TTT Vol. 1 pts. 24-25

[Vol. 1 pt. 24]

I made it back to the inn with a couple buckets of milk, one bucket full of eggs, and a sack of flour that I picked up from the miller on the way back.

Visiting the miller was, fortunately, nothing distracting. He was just an older man who made a bit of small talk, handed me the flour, and then got back to work. There was no getting distracted by massive mountains like with Korova.

Also, it probably should have been common sense, but I realized just how useful my tentacles were for running errands after picking everything up. I could carry multiple things with zero difficulty. A normal person would have only been able to carry two buckets and then would have had to carry the flour over their shoulder. But, with all of my tentacles, I could have carried a few more buckets yet without breaking a sweat.

And when I made it into the inn, I couldn’t have been happier with the sight that greeted me. I opened the door and saw Lada pacing around for a couple of seconds. That stopped as soon as she saw me, though, and seeing me prompted her expressionless face to flash a smile for just a second before she hurried over to me.

“I was worried about you. You took a long time,” Lada said as she took the buckets from my tentacles. Though, she only took them from me so that she could set them down on the floor. I expected her to take them into the back, but she just wanted to give my tentacles a chance to rest even though they felt fine.

How caring she was made me want to work myself as hard as possible just to have her take care of me afterward.

“Oh, right. You went to the farm. Did you meet Korova?” Lada asked.

I nodded. Part of me felt just a tiny bit guilty—as if I should tell her what we did, but I didn’t know if that was a good idea or not. I definitely couldn’t tell her about the last thing we did before I left. It wasn’t that I wanted to hide it from her or anything, and I didn’t believe that I did anything wrong. I just didn’t want to corrupt her from having to explain what it meant to use a phallic length to shoot white stuff onto a woman’s chest.

“She’s really nice. And she has huge… amounts of land. Her umm... farm, is really big.”

I nodded again. I only saw a small part of her land, but the fences went far into the distance as did the fields of crops.

Then I realized there probably was something I could tell her. Lada helped milk Korova every now and then, so it should be fine if I said that I helped to milk her, too.

HELPED MILK HER.

SHE TOLD ME YOU

USUALLY HELP HER

AND NEEDED HELP,

SO I HELPED.

“You… milked her?” Lada asked.

Something about her voice sounded different. Was she upset? Jealous? Maybe because Korova was her friend and I did something that was usually only done between the two of them?

That was when I saw her thighs rubbing together.

Had anybody else rubbed their thighs together like she was, I probably would have thought there was perverse intent behind it. But with Lada, there was no way, right? Besides, all I did was talk about milking her friend. That was nothing for somebody to get excited over.

“How did you do it?”

I raised my tentacles up and wiggled them around.

“Did you… wrap them around her chest? All of them?”

MOST OF THEM.

THERE WAS A LOT

OF MILK.

When I was done writing on the board and looked up at Lada, I could have sworn that I saw her biting her lower lip for just a split second. But that might have just been me imagining things. She wasn’t rubbing her thighs together anymore, either.

The most likely explanation was that I was still horny after what happened with Korova. Not to mention that just seeing Lada made me feel aroused again. Because of that, I was probably seeing what I wanted to see rather than what I was actually seeing. The mind could be a powerful trickster in that regard. It reminded me of all the times where men flirted with women and thought the women were being receptive by flirting back, but the women actually had no interest in them and were just trying to get the conversation to end.

I couldn’t remember any specific examples of that happening, but I knew it was a thing.

Well, there was one example. It reminded me of my first night at the inn. I thought that the patrons were going to try and take advantage of Lada over and over, but that was me making assumptions before getting proven wrong over and over.

Everything I knew about Lada told me that she was a kind, sweet, and innocent girl. It would be foolish of me to think anything but.

“I’m… curious. I want to watch you do it. Maybe… we could help her together. It would probably be even better if we work together,” Lada suggested, proving what I thought. “We could—milk her even faster, I mean…”

She was only thinking of helping her friend.

HAPPY TO HELP.

Lada opened her mouth to say something, but somebody else had something to say first.

“Happy to help, huh?” Granny said. “Then be happy to not take yer sweet time! I gave ya a simple task! Shouldn’t have taken even half that time! I swear, I’ve got to go and do it myself because I’m the only person in this town who doesn’t get distracted by that woman’s chest!”

Me and Lada both looked away as Granny scolded me and called us out.

But even though she was shouting at me, I didn’t feel upset or anything. Actually, I felt determined to prove to her that I was useful. Granny was important to Lada, so I wanted to get on her good side and prove that I was capable.

