Merlin's Gift - Pt. 06

Chapter Three - Cuba Calling

June 18 th, 2021

It's amazing how much misinformation there is out there about Americans visiting Cuba. You hear all sorts of insane rumors about how you'll have to do all this strange paperwork, how you'll need to track where you do and don't spend money and how you aren't allowed to spend money at some government-owned institutions, but as far as I can, most of that's for show. Sure, I couldn't file my passport as 'for tourism,' but 'support for the Cuban people,' which, isn't that what tourism is anyway?

The Covid scare had flared up again, even though people were going to be able to start getting their vaccines in the next month or two, which meant travel was still super light, which had made our trip to Havana much more complicated than originally anticipated. In fact, Leia was starting to get very nervous that she might have to make a second choice, because her time was ticking down, and both Lyssa and I could see it starting to affect her. It also gave me a bit of insight as to what the 'price' for trying to avoid Merlin's rules was.

In the beginning of June, Leia had developed a minor case of Tourette's, swearing at strange or inopportune moments, which brought her quite a bit of embarrassment. That wasn't the extent of it, however. She also felt what she described as 'hot flashes,' periods of intense and almost all-consuming sexual need, that hit her when we were either away from home or with company. But they never seemed to happen when she was working or thinking about acquiring me a next partner, which we took to mean that it was Merlin's Pressure being brought to bear.

With a bit of luck, good fortune and heavy persistence, though, Leia found us passage to Havana in the middle of June, with only about a week left in her 'search window.' We found ourselves traveling on a mostly empty plane, having flown from San Jose to Miami before boarding a small plane down to Havana, and it was there I started to find out a bit more about what I was in for, since Leia didn't want to tell me too much in advance, as she didn't want to color my opinions before I met her.

"We're almost there," I said to Leia. "So how do you know Sofia? She another OF person?"

That made Leia snork her drink out through her nostrils as she started furiously giggling. "Fuck no," she said to me as she looked at me as if I'd said the dumbest thing possible. "Don't get me wrong, Sofia could absolutely pull it off if she wanted to, but she's not that kind of woman. At least, I don't think she is. I don't know her incredibly well, but enough for us to visit her and have an interview, see if she'd be interested in joining this little gang of ours. There was an OnlyFans convention in Las Vegas in 2019, and a bunch of us were invited to come and be panelists. Sofia was working security for the event, although a couple of times she got asked if she'd considered opening an OF account."

"She's in private security?"

"She used to work for Fathomstone, the PMC," Leia said.

"What does PMC stand for?" Lyssa asked, joining in on our conversation from across the airplane's narrow aisle. "I haven't heard that abbreviation before."

"Private Military Contractor," I told her. "If you ever see a movie talking about corporate mercenaries or whatnot, those are generally PMCs. They can be anything from large-scale private armies to special military groups designed for extraction and exfiltration. They're hard to categorize, because they really do run the gamut from people working high end protection details to overthrowing small countries and providing cover for terrorists. Mostly ex-military, although some ex-law enforcement and just some people signing up from the ground up. What's Sofia?"

"Ex-military," Leia said. "Did a stint in the Cuban army before going private, I think. Went to work for Fathomstone up until last year, when she parted ways with them."

"Any reason?"

"She'll tell you herself, but she found they were taking on gigs she didn't much agree with," Leia said as the flight attendant collected the little drink cups they'd handed out during the flight. "So she started up her own personal security company, employee count of one, and has been taking on gigs here and there since then. But Covid's actually kept her at home, mostly, and she's lonely."

"And you think she'll be a good match for us?"

"I think she's looking to have some fun in her life again, and to have a job that won't drive her crazy, so I suggested to her she can be your bodyguard while also being one of your partners. She seemed... intrigued by the idea."

"Yeah, but I'm not exactly what anyone would call 'a frontliner,' or y'know, even in harm's way," I laughed, as I folded the tray table up.

A few minutes later, we were walking down the stairs to the tarmac and into the airport in Havana. The heat was rough and the sun was beating down on us pretty good until we got into the building, and plenty of fans were running at a good clip, although I was surprised not to see central air. I guessed that the doors opened and closed too much to the outside for that to be useful.

