The black man had brought them here. A place filled with surprising people of the same standings. The tallest building is one featuring yellow-stain windows. Pillars and walls, bricks and structure, all black.
The ones who brought them here. The man who drifted from town to town before finding solace in the arms of a horned nun. Another who came, his arms, invested with an occult mage dozing soundly. Many more among them, all silently voiced their thanks to the responsible for their mounted living standards.
One, in particular, was enthusiastic at the thought of bringing a ring to his new lover, having earned a spot among the scientists of the Halcyon. His first paycheck served to that...well, after securing a domain to decorate in her environment. Hints of blue and white. Vanilla and mint, the same colors to her attire, the same taste of her lips.
Only, today would prove to be quirky for Randy, having since wandered back home. Yariela toiled in the kitchen, sporting her elegantly wolven scarf hindering her face up to her nose. It glimmers in snow magic, gently drifting with an airless atmosphere with snowflakes occasionally falling from it.
Randy looked up things from the internet. Happenings from near cities. One tab was prompted open, depicting the domineering skyscrapers of the Sunder-Scapes. Nothing to see, nothing to say.
His cellphone rings softly beside him, buzzing in a favorable tone, one picked from this place. He flickers it awake "Hello?"
"Yo, Randy, you playing?" Another voice from another scientist.
"Playing? Playing what?" He raises an eyebrow in curiosity.
"Dude, check the calendar! It's the first of November!"
"Wait...are you talking about this weird month where you're not supposed to--
"Yea, yea!" The voice cuts "You playing? I and the boys are!"
"Really, guy?" Randy rolls his eyes, looking away from his computer screen "You really think I'm going to be lasting an entire month? Do you know who I have living at home?"
"Come on, man, there's five hundred in if you deal..."
"...what?"
"Well, the boys have decided to spice it up. We all pitch a hundred in. With you in, it goes for six hundred in total. The last one to 'give in' gets the bundle. Five hundred dollars, man. Think about it".
"Really?" Randy rises from his set and takes a long stare to his wife. Her pure snow hair gently jiggling behind her hums, occasionally tasting the sauce she tolls about. A gentle creature, much like her entire species. The aura filling her bronze skin is dim, soft to the touch. Benign and benevolent.
Surely he could manage to last a month without drifting in the embrace of her soft arms. Or the lips he came to long for alongside the voice that shrieks richly in his nightly grasp. It was easy money for him.
"Sure, I'm down", he nods, certain he had it in the bag.
"Cool, cool. You know where to put your loan, right?"
"Yea, yea, already on it" Randy taps a few touches on his keyboard, making his bank account a hundred dollars lighter, utterly convinced to win. With that, he snaps his phone, walking towards his calendar, crossing off the first as the evening comes to a close...
...and then she hugged him "My wonderful husband, I have finished with tonight's supper!" Her voice reverberates with her daily joy "Spaghetti with a rich and meaty sauce, just how you like it~.
Randy had a smile. Behind that smile, immediate regret. And immediate, it was a reminder of a yeti's unending habit to hug, embrace or otherwise hold close contact with their husbands.
He thought he could speak to her about it. Sitting the fluffy yeti at the table minutes before eating about this month. Her eyebrows raised in curiosity, though a hint of madness seemed to have sprinkled behind them "Does that mean we can no longer snuggle together?"
"No, no, this...this is fine. Just no overtly...sensual". Randy spreads his hands in a disarming manner, only to be fiercely hugged, arms looking to compensate for what was to be a month arid of anything more. She understood...
...but his body didn't. One week in. Just one week of nothing more than hugs as compensation and Randy was already in the ropes. Going cold turkey surely was the cause of this exacerbated pent-up disposition, his body longing for the cool warmth of his wife. The elegant mix of these two different temperatures. Or the touch of her winter breath, vanilla, and cold mint. The taste further honed in those flavors.
Randy had yet to fully embark on the life of a man married to a monster, unknowing that his body now had a taste of his beloved wife's winter-dwelling body and heart. It craved for it as much as one would food and water. A wholesome, welcoming woman to bury any woe of the daily grind, her voice, as eager as he was, gone.
Randy was put in front of what prompted him to move from the Sunder-Scape. His body wanted it. His mind, refused, thinking of the six hundred dollars. It hardened in resolve. Unfortunately for him, so did his body. Well, one part, at least.
