Romulus Side Story 3 – To Fight Unabated 3 – Harem Talks
“Hrrrrr.” Sol’s purring was music to Romulus’ ears, even more than the actual music that was playing in the background. How could pianos and violins ever compare to the voice of the woman that had been loyally by his side for ten millennia?
The Apex opened his eyes to the view of both of his goddesses laying on his chest. His back was propped up against a large pillow in the kingly bed. The optimal angle to behold the scene on top of him.
One pale as starlight, the other the sun-kissed colour of chocolate, his women were draped over his large torso. Authority and respect, that was the regular reason why he preferred to present himself in his statuesque form. To be so large that his women could share his chest with room to spare was a side-benefit that had eventually become the main benefit.
Sol’s leg brushed over his. Of his two women, the solar goddess was the curvy one. Large breasts, wide hips, toned and yet soft thighs, she was the essence of femininity. Luna had a more graceful, slender build. There had been a little more width to her hips and size to her breasts in the past. Fascinatingly, an immortal body like hers returned to the state before pregnancy after many years without child.
“Never a bad morning with you, beloved,” Sol whispered affectionately. She pressed her body against the side of his masculine definition. A helping hand gripped her by the plumpness of her behind. A low laughter joined the pleased purring.
On the other side, Luna had dozed off, as she so often did past their morning sex. The moon goddess always took some time to fully awaken. When it came to taming his first desires in the day, she was there. Afterwards, she returned to sleep for some time.
“It is my foremost duty,” he answered her.
His very own sun smiled brilliantly. Stretching up, she placed a kiss on the swing of his jaw. “I will prepare breakfast,” she whispered, then snuck out of the bed.
Her warmth was direly missed in the large bed. Romulus looked across its size and remembered the other women that had shared his side over the years. Some, he remembered with ache; others, he remembered with something resembling disgust; few, he did not have any emotions for whatsoever. Over his long, long life, his own harem had waxed and waned in size. Never had there been less than two and the largest it had ever been was fifteen.
“Mhm… what are you thinking about, Rom?” Luna beheld him with half-lidded eyes.
“That the Gamer has surpassed me in matters of his harem.”
Luna tilted her head back to yawn, revealing her perfectly white teeth. “Thaaaaaaaahhhhhht… is a subject he is freakish in anyhow,” she told him, “and his powers have manifested a way to assure a viability we never had.”
Romulus slowly nodded. He had loved mortal women in his life. No matter how hard he had tried, their mortality had always caught up to them, just as it had with the children. After the third time, Romulus had withheld his romances from future women that lacked immortal bodies. It had hurt too much, to watch them grow older and older. Goddesses were thus his partners.
“I should attempt to recreate his spell,” Romulus thought out loud.
“Dissatisfied with what you have?” Luna asked cheekily.
Romulus mockingly blew air out of his nose, then scooped Luna up. This was a talk to have with his sun and moon in the room.
To find Sol, he just had to follow the sound of sizzling and the scent of bacon. Clad in nothing but an apron, the sun-kissed goddess carefully worked with the bacon and eggs she prepared for the two of them. “Managed to rise from your beloved darkness, ‘sister’?” the blonde asked with that familiar bite in her tone.
“And I am once again met with your overbearing brightness.” Luna narrowed her eyes as if she was staring directly at a light bulb. “Speaking of sisters, our beloved has just voiced an interest in expanding this harem once more.”
“Of course?” Sol tilted her head, tracing their motions from the open kitchen. “Justitia shall be with us again, will she not?”
The goddess of justice, whom they had saved from the Blood of the Proletariat, was a past lover of the Apex. A falling out had been had between them in the long depression that Romulus had lived through after Pompeii. Rapprochement was happening. A long history complicated the matter and also made it more straightforward.
Many goddesses had departed from Romulus’ harem over the years. Hundreds of years passed and interests diverged. Most of the time the matter had been one of simply… departing with each other. A few break ups had been violent or tragic. Sol and Luna were indirectly the cause of some as well. Few women were built to accept that they were second in another man’s heart. Only his sun and his moon he could hold as equal.
“I was contemplating recreating the spell the Gamer uses to spread his power to his beloved,” the Apex answered.
“I support all that spreads your grandeur, Rom,” Sol answered immediately. “Such a spell would be worthwhile, therefore.”
“To be the voice of reason, like always, I do not believe we are fit to live like the Gamer does,” Luna spoke up. “A mimicry of the spell would be worthwhile to maintain our standing in the global power ranking. Already, it would be questionable if we would win a confrontation with the Gamer and all of his harem.”
“You doubt our beloved?” Sol growled.
“She has healthy doubts,” Romulus intervened. “You know that.”
“…We have at least a few more months before he becomes that much of a threat…” Sol loaded the large serving of bacon and eggs on three plates, then brought them over. “I do not fully disagree that we are not fit to live like him though. Such a rapid expansion of the harem would be a bit much for me.”
“What happened to supporting Rom’s grandeur?” Luna teased.
“I know restraint,” Sol bit back.
“Do you know how to properly make crispy bacon?”
Sol moved the plate with her share of bacon out of Luna’s reach. “Do you want to eat bacon or bacon flavoured carbon?”
“Do you want me to show you how it’s done?”
“Do you not want to share his bed with more women?”
Luna stopped for a moment. “That is… besides the point.”
Sol crossed her arms under her breasts. “No, that was the point before you decided to pivot to my cooking.”
“I would not mind concubines and handmaidens,” Luna confessed. “If we could experience such without losing them again, I would love it.”
