### Sex God Saga 10
### Facilitating Friendship
Still Saturday:
Theo walked past the bar where bottles in silly shapes were backlit by neon strips. The Watcher moved within the bottles, its disembodied eyes sharpening to the sight of mediumship.
Keith was still in the same spot, now with a different girl clinging to his arm. The statue of Saint Lucy was right behind him, making it seem like her cyan halo hovered behind the Asian conjurer. Lucy's eyes were blindfolded with neon tubes, giving Keith's head even more backlight.
It was fucking unfair how hot he looked. Theo wanted to turn and go back upstairs and cuddle with Mako, Paris or both. He shouldn't have to feel the heartache of Keith's unreachability right after a great fuck.
"Hey Theo," Keith said. "You look like a deer in the headlights. What's up?"
"Just had a lot of fun upstairs. Still recovering, hehe."
"I checked by the lounge. Only Paris and the Kims there."
The ambiance changed to orange and purple, giving Keith a golden aura.
"Yeah, I w-was checking out the equipment."
"Ah, tech nerd Mako, am I right? But you looked like you ran a marathon. Everything okay?"
"Yeah. Hey, did you see that guy there? Cain Ho. White hair, looks too young to be here."
Keith glanced at where Cain had just slipped through the crowd. A Veneer went up around them, glamouring their conversation. "Yeah, some free shaman. I'm sure we offered him a membership but he didn't take it and I never talked to him. Probably some champion."
"Is he? He seems... eerie."
Keith shrugged. "Gods pick champions who fit them. Doesn't mean it's a happy relationship. If you're at a point in your life where it seems like a good idea to bash your head against the wall and the god of head-wall bashing comes to you with a deal you're desperate for and in exchange you gotta keep bashing your head..." He waved his hand.
"Please, tell me that god is hypothetical."
"As far as I know. Now excuse me or Claire's going to lose interest. A man's gotta put the bros before the hoes but the hoes gotta be put somewhere."
Theo slinked away, feeling all the tiredness he'd kept suppressing.
The first sight in the toilets was a plaster saint -- holding a neon tube shaped into a fish -- pissing from a tiny plaster dick into a basin. A scribble on the wall said 'Saint Peeter'.
Maybe it was the exhaustion but Theo found that hilarious enough to chuckle until he noticed the vague shape in the mirror. An Outsider who had no intentions of hiding from him.
The blur resolved with a slight summon. Incu, the bull headed incubus. He had more of a torso now, a proper minotaur.
"Please, don't go demon on me."
"Worry not, little conjurer," Incu said. "I would have liked you to devote that sex to me, but I was content observing. I was not the only one."
"Yeah," Theo said, wondering if the sex-muse would have made a better chaperone than Ace. But he liked making gay friends.
"Would you devote some to me in the future?"
"Not sure that's... convenient. Sorry."
He glanced around. Nobody was in any of the stalls. It was weirdly quite. Incu's doing?
"A Venture then, perhaps," the Outsider said and altered his Visage to become a spectral Keith, shirtless, exposed down to the navel. Slender beauty.
Theo looked away. "Fuck no. What are you pulling?"
"I can tell you how to conquer him. You desire him, don't you? It requires no magic. Mere words. The groundwork it already laid."
It dizzied Theo to hear. He clutched the rim of the basin.
### ### ###
Theo's notes:
Outsiders can lie.
Few do, since their reputations get them more V in the long term, but some muses specialize in tricking shamans into worshipping them for Veneration -- or trick people toward Venality. Sometimes even Baseliners.
"At that point, they're halfway to demonhood. Super-slippery slope." -Keith
### ### ###
But what if there really was a way to land his crush?
"No," Theo said. "Even if I believed you, you're a muse of sex, not of lasting, healthy relationships. The way I want Keith is not what you can give me. Or anyone. And I have at least one boyfriend now, even if everything's weird about it and- Why am I talking to you?"
Incu took his old minotaur form again. "I can grant many of your desires. I can get you closer to goals I'm not specializing in as well. Did you know Keith used a muse like me, once upon a time, to improve his game, before settling on Melisandre? You could gain more from your power if you let me in."
Theo let his shoulder's drop. "I know you're not a demon by our classification but that's the sort of thing a demon says in a movie. If I were the hero I'd shatter the mirror all dramatically and shit."
"As you wish," Incu said and faded.
Theo splashed his face with cool water. His life had improved in many ways since stumbling into the Mysterium. But some things were harder, too. He wondered if he had made an unwitting deal with the god of bashing his head into a wall.
### ### ###
Theo spotted Fulin and stayed back, unseen, feeling a little dumbstruck.
The Green Dawn alpha wore a shirt of red flannel with the sleeves torn off that was too small for him and only connected with two buttons at the bottom of his chest. His legs were in gym shorts. Light-up rings decorated his wrists. Puppy face, buzz cut, nose ring, yin-yang tattoos -- he was made for this party douche aesthetic. He swagger-walked to the rhythm of the music, his dick-print shrunken to something halfway reasonable.
He was getting some female attention and a *lot* of male one. He beamed at every compliment guys threw toward his muscles.
With him was Celeste Lee, the Dusk Howlers' Bloomdancer. Her hair was in two buns. She wore a sheer dress over spacey clothing that bordered on skimpy.
Theo drew close as the two Primals separated, Celeste moving to the bar.
Fulin was fixated on a trio of tipsy women who giggled as he flexed his arms. More girls looked on.
Theo took a deep breath of not-so-delicious club air and threw himself into Fulin's chest.
"Hey honey!"
Fulin's smile faltered, then turned into a wide grin. "Missed me?"
"Hardly," Theo said. "I fucked Mako. What if I don't need you anymore?"
Fulin grabbed Theo's head, digging into his hair. Under some excited girls' squeals, the muscleman kissed Theo's neck.
"You want this, faggot," Fulin said into Theo's ear.
"I dunno. Mako is much nicer than you. And he kissed me on the lips."
Fulin grabbed Theo by the hips and tossed him in the air, onto his own hips. He pressed his crotch into Theo's and let him feel the dick pulsing to greater size for a second. "You like asshole douchebags, though. You like being an alpha's dumb bitch, faggot."
Theo's resolve and courage crumbled. He wanted to beg and worship. "Yes sir."
Fulin let him drop. "Fuck. I *just* got here. You have such an effect on me. Where did you fuck Mako? Show me."
"We already gave the key back. You'd have to ask Paris."