My plan was to spend a few hours helping to fix up the church, then go back and check on Dune before nightfall.

The priority was the front of the building, as the holes in the plaster made the place look dilapidated. Father Gerson had some plaster in a large paper package in a supply closet along with all the tools I needed: a hammer and chisel, prybar, broom, bucket, and a trowel. There was even half a brick of blue paint, which would prove more than enough.

Outside, I started with the biggest. The wood beneath was bleached by the sun and worn smooth. I chiseled away at the edges to make a clean join and swept away any dust or loose debris before slathering a thick layer of white goo over it. Once that was smooth and the corners looked good and weren't about to peel over, I started on the next one. I continued to patch holes when I heard a voice behind me. Coming around from the side of the building was Father Gerson along with two boys, I guessed eight and ten. “Roederek,” the friar said with a thick Goloagi accent, “you and Walren clean up all the debris you can see. Caleb here has knocked out a bit, and there’s more here,” he pointed, “and over there as well.”

He pushed along a wheelbarrow, and the two boys began to toss in pieces of broken wood, tar, and broken plaster. He then set about hammering away at the hinges of the destroyed gate, clearing away the remnant of broken pieces while I continued to work on patching holes.

“What happened here?” I said.

Father Gerson continued hammering as he spoke. “Rioters.”

“They set fire to Walren’s bedroom!” Roederek complained as he tossed some debris into the wheelbarrow. He was a stocky Herali boy with his hair tied in a ponytail at the back.

I turned to the smaller one, a Saeni boy with sandy-green hair cut short. “You must have been scared.”

The smaller boy stood and looked at me without speaking.

“He don’t talk,” Roederek explained. “I wasn’t scared; I coulda taken ‘em.”

I smiled at him. “Oh yeah? How many were there?”

Roederek shrugged. “I didn’t get a look. Father Gerson made us hide in the cellar while him and Anyanna put out the fire.”

“What were they rioting for?”

“Who knows?” the friar replied. “Caleb, do you mind helping me with this?”

I went over to where he stood, at the side of the building adjacent to a rotted-out wooden fence overgrown with dried, dead vines. There I held the new gate in place while he aligned it to the hinges and hammered down the pegs. He then swung it in and out, good as new. “Very nice!”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but how can you be in this community and oblivious to the point where you don’t know what the rioters were upset about? I don’t say that to judge; I just don’t understand how that can happen. These things don’t just spark from nowhere; they build. Don’t they?”

He let out a humpfh and straightened his rotund self out. “You won’t get any answers from these people. The ones who’ll talk to you don’t know, and the ones who know are the ones responsible.”

“That’s not what I mean. I’d… I mean… if it were me, I’d be reaching out to the community. Regularly. When I came up here, everything was closed and locked up. I’d have the door open.”

“They’ll steal things,” Roederek explained.

“Then they’ll set foot in God’s house. Besides, I didn’t see anything irreplaceable in the front lobby, and that’s probably the worst that’s going to happen. More to the point, opening up to the community gives you visibility into what’s going on before things flare up, maybe even give you an opportunity to step in and see if you can help work something out so that the riot never happens. I don’t know, but I feel like that’s a better way to go. Were you able to shelter anyone hiding from the violence?”

Roederek looked at Father Gerson, whose blubbery neck wobbled as he thought on the matter. “You can’t let anybody in when it’s like that. You won’t be able to tell who’s safe and who isn’t.”

I shrugged. “I guess. But if you’re alive in the community, wouldn’t you know who’s safe and, more importantly, who needs safety?”

“I suppose,” he nodded, then went back inside, taking the boys with him.

I couldn’t find any more holes to patch, and the fresh plaster needed some time before it was painted, so I went back to the courtyard to try and make sense of the mess there. Scraps of wood that could be salvaged I piled into one corner, while pieces that only had firewood left in them went in a separate pile. Most of the planks I found were torn apart, practically shredded. Plants were uprooted, and stones tossed about where once there had been some kind of order. In the midst of making sense of what had been there before, I heard a girl’s voice behind me. “What’s your name?”