“Finally, some honesty.”
“Give me my bacon, Sol!”
Romulus chuckled. There was never a dull moment with these two by his side. “I have a rough idea how the spell works,” he reported. “To copy it in full will take me a hundred years, likely. We can use the Gamer in that time to see whether a harem of that size can even last.”
“He may be a special case… his women are quite attached to each other,” Luna commented.
“We can simply find such women ourselves,” Sol stated. “Provided that we want to.”
Romulus carefully cut the egg on his plate with the side of his fork. “To have had this power when Medea was still alive,” he whispered. The slender fingers of Luna gently touched his shoulder for a moment. That was all the support he needed. Many tragedies had accumulated over his long, long life and if he had not been able to digest them all, then he would have gone insane many times over. He knew he wasn’t. He had seen Tiamat’s descent and the madness that befell some that held the Mandate of Heaven.
“Whether you use the power or not, we ought to have it,” the moon goddess said. “It feels good to learn, right?”
“That it does,” Romulus agreed in his deep voice and carefully lifted the egg to his mouth. It was easier for him than other people. After all, a hand as large as his required a fork of fitting size. That made balancing the egg yolk a lot easier. Luna, for all her dexterity, struggled to do the same.
Sol finally gave back the silver-haired woman’s bacon, then sat down to eat with them.
There was harmony in the quiet. Romulus desired more women, as any man would. He held himself back in matters of love because he had been burned. His pool of candidates for relationships was either limited to very few or guaranteed to lead to pain. Emulating that spell could change that. It would be an option.
Yet, what he held right now was more important than anything.
___________________________________________________________________________
‘On contemplation, this ought to be the primary reason why I do not desire a harem this large.’
The scent of sex permeated the air around the harem. Lesser noses would have not noticed it. The displeasing notes of cold sweat and semen had been washed off, replaced with soap and perfume. Still, the aroma of recently released pheromones clung to them all beneath the cocktail of intermingled scents.
Romulus spent a good amount of his day interlocked with his women, something between 30 minutes and 2 hours. The Apex had a great deal of appreciation for those times of the day. They were bright moments. Some orgies he had had when his harem had been on the larger side were noteworthy for being longer. Admittedly, he had once spent three days just having sex with all of his partners. The only interruptions had been to sleep.
That seemed to be the Gamer’s usual weekend. There was, mathematically, no way he had all of his women smell like that every morning and not invest at least an hour before breakfast alone. It wasn’t that Romulus couldn’t compete with that (the necessary biomancy was intricate, but possible) but that he lacked the interest in doing so.
‘Perhaps a folly of youth,’ he thought to himself. Then he shook his head to himself. ‘No, even I was never that guided by my passions. Nathalia chose him for a reason.’
“Using the new weapon today?” The question came just as John stepped up to the Apex.
Romulus raised the armament. Once more, the sound of crashing waves accompanied its motions. “It deserves its taste of enemies,” he answered. “A different topic entirely, John Newman – may I see your hands?”
The Gamer’s poker face was quite good. He managed to recreate the instinctive looking at his hands convincingly. It was only the long experience Romulus had with schemers that prevented him from taking it at face value. Whether simulated or not hardly mattered here. “I don’t think there’s much interesting about my hands?”
“You downplay the importance,” Romulus responded patiently. Speaking plainly with the Gamer was sometimes difficult. His was a paranoid mind and a fast one at that. A combination that often required that all context was given so he would feel comfortable. “I desire to take a look at the spell that connects your power to the potential of your women. If at all possible, I would wish to replicate it.”
“Could you replicate it?” the Gamer asked with a raised eyebrow. “I was fairly certain that this is one of the Game Breaking bullshit things I have access to.”
Suddenly, another person stepped into the conversation. Covered in her suit, the long-haired redhead Scarlett physically got between John and Romulus. “If you want that kind of research, it will cost you.”
“As honour demands,” Romulus answered. He knew that the Gamer would agree to this once the reason was presented. It was only good and proper that such kindness would be returned. “I do not know with certainty that I could replicate it, but I believe it possible at least in part.”
“…You would want it to assure that you do not lose anyone to age again…?” the Gamer asked what was obvious and Romulus nodded. He sighed and offered his hands. Scarlett rolled her eyes. She was a bit of a cutthroat.
“We should at least agree on what he gives us first,” the redhead complained.
“This isn’t a business transaction,” the Gamer joked.
“Everything is a transaction,” she disagreed.
Romulus chose not to intervene in the banter and instead just do what he had set out to. The marks on his fingers barely meant anything. They were visual manifestations of an underlying magical matrix, the equivalent of heat created as a byproduct of an electrical current (just with a little more purpose). Going a little deeper with his eyes alone was something the Apex was capable of and did.
The Gamer was made up of more magical circuits than any other human that Romulus had come across before. He had already known that bit, of course. It had been obvious from the moment he had first laid eyes on him and that was also what had confirmed to the Apex that John Newman had the potential to rival him. This body alone was a reality bending power and it merely served as the conduit.
Scanning through it deliberately yielded little in terms of immediate revelations. Regardless, it would aid him in reconstructing it all. Luna kept note of his mental motions, committing it all to her perfect memory.
“Thank you,” Romulus finally said. “I will mention it once I have an idea of appropriate recompense.”
“Don’t worry about it. I would be a monster to deny another man the chance to keep his harem with him.” The Gamer put one hand in his pocket and gestured with the other towards the rectangular gate of light they stood by. “Shall we?”
“We shall,” Romulus agreed.