The further they climbed the road towards the inner wall of Castle Layman, the heavier the winter air became. Elliot had left behind the jovial morning rituals of the merchants and traders by the city outskirts. He’d pushed around the more anxious muttering of the guild masters and city officials. He’d politely declined to comment when the richly dressed nobility up on the heights asked him for answers.
Here in the Castle courtyard, the tension was thick enough to slice with a blade. Elliot had never seen so many of the garrison at arms before. They stood together on the mighty, ancient walls, braced against the biting wind, and they escorted covered wagons and rectangular bundles across the castle grounds with sharp barks of command. The layer of ice that threatened Layman’s lower roads didn’t hold sway up here, since armoured footfall was so prevalent upon the stone.
And with the whistling wind, that same name was uttered over and over, heavy and ominous like the dark clouds overhead. Cold and fearful, bold and hateful.
“Demon Sorceress… Demon Sorceress…”
Elliot’s escort was a castle guardsman he’d not seen before. He must have been new. The tight set of the tall man’s lips and the narrow red-brown of his eyes suggested he was feeling the atmosphere just as Elliot was. He was a slender soldier, and his auburn hair was sleek and long, emerging from the base of his helmet like a winter cape that stretched to the centre of his shoulder blades. It was clear to Elliot he wasn’t used to his place of work being so tense.
Like many at arms this morning, his escort would have joined the prestigious Layman garrison during a peaceful time when the city’s last battle had been decades, even centuries earlier. An armsman’s role in this time of stability was as much ceremonial as it was for the protection of the people. And the man’s cheery smile when he’d knocked on Elliot’s door at the Office of Municipal Integration in Layman’s Low Town had been easily jovial, not a true soldier’s smile at all.
But up here at the city’s zenith, the guard let out a grating sigh. He looped his thumbs through the belt of his padded, green uniform coat and shook his head.
“Grim days,” he said. “Grim days indeed.”
“Elliot!”
The two of them turned at the sound of the old man’s voice. Castellan Thaddeus was dressed for the cold, which Elliot was glad to see. His own tan winter coat barely kept the chill at bay, and he’d want his elderly father to protect his frail frame better than that. Thaddeus’ fur-lined cloak covered a thick, green doublet, and he looked to be wearing two pairs of leggings under his boots. Elliot wished he’d put a hat over his white locks, but he wouldn’t say anything in front of the man’s own garrison.
“Sorry to bring you up here so early, lad,” said Thaddeus, clapping a hand on Elliot’s arm. “Thank you for coming. Things are moving at pace, and I needed to push you out in front of them if possible.”
“I’m not sure what I can do about any of this, Castellan,” Elliot replied, holding out his gloved hands to indicate the bustle.
“Have you heard what all this fuss is in aid of?”
Elliot swallowed. “Something about a… Demon Sorceress coming out of the north with a bastion of fell creatures. They say she’s the daughter of the Demon Lord, the one the war was named after.”
“Or so she claims.” The long-haired guard had the makings of a snide smirk on his lips. It was muted perhaps by cold, or by anxiety. “The Demon Lord’s War ended with his death, what, a hundred and forty years ago? Unless he’s getting busy from beyond the grave, any daughter of the Demon would be pretty old, right?”
Thaddeus ran a hand over his moustache. “We still know so little about that old creature. Well, you will be happy to hear that today’s activity will be going ahead regardless of the legitimacy of this Demon Sorceress’ familial claim. Come.”
The castellan led the way over the stone paving of the courtyard, forcing a passing column of spearmen to stop at attention until they’d passed. They slipped around the side of a pair of light wagons, and Elliot took a moment to acknowledge the blue and white colouring of the wagons’ thick covers. Not the green livery of Layman, but instead of the wider Accord of Regents.
Thaddeus had a map rolled out on a rickety, wooden table beside the Castle’s main steps and beside a tall pile of wrapped sundry, and he waved Elliot and his escort over.