Getting into the country wasn't anywhere near as terrifying as I'd expected it to be. I suppose growing up, there was a certain image we in the States had gotten about Cuba, some sort of behind-the-wall mystery mixed with Cold War fear-mongering. But I found that the people were friendly and kind, and nobody wanted to give us trouble, even though Lyssa and Leia were both dressed a little scantily for my liking.

We got our fair share of wolf whistles.

Made getting a cab no trouble at all, though.

I had to hope the cabbie wasn't doing any strange double driving or looping around, but before we knew it, we were heading out of the city and towards Marina Hemingway. He pulled off the main roads to turn onto a much less maintained road before stopping at a small house, just a few blocks away from the waterfront. All I had is American dollars, so I gave the cabbie some, and he tried to offer me a handful of Cuban pesos in return, but I told him to keep the change as we got out of the car and started walking up to the house.

There was a woman standing on the porch, leaning against a column keeping the roof propped up over it. She was, as had been described to be in advance, certainly taller than I was, by a sizable amount. She was over six foot tall, with long wavy brown-black hair, with a darker shade of skin than I'd expected, although maybe that's on me. I'd been told she was Latina, but it turned out Sofia was actually Afro-Cuban, a blend of African, Latin and Caribbean all thrown into a mixer and swirled around. Her skin was dark like the bark of a walnut tree, and she was certainly more muscular than I'd anticipated, wider shoulders and obviously chiseled biceps, and yet, she was also distinctly feminine as well, with impressive bust and a backside that would've made Sir Mix-A-Lot proud. She was wearing a butter yellow sundress that hung down to her knees, and she had a deeply mysterious smile upon her lips as she looked over at Leia.

"Why you go onna bring trouble to my yard, niña bonita?" Sofia said, looking at my newest partner. Her voice was accented, but not in any way that I'd ever heard before. It had flavors of Cuban in it, but there were also half a dozen other shades I didn't recognize or couldn't place. "¿Qué pasa con el chicode magia oscura que tienes contigo?"

"Magia oscura?" Leia giggled as she came up and gave Sofia a big hug, her head almost burying in the taller woman's cleaveage. "What do you know that we don't?"

"Ay, niña, I wouldn't even know where to start wit' dat," she said with a warm smile before offering me a hand to shake. "Sofia Ramos, at your service, Señor..."

"Bauer," I told her. "Ben Bauer, but you can just call me Ben. We're here beca--"

"I know why you're here, Ben," Sofia grinned, patting me on the shoulder. "Probably far better dan you do. But why don't you come in and we can discuss it."

She led us into her home, and it was a gorgeous, if somewhat small and crowded house, with stacks of books all over the place. She brought us into her kitchen/dining room area, and the table had exactly four seats, so the three of us took a seat while Sofia mixed herself a mojito.

"So what did you mean when you said you know better than I do why we're here?" I asked her. "Did Leia tell you... what did she tell you?"

"She mentioned you'd saved Merlin's life, and dat she needed to find someone else t' help fill th' void in your life, heart and bed, and wondered if I might be willing to join in tha', under the pretense of being yer bodyguard, but also to add a little bit of darker spice to your light mix," she replied before taking a sip from her mojito. That in itself was very strange, because Merlin had mentioned early on that my partners wouldn't be able to talk to women about him or The Arrangement until after they had a ring on them. Leia's encounter at a young age with Merlin had made her immune. What about this woman had made her able to circumvent that? "I'm not entirely opposed to the idea, but I think you'll find, I bring wit' me some complications of my own, so maybe we oughta get dat out of the way before we get too much farther, si?"

"Complications usually make things more interesting," I told her with a grin. I wasn't sure what I was getting into, but I had to admit, I was intrigued. "Like what?"

"Like the fact that I'm quite a bit older than you, Señor," she said, her grin back far more confident than mine.

"I somehow doubt that," I told her with a laugh. She was bigger, stronger and taller than me, but I couldn't see any world in which she was older. "I'll be turning fifty next year."

"I was born on Hispaniola in 1679."

I laughed again, rolling my eyes. "You don't look a day over thirty." Then I looked at her and realized the smile was set on her face still, and that she didn't seem to be kidding. "Alright, I'll bite - what's your beauty secret? How'd you stay so young?"

