Chapter 5

As they rode towards town, Sid wondered how he was going to survive living with three such highly sexed women, once he returned to Crossroads. Harriet Librarian was on the verge of a sexual frenzy the likes of which he couldn’t even imagine. Cynthia had turned insatiable. He knew that Sally would want her turn with him, too. He hoped that he would survive that much attention.

Harriet turned to Cynthia and asked, “What are you going to do after this adventure is over?”

Riding beside the Damsel, Cynthia answered, “I’m coming on Sid’s next adventure. This was incredible!.”

“Weren’t you almost killed?” Harriet asked finding it hard to believe. She wanted nothing more than to never to see Chaos again.

“Well, yeah,” Cynthia answered feeling her enthusiasm dampening a little. The side of her face still hurt a little even though a week had passed.

“Aren’t you tired of the food?”

“Well, yeah,” Cynthia answered. The best meal they had on this trip had been the ‘steak of snake’.

“Didn’t you have to do a lot of work?” Harriet asked.

She had watched Cynthia and Sid take care of setting up the camp every night. Cynthia worked just as hard as Sid.

“Well, yeah,” Cynthia answered finding that her enthusiasm had nearly died.

“So why come here again?” Harriet asked.

“Because I got to be part of something special,” Cynthia answered.

Harriet said, “I don’t understand.”

As they rode along, Cynthia said, “Sid and I read a story not too long ago about a man who went crazy. He adopted the Heroic code and went out to have adventures. The world he saw in his madness was magical, while the real world was just so mundane.

“I don’t even know what I was expecting to happen here. What I did find was that there is a kind of magic in this world. There are Damsels in Distress that need rescuing. There are bad guys who need to be dealt with using a firm hand. It is so different than where we live.

“Sure, there were times when it was really unpleasant. That first night here, I was terrified. I nearly died. Do you want to know something? For the first time in my life, I know that I am alive!”

“Interesting,” Harriet said. She rode along and said, “I’ve read all of the stories about the Damsels in Distress. No matter how they described it, it still sounded romantic to me. I spent two weeks running for my life. I didn’t eat anything for five days. It was horrible. There’s nothing romantic about being a Damsel in Distress.

“I know that when I write my story about how I was a Damsel in Distress, other young ladies will read it and think it is romantic. There is nothing that I can write that will convey the true deprivation that I went through.”

“Did you do it for the romance?” Cynthia asked.

Harriet shook her head and answered, “I did it to have a baby. I figured the romance of it all would make it worthwhile.”

“Oh,” Cynthia said.

It was hard to believe that the women of Cassandra were willing to risk everything for the chance to have a baby. Looking back at her reasons for coming she could see that her motives had been kind of lame.

“What about you? Why did you come here?” Harriet asked.

“I wanted to see if what Sid had told me was true,” Cynthia answered.

She swore to herself that she would never doubt anything that Sid told her again. No matter how outrageous his stories had been, she now knew that he hadn’t exaggerated at all. In fact, he had understated a lot of it.

“Oh,” Harriet said.

“It all seemed so impossible, particularly the way he described the women of Cassandra. It sounded like a fantasy of some teenage boy in the throes of hormones — beautiful women willing to have sex with him at the drop of a hat. I still didn’t believe, even after I saw him go through the portal on his last adventure,” Cynthia said.

Harriet smiled and asked, “Earth boys dream about having sex with women?”

“All of the time,” Cynthia answered. She glanced over at Harriet and added, “Men would line up for a chance to be with you. On Earth, you are every man’s dream come true.”

“I’d love to visit Earth. There are a lot of men who would find their dreams coming true,” Harriet said with a giggle. She could just imagine a line of men waiting for their turn in her bed. That was the subject of a fantasy story that would be a number one best seller in Cassandra.

“You wouldn’t enjoy it,” Cynthia said.

“I can promise you that you’re wrong about that,” Harriet said as images of virile young men worshiping her body flashed through her head.

“I don’t know. You thought coming to Chaos would be romantic,” Cynthia said.

Harriet frowned at the reminder and said, “Maybe you’re right. Still, it’s a great fantasy.”

“I guess,” Cynthia said. As much as she enjoyed sex with Sid, she didn’t think that she’d like a line of men waiting to have sex with her.

“You might be right about reality not living up to fantasy. There’s no way I’d come back to Chaos,” Harriet said. She looked at Cynthia and asked, “What about you?”

She was silent for a moment and then answered, “I’ll come with Sid on his next adventure.”

It was approaching sunset of the next day when they finally reached a town with a bank. This wasn’t the same town through which they had entered Chaos. One of the men who had attacked them was the owner of the stables. Sid knew that he wouldn’t be able to sell the horses there so he had chosen a different town for their departure from Chaos. It had added an extra two days to their travel time.

Harriet looked over at the bank and saw that it was closed. Frustrated, she said, “The bank is closed.”

Sid said, “We’ll have to stay the night, here.”

“Okay,” Cynthia said thinking that she’d enjoy another night with Sid.

“No,” Harriet said in protest.

She didn’t want to wait another night before being with Sid. She wanted to go to Crossroads, now, and start rewarding Sid for his rescue of her.