“Our new friend’s seat of power, according to her proclamation, is here,” he said, “St. Argan’s Fort, also known as the Old Saint’s Dungeon. It lies just over the border from Layman’s protectorate territory. Under usual circumstances, it would be the responsibility of the Duke of Argany to handle this act of aggression. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, our friend the duke has been financially reduced of late and has let the territory fallow… What am I saying? Of course that is unfortunate, for his people if nothing else.”
“So the Accord is asking us to intervene instead?” asked Elliot.
“Precisely. I have spread word to our standing levies in the city, who will begin arming themselves today in preparation for a march north to meet this Demon Sorceress on the field. We may be joined by other members of the Accord, but as you can imagine, we ought to settle this quickly and decisively. We may not have the luxury of patient planning.”
A rolling wave of bile crossed Elliot’s stomach. Was he a standing levy? He couldn’t recall. He was the castellan’s son, and that had to mean something. Was Thaddeus about to make him a military officer?
“Don’t look so glum,” said Thaddeus, eyes shining with mirth. “If all goes according to plan, we shan’t need to set one foot on the battlefield. I would like you, Elliot, to join a diplomatic envoy riding out tomorrow, about a week ahead of our armed contingent. You will meet with this Demon Sorceress and discuss terms. The very fact that she is willing to declare herself in front of any formal act of aggression suggests she will welcome parlay. We will use that to hear her demands and hopefully avoid bloodshed altogether.”
It was coming together in Elliot’s mind. His work in the Office of Municipal Integration, his long years as an apprentice in the Castle scrivener’s office… Still, it was too much. Negotiation with a monstrous overlord? It was far too much for a homebody administrator like Elliot!
The yet nameless guard let out a whistle. “Can’t imagine this plan has gone down well with the rest of the Accord, Castellan. Parlay with a Demon Lord? The people would rather crucify her and get it over with.”
“Then you may be surprised,” chuckled Thaddeus. “I yet have a little clout in the regency courtroom. And serendipitously, we have an Accord legal auditor staying with us at present. When I mentioned my plans to her, she jumped at the chance to join the envoy team on behalf of the Regent’s Council and make this a legitimate diplomatic action. Elliot, you will be working with this representative to get us a seat at the Demon Sorceress’ table. And Jayce and Sasha will be travelling with you as protection.”
The tall guard, presumably Jayce, bumped Elliot’s shoulder and cast him a shining grin. “Looking forward to watching your back, Ambassador.”
Ambassador… Such a heavy title. Elliot shivered, and not from the cold.
“But I’ve… never been beyond the city limits before,” he said, and the wind nearly stole his voice as it rushed across the courtyard. “I’ve never spoken with a-an enemy ruler before, just city folk looking for a writ of employment and residence. I… didn’t pass the exams to get into the scrivener’s hall, remember?”
“Even so,” said Thaddeus with both hands on his shoulders, “nay, because of that! You are perfect for this duty, Elliot!”
“Castellan…”
“Hold, allow me to introduce you.”
Thaddeus turned with one hand on Elliot’s shoulder and pointed him towards the grand Castle doorway. A familiar figure in Jayce’s same padded armour was making her way down the steps towards him. Sasha had worked with the garrison long enough to become a Castle mainstay, and her age was close enough to Elliot’s for the pair to have essentially grown up together in the corridors. The short-haired warrior sent Elliot a little smile, but the scar on the edge of her lip warped it into something more ferocious.
Knowing a familiar face would be travelling with him made Elliot feel ever so slightly more comfortable with this ridiculous sending. But that comfort was upended on seeing the young woman walking in Sasha’s shadow.
She was tall, slim and graceful, with a luxuriant head of straight, ginger hair like a flow of spiced honey. Her crystal-blue eyes were rich as seawater, and her pink, flushed skin was clear and soft. She filled out her fashionable, tailored uniform, brilliant navy accented with snow white, like she had been born into it, from the severe lines of her coat to the cotton of her leggings and the brown leather of her calfskin boots. She wore a belt holding a little inkwell and a quill-case, matching the way Sasha’s held an oiled blade.