Sunday had come and so did Yariela, knocking on Randy's door. By Wednesday, Randy had realized how strenuous his ordeal would be. Sleeping in the same bed as his wife would have given his body plenty of excuses. Not that Yariela would have helped, waiting on his hand, waiting to be claimed anew.
So, she visited him in the guest's room, a plate of his favored dish, a boisterous voice to accompany her "Darling! I come with today's bundle! The autumn passage!~ This brand of spaghetti was special in itself. The spices resting over the garnish of sauce and meatballs are as diverse as the falling leaves of crimson, amber and maroon, populating her plate like the soil of autumn.
"Ah, great, thanks" Randy immediately comes plucking the plateau from her hands. A side glance, an indirect touch to her fluffy hands had risen her voice "Darling? You seem shaky".
"Yea, yea, don't worry about it. I was just hungry" He looks to his plate, the glint in his eyes speaking of hunger. A different hunger roused awake. One snuffed by several blinks.
"Are you sure? You really don't look well". Having communed with this man she made hers, Yariela could easily see the outlines of his aura. To feel the subtle pulse of his atmosphere. The sly twitches of his eyes. The very slack shaking of his hands. The hidden glances in her way, currently adorned in a moldy top and very short pants hidden by the shirt.
The more he tried to discard her presence by eating, the more she saw it. Her monstrous instincts called out to her like the last time Randy had blown to a full denial of his own needs. Needs that often, if not always crossed with hers. Just as him, the yeti had patiently endured the week.
Yet, the hugs she periodically embraced him with were not enough. The yearning to feel a more intimate hug embroiled her, adjacent to their nights spent in each others' arms. Their lips touching, her voice shrieking, her arms clinging to his back as well as her legs. Their words whispered in affection. A sleepless night bathing in her womanly senses. It became a need for her, flourished by his desires. One triggering another.
"Darling, you're not fine at all". Yariela approaches her munching husband, more and more clearly trying to force his body out of its famished state, a soft hug coiling around his neck.
A cool breeze sets itself on the surface of his body, further enhanced by her bare legs sitting atop his lap. All of it saps Randy's will to eat, forced to a deep stare in her eyes. Her tone, so close to his ear, so close to disregarding his meal for the other.
"No, hey! Yary, there are still two weeks before we can--" Snow magic flows from her body to his plate, carrying it away. A reminder that she is not merely a mountain-dweller.
"I will not stand by and let you deny yourself like this. To the winter grasp with this unreasonable event~ Her breathing is dense, foggy, clearly intent on pressing her lips against his, flourished in a taste re-kindled. Randy was once again facing what had prompted her to act out when he once substituted pain for desire. A stern refusal to watch him wither away by himself. Only here, with much fewer recourses to resist her attempt, once again, feeling no shred of any other motive than genuine needs to display affection.
"Wait..." The cool air between their pants asked for greater inhalation as the kiss had devoured every breath of air in their lungs. Randy still tried holding on "...wait...look, six hundred dollars. It's not much but, I won't be a hundred shorter either".
Yariela looks back to him, now knowing he had a hundred in the gambit. A hundred. Not much, but, still something. Nothing to Yariela, jubilous in his arms, moving only to pluck a hundred from her purse and slap it on the desk where Randy sat in front of "A hundred nonsense! As is its five hundred brothers! This..." She drives her lips on his a second time, sapping evermore resistance from his bodily desires' path.
~Your well-being is much more important~ With that said, Yariela the gentle yeti proceeds to unleash herself upon her husband, a hand on her short pants. The other, on her panties, goading him on into giving in. A year of continual lovemaking had rendered her body and mind honed to his state, spotting his exact weakness, and exploiting them with no restraints.
Randy's entire week spent away from her arms translated to an entire evening and night moving among her moans, fresh at every minute, liquidating every ounce of build-up in this vigorous love. Truly, he had lost the oath oft he month, having consumed his wife over and over again...
---
"Hah! I knew he would have lost!" A voice comes screeching into a five-way intercom. Four hindered faces still bearing their lab coats were present on different sides of a computer screen. Fellow scientists, akin to Randy, the one currently adulating in the first lost.
"Look..." Randy raises his hands front and center "...you try going cold turkey when you have a wife overtly observant to your patterns and whatnot. Trust, it's not easy going a week without longing for it".
"Yea, yea, losers' excuses" Another man speaks through, mocking in his design.