“No sex, tonight,” Sid said looking over at Cynthia.

“No!” Cynthia said in protest.

“No!” Harriet said in protest.

“We can’t afford to have the whole town beating down the door of our room when you start screaming,” Sid said.

He was pretty sure that her screams had scared off every wild animal within five miles of where they had camped the previous night.

“Drat,” Cynthia said feeling disappointed.

“Drat,” Harriet said, just as disappointed as Cynthia.

If she couldn’t sleep with Sid that night, then she wanted to at least watch him with Cynthia.

“Let’s get rid of the horses,” Sid said.

He rode over to the stables. The women followed beside him. Cynthia watched every one and every thing. She wasn’t taking any chances. She didn’t realize that her alertness and the bloodstains on her clothes advertised that she wasn’t an easy victim.

After dismounting in front of the stables, Sid started removing his saddle from his horse. He said, “Cynthia, get your saddle and gear. We’ll put it in a storage box for you. We’ll sell the rest of the stuff.”

“Oh,” Cynthia said.

Seeing that he had customers, the owner of the stables came out. The fellow was tall and skinny with a wide smile. He looked over the horses and asked, “What can I do for you?”

“We want to sell all our horses, and four of the saddles,” Sid said gesturing to the horses.

“That’s more horses than I can afford,” the man said shaking his head. He looked over the four poorer quality horses and said, “I can maybe afford those four. The other two are worth more than I have.”

Sid was rather surprised by that announcement. Owners of stables were among the richest men in town. They had to be in order to buy and sell horses. If this was some tactic to negotiate the price down, he’d never run into it before. He asked, “You can’t afford six horses?”

“Mister, I bought this place last week. It took nearly every pinch that I had. I’ve been boarding six horses, since then,” the man said scratching his stomach. He sighed and said, “I wish I could help you.”

“I guess we’ll have to go to another town to sell our horses,” Sid said. He looked over at the horses and said, “I guess we’ll have to stable them for the night.”

Harriet was not happy about having to travel another four days to a week. She said, “Give them to him.”

Although he could afford the loss of money that she was suggesting, Sid shook his head. He might own a kingdom, but he wasn’t about to throw away any hard won goods. That wasn’t the way that things worked in Chaos. It also represented a significant portion of the money that Sally had earned in this adventure.

He said, “No.”

The tall fellow scratched his head and said, “I’ll go around and see if there’s anyone that wants to buy a horse. I might be able to find a buyer or two. We haven’t had any horses for sale around here for a while.”

Nodding his head, Sid said, “Do that.”

Harriet walked over to the man and grabbed his arm. Desperate, she said, “Please find a buyer. I beg you.”

“I’ll let you know what I find, in the morning,” the man said rather surprised by Harriet’s begging.

“Get your gear off the horses. We’ll take it to the inn with us. He’ll take care of the saddles,” Sid said to Harriet and Cynthia. He went over to his horse and grabbed his gear. The two women followed his example. It was obvious that no one was happy about the situation.

With a bar on the door of their room in the inn, Sid thought he would finally get a good night’s sleep. Although the inn might be noisy, at least he wouldn’t have to spend most of the night on guard duty. Unfortunately, a good night’s sleep was denied him. Locked in erotic dreams, the two women uttered groans, moans, and whimpers that kept him from sleeping for most of the night. Unable to see them in the dark of the room, he could only imagine what they were doing. Unfortunately, he had an x-rated imagination, and that made it even harder to sleep.

At first light, he sat up from his bed on the floor, feeling exhausted. He ran his fingers through his hair and then shook his head trying to wake fully. His mouth tasted horrible. He stuck a finger in his mouth and rubbed his teeth. One of the things that he really missed, was a toothbrush. After breakfast he’d dip his finger in some baking soda to brush his teeth.

At the sound of movement from one of the beds, he looked across the room at the two women. They were wiggling and moaning in their sleep. In a soft voice that wouldn’t wake them, he said, “They must be having interesting dreams.”

Cynthia opened her eyes and looked across the room at Sid taking in his rugged appearance. Sporting a week’s growth of beard, he was long past the point where he needed a shave. She knew that he needed a bath. In fact, all three of them needed a bath. She didn’t care about any of that. Looking across the room in the soft light of morning, she thought he was the sexiest man she had ever seen.

She sat up in the bed still dressed in her leathers. She yawned and then said, “I hope that we can leave, today. I’m getting tired of wearing these clothes.”

“We probably should have aired them out last night,” Sid said before he thought about it. There had been a reason he hadn’t suggested that. He didn’t think that he’d enjoy a night knowing that there were two naked women in the room with him.

“How do you wash leather clothes?” Cynthia asked.

“You don’t. You wear them until they fall off of you,” Sid answered absently. He yawned wishing that he could wake up fully.

Cynthia said, “That’s gross.”

“I suppose it is, by modern Earth standards. Wearing clean clothes every day is a relatively recent practice,” Sid said, shrugging his shoulders.

Cynthia thought about it for a moment before she said, “I guess I never thought about it.”

“Visiting Chaos is a great way to learn an appreciation for history,” Sid said with a smile.