I looked up. She was about my age, maybe a year or two younger, average height and skinny with straight, dark green hair down to her shoulders, round eyes a deep emerald-green, and skin a light olive-green color.

“I’m Caleb. And you?” I stooped down to pick up another plank of wood. It was a bit dinged up, but with some sanding it would make a decent pole.

“Where are you from?” she said. She was Herali, but she spoke with a hint of a Goloagi accent.

I stood still for a moment to catch my breath. “Gath. I didn’t get your name?”

“Anyanna. Where’s Gath? I’ve never heard of it before.”

“It’s a few days north from here, in Osenia. What about you? Where are you from?”

“Why are you here?” she said.

“I was called to arms, to fight in Carthia.”

“Where’s that?” she said.

“It’s on the other side of those mountains,” I pointed. There wasn’t much to be seen of them but the tops of some peaks looked over the southern wall of the courtyard. I had to work out what to do with the broken bricks. There weren’t a lot, but perhaps enough that, with a little cement, might make a cute planter for some herbs.

She turned to look.

“What about you?” I asked a second time. “Are you from Ulum?”

She looked me over, not once bringing her eyes to meet mine. “The city?”

That almost made me laugh. “Yes, the city.”

“Father says the city is a cesspool of debauchery.”

I laughed. “I wouldn’t know about that. I only just arrived this morning.”

I was trying to make sense of this girl when the friar’s voice called out from the hallway beside the rear building. “Anyanna, would you mind helping the children set the table?”

She bowed her head low and floated past him without another word in my direction. He smiled as she passed, then turned to me. “I hope she wasn’t a bother to you.”

“Not a bother at all; she seems friendly.”

“Well that’s good, then—she has someone who doesn’t mind talking to her. She could use more of that.” He had a wooden mug in his hand and took a good drag from it before he disappeared down the hallway.

I'd spent the next half hour sorting through a pile of rubble and began to piece together what it had looked like before. There had been a trellis that climbed above the courtyard and offered what was probably a good amount of shade over a series of large, hexagonal stone planters. I'd managed to clear the remnants of the trellis and get some sunlight to the planters beneath. Then that girl appeared again. “Your bath is ready.”

I chuckled. “My bath?”

“You need to wash up before dinner.”

“I don't want to impose. I just thought that…”

“Come this way,” she commanded.

Might as well, I figured, I was getting rather sweaty. I followed her to the other side of the courtyard and through the door to the rear hallway. She slid open a door on the left and we entered into a small room with a stone floor that recessed towards a metal drain in the center. In one corner was a large, wooden tub with iron braces wrapped around it that let off a good amount of steam that hinted of rosemary oil. The room was dark but for a small open window near the ceiling that let in a gust of cold air and three candles in the opposite corner set atop a wrought-iron stand.

“Go ahead,” she said to me. She’d closed the door behind her leaving us alone together and stood before me with a rough rag in one hand and a bar of dark brown soap in the other.

“Uh… Thank you, this is beautiful.”

“Do you bathe with your clothes on?”

“No?”

“Take your clothes off.” She gazed at me through large, round eyes that betrayed not a hint that anything was amiss.

“Well… you’re… standing right there.”

She looked around, then shuffled her feet closer to one corner. “Is this better?”

“Well, I… uh…”

Then I noticed that some clothes from my pack were folded neatly in a wooden stand beneath a shelf with some ceramic jars on top.

“Did you go through my things?”

At that, she set down the rag and soap and stepped up to me. I had on a brown, padded-leather jacket, and she reached her hands up and set them firmly on my chest, then worked her fingers beneath and started to slide them over my shoulders and work my jacket off. I stood like a statue, unsure what she intended to do. She worked the sleeves over my hands until the jacket fell lifeless, draped over one arm, and she set it down in a corner closest to the door.

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“OK, well…”

She then came back to me, reached her hands up, and began to work on the top button of my shirt.

“It’s alright, I can do that…”

As I brought my hands in close to hers, she swatted them away and began to work on the next button.

