Day One of waiting for the bond to break, there’s a number of follow up emails from Gwen in Monster Resources after the incident.
I kind of parse through them slowly, only half taking in what she has to say. A lot of it is legal jargon that boils down to the company not assuming any responsibility for what happened, despite it happening on the premises.
When I click back to my inbox, there’s an email from Khent. It takes me a moment to realize it’s him.
‘Dear Ms. Kelsey,
Per our meeting with MR, I would like to reach out and formally apologize for the mess I’ve involved you in, and the personal nature of the entanglement. I realize it’s not the most pleasant of interruptions to one’s work day, and that for humans, the sudden nature of a bond can be highly uncomfortable.
While I hope you understand that I never could have seen this coming, I do hope you know how deeply I regret putting you in such a position. Thanks for coming to Monsters Resources with me to figure out a solution quickly.
Warmest regards,
Khent Rhaen
4th Floor IT Department’
I think I hate him. How dare he write a perfectly composed email about this? I nearly managed to bury the memory of his tongue against my clit under a bottle of white wine and 3/4 of a double cheese pizza and six hours of HGTV shows about people who do not deserve beachside property, and now there’s an email, dredging it all back up.
And now I have to respond to this, when we could have just silently decided yesterday never happened and never had to give each other another thought.
Hell, I have a hard enough time writing regular emails. I don’t know what the professional words are for ‘I’m also really sorry for getting so insanely horny in front of you, won’t happen again.’
Not to mention I still owe him an apology for elbowing his face.
‘It’s fine, really,’ I write back after maybe an hour of deliberating over word choice and marinating in a puddle of self-loathing. ‘And it’s really my fault for getting between you and that stuck drawer.’
When I come back from lunch, there’s a short reply from him. Somehow its terseness is warmer than the formality of his first email.
‘Well, you saved me from a worse fate, mate-bonding with a defective file cabinet.’
I snort, and then choke when I scroll down a bit more.
‘I also wanted to apologize for the… encounter in your office when I came up to bring you to MR.’
My face burns at that line. Encounter. What a way to rephrase ‘my mouth intimately buried in your cunt’.
I’m not about to get all tied up in knots over what happened in my office. I’m a grown adult. Supernatural horniness or not, I’ll be responsible for my own choices to have sex at work.
It wouldn’t be the first time, but I am determined that it will be the last.
‘I don’t think either of us were prepared for the intensity of the fever,’ I type out. I chew my lip a little, before I start hitting the backspace key, erasing all of it.
Maybe it was just me who couldn’t handle it. He had seemed so contained until I was essentially fingering myself in front of him.
I am ridiculously out of my depth.
And yet even thinking about that moment makes my heartbeat pick up, and travel south. I squeeze my knees together in my seat. When that provides minimal relief, I glance at my closed office door, let my hand travel down to trace myself through my pants. If I was wearing jeans, I might try to ride the stiff seam that can find my clit much better than any of my exes could.
The fever has been burning low and steady all day at work, nothing like when I was in the same room as Khent. To think it was just yesterday we were in here, his tongue dragging through my folds, giving me the most intense head I’ve ever had.
No, I’m not going to rub one out at work over that. I’m not going to get any more tangled up with this guy than I already have.
I send him a quick answer. ‘We don’t have to talk about that.’
Then I make a point of not checking my email until the end of the day, just to avoid getting wrapped up in this whole mate-bonding business. I have other work to do, after all.
Still, when I do end up checking my inbox again, I insist to myself that I’m not mildly disappointed that he never replied after that.
DAY TWO OF WAITING for the bond to break, my concentration isn’t much better. The memory of that MR meeting hangs over my every thought.
“Take your time to research, and let me know if you have any further questions,” Gwen had leaned in and said just a little too quietly for my liking. It had made the thought of doing my own research feel illicit, instead of simply part of the process with MR. My cheeks grew hot and I had been all too well aware of Khent’s presence in the conference room.
Presumably, Gwen had meant researching if there were any human sized dosages of the anti-aphrodisiacs, or the general effects of the Blood Fever. Mostly I wondered if it meant I could take extra sick days, since the whole Blood Fever incident had happened on the job. Maybe I could take a long weekend with worker’s comp.
Still, none of that ended up being what I started typing into the search bar first thing when I got to my office the next day and firmly shut the door.
‘Blood Fever, humans’ yielded odd and mixed results, none too helpful. There didn’t seem to be much record of humans mating with Orcs, accidentally or not.
‘Accidentally mate-bonded’ was not much better. Apparently there was a whole genre of Orc literature dedicated to this trope, and there were more articles on literary analysis than there were on the practicalities of the aftermath.
‘Blood fever effects’ ended up being where I stayed the longest, meandering down one article to the next.
DoctOrcs.com had a rundown of the most common symptoms, a bit of medical jargon on the systems that were affected by it, and a few at-home treatments for those who were struggling with annulments. The little warning at the bottom of the page to call medical professionals if there was blue or purplish swelling of the genital regions was a little alarming, and I hoped that would be one area where humans and Orc biology differed.
