by A. J. Markam
“I see,” the orc said, then narrowed his eyes at me threateningly. “Let me know if they cease to be.”
“I will. Have a good evening, Jrak.”
“You too, Miss Meera.”
Then we passed into a lobby made of marble, gilded with gold, and sporting rare orchids next to man-made waterfalls.
“Jesus…” I muttered as I looked around.
“You keep mentioning him,” the angel said. “Who is he?”
“Doesn’t matter… so that’s your name? Meera?”
“Oh, how gauche of me.” She stopped walking, turned to face me, and put out her hand to shake. “I am Meera Seraphim. And you are?”
“Uh…”
This seemed silly – like she was a child acting out how she thought grownups should tell each other their names – but I played along and shook her hand.
“Ian Hertzfelder,” I said, then looked down at Stig. “And this is – ”
“I don’t care, he’s a demon,” Meera said as she hooked my arm and led me through the lobby again.
Stig sneered behind her back, made an OK sign, and vigorously violated it with his finger.
fwap fwap fwap fwap fwap
“Hey,” I snapped at her. “I’m not saying bad words for you, so you quit insulting my friend – got it?”
“But he’s a demon,” she repeated, as though that were reason enough for any way she might treat him.
“Okay, fuck you, we’re out,” I snapped. I pulled my arm out of hers and headed back towards the doorway. “Come on, Stig.”
The satisfaction I got from the shock on her face was the best part of the evening so far. And, hey – if Jrak started a fight, well, that’d just be the maraschino cherry on top.
Stig gave her a little Hrmph and a ‘serves you right’ nod, then followed close on my heels.
“Wait!” Meera called out.
Stig and I kept walking. We were coming up on Jrak, who was cracking his knuckles and eyeing us both with a glint in his eye.
Me? I was like a gunfighter with an itchy trigger finger.
I guess that’d be an itchy spell finger in my particular case.
Come on, Ugly. Just give me a reason –
I was almost to the orc when Meera wailed, “Alright, FINE! I’ll be nice.”
I stopped and turned around. “You promise?”
She sighed. “…yes. I promise.”
I looked down at Stig like It’s your call, buddy.
The imp looked back and forth between me and the angel, then shrugged. Might as well.
I nodded, and we walked back over to Meera.
“But no more dirty words from you,” she said to me, just having to get the last word in.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I grunted.
We reached the end of the lobby. There were no elevators in sight – only a ten-foot-tall golden ring with its base embedded in the floor.
“Oh God – please don’t tell me we have to walk up 30 flights of stairs,” I groaned.
“Of course not. Don’t be silly.”
She touched the golden circle, and blue energy surged inside the frame like water. Like, Stargate-style shit.
“Come,” Meera said, and led me through the portal.
Next thing I knew we were standing in a small white foyer lit by gaslight and tastefully decorated with embroidered tapestries. There was an ornate metal door in front of us, and a set of stairs at the other end of the foyer that appeared to lead up to the roof.
I looked back behind me. Stig appeared out of nowhere through another ten-foot golden ring – and then the blue energy inside it dissipated and disappeared.
Meera let go of my arm, walked over to the door, and pushed it open.
Stig scampered through ahead of me. I followed him – and then stopped in my tracks as my jaw hit the floor.
The place was absolutely gorgeous.
There were floor-to-ceiling windows and a 180 degree view of Exardus below, with all the gas lamps dotting the darkened city like fairie lights.
The furniture was sumptuous, if monochromatic – white leather couches without backs, white marble tables, white wooden chairs with white upholstery.
A dozen candles were the only thing lighting the vast, open room, and they filled the air with the barest hint of incense.
Stig was already waddling around the place, poking at the couches and furniture like a dog sniffing asses.
Meera quietly closed the door behind us and then walked away.
I frowned in confusion for a second without knowing why – and then realized I was missing something.
The sound of a metal bolt shunking into place.
I turned around and was shocked to see that there weren’t any deadbolts. To be completely accurate, there wasn’t even a handle. It was one of those ‘bisexual’ doors – one that swings both ways.
Ha ha.
“What the hell, do you people not have locks?” I asked.
Meera narrowed her eyes at me.
“What?” I asked. “Is it against the law to ask about locks?”
“You said ‘hell,’” she said prissily.
I groaned. “Alright, fine… do you people not have locks?”
“There is no need. There is no crime in Exardus.”
“I think the three a-holes we ran into earlier prove that theory wrong.”
Meera cocked her head to the side and seemed to be trying to determine if ‘a-hole’ was acceptable usage. Apparently it was, because she didn’t comment on it. She just looked at Stig disdainfully and sniffed. “There is no crime in Exardus… except for demons.”
“Right,” I said sarcastically. “Tell that to the Underneath.”
“The what?”
“The Underneath? Giant underground neighborhood under Exardus? Full of pimps, assassins, cutthroats, and thieves?”
“I am sure I do not know what you speak of.”
Of course she wouldn’t. A high-class princess living in a place like this? She probably had no idea what lay just beyond her gilded bubble.