“I can unbutton my own shirt.”

Her eyes fixed on her handiwork and she moved on to the next one.

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

She ignored me and kept at it, unbuttoning one after another, all the way down until she could pull my shirt past my arms, drape it over her shoulder, and then set it on top of my jacket. The chill air met my skin, and I had to cover myself with my arms a bit. Anyanna came back over to me, took hold of my arms, and pulled them down to my sides. She then traced the tip of her fingers along my torso until she reached my belt and began to tug at it. I tried to step back, but she grasped on tight and pulled me back.

“Anyanna, we just met. This is not a good idea.”

I lifted my hands to grasp at hers, and she slapped them hard, over and over again until I rested them back down at my sides. Then she pulled at my belt once more until it came loose, and she pulled it away from my pants, folded it up, and set it atop my shirt.

By this time, I’d begun to freeze. I had no more words for the moment. She dug her fingers into my pants and slid them down, wrapping her arms around me to grasp at my bum, sliding my pants down as she went, only to bring them forward once more to pull my pants down past my cock and let them fall down to my knees.

“Oops!” she said, staring at my exposed manhood. “I forgot to take off your boots first.”

I should have told her I could take my own boots off, but instead she crouched down low and tugged at one foot, untying the laces, and then pulling hard in multiple directions until my boot could slide over my socks and off my feet. Then the other. Then she pulled my pants off the rest of the way, taking my socks with them, folded it all together, and set them atop the rest of my clothes.

I was completely naked and wondering how this had happened. I could scarcely will my body to move in any direction, but as she glanced down at my cock I felt a tingle that didn’t belong.

“Get in the bath now,” she said.

She was a lithe girl, average height but scant of figure. Her simple white cotton dress hung loose over her body. Her hair hosted rough tangles and split ends, and her jaw allowed a pronounced underbite.

“Come on,” she commanded me, then set one hand firmly over my arse and pushed. I still wasn't sure about any of this, so I resisted some. Then she swatted me. Hard. “Get in the bath.”

I didn't like this weird interaction with this girl I'd only just met, but my cock seemed to have other ideas. I felt the swelling grow as tension throbbed into my shaft and by the time I'd set my feet into the hot water I was fully erect.

I hadn't the time to figure out what I wanted from her, if anything at all, at least not in that regard.

“Sit down,” Anyanna commanded me, “we need to wash your hair.”

I did as she bid and tilted my head back, allowing her to stroke her fingers through my hair. As I closed my eyes, Sarina entered my thoughts. Around the time when I was sent off to Kyoen, things were moving with her. I didn’t know where they were moving to and I certainly had no idea what that even meant, but they were moving. Then, when I came back, things had moved on. She never said it explicitly, but I always knew it was because of how I’d conducted myself with the girls in Kyoen.

Anyanna was a pretty girl, but she wasn’t Sarina. I could hear her rubbing the soap vigorously in her hand, then feel her fingers begin to massage my scalp. She dug in, too, with her fingernails, scratching everywhere along the skin beneath my hair, all the way down and built up a lather to fall down my hair beyond my shoulders. Then I felt a tug as a brush was being pulled through.

“Not so many tangles,” she said. “You’ve been brushing. Good job.”

I started to laugh at that remark. “I try.”

“Rinse.”

And so I leaned back in the water as Anyanna’s fingers pulled out all of my hair, working it back and forth to get all the soap out. After a while I felt her hand beneath my neck, pulling me back up. I wiped my eyes and looked. She knelt beside the tub—taut nipples poked out from her otherwise flat chest—holding the rag in one hand and the soap in the other, scrubbing back and forth to get up a good lather.

“Your face now.”

I reached for the rag, but she moved her hands faster and plastered the thing all over my face with both hands. Then she scrubbed everywhere. My forehead, my nose, beneath my eyebrow, my cheeks, I had no say in the matter but could only hold my breath until she was finished. After that I dipped my face in the water and rinsed.

“Stand up.”