She was majestic enough to take Elliot’s heart in a vice. Unmistakeably, undeniably attractive. Even the way she narrowed her eyes down the angle of her nose at him, her brow a firm ridge of critical disappointment, was appealing. But even that was not cause enough for the furious pumping of Elliot’s blood, the fuzzy edges of his vision.
For he had seen this young woman before. He had been very, very close to her before. And from the mists of time, and a hair ahead of her introduction, he recalled her name.
“Lady Samantha of High Tower,” said Thaddeus with a wide smile. “Formerly of Layman. You two might have studied together for the scrivener’s exam, for that matter.”
“I believe I would remember.” Samantha’s blue eyes worked up and down Elliot’s unglamorous attire. Her attention tangled in the thick, brown hair he’d foolishly neglected to comb that morning. Her voice was clear as ice, the perfect tone for a legal official of the Accord.
But despite her new loyalty, she bowed in the local Castle style, one arm crooked at her chest and one leg extended on the stone. For a moment, she spared him the cold glower of her eyes. In that merciful moment, Elliot was finally able to put his thoughts together, and he bowed with her.
She didn’t remember him. Then again, she had been awfully drunk. Elliot barely recalled their little Yuletide rendezvous, and it had been his momentous first time with a girl. None of that was relevant now, of course. He licked his lips.
“Good to be working with you,” he said. “I’m… I’m pleased that a countryman is joining us.”
“I wish I could say the same,” said Samantha, folding her arms tight. “Castellan, is this boy really the best choice for such a pivotal operation? What are his qualifications?”
Thaddeus cleared his throat, and the hand on Elliot’s back tightened. “As I believe I mentioned, Lady Samantha, Elliot is-…”
“Sam is fine, Castellan. Let us not waste the air.”
“Sam… Elliot is Overseer for the Office of Municipal Integration. His work closely ties Layman to its kin beyond the wall. We have already seen great shifts in our city’s economy thanks to new blood added to our number by Elliot’s certificate of aegis.”
“And by new blood, you mean common folk? Labourers?”
“It is a little more than that.” Thaddeus cast Elliot a meaningful look, and Elliot held his gaze as best he could.
Thaddeus wasn’t talking about humans, though many regular folk had gone through the office to claim residence in Layman. The city’s proximity to the forest of Ilvarith and her elven denizens had made them a hotspot for creatures simply masquerading as humanity. Creatures as deserving of a place in society as any human. That was the true purpose of Elliot’s role, to bring those ‘kin of humanity’ out of hiding and into peaceful cooperation.
That’s why my father wanted me on this quest, Elliot realised. He wants me to extend the same hand of fellowship to… to the Demon Lord’s daughter!
Naturally, none of this could be said. The Accord’s relationship with non-humans fell into a mean average of each of its members. Aside from Layman, each of the other regents preferred to keep the creatures that didn’t look like them at arm’s length, at best. At worst, some kingdoms still retained a xenophobic hostility from the Demon Lord’s War. Elliot would need to convince Sam that the Demon Sorceress was worth talking to, while also convincing the Sorceress to talk to them in the first place. His head spun.
“E-Elliot, lad, why don’t we check the inventory of the two wagons,” said Thaddeus, pulling him away by the shoulder. “You can make sure you have everything you will need for your journey.”
“Thank you, Castellan,” said Elliot, then leaned close as he was led away. “While we do that, you can tell me why you think any of this is a good idea.”
To his dismay, Thaddeus didn’t respond right away. His resigned sigh produced mist in the cold winter air.
* * *
Sam rolled her eyes as Elliot was pulled from the courtyard by the elderly castellan. His adoptive father, if Sasha’s gossip was to be believed. Consigned to the muddy streets of Low Town, but now elevated to represent his whole nation. Commanded to shift the sentiments of a literal monster away from the slaughter of all mankind. Ridiculous.
“Cut the lad some slack, won’t you?” said a frowning Sasha. “We’re fond of Elliot around here.”
“Why?” asked Sam with an open sneer. She didn’t know her new escort well enough to safely take such a sharp tone with her, but as her lessons had taught her, it was best to set the expectations of a relationship early. “What exactly does he do that is so impressive?”
“He’s just a good lad. He has his heart in the right place.”
