Then, mercifully, it went limp all at once. All six of its eyestalks collapsed, the tentacles drooped, and the coiled spring of a tail went loose and lax.
“Oh, thank the sea gods!” Om’bobla’s wife exclaimed. “You idiot—it nearly tore my flesh off my bones! What possessed you to make a live tompotamos right here at the table?”
“Why, you know they’re best when you eat them fresh!” Om’bobla protested, unwinding the tentacles from around his thick neck. “Why do you always get so upset when I try to have a little fun?”
“Your fun may have wounded my female,” Rarev growled at him. He looked anxiously at Em. “Are you well, my l’eeja? Did it hurt you?”
“I…I don’t know,” Em whispered, shaken into telling the truth instead of just automatically saying, “I’m fine,” as she usually did. “I…suppose I’ll see once I get disentangled.”
“Here—let me help.”
Rarev knelt by her side. Carefully, he unwrapped the limp tentacles from around her wrist and breast, shaking his head as he saw the red sucker marks left behind.
“The thing was damn strong, I’ll give it that,” he said, frowning. “And I fear that it’s done some grave damage. Your smooth skin is lovely, but this could not have happened if you’d only had some fur to protect you.”
“Well, as it happens, I am furless but I think I’ll survive,” Em said dryly.
She was beginning to regain some of her composure—enough that she was trying to get the white strips of her dress to lay flat over her injured breast. She would assess the injuries herself later, in private, she thought. There was no point in flashing everyone at the table—even if Lady Tabuu and Lord Torrid insisted on doing so.
Speaking of the other two contestants, they had stopped their erotic activities momentarily to assess for danger. But now that the kafuffle was over, they had apparently decided it was safe to resume fondling each other and moaning. Would they never stop? Honestly, they were really beginning to get on Em’s nerves!
“Is everything all right in here? I thought I heard shouting.” Elfa was suddenly there, an anxious look on her dark blue face.
“We had a bit of a problem but Rarev took care of it,” Em answered, as serenely as she could. She really was shaken up inside, but she didn’t like to show it. Right now, she just wanted to go someplace alone to “lick her wounds” as her mum would have said.
“Oh, I see…” Elfa stared blankly at the dead sea creature sprawled over half the table. “Well, then…”
“Do you think we might be shown to our rooms now?” Em asked, hoping that her voice wasn’t shaking too much. Maybe she was a bit more flustered than she wanted to admit. It really had been a very unexpected and frightening occurrence, she told herself. She was entitled to be a bit shaken—as long as she didn’t show it.
“Yes, we would like to retire for the evening,” Rarev said, rising from his crouching position beside her chair. He offered Em his arm and she took it gratefully because—to be honest—she wasn’t quite sure she could have risen on her own. Her legs were that shaky.
“Oh—of course.” Elfa nodded. She looked at the other two couples. “I’ll be back to take you to your respective rooms, shortly,” she told them.
But Torrid and Tabuu were too busy sucking each other’s bits to answer and Om’bobla and Channa were arguing again.
“You’re an idiot!” the mermaid wife was saying.
“And you’re a sea witch! You never let me have any fun!”
“Fun? Fun like you had just now when you nearly got us killed? Or fun like you had with that lavela trout girl when I caught your tentacles deep inside her?” Channa demanded.
“But, baby, I told you—she meant nothing to me!” Om’bobla protested. “She had the head of a trout—how could I fall in love with someone like that? I was only curious to see what it would be like to be with a woman who had the top half of a fish and the bottom half of a humanoid. I mean, she was your exact opposite—of course I didn’t love her!”
“You fucked her though!” Channa exclaimed. “I caught you right in the middle of it and you didn’t even stop—pounding away at that trout slut with her big, fisheyes staring different directions and her long, smooth legs all splayed out! Admit it—you don’t love me because I have a tail instead of legs!”
“No, baby, no!” Om’bobla protested.
It seemed to Em that they might go on all night and meanwhile, across the table from them, Tabuu and Torrid were oblivious as they moaned and groaned and fondled each other.
It was all getting to be a bit much.
“I’m sure the other couples won’t mind waiting,” Rarev said dryly, speaking to Elfa who seemed mesmerized by what was going on at the round table. “If you could take us to our room?”