I felt a pang of nervousness as I wasn’t sure how thorough she’d planned to be. “I can bathe myself, it’s fine.”

“I said, stand up.”

And so I stood, making sure to turn my back to her.

Right away, she tossed my hair over one shoulder to expose my skin, and I felt the rough rag being pressed hard against me. Starting with the back of my neck, the sensation of being scrubbed clean, across my shoulders one at a time, down my spine, the rag running circles over me while her other hand, slippery with soap, slid gently after. From left to right, up and down, her hand caressed my skin with a smooth gentleness right after the rough rag was finished punishing me.

Then, after she scrubbed my arse clean, I felt both of her hands with soapy fingers glide all over, cupping and splaying out, giving me a good squeeze. I peeked over my shoulder, and her eyes were wide, her lips cracked open as she stared at my bum, caressing every inch of my skin from the small of my back to my thighs and everything in-between. My body got excited again at the sensation of her fingers appreciating me, and my heart started to panic over the prospect of her bathing my front side.

Instead, she crouched down low and began to scrub away at my thighs. I felt her hand tapping at my knees, prying me to stand further apart, and she scrubbed between my legs, including my balls. As with everywhere else, she followed the rag with her smooth, soapy fingers, caressing my skin. She even cradled my balls in her hand, gently massaging, pulling, stroking, and nearly sending me over the edge before squeezing down hard.

“OW!” I nearly jumped.

“Hold still!” she snapped.

“That hurt!”

She said nothing to that and moved on to the rest of my legs, always holding on with one hand while scrubbing with the rag on the opposite side.

She'd finished scrubbing my calves and commanded me further. “Turn around.”

I was petrified. My member might as well have been solid rock, sticking out and promising to betray what had welled up into sinful desire. “Anyanna, I'm a chaste man. I can't…”

She tugged at one knee and huffed, before reaching up and grasping at my hips, pushing in on my bum while tugging at the other side of me until I was turned to face her. Then as she brought her hands down to dip the rag in the water, she bumped against my cock, wrapped her soapy fingers around my shaft only to pull away and let it snap back up. The shock of pleasure was brief but so intense I could scarcely catch my breath. Anyanna stared at it and fought back a grin as she rubbed the soap vigorously in the soaking rag before standing up to face me. Then, she bumped it again reaching her hands up to my shoulders and began scrubbing hard.

Her cheeks were flush, her breath was heavy, and her nipples stuck out prominently through her dress. Every piece of my skin, as soon as she'd scraped it clean with the rough rag, she followed along with her smooth fingers, stroking, along my collarbone, across my chest, then she pinched my nipple.

Hard.

I flinched from the shock of it and escaped easily as her soapy fingers slipped right away from my skin. She smiled and let out a light giggle before reaching down for the soap, only to bump her hand against my solid cock once more on her way back up. She began to scrub across my stomach, tracing every muscle with her fingers, reaching behind me to pull me in close and press in hard with the rag, not missing one piece of me. She kept that up, cupping one hand firmly over my arse and began scrubbing around my hips, running the rag in circles and inching closer and closer to my increasing excitement.

I desired to touch her. I didn't want to, but I needed to. So I brought my hands up to her hips with a mind to caress her sides and let my thumbs encircle her breasts. Right as my fingers were about to make contact, she spanked my hands away. I didn’t move away at first, so she slapped my wrists, one-by-one, not reserving any force, until I settled my hands back down at my sides with the sting lingering over my skin. Then as soon as that was done, she came back up to my arms, lifting each one to scrub under my armpits, lowering them back down, all the while brushing her smooth fingers all along the length of each muscle, wrapping behind and caressing my arms from top to bottom with an excited smile on her face, never once making eye contact.

