Rykard did not bother putting his clothes back on, not even when he heard the hurried steps of several people come down the hallway. He was too busy studying the ceiling.

  The door to the inner sanctum was pushed aside and six women stepped inside. “Mistress Ayama, we dema-” The leader of the procedure, a woman of considerable but pstic beauty, stopped in the middle of her sentence and raised a sleeve to her nose. The scent of sex and sweat must have been intense. Alternatively, she was just that shocked.

  Rykard stood between then spasming forms of vixen and bunny dy. Granted, neither looked particurly elegant at the moment, all covered in sweat and semen as they were. Rykard had taken an extra ten minutes to give Miyo her part of the reward and then decided to take Ayama for an extra five minute pounding afterwards. Nothing quite like bonding haremettes than have them experience raw ecstasy at his hands while they were making out.

  He had also been nice enough to heal them of their sores when he had finished up with them.

  “Mahoya,” Ayama groaned and sat up, snapped out of her blissful afterglow by the invasion. “You best have an expnation for being here. I do not remember giving you permission to enter the inner sanctum.”

  “W-who are you?!”

  Ayama elegantly rose to her feet and picked up her clothes. They were still too small for her rejuvenated form but their expensive make still portrayed the truth of her cim. “The dy of the house,” she answered. “”Who are you, again?”

  “It can’t be!”

  “Did you not inform them?” the dy of the house asked one of her aides, standing behind the interrupters. “I distinctly remember telling you to inform everyone.” Ayama pushed her arms though the sleeves, then fanned out her long, white-purple hair.

  “We did.”

  “Then how come I am being bothered?” Ayama’s question was like a cracked whip. Her eyes focused on Mahoya gain. “Who are you?”

  “I am Mahoya!”

  Ayama tapped her forehead with her pipe. “You are not understanding the spirit of the question, stupid girl. What are you?”

  “I… I’m this house’s most earning courtesan!”

  “And I am the dy of the house,” Ayama hissed back. “Know your pce and leave before I have you cut your hair as punishment for this btant disrespect for hierarchy.” A moment of stunned silence ensued. In it, Mahoya’s expression shifted from disbelief to complete realization. Calmly, Ayama stuffed fresh herbs into her pipe. “Go.”

  Mahoya and all those with her turned on her heels and hurried out of the inner sanctum. Just when she was about to light her pipe as her reward, Rykard fished the utensil out of her hand and broke it effortlessly between thumb and two fingers. “I don’t enjoy it when my women smoke, even if it is a beneficial herbal mix.” The snapped pipe fell to the ground.

  Ayama bowed her head. “I will quit the habit,” she promised. “Should I stick to Master at all times?”

  “Rykard when we’re enjoying casual conversation,” he told her. “I enjoy my submissives with personality. Be who you are, serve me when I demand it.”

  “It will be my pride and joy, Rykard,” the bunny dy answered. “There is the question of how I should serve you outside the bedroom.”

  “A question that I will answer once we have left it,” Rykard responded. “Needless to say, you won’t be staying here, but I think this establishment may be of use after being adjusted somewhat.”

  A shrewd smile pyed around the bunny dy’s lips. “I believe it can be put in service of your perfect world.”

  “Our perfect world now,” Miyo remarked cooly, having ridden out the rest of her own bliss. She swiftly put on the bck dress the remained on the floor. Had Rykard still been erect, she doubtlessly would have been serving him instead. “It would be improper to deny the women of the future men a quarter of our Rykard’s quality.”

  “Of course, my queen,” Ayama nodded obediently. Her desire to fit in under Miyo had not been pyed for the initial stages, it was a genuine slotting into the new hierarchy she found herself to be part of.

  “Miyo will be fine, in private,” the redhead assured and stood up. “Now, Rykard, have you found the hidden compartment?”

  “I have a few leads,” Rykard answered.

  His eyes traced over the intricate artistry that covered the ceiling tiles and much of the walls. Just at a gnce, he knew that, while the lines and paint had been renewed over the years, the images were still the same. That was a fortunate clue.

  “See that?” Rykard asked and pointed to a stylized image of a pale courtesan with nine fox tails.