I also wanted to impress Lada. Even though I had no idea if I would be staying around and doubted that anything would ever happen between us, I wanted to impress her. It was probably foolish of me to even think about something like making her like me—well, like making her like me as more than just her friend and the person who saved her, but I still wanted to try. I knew that I would regret it if I didn’t.

So, it was time to impress both of them.

[Vol. 1 pt. 25]

I realized that no matter what I did, nothing was good enough to get onto Granny’s good side.

Run errands and bring everything back as quickly as possible? Not fast enough.

Wash ten times the dishes at once than what she or Lada could do and finish washing them in a tenth of the time? I missed a single spot which meant that she couldn’t trust they were clean and had to wash them all again.

The same happened with cleaning the dining area. If there was even a single crumb or speck of dust left anywhere, and she always spotted when there was, then she deemed that I didn’t do good enough and that it all needed to be wiped down again.

Over, and over, and over again. For days. Nothing. Not a single thing. Was good enough.

It honestly got depressing at times. But, no matter how depressing it got, I didn’t give up. I was determined to make that old woman like me. No matter how miserable she acted most of the time, I was going to win.

Then I gave up.

If anything, she seemed more disappointed with me after every day that passed. After a week, I felt like she liked me even less than she did when I first started trying to win her over. Everybody else around the village seemed to like me more after a week, but not Granny. Some of the usual patrons of the inn even started thinking of me as a friend… I thought. At the very least, they’d make jokes with me whenever I was on the floor helping Lada out with delivering food and drinks.

As for Lada herself, I wasn’t sure if she liked me more or not. We still slept together every night and she always cuddled me against her breasts. But, at the same time, I felt like there was distance growing between us. She seemed more distracted every day and the rare times where she’d show a second or two of emotion practically disappeared.

My plan was to make both Granny and Lada like me more… but I felt like I failed trying to win them.

I wonder if they even want me here. What if I’m a pain to them? Maybe they’re only letting me stay here because they feel like they’re obligated to after I saved Lada, I thought to myself as I swept the dining area.

Things were nice and quiet since Lada was helping Granny out in the back and I was the only one in the front, but that changed when Granny shouted out, “Alright! Lunch break!”

The sudden shout almost made me spill all the dust in the dustpan, but the last thing I wanted was to be shouted at even more, so I managed to keep it safe and collected.

Then I figured that Granny was probably going to come out and give us lunch like usual, but it was Lada who came out with a patterned blanket and basket in hand. Before I could write on the board asking her what was up with that, she asked me, “Would… you like to have lunch outside with me?”

There was no way that I was going to turn that down.

YES PLEASE.

We didn’t go too far outside. We went around to the back of the building where nobody on the path would be able to see us, and Lada set the blanket down underneath a tree before pulling the food out from the basket.

She pulled out a couple of sandwiches, glass jars with tea in them, and some pastries with honey drizzled on them.

“I made it all myself. I… hope that it tastes good,” Lada said.

I didn’t even taste any of them yet, but I was already sure that it would all be the most delicious food that I’ve ever had.

I dug in as soon as she placed my share of the food down in front of me.

And then…

I made a mistake.

I was so excited to taste Lada’s food that I used my tentacles to shove everything into my mouth at the same time. Rather than try to slowly enjoy it like it deserved to be, I devoured it all in an instant and barely got to taste it.

I felt horrible.

I’M SORRY. WAS

EXCITED TO EAT

AND ATE TOO FAST.

A tiny smile curled Lada’s lips as she reached down to pet the top of my body. “It makes me happy you were that excited.”

As bad as I felt, being pet by her made me feel significantly better.

“Want to have mine?”

LADA NEEDS TO

EAT TOO. I’M FINE.

“Oh… well, I guess I’ll have to make it for you again. You can try to eat it slower next time. But it’s okay if you don’t. As long as you eat it… it makes me happy.”

I placed a tentacle over my chest—well, over what could be compared to a chest, and felt like I was about to die. You’re too cute. It should be impossible for somebody to be this cute.

I was stupid to worry about Lada disliking me. I was still worried that I might have done something to upset her because of how distant she felt at times, but maybe that was just in my head.

But when it came to Granny… that one was a lot more obvious.

CAN I ASK LADA

A QUESTION?

Lada tilted her head. “You can ask me anything.”

THANKS. DOES

GRANNY HATE ME?

I felt a little silly phrasing it that way, but it was how I felt. Granny got louder and angrier by the day. I thought we started off pretty good, but I couldn’t even imagine her smiling at me now.