The question was, how did she pay for it?
“What do you do for a living?” I asked.
“I am an angel.” She paused, then corrected herself with a sad look. “Was an angel.”
I frowned. “What do you mean, ‘was’? You look like an angel to me.”
“It is part of the delicate matter,” she said brusquely.
“Which you – ”
“ – do not wish to discuss at this time.”
“Okay. Fine.”
I wandered over to the window and looked down queasily. I was afraid of heights, and couldn’t help but imagine the nightmarish prospect of falling 30 stories.
I hope there are no earthquakes in Exardus…
“I would suggest you take a bath now while I wash your clothing,” Meera said.
I looked down at my clothes and the crusty constellation of stains all over them.
Ew.
“Okay,” I mumbled, momentarily embarrassed.
“This way.”
She led me into the bedroom, past a circular king-size bed (covered in white sheets – what else?), and into a palatial marble bathroom lit with more candles.
There was a Jacuzzi-sized bowl set into the white marble floor. She turned the handle on a humongous golden faucet jutting out from the wall, and a jet of steaming water began to splash into the tub.
“Here are towels,” she said, laying out several plush white cloths on the floor. “Just leave your clothes by the door and I will retrieve them.”
“Okay,” I said.
She nodded and smiled – and lingered for several seconds without saying anything.
I raised my eyebrows like, And?
She forced an even bigger, faker smile, then left the room.
I undressed and winced as I did it. Now that I was getting full-on drafts of air wafting out of my shirt, I could see that the orc’s insult about knocking people out with my stench hadn’t been enti
rely unwarranted.
I set aside my belt, bags, and Scepter of the Servant on the floor, and left my boots and clothing outside the door. The boots were caked with layers of god knows what, so whatever she was planning to do to the clothes, the boots probably needed three or four times the dosage.
I stepped down into the hot water.
DAMN that feels good.
I sank down to my neck and groaned. The tub was luxury personified; I could almost do laps in it, it was so big.
After it was full, I turned off the tap. Then I dunked my head underwater, scrubbed my scalp, and resurfaced.
What the hell?!
The water all around me was turning a light brown color. Like Pig Pen in Peanuts, just with water instead of air.
Ewwwwww…
I found a bar of soap on the edge of the tub. It smelled like lilacs.
Not the most manly of scents, but it was better than pig shit.
I set to work lathering myself up.
As I scrubbed and soaked, I started to think of the other memorable time where a bathtub was involved – back in the New Orleans-style hotel room in the land of plantations.
The first time I went down on Alaria.
The thought of her made my heart ache, but it was a damn good memory. It was the first time I’d seen her completely naked. The first time I really got to touch her.
The first time I made her come.
Well… almost come.
I remembered the smell of her… the cinnamon taste of her sex… how wet she was… the sighs and noises she’d made as I stroked inside her with my fingers…
I was getting hard just remembering it.
I closed my eyes, let my hand drift down to my crotch, and began to touch myself.
I remembered that night in Abaddon… how it had felt to enter her for the first time… the way her face had looked the first time she came for real… her mouth slowly enveloping my cock… her breasts, heavy and firm, filling up my hands… the way her ass felt as I cupped it… the way her eyes shone as she –
Something soft hit the floor just a few feet away from me.
I jerked in the water (phrasing!) and looked over in alarm.
Meera was standing there, beet red, staring at the water. She’d dropped a pile of white cloth at her feet.
I was pretty sure she knew exactly what I’d been doing, although nothing was visible beneath the brownish, soapy water.
Okay, maybe a vague outline.
“JESUS, don’t you knock?” I snarled.
“I… I am not Jesus,” she whispered, her face still flushed red.
“Apparently you don’t knock, either! What do you want?!”
“I… I brought you clothes… yours will not be clean for an hour or two…”
“You could have left them at the door!”
“I… I’m sorry,” she said, but kept staring at the water.
I narrowed my eyes. “If you want to watch, then watch. Otherwise, get out.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, then got even redder. “I don’t – I wasn’t – how dare you!”
Then she hustled out of the room.
Jesus Christ –
Actually, I need to stop saying that since everybody keeps asking me who he is.
I shook my head in irritation. No matter how embarrassing it was to get caught jerking off, it was still a little hot – or would have been, if she didn’t have a stick the size of a redwood up her ass.
I sighed. The moment was over. My boner was drooping and I really wasn’t in the mood to continue, so I just finished washing, toweled off, and inspected the clothes she’d dropped.
A toga.
Of course.
That seemed to be the game’s running joke on me every time I lost my clothes. First a diaper when Alaria burned my skunky clothes in Fernburg, then a bedsheet on the Revenge after Tarka stripped me naked, and now this.
I tried putting the toga on. At least it wasn’t one of hers – or at least it wasn’t like the skimpy one she was wearing. Instead it was a longer ceremonial robe that came down to my feet instead of my thighs.
Thank heaven for small favors.
I walked out of the bathroom and bedroom and into the common area, where I found she had set a table with silver plates and goblets. Nothing had been served yet, though.