"Derrick, you're only saying that because you're all picking up on SSRI pills".
"Yea, what if we are?" Another one, Jared, leans to his webcam "Six hundred moolahs isn't anything to scoff at! If anything, you're the one who shouldn't have forsaken them!"
"Of course not!" A tender voice comes soothing behind Randy, accompanied by the touch of soft snowfall. Arms coil from behind. A delicate visage leans close to his "He promised me he wouldn't take those anymore~.
"He did? His loss" Yet another voice, Coleen's. The leader of their little department.
"Ohh, you're the people making that unreasonable bet I see" Yariela plunges a hand straight in Randy's pocket, reaching for his cellphone "Be back in a few, darling~
"What, wait--" The yeti moves away in a winter flash, leaving him alone for the resumed mockery. Friendly banter, yet they wouldn't let him live it down for a while.
"Anyway, as I've said..." Coleen shrugs in his cam "It's a shame you made that dumb little promise. Otherwise, we probably would have ended in a tie. Instead, we're likely splitting your hundred into--
"Deary-poo, here you are~ Another voice in Coleen's intercom. A feminine one followed by fluffy tails. Nine of them. A hand comes near, holding a vial of pills "Tell me, is the fact that you hold to yourself so strongly since last week a cause of this capsule?"
"Wait--where did you--no, it isn't--"
"Oh dear, looks like someone was found out" Derrick stifles a laugh.
"Oh dear, the nice lady was right" The voice finds a face to identify with. Blond hair leans on the cam where Coleen was, separated only by the perked ears atop. Her eyes were slit, yet gentle, a feature of the Inari kind "This really is some unreasonable gathering for this 'No Nut November' I'm hearing about. Oh dear, I can't let you go this pent-up for an entire month".
"Dear, please--" Coleen begins to panic, the imagery of his wife moving a hand to the wrap of her kimono present to the others' surprise. Randy, most of all, seeing the occidental outfit falter for more seductive under clothes. The capsule of SSRI pills she once held burns in blue flames, and benign aura flowing straight to the distant scientist "--please, two weeks! Just two more week before--"
~No, no, no, dear. You cannot wait for two more weeks. I cannot wait for two more weeks. Sorry boys..." The kitsune woman turns to the camera, a sultry smile on her crimson lips ~Mr. Moro is going to be signing off tonight. Laters~ The webcam snaps shut, leaving but his attempted scream cut midway.
"Hehe..." Derrick nods, flickering fingers toward where he once saw Coleen "...looks like someone didn't hide their stock hard enough--
"Who did what now?" Another voice. A woman's voice. Much less delicate than the Inari's. A woman with pink hair and pink ears, wearing what delinquents would. Far from being one herself, the manticore never the less had grown to enjoy the style on her being. However, right now, her tail had several capsules lodged in its moldy entrance.
"Hum..."
"Hey dear, so, I was making something steaming for us, and then, a good friend of mine called me. Said you and some buddies were doing something asinine as to cutaway your body's essential dose of your loving wife. I was doubtful, so, she asked me to look around. And here and behold, this!"
The manticore drops the capsules right in front of him with a mix of anger and predatory hunger on her face, closely leaning on his cheek, a scalding whisper "Would you be kind to explain to me what this is?"
"Hum...well..." Derrick's face sweats literal bullets, made worse with her tail rattling directly behind him, loading its venom. Loud enough that all can hear "See, I had a...bet...for six hundred dollars--
"All of this for six hundred miserable dollars!?" The manticore slams her fist straight on the capsules, smashing them to pieces "By Lilith, you're going to starve yourself of any sexual stimuli for pocket changes?! No! Not on my watch! Take off your pants, I'm rescinding this asinine gambit!"
"But dear--" A large tear broadcasts in the mic as well as the sound of a bed bearing bodies. Looking into Derrick's cam, Randy, Jared, and Remy can see Derrick's wife beginning to straddle him, skipping her tail's nourishment entirely.
"You're going to wonder how in the great blazing hell you even thought to avoid your wife for a month after tonight!" Her tail rattles in satisfaction, having shot a volley on Derrick's feet. A greater dose as to output the effect of the SSRI pills. He couldn't speak, his voice, cut by the abundance of stimuli boiling in his intimate spot. However, it does spot the camera still filming, still recording. "Show's over lads!" The camera cuts away, snapped close by the said tail.