Regular masturbation seemed to be the number one suggestion for at home treatment. Then the usual methods, cold showers and exercise. Then the unusual– bloodletting was suggested more than once. I suppose there might be more than one reason the Orcs called it Blood Fever.
Some more dubious pages with less technical wording seemed to suggest there were certain essential oils that could cure Blood Fever, abscessed tusks, and cancer.
Of course, there’s only so much I can find about treating Blood Fever before I end up down a rabbit hole about mate bonds.
There’s a lot of densely worded articles on the subject, half of which are all blocked behind paywalls. I don’t know that I’m willing yet to subscribe to an academic journal to be able to read an article I have to look up every fourth word for. From what I get off Monstrouspedia, scientists believe there’s a handful of factors: from the ages of those involved, to if the fight or flight instinct is already engaged, to hormones. Some theories talk about how they believe it has to do with immune systems being compatible.
There are other less quantifiable explanations offered up as well. There’s a documentary of old, graying Orc couples talking about what they felt in that moment, how it happened to them. They caress the scars on each other’s faces or arms, the strike that started it all.
“I knew it before she even touched me,” one ancient Orc said of her wife, who nuzzled into her shoulder, before the documentary cuts to pictures of the two of them in their youth, “I could smell her sneaking up on me. I felt it was going to happen just a moment before it did.”
That one stays with me, snags on my heartstrings and the rest of the documentary rolls by without anything else really registering.
I lean back in my chair and cross my arms over my chest, chewing the inside of my cheek. It sounds beautiful in a way that makes me feel even more like I’ve accidentally trampled across something sacred, and kind of disappointed that I’ll never really understand what they’re talking about.
Which is useless because it’s not like I ever wanted to be bonded in the first place. None of this would even be on my radar if I hadn’t tried to open that damn cabinet.
I keep clicking through links absentmindedly, on some balancing act between insatiable curiosity and the knowledge that whatever I do find might just make me more sad about living alone, and feeling more and more lost on every new dating app I try.
Orc women must have it much easier, not swiping left until you’ve developed carpal tunnel in one thumb. I wish I had that capability, to be able to just look at someone and know they’re it.
At one point, I click on a video out of curiosity, thinking it would circle back to explaining what to expect when you’re bonded. In my defense, that’s what the title of the link, “When Blood Fever Hits”, led me to believe.
But when a video loaded, I’m embarrassed to admit it took me a few seconds longer than it should to realize what it was. To be fair to me, porn is usually a lot less green. At least the porn I’ve been searching on purpose up until this point.
The wet smacking sounds of one Orc pounding into the other’s cunt makes heat rise up in my skin from my face to my thighs. I’m caught like a deer in headlights, I’m too stunned at first to do anything but stare.
It’s only when a popup ad censors half of the video, I’m able to blink and think perhaps I shouldn’t be watching this on my work computer.
I should save the link for my personal computer. Yes. Brilliant idea.
I click out of the ad and start searching for a post-it note I can scribble the URL onto, but then with an absolutely primal growl, the pornstar Orc pulls out, and his massive cock takes center screen.
My cunt aches with an ever-urgent need as the money shot slows across the screen, thick white ropes of fluid gushing from his cock, leaking out of the actress. His hand continues to pump up and down aggressively, encouraging more to spill forth.
I’ve never been more aware how empty my cunt feels. I think I have a new kink.
I bite my lip to stifle an involuntary noise. I wonder if maybe all Orcs have equipment like that, or perhaps Orc porn stars are particularly well endowed. I’m absolutely kicking myself for not getting a better look the other day at what Khent was packing.
The rest of the shaft is covered by a thick foreskin, ridges all the way down, impossibly girthy. Only with the full eagerness of his bobbing erection, does the foreskin pull back tight, straining space between the ridges.
The head is sort of concave, supple and glistening. I can’t help but note the twin slits nestled within the tip, their untempered current of release painting the Orc’s thighs.
Raging erection doesn’t seem adequate to describe it, not even when the Orc’s hand strokes up and down his slickened cock, the last drops leaking from the tip.
Without even realizing it, I’m pressing my knees together so hard I’m going to have bruises tomorrow.
I balance on the precipice of either locking my office door and rubbing one out at my desk, or going to go find an ice pack and stick it between my thighs. It might be the only way I can concentrate on getting my work done.
My inbox dings.
An email from Khent. I don’t know why that makes me salivate. In my reverie of horniness, somehow that’s a good thing, even considering the last one.
I click it open without thinking, and the result is more effective than a cold shower.
‘Dear Ms. Kelsey,
I regret to inform you that I have received a ping from our monitoring system that a work inappropriate website had been connected to your computer’s IP address for an extended period of time. If you would kindly make an appointment with the IT Department, a report needs to be filled out, and if necessary, your device scanned for malware.
Khent Rhaen
4th Floor IT Department’
That’s it. I’m going to melt my computer.