"I skipped most of it," she replied with a slight shrug. "In 1704, I was part of th' crew of a ship called 'The Silver Mermaid,' an' we were raiding a ship comin' from Dutch Guyana colony Essequibo heading up to Boston, loaded wit' religious relics taken from da various tribes in South America. De boat was called 'Verschrikt Konijn.' We'd pillaged th' ship as well as we could, taking as much plunder as our boat could hold, even though we were still leavin' plenty behind. We'd executed da crew and we were at work scuttling dere vessel, when I spotted a glimmer from behind one of the boxes that caught my eye. It was a gorgeous bracelet. Dis one," she said, holding up her arm, revealing a band made of connected golden discs, with a large serpent's head clutching a large ball of jade in its mouth. "When I reached out to grab it, I disappeared as I was apparently drawn into th' bracelet and trapped within it for centuries. The bracelet went down wit' da ship, and de wreck was apparently lost for hundreds of years, but in 2017, 313 years after I disappeared, the Vershrikt Konijn was discovered by treasure hunters scouring the area just east of Barbados and brought to the surface. Despite de fact dat de boat held only a fifth of what it had before my crew had pillaged it, dey considered it a prime find and hauled everything back to a museum in upstate New York."

"Whoa."

"I didn't find out until after de contents of the Vershrikt Konijn had been brought to a museum for cataloguing and restoration," she said. "Dey'd been working on it for about two weeks when I suddenly found m'self standin' in a museum's lab, surrounded by mostly unconscious people, and a man and a woman, dressed sharply in suits of turquoise, black and gold. De man's name was Edmund Dunsmoor and the woman's name was Yin Hua Gui. I wouldn't know it until weeks later, but they're a couple. Dey told me they were part of a secret organization known as The Expenders, a group of 'paramagicians' whose job it is to travel the world, find still charged magical items dat weren't in th' possession of anyone, get'em to give up their remaining 'juice,' such as it was, and to make sure dey couldn't cause any more harm in de world."

"What a job," Lyssa said with amusement.

"Dey'd discovered th' bracelet I was trapped in and had shown up to expend what remaining magic lived inside of it. In doing that, dey'd set me free. Apparently, Temporal Castaways are commonplace enough for them dat dey had a protocol dedicated to handling it. Dey removed the bracelet from the inventory and all the records, and dey brought me to one of their Enclaves, a hidden compound within La Parque Nacional Ciénaga de Zapata, and dey spent a month or so, helping me understand the new world I found m'self in, while dey went through the process of creating an identity and backstory for me. They offered me a position within the Expenders, but I told'em it sounded like an environment that would change too quickly for me, and dey said dey understood. Apparently, most of their new hires come from people like me, trapped Temporal Castaways out of place and out of time. But de other option, de one I took, wasn' no problem, either. Dey gave me an identity with plenty of references and had brought me up to speed enough that I could pass for someone who'd just spent much of her time either being in the military or growing up in a remote part of Cuba. Joined Fathomstone in 2018, worked mostly personal security until end of 2019, when I parted ways as dey wanted me to safeguard a warlord who was training child soldiers. Fuck dat."

"You really were born in 1679?" I asked her. It wasn't as though the story couldn't be true, what with all I'd seen from Merlin and Morgana already. "That's not a dealbreaker for me."

"An' y'don' mind de fact dat I'm gonna seem bit clueless from time't'time, when I'm tryin' ta get m'bearings on de modern world?"

"It's not just the modern world he's gonna need help with, Sofia," Leia said to her, as she toyed with my ring on her finger that she still hadn't quite gotten comfortable with. It was of a similar design to the one Lyssa had, but more rough and rustic, while Lyssa's looked sleeker, more modern. I wondered what shape Sofia's ring would take, if she accepted, that was. "We're caught up in a game between two of the most powerful spellcasters in the world. I've met Merlin myself, and while he can seem like a doddering old fool sometimes, he's also capable of moving worlds and shattering distant stars. We're dancing between the raindrops on the edge between Merlin's world and ours, and I want someone who can keep Ben safe from both. I never felt as safe as I did when you were the one watching my back in Las Vegas. I'd like to feel that way again. All of the time."

Sofia smirked, finishing off her mojito. "Y'know, dat was onna de harder jobs I had doin' security, 'cause y'ladies didn't realize I had me eyes on ya an' chance I got. Showing off for any bloke 'r babe wit' cash to burn."

