Collide Gamer

The kiss lasted for one second – which was one second too long.

John managed to suppress his instinct to reciprocate. He pulled his head back, then stared into the still heated gaze of the Dancer. Perhaps the proper reaction would have been to drop her. Instead, he straightened up. When her head was once again level, she blushed and hid her lips behind her head.

“Shouldn’t have swept me up if you didn’t want to get kissed,” she mumbled.

That was the kind of sentence only a woman could get away with and, in his heart, John felt that she was right. What had he expected, exactly? He could have just summoned a second Hero. Instead, he had chosen to win in the most intimate way possible.

John did not check her Observe again. They were now past the point where he needed to treat them as potential threats. What he needed to do instead was face the bristling crowd.

Who was angrier at the moment, the haremettes or Esmeralda’s family? Well, that was a fairly easy question to answer. The haremettes were more resigned than anything. They knew what he was about and he had acted, if not optimally, then at least adequately given the situation. There was even some approval mixed into Claire’s feelings. A ‘finally she acknowledges Master’s greatness’ sort of thing.

As for the Dancer’s family, they were fuming. Her mother went straight up to Esmeralda, shouting a string of obscenities that was impressive more for the eloquent length of it than a particularly scathing choice of a single word. Word strings such as, “Did you always have wax in your ears when I told you to behave well, you demon-afflicted spawn?” or “Lustful, desperate slut with the moral code of a barstool!” were flying around.

‘I think I have a moral code lesser than that of a barstool sometimes… Just need a woman to suggest she’d sit on me and there goes all my thinking,’ the Gamer thought.

Simultaneously, he was surrounded by the male side of the family. Carlos put himself right in front of John, fists readily clenched by his sides. “You dare touch my daughter like that?!” he barked aggressively.

“The dancing was a tactical move, that she kissed me is entirely on her.”

“Are you calling my daughter a whore?!”

There was no winning that conversation. Carlos was not in a state of reasonable thought. Fathers that defended their daughter’s honour rarely were.

“I can see that I’m not welcome here and I’ve said what I needed to for the night.” John disarmingly raised his hands. “I’m sure your family has much to discuss and I wouldn’t want to intrude. If that works for you, I would be back… 3 days from now?”

John had originally wanted to suggest tomorrow, but that was the 31st, and with any luck, he could bring the other haremettes currently with him back to the Guild Hall for Lee’s birthday. That still wouldn’t be everyone, but it would be most. Then, the day after, every normal person did not want to deal with stressful business. That made the 2nd the earliest day of reasonable interaction.

Carlos kept his jaw working. Was he going to open his mouth or swing his fist? John was prepared for either.

“I think you should stay for a bit longer,” the angry father said, visibly reeling back to hurl a punch.

The rattling of chains had him freeze mid-motion. “Hostilities would be unbecoming of civilized people.” Nightingale stepped out of the veil of the night, her arms returned to wings and her boots shifted out of the way of her talons. Seeing the goddess of the night in her true form stunned the men right out of their rage.

‘Used to magic, after two weeks, but seeing a harpy for the first time must still be interesting,’ John thought back to his first encounter with a monster girl. ‘Huh… was it Nathalia? I think it was Nathalia… yeah, it was Nathalia. Well, depends on whether one counts Aclysia. Gnome was… definitely not eligible at the time.’

“I understand passion is running high. Raising your hands against my patriarch will only leave you with pain, however.” The harpy elegantly bowed. “Please, leave the correction of his blunder to us.”

“You’d correct your womanizer?” Sanchez asked.

“You assume our values at your own peril. We are no sultan’s harem. Rules are in place. Kissing women outside the harem breaks those rules.” Nightingale gave him a black-lipped, slight smile. Her perfect, white teeth glinted dangerously in the starlight. “Leave it to us.”

The socialite’s charisma did the necessary work to have the angry men back off - after Carlos barked, “You come back on the 3rd! Not a day earlier!” It was a petty bit of asserted control, one John let the man have without resistance.

They began to wander over to Esmeralda, though they were immediately stopped by Maria who told them with certainty that this was a woman’s issue.

A long sigh flowed from John’s lips. He had the decency to put his head down in shame and walked towards the group of his women. They weren’t angry, they weren’t that annoyed, they were resigned to who he was. All the same, it was their right and, indeed, just for them to criticize him.

“You shall be raked over the coals, lustful creature,” Ehtra said and pulled on his ear. “First, we shall retreat.”

John bit the inside of his cheek. Pride demanded that he protested all of this. He had done nothing wrong – but that was a lie. He had not enacted or even reciprocated the kiss. He had enjoyed it, however, and that was a sin to his current lifestyle.

They returned to the hotel in Gamer-excluding chatter. The women talked to each other, but he was deliberately given the cold shoulder. Claire snuck him several apologetic glances on the way. It all irked him, which was the point. He swallowed his annoyance and maintained his acceptance of the punishment.

Once they were in the privacy of their rented walls. Ehtra pointed him at the executive chair at the end of the dinner table. Usually, it was a position of honour, now it was a position of mustering. Everyone stared at him. Lyndell’s blank gaze had a different kind of sadness to it, Claire shuffled in discomfort, Ehtra had her arms crossed on top of her breasts and glared, Nahoa had a sharp smile under her dark green eyes, Nightingale did not show any emotion at all, and Fianna was observing the scene with patient curiosity. The sniper had entered the hotel while they were gone, using the guise of a cleaning lady.