“He got my cousin a job with the baker on Rose Plaza,” said Jayce, Sasha’s male counterpart, with a gleaming smile. “That’s worth me taking a couple arrows for him, at least.”
Sam disregarded the handsome guard with a flick of her ginger locks, facing the direction of her new partner’s retreat. She didn’t care for Elliot’s doe-eyed stare, no matter how impressive the teal shimmer of his eyes. They had looked like the eyes that had stared back at her from the mirror on those first nights in High Tower, before she had learned to be brave.
“Just give him a chance,” said Sasha. The armoured woman was openly scowling at her now. “You can’t judge him until you know him.”
“He is the son of Castellan Thaddeus, correct?”
Sasha clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Sure, sort of. His birth dad was the First Ambassador to the Elves, but he died when Elliot was a baby.”
“Ah. And now he has an overseer title? One he did not earn through study?”
“Hey, now…”
“Despite failing to earn a place in the Castle scrivener’s hall as I did, he still wears the green and gold of a high official? And he is the son of two prominent members of the Layman court?”
She raised a brow at Sasha, letting her lip curve into a victorious smirk. “I think I know Elliot’s sort very well, actually.”
Sasha was fuming, but Sam held her ire with ease. She’d had other people angry with her before, and for better reasons than their loyalty to a nepotist castellan. At her back, however, Jayce was laughing. When she turned, Sam saw the man peeking into the wrapped bundles stacked beside their wagons.
“You sound like you’ve got this whole thing in hand, Princess,” he said.
Sam flushed. “Watch your tone. But for what it’s worth, yes, I have every confidence we will prevail at St. Argan’s Fort, despite Elliot’s negative contribution.”
“And what makes you so sure?”
“What makes me sure? I have three years of study in the finest legal office on the continent under my belt! I have sat across from dukes and petty kings and had them obey the letter of the law!”
“Ever met a monster before?”
“A monster? I…” She swallowed. “I have not.”
“Then you and Elliot are starting from the same line,” Jayce said. He’d pulled a travel biscuit out of storage and begun munching on it.
“Or maybe he even has you beat,” said Sasha. When Sam turned an askant glower on the guard, she smirked. “I’ve seen some of Elliot’s clients at the Office of Municipal Integration, and let’s just say they don’t all walk on two legs like we do.”
Sam shivered. Growing up just down the road from the Castle, she’d heard plenty of tales of the creatures that lived in the wild forests to the west of Layman. Not all of them looked like beasts, her old grandmother had said. Some of them looked just like us. Or they appeared to, until it was too late. Little girls had to be wary if they found themselves alone on a moonlit night.
“I-In that case,” she said, steeling her heart once more, “I shall look forward to Elliot of Layman impressing me during this venture. Perhaps I shall even allow him to take the lead with the Demon Sorceress when we reach our destination.”
Her mocking tone fell flat in the face of Sasha’s beaming smile. That little scar on her lip tugged up one corner and made the expression uneven. “You do that. I reckon he’ll surprise you.”
Jayce familiarly bumped Sam’s shoulder with his, then proffered her half of his biscuit. Rolling her eyes again, Sam turned her back on the chuckling guards and departed for the Castle library. Perhaps a little more reading on the Demon Lord’s War would not go amiss after all.
* * *
Elliot lay in bed and stared up at the dark ceiling. Instead of white plaster and the brass curves of the chandelier, his roving mind saw only the map that Thaddeus had shown him. His sleepless eyes travelled the imagined path from Layman to the Old Saint’s Dungeon, over and over, and his pretend steps carried him further and further from slumber.
The twin wagons would drive north along the Water Road and hold steady against the eastern edge of Ilvarith Forest. Once the mystical realm of the elves was truly behind them, they would follow the road through a full day of farmland before reaching the single settlement on their path, a village sitting neatly on the border of Layman and Argany. Then north again, over the Water Crossing bridge and into the hills, where they would leave the road for good. The Old Saint’s Dungeon, the end of their journey, would be upon them.
And the journey was only the beginning. Then came the negotiation.