Then she grabbed my cock. With her bare hand, she wrapped her fingers over my shaft, stroked gently back and forth, then reached down to fill her hand with water and then grabbed me again, slipping her fingers down my shaft and pulling them back again. The sensation of her slippery fingers gliding over the crown of my cock, then wrapping around and squeezing tight sent my heart racing. Then, I watched her breath heave and she bit her lip as she brought the rag up and began to scrub. All around the base and in my hair, she lifted me up and scrubbed beneath. All along the shaft top and bottom while holding onto the tip with her free hand. Then she wrapped her fingers all around it and brought them down along my shaft, squeezing tight as she went, slipping along a fresh lather of soap. Then she took the rag and scrubbed hard all around the tip and down the shaft to where her fingers rested.

I felt like I was about to explode, yet all I could do was stand there and allow it to happen.

Then she moved on with the rag. She’d crouched down low, holding my cock as a brace to balance herself. I felt her soapy fingers twist across my skin, tickling me in unexpected ways. She then held on tight and began to scrub in large circles all over my hips. When she switched the rag to her other hand to scrub the other side, she reached around and wrapped her fingers over my arse, slipping up and down across the curvature of my muscles so as to brace herself as she scrubbed away at the front of me. She kept staring at my cock, inches from her face and hard as I’d ever been.

At last she scrubbed down each leg. “Lift up your foot.”

I did as she said, and she scrubbed hard at my heel, between my toes, all over.

“You keep your toenails trimmed. Good job.”

Then the other, I sat down to rinse, and she stood and stepped back. I was at a loss for words, for actions, for anything. I didn’t know what to think about what had just happened, let alone what to do next.

“Come out so we can dry you off.”

I wanted our eyes to meet. I wanted to see this girl, but I couldn’t. She wouldn’t let me. I watched her eyes as they passed over my chest, over my stomach, looked over my cock, traversed my legs, came back to my cock, settled on my shoulders, my arms, then back to my cock again. She looked everywhere but my face, and I didn’t know how I felt about that.

“Let’s go!” she said, stretching a light brown towel of woven cotton for me to come into. So I did. I stepped out of the tub with water trailing down all over my body, and allowed her to wrap me up. I felt her hands behind the towel wipe me all along my shoulders, down my back, across the front, her fingers once again wrapped around my swollen, solid member, and squeezed the towel against my skin, working her fingers around and under my balls, to rub everything dry.

Then she squeezed me hard again. That hurt. That hurt a lot. I yelped and tried to jump back, then looked back at her as she’d plastered a satisfied grin across her face.

“Turn around.”

I did. I couldn’t explain why.

“Kneel down,” she said.

I did. I couldn’t explain that, either.

Then I felt her fingers work the towel through my hair, tugging hard at the locks so that I had to tilt my head as she pulled. She kept that up for a little while, then I felt the even tug of a brush being worked through, all the way to the end, lock by lock, until she was done.

“Stand up.”

She took my towel away, leaving me to stand naked with the cold air brushing across my skin. She then went back to the corner stand and took up a small ceramic bottle, popped a cork from the lid, poured out something into her hand, and started rubbing it across my skin. It smelled strong of olive oil, and the sensation of her smooth fingers gliding over my shoulders, my back, all across the curve of my bum as she massaged the oil into my skin was divine.

Then she turned me around again.

This time, she started with my cock. With a generous pool of oil in her palm, she took hold of me and began stroking, twisting her wrist, pushing her fingers deep into my hips only to pull back again, squeezing tight over my crown, then thrust them back down again. With that motion, she lingered, stroking hard, then soft, slow, then fast, then oiling up her fingers for another round.

It felt amazing, but I couldn’t get thoughts of Sarina out of my mind. I shouldn’t have allowed things to get this far to begin with, but I had to stop it somewhere.

“Anyanna, we can’t… do this. I can’t do this. Please.” My words asked her to stop, but my body did not. Rather, I stood still and did nothing as she continued stroking, back and forth until the oil was absorbed into our skin once more. Then she oiled up the rest of my body, my chest, my shoulders, my arms, my stomach, my legs, and passed her fingers along my cock once more.

She smiled wide as if to near a laugh, then wiped her fingers in the towel.

“You’re all clean now. Get dressed for dinner.”

With that, she took up my dirty clothes and left, sliding the door closed behind her.