  “The Lady Sunlight?”

  “Amaterasu,” Miyo observed.

  “Indeed, but more interesting is what she is pointing at.” Rykard walked over and traced what he talked about with gestures. “Unusually, her gaze is directed not at the horizon, but at this little shrine in the image.” He stopped by the image of the shrine. “And this shrine is marked by a fan. Now, this image is also present here, here, here, and here.” He drew a long arch over the ceiling with illusionary marker. “Now, blur your vision. Can you see it?”

  The two dies did as suggested. “Ah,” Miyo spotted it first. “Each of these points is the tip of a spur in an unfolded fan.”

  “Exactly and the spot where they all are connected would be right… here.” Rykard stood underneath the single eye of a kasa-obake - a kind of demon that possessed paper umbrels. “I assume carrying paper umbrels was fashion at the time?” he asked.

  “So I have heard,” Ayama answered. “Do you require one?”

  “I believe that was originally intended, but no.” Rykard conjured a staff of the approximate girth of the pupil of the eye and pressed it. The mechanism was incredibly finely tuned not to give to any less pressure than its entire surface being pushed at the same time. The button gave.

  The two haremettes looked around expectantly. Gazes stuck to Rykard when he picked up his clothes and casually got dressed again. “You are being as coy as the maker of this mechanism,” Miyo stated, half annoyed, half amused. “Where is it?”

  “It is your goddess,” Rykard pointed out.

  The redhead understood swiftly. “Is there a temple on the premises?”

  “A small shrine. Let me guide.” Ayama also understood where this was leading. If it had been just about the pattern on the ceiling, there would have been no need for the goddess to point at one specific clue.

  Leaving the room through the back, they entered a small courtyard. A shrine, the spitting image of the one in the drawing, crafted from natural stones stood there. It was about a square metre at the base. Kneeling down next to it, Rykard listened to the slow clicking of a mechanism.

  After a while, under the roof of the shrine, a box surfaced, risen up by a small elevator. The elements had damaged the outer casing somewhat, but had not eaten through the wooden shell yet. Rykard presented the box to Miyo. “As desired, my queen,” he told her.

  Miyo showed a little smile, uncsped the lid, then lifted it, while the box still id across his hands. Inside was purple velvet and an object of polished bck. Veneratingly, Miyo lifted the folded fan out, then spread it out with one carefully trained snap of her wrist. The sound it made as it unfurled alone was a mastercraft. Looking at it only made it more impressive.

  The spines of the fan were of wood, painted bck so it would shimmer like polished marble, but not so absolutely dark that the wooden texture became invisible. Between spanned a white canvas. On it, created with each individual scale set into the fabric with painstaking attention to detail and precision, was a jade dragon. The serpentine body wound back and forth between the bck pilrs, as if it was flying through a great throne room.

  Miyo slowly circled her wrist. She took a dancing step to the left, then to the right. Ayama took the box from Rykard, so his hands were free. He put them on Miyo’s hips, joining the dy in her swaying steps. Elegantly, she had three-quarters of her wide smile behind her lips. “This is a fan worthy of me,” she decred. “Now find me the other two.”

  Rykard chuckled at the pyful demand. “I would think I have earned myself a reward.”

  “Oh, my love.” Miyo sighed theatrically and shook her head. “As if you have to earn yourself your rewards. You can just take them.”

  They spent another thirty minutes in that expensive bedroom.

  Once they were back in Ayama’s office, it was time to have the talk of what she was supposed to do as part of his Estate. “Obviously you have to make arrangements to have this be led by someone else, you’ll be spending most of your time at my pce. It is about 2 days from here, so not exactly a commutable distance.”

  “I will make the arrangements,” Ayama agreed. “I understand you have a room in the Golden Opportunity? Should I stay there or would you prefer to spend the night here?”

  Rykard shook his head. “That would be inappropriate. This is a space of women. I aim to alter its nature, but that part will remain.”