Elliot’s clients at the office had suffered in the care of humanity for their difference. They thought in a different manner to their neighbours, and were regarded differently in turn. Elliot’s role was to bridge the gap between them and us, not to erase difference but to create the space to acknowledge and accept it. Celebrate it… But what manner of celebration could be held for the daughter of the Demon Lord who had almost ended the world? And who was Elliot that he had any chance of changing her mind, so very, very different to his?
Sam wasn’t scared. She’d made that abundantly clear. Clever, educated Samantha of High Tower wasn’t threatened by the Demon Lord’s progeny. This was just another day at the office for her. It was up to Elliot to not hold her back. To not besmirch her gleaming vocational record with his Low Town sensibilities.
Although, she hadn’t been so prim and proper the last time they had been together. Elliot’s exhausted mind conjured a manic snigger on his lips as he recalled the girl from his memories. He’d been remembering more and more about Sam since their reunion that morning, though their history wasn’t much to speak of. He remembered her soft hair and the baggy cut of her blue apprentice coat. He remembered gazing at her, bent over her studies with a quill in hand. She hadn’t been aloof five years ago, only determined, like a good apprentice. But that had changed on the night of Yule.
Elliot’s eyes slowly closed as he allowed himself to play the apprentices’ party again in his vision. He slipped into the memory. And one hand crept down the mattress and into his undershorts in preparation for what was to come.
He was there, the Castle ballroom, the night of Yule. Outside, the winter wind was as chill and biting as it had been today. The apprentices had gathered for merrymaking in the wake of the end of their studies for the year, and their scrivener overseers had supplied their charges with meat, wine and desserts in the spirit of the season. Hearth flames roared in the ballroom’s twin fireplaces, and the chandeliers overhead burned with candlelight. The chattering voices of the young apprentices had become unsteady after a good couple of hours of wine. Their laughter had turned sharp and untethered. Someone had fetched a harp from their room and was plucking clumsily away at a local carol.
And as on most nights, eighteen-year-old Elliot of Layman was alone. He’d had a bit to drink, since there wasn’t much else to do with his time, and his belly was full of small delicacies. He was taking his ease in one of a semicircle of plush chairs near the hearth, and he was idly plotting his future career should he be given one of the precious allocations to the scrivener’s hall in the new year. Around him, groups of classmates laughed and joked, ignorant of Elliot’s dreams.
Her sudden approach took him entirely by surprise. Elliot jumped in his seat as the girl plopped into the chair beside his with a grand, weary sigh. Drops of red from her mug sloshed over the side and spattered her tights, but they weren’t the first to do so if the darker stains were any indication. Her hair was mussed by drunk inattention. Her eyes were shadowed with fatigue instead of lady’s paint, and her apprentice coat had slipped off one shoulder to reveal a red tunic worn beneath. Red to complement the red of her hair.
“Here,” she said, shoving her mug in Elliot’s direction. “Hold.”
He did so. How could he not? Elliot watched as she ran her fingers through her hair and tugged it back into relative order. His eyes were locked upon the calm bliss of her expression.
“Finish it,” groaned Sam, though Elliot didn’t know her name yet. “I can’t stomach another mouthful.”
“I-I’ve had enough too,” he said.
“Then it goes to waste. Shame.”
Sam planted her hands on her thighs, producing a resonant, alluring slap of sound. She opened one eye to regard him.
“You’re who?” she slurred.
“E-Elliot. I think… we have Lady Arranea’s study hall together.”
Sam pouted her red-stained lips. “Don’t recall. I would remember.”
Then she leaned across the narrow space between their chairs, making Elliot’s heart flutter. “I’d remember those eyes,” she said.
He swallowed his nerves, but his belly was full of sugar and alcohol, so he ended up spluttering out a nervous laugh. Sam giggled.
“You, um, enjoying the party?” he asked.
She shrugged, brow tense. “It was fun for a while. But now the boys are having another pissing competition, and that is dreadfully boring. You know how boys are. Yes?” she asked, fixing him with another blue-eyed stare. “You know how boys are?”
“I’m familiar.”
