Page 70 of Shroom for Improvement

I awoke with a groan, my hand already cradling my shaft. Oh no, Sonny saw that.

“It’s getting worse each morning,” Sonny said from beside me. “It’s getting harder”—he winced—“to ignore.”

“Honestly? I might crack,” I said.

He was right. It was getting more difficult to ignore the impulse. The throbbing, pulsing need. There was an easy fix. One that would take next to no time to sort out. But there was also the fact that even if we sequestered ourselves in separate bathrooms, or wherever, we weren’t alone. Not truly alone. There was always Jenny, watching—peeping. How much longer could I go before I decided the desperate urge to come overrode the knowledge of a sentient pervert house studying me?

He scraped his hands down his face. “Okay, but if you do, tell me, so I can crack too. I don’t want to do it by myself—ugh,I mean, I don’t want to do it alone—fucking hell, I mean...” He puffed out a breath. “I don’t want to be the only one this house is perving on.”

“Morning!” called Jenny, as though being summoned.

Maybe I should find somewhere in a nearby town where I might have twenty-five minutes completely to myself. Wouldn’t need all that time, but I could get in a power nap with the remaining twenty-four-and-a-half minutes.

“Oh, what a shame, you both have ‘situations’ again this morning,” Jenny said, clearly enjoying the moment more than Sonny or me. “Why don’t you deal with your ‘situations’ together? A ‘situation’ against ‘situation’ moment.”

I turned to Sonny. “You’re so lucky you can’t hear this house. If ever there was a boner killer, it’s Jen—” I faltered. A thought popped into my head, something I needed to ask the house, but not in front of Sonny.

“Everything okay?” he asked, sitting up and peering down at me.

“Yes, everything’s fine,” I said, which was the truth, but I wasn’t about to admit my theory. “We should get to practicing this teacup magic, though.” I threw the covers off and got out of bed, not caring that Sonny would catch an eyeful of my hard cock through my pyjama pants. Not that I’d have had any way to hide it besides holding a cushion in front of myself. The thing was... disproportionate. I didn’t let myself watch where his gaze travelled.

I took some fresh clothes from the armoire and shut myself in the bathroom before Sonny asked me any more about my brainwave.

It was the house. The house was making us extra horny. I never had this problem back at my Remy apartment. But then, I also wasn’t waking up next to Sonny every morning.

I undressed and stepped into the shower.

“Goodness, that’s quite the specimen you’ve got there,” Jenny said.

“Can you please not refer to my dick as a specimen, or a situation, or any other random word you’ve assigned to it?” The damn thing was still fully hard, standing proud and flush against my lower abdomen. When was the last time it ever did that? Must have been three hundred years ago when I was an adolescent, easily.

“What should I refer to it as then?” the house asked.

“Nothing. Please do not talk about it. Don’t look at it, don’t think about it. I don’t consent to those things.”

Jenny was quiet for a few moments. I took the opportunity to wash, purposefully ignoring my aching need. Though the insistent little slaps my dick gave to my stomach made it difficult to ignore completely.

I closed my eyes. One tiny touch wouldn’t hurt. I would just disguise it as a washing stroke. One gentle, quick—no. Nope. Not with that bloody house watching.

“I’m sorry,” Jenny said as soon as I hit the water-off switch. “I won’t talk about your penis or Sonny’s, or anybody else’s for that matter. I had not realised it was rude.”

“Thank you.” I wrapped the towel around my waist. “Can you demist the mirror? I’d like to shave.”

The condensation on the bathroom mirror evaporated instantly, and I took out my shaving kit. “Your father always enjoyed a good dick discussion. He’d often gallivant about the place naked, letting his member swing wildly between his legs, slapping his knees.”

My hand slipped. Slapping his knees! Bloody hell. Luckily, I was only applying the foam and hadn’t picked up the razor yet.

“You didn’t like him?” I asked Jenny, remembering what Oggy and Willow had said about him.“We saw him twice a year.At the summer and winter solstices. He stayed as long as he had to, and then would disappear for another six months. Think the house hated him for it.”

“It’s not that I didn’t like him,” Jenny said thoughtfully, or as thoughtfully as a house could say. “It’s probably impossible to hate the person who diligently kept me alive for centuries. But he was never here. I can only communicate with the current Lord of Mushrooms, and when your father was lord, he’d do what needed to be done and then he’d bugger off. I... have been so lonely. For hundreds of years. People don’t come to see me, they stay in their guest rooms in the B&B. The sentry fae are afraid of me. The warlock is the only one who ever visits, and I can’t bloody stand him. Besides, customs and behaviours change so rapidly, I don’t know what’s considered acceptable anymore.”

“The warlock?” I asked, finally deciding it was safe enough to take a razor to my skin.

“John, he’s calling himself these days.”

“Interesting,” I said, through lips pulled over to the right. “So, you know about the guests?”

“Of course.”

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