"Like the ladies in bed as much as the men, do you?" I asked her with a wink back. "That's not really a problem, by my reckoning. Because Lyssa and Leia are part of the package deal with me. That's why we're all meeting like this. I want them to have an equal say with you, and you with them."

"How can a girl say no t' an offer like dat?" Sofia said, gesturing over her shoulder towards her bedroom down the hallway. I started to follow her down the hallway, as Lyssa tapped me on the shoulder, holding out a small box for me.

As we got into Sofia's tiny bedroom, it became clear it was going to be a challenge to get all four of us comfortably in there, so before we set foot in it, I reached up and grabbed Sofia's shoulder, pulling her back before holding up the box with the ring in it. "If we're gonna make it official," I said to her, "might as well make it official."

She opened the box and peered inside. To all of our delight, the ring that appeared there looked far older and sturdier than either of my existing partners' rings, a heavy, brutish looking thing. Her hand hovered over the top of it for a long moment before she lifted it back. "A moment," she said with a grin. "I nearly forgot." On her left forearm was a long tattoo, a series of squiggly lines that were slightly glowing a light shade of cyan. "Il intervallo." The blue glow faded for a moment as she pulled the ring from the box and slipped it on her finger.

"What was that?" I asked her, as she smiled at me with a twist of her head.

"Temporal castaways, when we set loose back upon the world, are given dis," she said, tapping the tattoo, which started glowing faintly blue again before the color faded and disappeared into the world. "It's known as De Bypass. It makes us immune t' magic, be it by object or spell, unless it be cast directly upon us by de most powerful of mages. De ring would no' have taken if I hadn't given it a moment. We can turn De Bypass off for thirty seconds or so, simply by speakin' our personal command word. It went off, I donned da ring, and it's got its magic hooks int' me, but m' shields are back up now. Now dat you've heard m' tale, and I'm wearing yer insignia, d'ya think we might get on ta fucking?"

She pushed me onto my back on her small bed before reaching down, pulling the sundress up and over her head, tossing it onto her dresser in the corner, revealing a truly spectacular pair of tits each the size of my head, large brown swells like seas of stout ale, with a small red pair of panties on that she shimmied out of, revealing a small but thick black bush.

Leia and Lyssa crawled in on either side of me and tugged at my pants, unbuckling my belt before grabbing them and my boxers, pulling them down to my ankles as Sofia slowly crawled on top of me, straddling my waist, as she wrapped her hands around my cock, stroking it within her massive hand as she grinned up at me. "Goodly weapon y' got here," she said to me, her brown eyes holding my gaze with a carnal intent I was learning to get comfortable with. "Let's see if it tastes as good as it looks."

She lowered her head before wrapping her lips around my shaft, keeping eye contact as she slowly pushed her head all the down until her nose was buried in the short curls at my crotch. I'd sort of expected her to take it slow, but it was clear Sofia had other ideas in mind, and I would come to learn later that she prefers going at things at full speed. She thrust her face up and down, her tongue slathering over my dick, slobbering everywhere even as the sounds of it filled the tiny room.

"I think it's been a while since she's had a cock to gobble," Leia giggled into my ear, nuzzling against me on one side, while Lyssa's hand had pushed between Sofia's thighs and was strumming against the dark-skinned woman's clit, to her great delight.

It was some of the sloppiest, most enthusiastic cock sucking I've ever seen in my life, but after a few minutes or so, she eased me back down from my rushing heartbeat as she moved to straddle my hips, lining the head of my cock up with her slit before slowly pushing herself down onto it, both of her hands resting on my chest as I watched her mouth part a little in surprise before it blossomed into a smile. "Just 'cause I'm more often wit' d' ladies doesn' mean I don' enjoy the rod an' th' lash from time t' time..."

Her hips began to bump up and down atop of me with such force that I could hear the bedsprings creaking in protest before finally the bedframe snapped away from the headboard and the four of us fell a couple of inches as the bed broke, not that it dissuaded Sofia even a little bit, her body only picking up the pace with more glee and excitement on her face. She even leaned forward as my heart started racing, pressing her lips against mine right before she climaxed and her peak clenched her down hard around my shaft and milked me into mine, which seemed to spiral her down a second orgasm.

