Em sighed contently after we had finished giving her massage, she looked utterly and completely pleased. Her eyes closed and with a big smile on her face, laying on the sofa.

I rubbed her back one last time before I stood up. “I’ll go run a bath for you. That okay?”

“Mhmm.” Em vocalized.

“Alright, I’ll be right back.” I took the bath bomb Em had chosen with me into the well-heated bathroom on this floor and got the bath-tub ready for use. I actually hadn’t used it before since I’m more of a shower person, so it took me a minute to figure out how exactly you could get warm water to come out of the faucets. But in the end it proved easily enough by just turning the left faucet for warm water and the right one for cold. With just a tiny bit of a balancing act in between the two. With the bath around halfway full, I went back to the living room to fetch our girlfriend to tell her, that her bath was about to be ready.

What I found was Ria petting Shima as she had jumped on Em’s back to give her a bit of a cat massage too.

“Shima, you are getting all your paws oily.” I chuckled as I walked up to my girlfriends.

Em had opened her eyes and was very much amused by the situation.

“I think I need to retract my statement. Shima is clearly the most experienced masseuse in the building.”

“She does like making biscuits.” I walk over and softly lift my cat off my girlfriend’s back. She gives us a tiny mew as I do so. “Shh, when Em’s back from her bath you can make biscuits on top of her again, okay?”

Shima mews again, to which I just gave her a kiss on the back of her head and then hand her over into the loving arms of Ria who immediately smothers her with even more attention.

I then helped Em get off the sofa and cover herself a bit to send her on her way to the bathroom.

“Can I play some music while I’m taking the bath?” She asked.

“Of course you can. This is your home as well, y’know.” I laughed. “Unless it’s really annoying music like that one Thursday song.”

“I think that song is really catchy though!” Ria commented.

“Well, it is, but it’s not the most fun to listen to.”

“Naah, I’ll just put on some grunge metal or something like that.” From the grin on Em’s face, I saw that she was taking a bit of a piss.

“Grunge metal? I don’t think I would even recognize that genre if I heard it, to be honest.”

“Me neither.” Em laughed. “No, I’ll just put on some relaxing tunes. I see what mood I get in with the smell of the bath bomb.”

“Soothing whale noises compilation number four.”

“Perhaps.” She giggled. “I would really not be surprised if there was an actual compilation with that name on MyBarrel.”

“Definitely.”

Em went off to take her bath, leaving Ria and I alone to clean up the little mess we made for our massage session. She sure as heck took advantage of her bath to wind down even more, as Em only left the bathroom once more after half an hour. I don’t think there was anyone more relaxed in the radius of five kilometers, apart from Shima, maybe.

“That was one hell of a bath bomb.” Em stretched as she walked into the room again. “It smelled so good, and it worked wonders on my skin as well.”

This, of course, gave Ria the perfect opportunity to walk over to Em and start caressing her skin all over again. “Silky smooth!”

Very much to the amusement of Emma, who just hugged our girlfriend in response. While she was doing so, Em looked at me and started to mouth something, which I immediately understood. “Present?”

I smiled and gave Em a nod, and then approached Ria from behind. “Hey Ria, want to come with me for a second. I bought something for Shima the other day, but I’ve not figured out how to get her to play with it yet?”

“Ooh! Shima got some new toys?”

“Mhmm.” I nodded.

Ria released Em and started to follow me to the door. When I looked back, Em gave me a thumbs up and a wink. Sorry Shima that I’m using you for our nefarious plans, but I thought it was a brilliant excuse.

I guided Ria to the office where I had stashed Ria’s new pc.

“I think I already found the problem, Rora.”

“Oh?”

“You keep her toys behind a closed door, that’s why she can’t play with them!” She chuckled.

I rolled my eyes and smiled, opening the door and letting Ria walk in ahead of Em and I.

“So, where are the toys?”

“I put them in that box over there.” I pointed to the largest box I had put underneath the desk.

“Wow, that’s a lot of them.” Ria got down on her knees and started to open the top of the box. When she then finally looked inside. Ria completely froze. Gaze fixed on the contents.

Em came to stand beside me and grabbed my hand.

“Is this… a computer?”

I slowly walked forward, hand in hand with Em. “Mhmm, Em and I wanted to give you another present.” We then sat down beside her. Em on one side of her, me on the other. “We got a computer for me as well, so now we can all play together.”

Em put her hand on Ria’s back. “What do you think?”

“The computer is completely pink!”

“So are the edges of the screen.” Em smiled. “And your keyboard is in pastel pink and white colours too.

“Together with literally all the other accessories.” I added. “Em selected most of the parts, as far as I could understand it’s a great pc. As for the aesthetics, we decided on them together.”

“I love it!” Ria pronounced as she clapped her hands in excitement. “And what’s in all the other boxes?”

“The rest of your set-up we just mentioned, and then stuff for Em and me too.”

“We just need to do some cable management and set-up in general, but that shouldn’t take too long.”

“This way we can play together even if Em is at her house as well.”

Ria nodded. “I’m really looking forward to having adventures together!”

“Me too. Although it will probably just be Em dragging us along for the first couple of hours.”

“You’ll get used to it pretty fast. And Ria already has some experience too.”

“That’s true.”

We showed Ria the accessories we had bought for her in the other boxes too which didn’t lower her enthusiasm at all, au contraire, she even got more hyped seeing all the pink gear that we bought for her.

When Em and I were buying it all, we had zero doubts about what color we should buy everything in. Ria was your typical girly girl, so anything pastel and pink was really a safe bet.

“Oh, Ria, don’t forget to check this out too.” Em handed her a faux leather case which was somewhat cat-head shaped.

“And what’s this?”

“Just zip it open and see.”

Ria did as she asked and squealed in joy when she saw what was inside. It was a pastel pink headset with cat ear shapes attached to the top of it. The inside of said ears being in rainbow colors. “Ohmigosh, this is so cute! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeh!”

Em and I started to laugh and gave each other a soft high five.

“I want to wear this all the time now!” In the matter of seconds, Ria had put the headset on top of her head. “And it’s comfy too!”

“It’s designed to be worn for a while, so yeah.” Em took the wire that was attached to the headset and showed her the little control device that was attached to it, explaining to her all the functionalities.

Ria listened attentively to what Em had to say. When they were done, Ria put the headset carefully back inside of its case.

“Happy?” I asked.

“Very happy!” She smiled so brightly it always required me to go and get some sunglasses. “But I’m a bit curious about what kind of style you picked for your pc.”

“Mine? Well, it’s pretty boring compared to yours.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Em replied. “Classy black with blue and red accents. And she has an RGB keyboard, which is always amazing, especially when it’s dark.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a keyboard that gives light.”

“Ooooh!”

“Yours does so too, but it can only do a variety of pink colors.”

Ria looked down in the box at the box art of her keyboard. “Pink, pink and pink?”

“Pretty much.” Em chuckled.

“I think I am fine with that.”

“We had counted on it.” She laughed.

In the meantime, Shima had also made her way into the room. Already eyeing up the plethora of boxes. It seems like my little lie about cat toys, wasn’t a complete lie after all.