“Of course you are. No pissing for you, though?” Sam, still with one elbow on the arm of his chair, cast a scathing point across the celebrant crowds. “You don’t like any of this?”
“Oh. I-I’m fine here.”
“Because I asked a couple of the girls, and they said nobody likes you either.”
Elliot briefly considered passing away. Only Sam’s smile kept him rooted in mortality.
“I’m not like them,” she said. “I make my own choices. I’m… brave.” She paused to belch into her fist. “I don’t care what any of this lot think.”
“Well… good. If they don’t like me, then it’s good you don’t care.”
“They said something about your father being important, and that’s why you’re here, not because you earned it,” she said around a hiccup. “And that stinks of poor logic to me. After all, you’re studying just as we are, yes? You’re working hard now.”
“Yes! Yes, exactly!” Elliot couldn’t help but grin at her praise. After so long ostracised from the other apprentices, her words were sweet as honey.
Sam reached up and tapped him on the nose. “Hard. Working. Boy.”
Elliot could feel the eyes of some of the others on him, and he revelled in it. Let them see him keeping the company of a lovely girl like this! Let them see her praise him! The fact that she was utterly intoxicated never crossed his mind.
“Come with me.” Sam rose suddenly onto her feet. She stumbled, and Elliot catapulted himself up so he could steady her with a hand on her shoulder. Her mug of wine he left on the ballroom floor.
“Wh-Where are we going?” he asked.
“I’ve had my fill of this place,” said Sam with a toss of her head. “I wish to leave. You will escort me to my lodgings.”
“O-Oh. Of course.”
They left the ballroom and the curious eyes of the apprentices together. Beyond the hall’s flame, the stone corridors were cold and quiet. Nighttime ruled in the dim passages of Castle Layman. Sam shivered and tugged her coat into order around her body.
The hour was late, and it was Yule, so few servants were on duty. Elliot and Sam navigated the blocky labyrinth of the Castle towards the apprentice dormitories. When Sam stumbled down the wrong path, Elliot was there to turn her back. But eventually, she came to a halt on a nondescript stretch of corridor. No sounds penetrated this deep into the old fort. They were entirely alone. Sam bent forward and planted her hands on her knees.
“I am tired,” she moaned. “Would you carry me?”
“I-I don’t think I’m strong enough,” said Elliot.
Sam growled. She threw herself against him in a sloppy embrace. “Carry me!”
“S-Sorry…”
She giggled against his neck and refused to release him, not that Elliot minded. Sam’s weight slowly increased, and Elliot eventually realised that she was pushing him. He let himself be handled against an unmarked door, producing a clatter of wood.
“I had my fill of the party,” said Sam.
“I remember.”
“But I’m not… um… There’s something else I want.”
A brush of her hand by his hip. Sam gripped the door handle. “In here,” she whispered.
The room was a tiny, dark storage space, barely big enough for both of them to squeeze inside. Elliot’s attuned nose picked up the scent of fresh parchment and ink, but his eyesight failed him the moment Sam closed the door behind them. He was forced to rely on the touch of the girl in his arms, and that was fine.
“Kiss me,” she said.
“Wh-What?”
“I want to be kissed. You will kiss me.” Her breath, warm against his lips. “Kiss me.”
He did, as best he could. He’d never kissed a girl before, never kissed anyone before. But he pushed his lips to hers the way he’d heard it was done.
And to his delight, Sam made up the difference. She ran her hands around his shoulders and held his face against hers. Her taste was the sweetness of wine, rich and luxurious. When she slipped her tongue into his mouth, it was a surprise. But Elliot followed her lead as best he could. He let her teach him.
Elliot ran his hands down her sides. Their apprentice coats were thick and starchy, so the shape of her body was lamentably obscured. But Sam read his mind. Removing her hands from his shoulders, she wriggled out of her coat and let it flump to the floor. She giggled.
“Hardworking boy,” she whispered with a drunk laugh. “Hard… Hardworking!”
Sam’s hand on his crotch sent a spike of alarm up his spine. She sampled his erection with her fingers over his breeches. Her touch was practiced, forceful. She knew exactly what she was doing.