We laid there, the four of us, in a great big, sweaty, messy pile until early morning, despite the heat and the sticky mess we'd lain in overnight. But when dawn was getting ready to roll around, we took our turns in the shower, although Lyssa and Leia slept in late, with me taking the first shift on the shower (no cold water, so I couldn't endure the shower for too long) and Sofia right behind me.

I was actually up just early enough to head down to the beach and watch the sunrise on the horizon after my shower, the warm daylight starting to drench this lovely little island that it almost felt like time had forgotten.

A few minutes later, Sofia walked up behind me, just in time to catch the tail end of the experience, wrapping her arms around my shoulders, bending down to rest her head next to mine. "Penny fer yer thoughts, Ben," she said to me.

"You're happy with the idea of being both my partner and my bodyguard?" I asked her, a touch of nervousness to my voice.

"Aye, happy an' then some... You're... well, your arrival's somethin' of an omen for me," she said. "I wasn'a content just livin' on the island, but Fathomstone, the fit was wrong... I could just feel bad... we used t' call it ju-ju..."

"Bad vibes," I nodded. "Yeah, I can understand that. If the fit's not right at a job, it's hard to stay there and keep doing it, no matter how good the pay is."

"What is it you do, Ben?"

"Right now? Nothing. I need to find something new to do, though. I used to be a very particular kind of engineer, a person who helped one kind of machine talk to another kind of machine, but there's not much call for that specific trade anymore."

"Why not? Are machines all speaking the same language now?"

"No, but they've actually taught machines how to do it for themselves," I said. "And in instances they haven't, they've found people who live far, far away where the cost of living is so ridiculously cheaper than what it is for us, they're happy to be paid pennies on the dollar for the same work we used to do instead. So it just means I need to find something new to do with my life."

"I'm guessin' y'll cannae take up piracy anymore?"

"Lot more frowned upon these days, yeah," I told her with a chuckle. "I'll think of something at some point. Just like you did. Sometimes it's just a bit of a task to find a new path in life."

"How am I gonnae find you a new partner, Ben? Dat's my one concern tha' I keep comin' back t' over and over again."

"You've got plenty of time to figure that out," I said. "You can always reach out to those people who helped you before, The Expenders, or if you're especially stuck, you can contact Merlin and see if he's willing to lend you a little aide. Or Morgana La Fey, although I don't really have a connection number for her, but it's probably not too hard to find out a way to reach her. It seems like any time we need to talk to magic, we just have to put out that sentiment into the world."

"Den we should probably get started wit' dat, just cause I don't really know where to even begin in lookin', considerin' I don' really know anyone..."

"That's what backup clauses like this are here for," I told her, reaching up to rub my hand on the back of her neck comfortingly. "We should probably get back to the girls."

"Aye, well, we wouldn'a want'em to think you deserted'em."

Once we got back to her small house, we found the other two were up and had already showered. We spent the next couple of days seeing the sights in Cuba, although the island was mostly shut down, most people still in hiding from Covid, so we did our best to spread a little bit of money around before packing up everything Sofia had, which wasn't much, and brought her back to California, which wasn't all that cooler than Cuba at that point.

She didn't have much to move, but she did have a few boxes of things mailed via post back to the house in California that would show up in a few weeks' time. There wasn't any rush for it to arrive, as Sofia had enough clothes with her to last, and we could do laundry if it didn't.

But when we got back to the house, our absence had not gone unnoticed. There was a simple white envelope waiting on our front doorstep, with my name written on the front of it in an elegant, almost brush stroke flourished style of writing.

Inside I found an incredibly short letter on incredibly expensive feeling paper, written in very decorated, elegant and complex handwriting, but its message was hard to misconstrue.

"Good luck with her. Fuck it up and I'll kill you.

- Yin Hua Gui"

Clearly, the newest member of my family had built some strong friendships in a short period of time she'd been with The Expenders. I showed the note to Sofia and she laughed, shaking her head in amusement, as if she'd been expecting this kind of thing.

"Relax, boyo, she's probably kidding."

"Probably?" I asked cautiously.

"Well, if she ain't, den I wouldn'a worry much. If it comes t' dat, you're already dead. Once dat lady puts her mind t' task, ain't no stoppin' her."

"Great..."

"Bah," she laughed. "Just don't fuck it up. Done'n'dusted."