Stig was watching hungrily from where he stood on one of the dining chairs, though his head just barely cleared the edge of the table.
Meera kept giving Stig withering glances every time she looked at him, though I guess she wasn’t technically breaking her vow to be nice.
Stig just ignored her.
“What’s all this?” I asked.
Meera blushed a little, probably remembering what had just transpired in the bathroom. “I thought we might partake of some sustenance.”
I actually couldn’t remember the last time I’d had anything to eat. I’d basically been on a liquid diet the last few days – ‘liquid diet’ being a euphemism for nothing but booze.
“That’s probably a good idea,” I agreed.
Suddenly there was a knock at the front door. Meera walked over and opened it, and an elf in a suit entered. He was carrying what looked like a baby’s highchair carved out of ivory.
“By the table, please,” Meera said.
The elf walked over and set up the white highchair next to the table.
Then a dwarf in a tux rolled in a white cart with several silver-domed platters on top of it and wheeled it over to the table, too.
“Thank you,” Meera said.
The elf and dwarf both bowed stiffly, then disappeared back into the hall.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“It is the food. Also a special chair for your…” Meera paused and made a face. “…imp.”
“No, I mean – you have private servants?”
“They are for the building. I gave them your clothes to clean, incidentally.”
“…okay…”
It was funny. I’d been inside a couple of honest-to-God palaces the last several weeks, and yet here I was, bowled over by Room Service.
Stig jumped down from the regular chair, inspected the high chair, and crawled up it into the seat. Now he was level with the tabletop.
“Ha – you look like a baby,” I teased him.
“Fuckoff,” he said, and did his finger fwap fwap fwap fwap.
“Hey!” I snapped.
“Language!” Meera shouted angrily.
“I’m not a baby,” Stig pouted as he crossed his arms and slumped down in his seat.
“Fine, you’re not a baby.”
“No, you’re an imp,” Meera said, one corner of her mouth curled into a sneer.
She uncovered the domes and revealed silver bowls piled high with exotic food. A shank of roasted meat, a stew of plums and tubers, and a rice dish with leafy vegetables. It smelled absolutely delicious, like cumin and saffron.
My mouth watered as she served up a plate and put it in front of me. “Thanks. Do you have anything to drink?”
“Yes – water, eldritch juice, and moondew. Which would you like?”
“Uhhhh… you don’t have any wine?”
“No.”
“Rum?”
“No.”
“Any sort of liquor?”
“No.”
“Beer?!”
She huffed loudly. “I have no alcoholic beverages of any kind.”
Stig threw his hands up in disgust, then stood up in the highchair and jumped to the floor.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Baby needs a bottle,” he grunted as he headed for the door.
“Come on – we’ve been drinking all week.”
“You’ve been drinking all week,” Stig said as he pointed at me. “Now I want a drink.”
“That’s not tr– ”
And then I thought about it.
Actually, it was true. The longer my bender had gone on, the less Stig had drunk – culminating i
n his single beer today. Actually, more like 3/4ths of a beer.
“You were babysitting me,” I realized.
“Uh-huh,” he said.
“If you leave the premises, you will not be permitted back inside,” Meera informed him snottily.
Stig gave her the OK sign with a few good fwap-fwap-fwaps.
“Stig!” I rebuked him.
“I didn’t say it,” he snickered.
“What does this mean,” Meera asked in exasperation, poking her own finger through an OK sign, “and why does he keep doing it?”
I cocked an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to break down into laughter and say, Just kidding.
She didn’t. She just sat there looking at me, perplexed.
“…never mind. Can you please tell your people to let him in when he’s ready to come back?”
She didn’t answer.
“Please?” I said, though it was more like a pissed-off command than asking a favor.
Meera rolled her eyes, then went over to a crystal ball sitting on her white marble kitchen counter. As soon as she placed her hand on it, the ghostly face of a troll in a suit appeared inside the ball.
“Yes, m’lady?”
“There will an… imp,” she shuddered, “entering the lobby through my portal. Please allow him to enter my abode whenever he returns.”
“Of course, m’lady.”
She took her hand away and the troll disappeared.
Huh.
Pretty nifty intercom system.
“Do you have any money?” I asked Stig just as he was about to push his way through the door.
He froze – then hung his head in defeat. “No.”
I didn’t have any, either, or I wouldn’t have been concocting plans for him to steal bottles of booze earlier that evening.
I turned to Meera. “Could you lend me a couple of silvers?”
“I don’t have any.”
I looked around the apartment.
You have ALL THIS, I wanted to say, and you can’t spare a couple of fuckin’ silvers?!
I was just about to rip her a new one when she pulled a shiny yellow coin out of a white silk purse on her toga belt. “Will a gold coin do?”
Holy SHIT.
Stig’s jaw dropped open, too.
“Um… yeah, but that’s too much,” I said.
“No it’s not,” Stig protested.
“Yes it is,” I said as I glared at him.
“Why is it too much?” Meera asked, puzzled.