  “I hear you have pns then, my king,” Ayama purred and bowed over his shoulder. She had pced him in the expensive chair behind the desk and now stood behind him like a courtesan serving a customer. The dy of the house was pouring him (non-alcoholic) drinks and feeding him snacks whenever he desired. At all other times, she made herself beautiful by presenting her magnificent breasts to him. Wonderful pale works of art, only increased in their beauty by the second pair that belonged to the queen sitting in his p.

  “Indeed. In my perfect world, there is no need for prostitution. I am under no illusion that it will still exist in some form if only because some women rather enjoy getting used by a variety of men.” He shrugged. “I find it distasteful, but putting the screws tight enough to make such behaviour impossible sounds like I’d waste time better spent drinking expensive liquor out of your cleavages.”

  Ayama chuckled at his perverted humour and would have offered him exactly one such shot had he not said he did not want to drink alcohol before they were back in the inn. “Then share your pns with me.”

  “This is the most expensive courtesan house in the city, as I understand,” Rykard spoke up and Ayama nodded fluidly. “Which means you do not make that much money from actual prostitution, correct?”

  “Correct,” Ayama answered. “The only women that regurly sell their holes in this establishment are the unfortunate few that become pregnant and then do not get bought out by the fathers.” A level of distaste swung in the bunny dy’s voice, for good reason. Such situations were never pretty.

  Either there was a man that chickened out of being a father or a courtesan that was trying to guilt a rich person into buying them out because they were pregnant. Either tale was tragically pathetic. In those cases, the value of a courtesan typically plummeted, men cared a lot less about a courtesan that was already the mother of another man’s child. It was just basic male instinct.

  Those aside, most courtesans in a house this expensive sold not their bodies but their company. Trained in crafts, games, instruments, history and conversation at rge, high css courtesans could, as Ayama herself proved, be capable of earning enough money for the house just by being interesting. If that was not enough, an occasional handjob or, if she was feeling generous, blow or titjob from the courtesan could be enough to keep the men interested.

  In short, the courtesan house was the poor person’s equivalent of a school for wives anyhow. They funded it with the bour of the oldest profession, because they had no rich fathers to do it instead.

  Well, now Ayama had Rykard.

  “I want you to do some restructuring. Double down on the training for the girls. Make sure everyone that is currently working for you finds a job, be it only as a cleaning dy. I don’t want to cause upheaval, but I also want this to be a house for distinguished harem dies. Take the poor and polish them into women ready to serve their husbands and masters. Educated, skilled in conversation, and all around interesting. Make this more of a matchmaker agency combined with a wife school. Take the prostitution out of it, keep the meeting times. The goal is to have men buy out harem dies that have been trained.”

  Ayama slowly nodded. “I should point out that this means that we will have less visitors,” she informed him. “Many will be drawn still to meet potential partners but they will not stay as long and not talk as much if they are not drunk on sex and alcohol. Consequently, the value as an intel gathering node goes down.”

  Waving off, Rykard dispersed that concern. “I don’t care much. These women should have a loyalty to your houses, that will be good enough. Learning swiftly of news is not as important as my dream of a world of harems. Having pces that catch the downtrodden women and offers them education will allow this to be more stable. I’ll back this project with my personal funding, but I wish it to generate a profit as well. Let the men work for their refined dies.”

  “Should we create simir projects for poor men?” Miyo asked.

  “We have that, its the military,” Rykard answered pinly. “Maybe I will add something more for intellectual pursuits another time. We will see what the future offers.”

  “You said houses, Rykard, should I expect to expand this operation?”

  “Provided you don’t disappoint me with transforming this house.” Rykard grabbed the bunny dy by the chin. “You don’t pn to disappoint me, do you?”

  “I will do all you ask of me and more,” the white-purple haired woman whispered adoringly.

  “Good. Then start putting things together.” Rykard stood up. “I will return to the inn. You will have about two days before we leave this city. I trust you will have things organized by then.”

  “Of course,” Ayama answered, showing a shrewd smirk that was his to see openly. For all others, she had a reserved, elegant smile. “If I manage to move my underlings into gear swiftly enough, expect me in your apartment.”

  “Wonderful.” With that, Rykard left to take his carriage back to the inn.