That's Not a Tail
Screeech, click. The stiff metal valve turned with a heavy groan, and hot water began to gush from the faucet of the long-abandoned grand bathhouse.
"I finished a quick sweep with Cleanse, the tub should fill up in a bit... Oh, right, the bath salts." Uncharacteristically flustered, Echidna scrambled to remember her checklist before pulling out the bath salts she had retrieved from the storeroom.
Sniff, sniff. They were rosemary-scented. The fragrance was so rich and pleasant that she didn't even need to add any aromatic oils.
"Dissolve, dissolve..." She tossed the salts into the steaming water and stirred. With a gentle fizz, the water in the massive tub began to turn a beautiful shade of turquoise. It was perfect. The soothing aroma promised a wonderfully atmospheric bath.
"Ha, I never thought I'd actually use this place again." Honestly, when Echidna first built this mansion, her reason for constructing such a massive bathhouse was simple: romance. A mansion of this scale naturally had to have everything.
To soothe the loneliness of living by herself, she had built a grand bathhouse, dreaming of a life in a mansion resembling a palace of myth. However... in a deserted mansion in the middle of the desert, a giant bath that was a pain to clean and took forever to fill wasn't nearly as practical as she had envisioned.
Above all, the sheer emptiness of leaning against the wall of a massive, steam-filled bathhouse all by herself was the absolute worst. That was why this abandoned bathhouse was only now seeing the light of day. A light named Roen. The single ray of sunshine that had pierced her lonely life had invited her to bathe together.
Like two inseparable childhood friends in a quiet countryside village, they would wash skin-to-skin in the same tub today. "I'll leave the drinks over here..." Though, it was highly unlikely they would just be bathing. Today's bath would be accompanied by a drink laced with her custom-blended toxin.
She placed two wine glasses filled with grape juice—each containing very different ingredients—side by side next to the tub. She didn't forget to cast a cooling spell on them to keep them from warming up. "Next is..." It was time to check the water temperature and level again. Echidna bustled about frantically, putting the finishing touches on the preparations. Just as she finished scrambling to get everything ready...
"...?" A soft click brushed past Echidna's ears. In the next moment, "I'm here..." Roen's shy voice echoed as she began to approach, her feet splashing softly in the puddles on the bathhouse floor.
Though the rising steam blurred the vision of the bathhouse, Echidna's sharp snake eyes instantly registered the change in Roen's appearance. "...!" Roen, who had avoided wearing anything revealing for quite some time now, was completely naked. Well, not entirely naked... but as close to it as humanly possible.
She approached slowly, trying to cover her pale, milky skin with a single white towel. But Roen was quite tall, standing around 170 centimeters, so a single towel was nowhere near enough to properly conceal both her voluptuous breasts and her private parts.
"Ah... I was the one who suggested bathing together, but coming in like this makes me feel so embarrassed..." Roen, who was intentionally using the towel to cover her nipples while using her bare hand to shield her hairless, smooth mound, dipped her feet into the partially filled tub and sat on the edge.
"Roen...? I... I hadn't called for you yet..." "I just figured everything would be ready by now. You said you'd prepare drinks, and I couldn't just stay in my room forever, so I got ready and came over." "Ah, ready..."
Although Roen was trying to play coy and flirt to seduce Echidna, the word "ready" she had just used purely meant she was ready to enter the bath. However... Her nipples are hard... To Echidna, that word sounded entirely different. She believed Roen's stiff, erect nipples were the direct result of her nightly training.
She licked her lips with a wet, slurping sound. Did she masturbate before coming here? Perhaps Roen's body was burning up because of the intensive Lactation Training Echidna had been focusing on lately. That was what Echidna assumed.
If that was the case, she would have to thoroughly stimulate the three key zones today as well: the mammary glands, the areolae, and the nipples. "By the way, aren't you going to undress, Echidna-nim? We agreed to bathe together." "Right, of course... We have to bathe..." Prompted by Roen's gentle pressure to strip, Echidna shed her clothes as if she had been waiting for the cue, revealing her smooth, bronze chest.