"Well..." Remy shrugs, coy, leaning at the back to his chair, unaware of the creature lurking behind, a pale complexion to her skin "Another one bites the--"
"Dust?"
"Yea, that---ohh...when were you..." Spun on his chair, Remy is face to face with a lich bearing a tome. Singular pills float close to her, as well as a potion. One she inserts in his jaw, emptying its content in strawberry flavors.
"How much was it? One week? One week. One week's worth of lost experimentation for a meager sum. If we compare this to the amount a man can get in via desire and frustration, them..." She was reading. She was talking. But then she stopped, looking at Remy dead in the eye "Husband. I did not know what urged you to take to make yourself unable to come to me for relief. Now that I do..." Her eyes glance at the floating pills, all exploding in a mist "I will have you ingest this drink to recuperate all the lost 'seed' you would have had to empty. As well as all the pent-up~
Slowly, she begins undressing, presenting herself to the decreasingly unaffected man, feeling the pull of a week's worth of 'hunger'. She spreads her hands toward him, welcoming his embrace ~Come. I have a much better manner of spending this poorly thought-out month~
They see it. Remy walking close, his faculties strong, but his desires stronger, pulled towards her by a sort of enchanted spell. She pushes him on the bed, a tablet nearby, already inscribing so miscellaneous notes as her finger points toward his webcam. A veil of darkness blots it out as well as sound.
"Eh? Hey...does that mean I win?" Jared rises from his seat "Haha, I won. Haha, I won! I won! I'll be taking my hundreds now, boys--"
"Yay, hubby wins, hubby wins!" A wurm comes coiling around his waist as he was elating at his proverbial victory. A massive band acts as a silver ring on her hand. Only, her other hand... "Hubby? What is SSRI?"
Jared's heart skips a beat "Hum...wh--wh--what could you--
"This!" The wurm showcases a capsule full of pills "Nice frosty wooly lady friend said hubby take them to have no need. But, why would hubby do that? Lecia is here for hubby!~
"Well, you see, hum..." Jared scratches his head "Me and the boys...we had a contest for six hundred--
"But, hubby already makes thrice that in a day? Why would hubby torture himself with worthless pills? Why would hubby coerce friends with lovely lady friends to the torture?"
"It's not torture, it's just a contest of will--
"But hubby already showcases will during the day. Lecia thinks it normal that hubby needs relief. Lecia sees no reason for hubby to feel the need to take those for a month. Lecia is always here for hubby".
"Well..." Jared couldn't believe her words. She was...sound. Very sound. A hidden brilliance underneath her simplicity of vocabulary. She wasn't wrong either. Men married with monsters trying to force themselves without their embraces for a month? About as sound as trying to spend a month without drinking or eating.
Jared shakes his head as Lecia approaches "Hubby doesn't mind if we give money back, right? No need for dumb contest~ A bright smile on her reptilian lips shines close, waiting for an answer.
And an answer came with a pop-up to all of them. A reimbursement, to the joy of the wingless dragon ~Hehe, hubby makes me happy. But now...~ A lull of magic to her bottom, replacing her strong tail with human-like legs. Her face paints red, her breath grows hot, remembering the week "Hubby neglected Lecia for a week. Lecia all pent-up, now. Hungry for affection~
"Ok, ok, we can--
~Lecia takes hubby now~ The wurm leaps at Jared with a high-pitch squeal, knocking the computer off.
"So, I guess the bets are off..." Randy throws his arms upward, caught unprepared by a hug from behind.
"I'll say. They didn't really appreciate the reason why they were skipping out, so to say" Yariela returns, slipping his phone in his pocket.
"I saw that..." He turns, meeting her waist in his arms "Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day at work with that stunt you pulled".
"Hehe, at least, they won't be able to point fingers at you, will they?"
"No, but, seeing their wives so...needy...well..."
"Well, what is it going to be, then?~ The yeti's breathing becomes frosty, anticipating, waiting.
"Easy. I'll have you in the kitchen, the bathtub, and the bedroom tonight".
~Oh my...~ Her hair dances in movement, giggling as she is ~A triple course. My regular customer is hungry tonight. Good thing I can provide~.
They chortle a bit in each other's arms, soon leaving the laughter how for a more...intimate replacement. In the kitchen. In the bathroom. And the bedroom. Randy was going to make sure to breach the NNN as many times as he could. If only to make up for the week...