me at casting the bones..."

   "Wow, they're like a magical heirloom?  Passed down from witch to
witch?"

   "Not exactly.  They're her bones.  Like, made out of her fingers."

   "Oh.  Whoa.  Okay." Is that legal?  I decided not to ask.

   We sat on the floor.  Elena muttered some eldritch something-or-other
over the bones and tossed them on the carpet between us.  They landed more
or less randomly, with no pattern obvious to me, but she grunted and said,
"It's the same as before, exactly the same..."

   I waited politely for a bit as she studied the bones.  They were kind of
cool, a bit worn with use, carved with little runes that were probably
Norse or Celtic or whatever.  After a while I got fidgety.

   "Sorry, I'm hoping to get a better picture, but there's not much coming
to me..." Elena said distantly.

   "Can you, uh, give me the Bones for Dummies lecture?"

   "Ah, okay, sure.  This group here, that's about the Event itself, this
one means Widespread Influence, and you can see how it's leaning on this
one, that's capital-D Death.

   Now, you've got this little clusterfuck right here, that's us, the Six
Lovers.  See how it's in this weird shape?  And there's this guy in
between, this is the connection to the Event..."

   "Hang on," I interrupted, "Six?  I'm counting Seven."

   "Naw, that one's funny," she said, pointing at one bone that was kind
of, but apparently not really, in our cluster.  "I think that's like a
victim or something, maybe the person who points out the Event to us, but
not one of us.  The bone isn't really in the pile, it's just really close."

   "Huh." Maybe it was just where I was sitting, but it really looked to me
like that one was supposed to be part of the group.  Shows what I know
about divining.  "I guess it all looks random to me."

   "Yeah, it takes a while to get it.  And it helps that it's Gran's bones,
you know.  I like to think she guides my hand when I toss them."

   Eventually she gave up and put the fingerbones back into their bag.  She
didn't seem entirely satisfied with her reading.

   ***

   Later that night I was working on my ancient languages with Sophie,
supposedly.  In actuality she was totally distracted and useless, which I
found distracting in turn.

   Apparently she'd hooked up with Elena while I was off-planet, under the
philosophy that there was no point in wasting time when we were all
destined to be lovers.  This was all well and good, and in fact pretty hot,
except that now they were flirting like drunken giggly frat boys.

   "Sophie, I think this Latin isn't right...Sophie?  Hellooooo Sophie?"

   "Yeah, that's just great," she said without turning her head.  I glanced
up and saw her chewing a curl of hair and swaying her bosom around almost
imperceptibly, while staring at the witch.

   Elena was in a chair a few feet away, supposedly reading some trashy
vampire novel.  She kept glancing up over the edge of the book and blushing
outrageously.  Her foot, which just happened to be angled at Sophie, was
tapping nervously.  I wondered how long it'd been since she turned a page.

   "Fuck's sake, Soph, just haul her back to your bedroom already.  You
aren't teaching me anything anyway."

   "Don't pout," Sophie admonished me with a pointy finger.  "It's not my
fault you can't figure out how to ask the ninja to make your boner
disappear from sight."

   Not this again.  "I'm not exactly pining away for lack of sex, dear."

   "Ain't no pussy like new pussy," Sophie replied sagely.  "You want some
sushi, man up and get it.  It'd do you good to ask for what you want.  The
next thing you know you'll be old enough to shave."

   I tugged angrily at my beard and sulked as Sophie stood up and led Elena
back down the hallway to her den of sin.  She was a jerk but that didn't
mean she was wrong.  I resolved to steel up my man powers and confront
Hanako.  Then I procrastinated for a while and made up reasons not to
bother her.  Then I slapped myself and went to her room anyway.

   ***

   "Hanako?" I said as I knocked.

   She opened the door pretty quickly.  I wondered what she was doing in
there in her spare time.  Ninja homework?

   "Yes, my Lord?" She seemed bouncy, casting her eyes around the hallway.
Probably she was expecting me to order her to kill somebody.

   "Uh, can I come in?  I think we should talk."

   She meeped and stared at her bare feet, then stepped back to allow me
in. I walked in and sat on the bed.

   "Hanako, uh...so...how are you doing?"

   "I am study my English, lord."

   "Not what are you doing, dear, how are you doing.  Good?  Bad?"

   "I am well, thank you.  And you?" Fucking ESL textbooks.

   "I'm pretty good, Hanako, I just...uh...huh.  I have no idea how to say
this.  Uhm.  You seem kind of nervous around me.  Is that right?"

   "My lord?"

   "Do you, uh...you must have noticed there's a lot of sex around here,
obviously.  I mean, you've seen us."

   She was still staring at her feet, but her eyes got bigger.

   I tried and failed to think of any smooth way to lead the conversation
without any help from her.  What would Sophie do?  Just fucking ask her,
obviously.

   "Hanako, would you like to have sex with me?" There, that wasn't so
hard. Okay, my heart felt like I was fighting demons again, but whatever.

   She was silent for a moment and then said quietly, "My lord, my life is
yours.  It is your decision."

   "You definitely get to decide too, dear.  But if you're asking me what I
want, then yes, I definitely want to."

   She swallowed and nodded and finally said, "Okay."

   Everything was pretty different this time.  Hanako didn't glom onto me
like the other girls would have; she kind of just stood there, waiting for
me to do what I wanted.  She was pretty responsive once we got going,
though.

   First I stood back up, since she had never sat next to me like I'd been
hoping, and I slid my arms around her and tried a kiss.  She closed her
eyes and shivered a little.  I rubbed her arms and tried kissing around her
mouth a little.  She made a nice noise.  I kissed her neck and slid one
hand up into her ninja pajamas.  She whimpered.  It was like that.

   I kissed her a lot and took my time undressing her and then pulled her
down onto the bed with me.  Her body was very toned and her boobs were
small but round.  I tried to pretend I was the smooth seducer of women guy
who knew all the moves.  I spent a lot of time kissing her breasts and then
went down on her.  She was pretty hairy but I don't mind that.

   Oddly enough, she did taste a little like sushi.  Maybe that was my mind
playing tricks but I seem to remember our diets affect that kind of thing.
Maybe Sophie's an exception, since she ought to taste like drinking
Everclear out of a dirty ashtray.

   Hanako definitely had a good time.  Her clit seemed incredibly
sensitive; I couldn't touch it with my fingers at all or she'd jump and
squirm away.  She enjoyed my tongue, though, so I just stuck some fingers
in her box and got her off that way.

   She was breathing hard and looking flushed and I peeled off my clothes
and got ready to go and then said, "Shit!"

   I'd been humping demons and robots for so long I forgot about condoms.
Hanako was an actual human girl, and babies were presumably not our goal
today.

   She seemed confused as I jumped up and ran out the door.  Did we even
have any condoms in the apartment?  There might be an old one in my
backpack...how old is too old for a condom?

   I decided I should ask Elena about birth control spells as soon as I had
a chance.

   Alex walked by as I was digging in the closet.  "Nice butt," she
remarked, without slowing down.

   Eventually I returned to Hanako's room with a foil-wrapped package. 
She'd covered herself up with a bedsheet and still looked confused.  My
boner was gone.  It was going to take some work to get back into things. 
There's a reason we invented the word "clusterfuck".

   After some smooching I managed to get her going again.  She tried to
give me a handjob but wasn't really getting anywhere.  After a while I
grabbed her hand and sort of used her to jerk off while kissing her.  That
did the trick.

   She was pretty curious as I fumbled the condom on.  Then I pushed in and
she rolled her eyes up and hissed.  I guess that was good.

   Man, I forgot how much condoms suck.  She was very tight but I still
couldn't feel much.  I was definitely getting spoiled by my inhuman harem.
Well, the least I could do was show her a good time.

   We didn't do anything fancy.  Just missionary, slow at first and then
frenzied.  I eventually found a sort of grinding circular pattern that gave
me enough friction to get off.  Hanako seemed to be having an out of body
experience, writhing and moaning with her eyes screwed shut.  "My lord!"
she gasped as I filled the condom up, panting.

   I heard a squeak from another room, and wondered what Lisa'd been doing
when I came.  Hee hee.