A swift mental communication ran through John to Fianna. Now in the know, the sniper sat down herself, a contemplative look on her face. Silence continued to reign. John was feeling his patience thinning, but he continued to hold onto the fact that this was their appropriate reaction. He had punished Hailey before for almost kissing Moira during a heated sleepover. That had been a lesser transgression than this. Moira, at least, had basically been on rails towards joining the harem at that point.

“John Newman!” Ehtra finally raised her voice. He could feel her Contempt Aura activating and washing over his guilty consciousness like an amplifier. She immediately turned it off again, her point made. “You stand accused of not knowing when to quit.”

“He sits accused,” Nahoa corrected.

The grey angel gave the demigoddess an unimpressed glance. “How do you plead, Master?”

“Guilty,” he groaned, then raised his hand, before Lady Vengeance could continue. “Let me put it into my own words. I could have rebuked her, but I didn’t, and we all know that I was checking her out before it happened. She’s a Latebloomer with an attitude and the Latina accent is tickling my brain. It’s clear that my lust and greed are trying to get in the driver’s seat here. Which… they really should not.”

“Are you a man building a harem or a man that has a harem?” Fianna weighed in. “I believe that is the question that Lydia asked you before, John?”

“Correct and it should be that I have a harem, especially since I just added three more.” He gave first Fianna, then Lyndell a contemplative look. “What are your thoughts, especially? Do you feel cheapened by me being this instinct driven?”

Lyndell shook her head. “You exaggerate your shortcomings.” She stopped for a moment. “Though I might lack the humanity to properly consider this question.”

“I know what your interests are, Sir,” Fianna stated. “Though I must say… if you want her now, what would be the point where you stop?”

Nahoa gave that a clear nod. “One does not break a habit without sacrifice. Perhaps this must be yours?”

“At the very least, he cannot begin chasing her immediately,” Ehtra stated. The First of Hatred was visibly more irate than everyone else at the table, which entirely fit who she was – and who she should be. “I have become yours, after thousands of years of maintaining disinterest in men, because you are the one of my dreams.” Her annoyed words took on a flustered tone, her gaze dashed to the side. “Behave like it, idiot creature.”

The demand to be better hit all the closer to home for the clear investment she had in him. John deflated, smacking his forehead on the table with a loud ‘bonk’.

Nightingale laughed lightly. “What is that about?”

Claire let out a theatrical and loving sigh. “He is trying to knock some sense into his head.”

Without raising his head, John pointed at the vampire maid. The confirming gesture was comical enough for the women at the table to laugh. ‘If levity is still possible, then it’s not that bad,’ John thought, then returned upright. “Ehtra, you are absolutely right,” he began with that. “At a minimum, I cannot act on this in the next couple of months. We all know I’m not done. There’s open questions galore. Layla, the Cardinal Beasts, and who knows what fate will throw my way… I have no commitment to inviting any of them into my harem, but we all know that there’s a chance.”

Even if Lorelei had negotiated John out of that previous limit of 30 that Rave had suggested, fact was that he had to slam that brake. He kept thinking about it only for another cute woman to come his way and for his greedy, big heart to say, ‘Yeah, I got room for that.’

He had been out of the grinding session for four days. It was just too soon to start this process again. This wouldn’t be the behaviour of a man that actually knew he needed to slow down. Every time he made an exception, the whole thing just rang more hollow. Was he going to keep finding excuses forever or would he actually be true to the promises he had made to his harem?

There could, of course, be only one answer.

“I will not pursue Esmeralda,” he said. “I will keep this purely diplomatic. If she advances on me again, I’ll rebuke her harshly.”

As he feared, the promise was not taken entirely seriously. The women around the table all looked to Ehtra. “We will witness your deeds, John Newman,” Lady Vengeance declared. “Let them speak where words have been empty.”

John had been stabbed, betrayed, crushed, dropped from high places, eaten alive, burned, and blinded in his time. Getting doubted by his women was easily worse than any of those. Only grief was an emotion that had affected him more and even that was a question of how much that doubt would grow over the future.

There were no illusions that he was perfect. Some matters, he could stand being doubted on. He would never be as good of a cook as Aclysia and Lee challenging his gamer cred was just par for the course. Being capable of managing the expansion of the harem, that was not something that he could abide. His women were already all exceptional for the fact that they engaged in this unique social group.

‘Rein yourself in, not just because it’s good to be limited but also for them,’ John thought. ‘Come on, it’s not that hard. You don’t need another woman in your life! You have what other men would kill for 27 times over.’

“The matter of pride and punishment settled…” Nightingale steered the conversation, “…how will you proceed with her diplomatically?”

“She is a Latebloomer, so I will have to try to pull her on our side,” John said. Even if she wasn’t going to be a haremette, having her part of his sphere could only be a good thing. The three alternatives were to have her be an ambivalent member of Fusion, someone who moved to another country, or an outright enemy. The last two options were to be avoided. John had enough enemies in his future. “Perhaps it would be for the best if I leave negotiations to you?”

Nightingale considered the suggestion. “Honour demands you accompany me to the next meeting,” she said, “beyond that, I agree. An alcoholic should not enter the liquor store.”

“I am against this,” Ehtra stated. “This is not an addiction, this is a regular vice that he should face and inoculate himself against. If the heart of the Master creature remains as open as a broken fortress gate, he will continue to invite women in without a thought.”

“That, too, has a point,” Nightingale said.

John groaned. He hated this situation and he had no one to blame for it but himself. “I will contemplate,” was all he could say on the matter.