Submerging her entire snake lower body into the green-tinted water, a completely naked Echidna slithered slowly toward Roen. Roen remained perched on the edge of the tub in a highly provocative posture, still covering her breasts with the towel and her groin with her bare hand.
"What are you doing? Come on in." "Yes, I will." As Echidna, desperately trying to suppress her erection, reached out her hand, Roen grasped it as if she had been waiting. Like two beasts who had nothing but devouring each other on their minds, their chemistry was flawless in moments like this.
"Oh, right..." And then, pulled in by Echidna's hand, Roen tossed the towel aside, exposing her fully naked body. She loosely wrapped her arms around Echidna's waist, looked up at her, and spoke. "I should have shown you properly before getting into the water, but did you get a good look at my legs?"
"Of course I did..." A seductive smile. "How were they?" "Do I really need to say it? They've healed beautifully, and your skin is unbelievably pale. But you already know that." "Fufu, even if it's just flattery, it makes me happy."
Echidna's head was starting to throb. She felt dizzy. Honestly, she couldn't hold back much longer. She needed to feed Roen the spiked grape juice immediately to induce hallucinations, making her mistake her jaji for a tail so she could let it stand erect without worry. Facing such a seductive woman stark naked was nothing short of torture.
"Roen, remember how I said I'd make some juice for us this time?" "You did." "Well... since I've never really cooked before, it turned out to be a complete failure..." "Oh..."
"Instead, I just brought the grape juice you made, chilled..." "Ah, that's perfectly fine! Of course it is. What matters is the time we spend together, right?" As Echidna rolled out her pre-planned excuse, Roen waved her hands dismissively, repeatedly telling her not to worry.
Even these minor gestures were incredibly endearing. Grinning, Echidna glided through the water and handed Roen the grape juice laced with the Hallucination Toxin, which she had carefully marked beforehand. "Then, shall we drink to getting closer?"
"Let's make a toast, Echidna-nim. We should enjoy baths together like this more often." "Really?" "Yes. Since I spent so much of my life as an adventurer, I haven't had many chances to bathe with a friend like this."
In truth, whenever Roen had gone on monster subjugation missions in the past, if they found a nice lake or valley stream, she would eagerly strip down and splash around with the other female adventurers... But Echidna, having no way of knowing this was a lie, looked deeply touched. She clinked her glass against Roen's and downed her grape juice.
"To the time that will bring us closer." "I like that. To this moment that will bring us closer." Caught up in the mood, Echidna muttered a plausible toast, and Roen warmly reciprocated. The two women shared a pleasant laugh. After that...
"Huu, this feels so nice." "It really does." They weren't at a swimming pool; they were just here to bathe. Naturally, the two of them sat with their bodies overlapping, enjoying the warmth of the bath as they chatted amiably. The larger Echidna sat at the bottom, with Roen nestled on top of her.
Since Roen was also trying to seduce Echidna, neither of them felt any aversion to this intimate posture. "What are you doing, Echidna-nim? Are you playing around with your tail?" "Hehe, is it not fun?" "No, personally, it's a very unique experience, so it's quite fascinating."
As Echidna wrapped her tail around Roen's legs in a courtship display, Roen grinned and enjoyed the atmosphere. Both of them were somewhat aware that they were trying to seduce each other. However, because one of them couldn't possibly imagine that the other possessed a jaji, the picture looked slightly different in her mind.
She must be pretty desperate. Roen viewed Echidna wrapping her tail around her legs as a form of flirting... When her reactions to my tail start slowing down, that's when the Hallucination Toxin and Sleeping Poison are taking effect. But to Echidna, the tail wrapped around Roen's legs was merely a tool to gauge the perfect timing to let herself get fully erect.
Echidna eagerly bided her time, waiting for the moment she could release the seal hidden beneath her scales. Not long after... "Ah... Echidna-nim... stop playing around with your tail..." Dosing off from the effects of the drug, Roen grabbed the "tail" she felt between her thighs and mumbled for her to stop. Though, that wasn't a tail at all.