“I want my fill of this,” she moaned. “Give it to me.”
“A-Are you sure this isn’t-…?”
“No talking, hard boy. Give me my fill!”
She wriggled her hands into his clothes. Her fingertips stroked his sensitive skin and made him gasp. Sam drank up his fluster with a greedy laugh.
“Give it to me!” she sang.
Tipsy, lonely, horny Elliot did as he was told, like the hardworking boy that he was. He let Sam step away so she could pull her red tunic over her head, and he tore his own clothing off to add to her pile. His shoes, his leggings, his overshirt…
Just as he was finishing, Sam’s hands took his. She yanked him forward and forced him into an intimate embrace. And Elliot gasped with desire. Her warm skin was bare under his touch. He could feel the softness of her rear. And when she released his wrists, it felt like the most natural thing in the world to slide up and sample her bare breasts. Sam laughed with pride at his nervous worship of her slender, naked form.
“My turn,” she said, then grabbed his cock with both hands.
Sam began to pump her wrists. She knew what she was doing, that much was evident even through the unsteadiness of her stupor. Sam humped her hips against him in time with her rubbing. She moaned and giggled as she pleasured him. And Elliot was left helplessly whimpering in her care.
Elliot slipped one hand from her chest, over the pit of her navel. He quested through her tangle of pubic hair. A lady’s sex… Whatever would it feel like? His fingertips became wet, and he jumped when Sam let out a grunt of ecstasy.
“Yes!” she said. “Go on, give me my fill!”
He slipped between the slick folds and began to rub. Elliot searched Sam’s intimate recesses and committed her to memory. He measured her reactions as he touched every part of her that he could reach. When his finger slipped over an opening in the flesh, she squeaked with joy, and Elliot began to minister to the slit in earnest.
And all the while, he was being pumped. Elliot’s mind was white as Sam dragged him relentlessly towards climax. Having someone else do it was, it turned out, so much more satisfying than doing it yourself!
But soon, Sam’s sighs became muted. The movement of her hands slowed.
“Not there,” she grunted.
Licking his lips, Elliot moved his fingers over her vagina in search of a better spot. When he didn’t locate it fast enough, Sam growled.
“Not there!” she snapped. “Here!”
Relinquishing one hand from his cock, Sam grabbed his adventurous fingers and pulled them up towards her pubic hair once more. She muttered her frustration as she used his touch to paint the edges of her folds. And then, a tiny mound. Sam fell against him.
“There!” she commanded. “Oh, right there! Right there!”
He almost lost the mound when she pulled her hands away. But Elliot clumsily relocated it and ran his touch over it. Sam began to shout.
“Yes! Y-Yes! There!”
Elliot braced himself with a hand on her bare hip, and he rubbed for dear life. He didn’t even care when Sam’s hands on his cock halted their pumping. She was lost in the pleasure he was giving her. What a privilege it was to be so needed. Sam rode Elliot’s fingers towards climax…
“S-Stop, you… you almost have me.”
He retreated reluctantly. Sam was panting for breath in his hands. The air in the cupboard had turned hot and humid with their mingled exhalations.
“I said I wanted to be f-filled,” she moaned. “So fill me.”
Sam stumbled about in his arms. She pressed her bum against his thighs and nudged his cock with her rear. Elliot let her take the lead. Even as the sober part of his mind cried out for him to slow down, he let her lead. She knew what she was doing, and he did want to be useful.
His partner leant forwards and allowed Elliot’s cock to slip down between her legs. He felt her fingers toying with his swollen head. Elliot kept his hands on her bent waist, let her manoeuvre him. Heat and moisture on the tip of his cock. And then, Sam was inching backwards. He entered her.
“O-O-Oh… yes!” she gasped. “There! That’s… what I needed!”
Sex was tight, hot and wet. Elliot could feel the organic press of her insides around his cock. She squeezed him with her body. When Elliot ventured deeper, pressing his waist against her bum, Sam shrieked with pleasure.
“Y-You’re… f-f-fucking me!” she sang. “You’re… You’re…!!”
Sam began to pump her hips on his cock. