Day 5, 1:15 PM
“If a man insisted on always being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.”
― Herodotus
I left the forest in four days without a Single Fucking Scratch. Then I followed the same direction Princess took the last time, and after six hours of walking, I reached a large, walled town. I passed the gate without trouble. The guards wore black ribbons tied to their upper arms and paid no attention to a relatively clean, plainly dressed traveler.
The first place I went to was a goldsmith to get some money. Princess did not carry coins. She had six small gold cylinders sewn into her dress’s hem. The thick sticks seemed generic enough, and I guessed they were this world’s form of gold bars.
I guessed right. The goldsmith took them off my hands for a small fee, along with Princess’s rings. I kept her locket for later. That thing had an insignia, and my guess is a jeweler would have recognized it.
I left the bearded old artisan’s shop a wealthy man, grinning at a pair of guards, who looked like the lively butler from the Agams family. I first visited a tailor, where I bought a set of woodland green clothes slightly too big for me, and ordered a fitting set for when I leave town in a week or so, after I have rested enough. Then I went to a cobbler’s, bought and ordered a pair of fine leather boots for travel.
With that taken care of, all that’s left is food, drink, a proper bath, getting laid, and getting literate. Not necessarily in that order.
“Where’s the most respectable whorehouse?” I ask, and the old boot-maker gives me directions like it’s the most natural question to ask a man.
In ten minutes I find ‘Bella’s’ and enter, even though it’s only four in the afternoon.
“Do you have a woman who can read?” I ask right from the brothel door, my mood exceptional.
“You got a letter from far away you wish someone reads for you, or do you want a woman?” The proprietress, a woman well into her fifties, on the far end of chubby and well into fat, asks.
“Both.” I grin, and she turns towards the stairs, shouting, “Duchess! I’m sending one to your room. A letter and a job.”
“That’ll be nine plows per hour, but if you want her for longer or if you’d like some drinks, I’ll give you a discount.” She grins at me, showing two rotten teeth, but even that face can’t ruin my good mood.
“I want food, drink, and I plan to stay at least until tomorrow morning.” I pause for a moment and realize I would be uncomfortable with the woman watching me eat and drink alone. “Make sure there’s enough food and drink for two.”
The woman paused, her lips moving as she did her math for some twenty seconds. “That’ll be eight silver shields.”
I give her eight shiny coins portraying a bearded old man wearing a crown on one side and a shield on the other, and she directs me to “Duchess’s room.”
The small room is so gaudy it makes my head spin. Some mental patient painted the walls blood red, and other than a small bedside table, the room only had one full bed. While I stare in shock, considering the damage this ambient might deal to my mind, a brunette wearing a green nightgown enters from a side door, which almost melds into the wall when she closes it.
I eye her from head to toe. She’s really tall, two inches taller than me. The bad makeup makes it difficult to tell her age, or what she really looks like for that matter, but she should be much younger than me, the old me, and I think she should be pretty. Her boobs are slightly bigger than Princess’s. Wait, they are a Duchess and a Princess. I smile at the thought, but the woman keeps gazing at me with indifference.
I’ve paid some hookers after getting divorced. Those girls were more proactive than this Duchess, maybe because they were modern?
“Do I undress first, or?” I ask, and she holds my gaze long enough that I avert my eyes.
After establishing dominance, Duchess slips out of her garb in an elegant, fluid motion, letting the emerald, see-through dress fall to the ground.
Did I sign up for BDSM? I’ve never tried kink like that, but Duchess’s body is a feast for the eyes, and I’m not entirely against her tying me up.
“Where is the letter? Or would you like me to read it in two minutes, once you are done?” She doesn’t bat an eye while verbally punching me in the gut, and I gulp.
I hope I can last longer than that. My eyes rove her body, and I’m not so sure.
I didn’t last two minutes the first time, but I did better the second time, and much better the third. Finally, forty minutes later, my pent up urges dealt with, I’m ready to learn how to read.
“Do you have something I can write on and something to write with?” I ask and get an icy stare in return.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
I look around, but there’s not much to see. There’s the bed, the tiny table with a large platter of food on it. There’s meat, bread, and a mashed orange-colored side dish.
“Do you mind if I draw the letters in this?” I point at the unknown puree.
Duchess seems appalled. Her lips and neck tighten, but she says nothing, and I don’t really have much to work with as far as stationery is concerned, so I start playing like a child, using a charred bit of greasy meat to draw squiggles in the puree.
“Name dash Aang Ree Class dash fugitive slave level zero…”
So, I’m a fugitive slave. Makes sense. My health is full, and I was right, the color changes based on my status. My attributes are a mystery. I’ll ask BSD what is strength and try to guess how much stronger I am compared to a regular human.
“To level up, stay on the run for ten days…”
Stay on the run for ten days? How long has it been since I started over? Five and a half days?
[Name - Aang Ree
Class - fugitive slave level 0
Health 18/18, Strength - 20, Agility - 19, Physique - 21, Wisdom - 19, Intellect - 18, Willpower - 21, Presence - 20, Charisma - 21, Composure - 15
Abilities - none
Attribute points remaining - 0
To level up, stay on the run for ten days
Statuses - none]
She reads everything I doodle in our food with the patience of a saint. I expected she would shout at me for messing with her, since I’m obviously writing a reasonably long message with repeating characters, something people don’t memorize for fun. But she doesn’t. She treats it like a guessing game with a child.
I don’t mind being treated like a kid and focus on reading. The written language is familiar, its nature resembling English. Sometimes multiple letters make one sound, sometimes one letter represents multiple sounds. It seems random, as far as I can tell from the minuscule sample hovering before my eyes.
“Have we covered all the letters?” I ask, and Duchess shakes her head.
“We have missed…” she lists the five remaining letters, and I have her draw them in the puree.
“Thank you. Let’s eat.” I smile my winning smile, but she gives me an odd look.
“You wish to share your food with me?” she finally says after I remain silent and endure her glare.
“Yes.” I pause before saying the rest. “I also want to sleep, have some more sex later, and take a bath before I leave. I paid for your time until morning. Let’s eat.”
“I don’t have to lick it off your feet, or from the floor?” she asks, and my throat clenches.
“No?” I say and break the bread in two, handing her the left half. “Just eat.”
We eat in an uncomfortable silence. The orange goo tastes like carrots mixed with onions, and I think it would’ve been better warm, or with mayo.
Finally, I find the silence too stifling.
“Do you know math?” I ask halfway through the meal, and she gives me another strange look.
“You really do not know?” She asks, and I shrug.
“Maybe I do. If I manage to make sense of all the digits. I can tell you that thirty seven and seventeen is fifty-four, I can also do pretty advanced calculus without paper—”
She interrupts me, shaking her head.
“I am not talking about math. I am asking about myself. You did not come here to defile the Duke’s daughter?”
Now I stare at her blankly.
“You’re a duke’s daughter?” I ask, not really sure which tone to use, but I can’t just ignore the elephant in the room. “Are you an illegitimate child, or did he disown you?”
“Why did you pay nine times the price of a prostitute if you did not know?”
I paid nine times the price? Nobody told me that. Wait. She avoided the question. Should I press for an answer? Not really. I don’t want to know, and she doesn’t want to share. That’s perfect.
“I needed someone literate,” I say, and there’s no need for Blunt to intervene, “to read that message for me. I knew what it looked like, but not what it said. It really isn’t important, and I already paid for everything, so you should eat up. I’m tired, and I want to sleep in a soft bed.”
We finish the rest of our meal in a silence more awkward than the one before I asked what I assumed was a simple ice-breaker.
You don’t have to sleep in the bed with me, I want to say, but where would she sleep? On the floor? I have absolutely zero intention of being a gentleman and sleeping on hard wood covered with a red strip for the sake of a prostitute I just met.
I say nothing as I lay down on my back and put my hands behind my head. She’s still watching me, sitting on her side of the bed.
“Do as you wish,” I say, and she looks at me for several long moments. Then she stands up, picks up her nightgown from the ground and gets dressed before squatting in the corner, her back against the wall, looking generally pathetic.
Ah, great, now I’m feeling guilty about fucking a whore.
I turn around, so that I don’t look at her and put my hand beneath my cheek, but try as I might, I can’t fall asleep.
“Fine. Fuck,” I grumble and get up, beating the crimson pillow as I sit up. “I didn’t know you had a background story. I thought you enjoyed fucking and wanted to earn some cash for whatever matter you need cash for, buying fancy rings, feeding a sick old mother, or whatever.”
Duchess stares at me like I’m a moron, her mouth ajar in shock.
I shocked a whore?
“Prostitution does not work that way,” she says. “Who sells their body for fancy rings?”
Sarah, Jenna, Peta… I can list at least thirty women who sold their ass for years and made themselves into plastic dolls, just to get nice stuff, and they kept doing it even after becoming millionaires. They didn’t even have the altruistic excuse of starting their careers to feed their sick old mothers.
Not that I mind their life’s choices, as long as my daughters don’t mirror them.
“You’d be surprised,” I say, but that doesn’t help with the glare. Quite the opposite.
“Well, I am certainly not here because—” fury builds up in her voice, but I don’t want to hear it.
“Forget it,” I don’t let her finish her story. I don’t want to know, and trust me, sister, you don’t want to know how fucked up my story is, either.
“Does this town have a public bath, or better yet, a decent inn I can sleep in?” I ask while gathering my clothes, and she quivers with rage, ready to spew fire and brimstone.