But, Lada shook her head. “Granny doesn’t hate you.”

BUT SHE IS

ALWAYS ANGRY.

FEELS LIKE I

ALWAYS DO

SOMETHING WRONG.

“That’s… how Granny is. Umm, how do I explain it… oh. The more she likes somebody, the more she wants to bring out the best in them. She doesn’t think that she’s being mean or bossy. She’s trying to push you to do your best because she wants you to become the best you can be. For yourself.”

THEN GRANNY

LIKES ME?

Lada nodded. “I can’t remember the last time she’s liked anybody as much as she likes you. If she didn’t like you, she would act like you don’t even exist until you prove yourself to her. I know it’s not really right, but… the meaner she is, the more she likes you. That’s just how she is.”

THINK SHE HAS

IT BACKWARDS.

“I tried talking to her about it before. One of the boys wanted to help us. She liked him and thought he was doing good for a newcomer, so she tried pushing him to do even better, but she made him cry and quit instead. I told her how she comes off to people who don’t know her like me and the older villagers do… but she didn’t care. She said that somebody who can’t handle criticism isn’t an adult worth her time yet. She tried acting like it didn’t upset her, but I could tell she was sad.”

I didn’t understand that. If she knew how she sounded to people who didn’t know her that well and regretted it to the point of feeling sad, then why did she continue doing it? It sounded self-destructive if anything. Like she was purposely trying to sabotage her relationships with people.

WHY IS SHE

LIKE THAT?

“I’m not sure, but… I believe that she’s doing it because she cares. I don’t think there’s anything else behind the way she acts. She sounds like the meanest person I’ve ever known, but she’s the most caring one I’ve ever known, too. So… please don’t be upset if Granny sounds like she’s mad at you. I promise that she likes you. She likes you a lot.”

That did make me feel a little bit better. At the very least, it meant Granny didn’t hate me. But at the same time… it would be nice to actually get praise from her every now and then instead of making me feel like I was doing worse and worse every day.

There was also the possibility of Lada misinterpreting Granny. Lada was a kind girl and I could easily imagine her thinking that somebody was being nice when they weren’t. But, I wasn’t going to infantilize her and think that she was incapable of judging people on her own. If that was what Lada believed, I was willing to believe in her and take her word for it until proven wrong.

More importantly, there was something else I wanted to ask her about.

But I didn’t.

I wanted to ask her if there was something I was doing wrong. If I was upsetting her. But, that was probably me being paranoid. She wouldn’t have been cuddling with me every single night if she didn’t like me. She wouldn’t have made lunch for me and she wouldn’t have tried to spend as much time together as possible if she didn’t like me or if she was upset about something.

Looking at it from the perspective of her potentially disliking me was selfish.

There was a far better way to approach it. One that put her first as she deserved to be.

IS EVERYTHING

OK? LADA HAS

SEEMED OFF.

“Eh? Have—have I?” Lada asked, blinking a few times. It was subtle, but I saw a quick hint of red on her cheeks before she turned her head away from me. “I… I’m fine. Nothing is wrong.”

DOES LADA

PROMISE?

Lada looked back at the board before turning her head again. “I… don’t know if I can promise that, but… you don’t have to worry about me. It’s nothing serious.”

WANT TO HELP

HOWEVER I CAN.

“Y-you don’t have to worry about that. And, I,” she lowered her voice, “don’t want you to think any differently of me.”

THINK DIFFERENTLY?

Lada shook her head. “Never mind! Ah, um…” She looked around as if trying to find something to distract her—something to change the subject with, but her eyes eventually fell onto me again where they remained for at least a few seconds.

There was something in her eyes that I wasn’t sure I recognized. In a way, her eyes reminded me of how Korova looked at me.

I felt like I was prey being stared at by a predator.

There was a need in Lada’s eyes, but a need for what?

IF I CAN HELP,

I WANT TO HELP.

“That… that makes this even harder. If you say something like that, then I—I’ll… it’s already getting harder to… hold ba—”

“Lunch’s over!” Granny shouted, interrupting Lada before she could finish. That also caused Lada to jump up with such a surprised speed that she almost bounced her breasts up and out of her uniform.

“Co-coming!” Lada shouted back before picking up the blanket and basket.

She was so flustered that she ran off without even saying anything else or making sure that I was following her.

Something was off. I needed to figure out what. Apparently, though, me offering to help made however she felt even worse? If that was the case… what if I was being a bother by trying to help her?

I didn’t know what to do, but I could think about that later. For now, it was time to get ordered around by Granny some more.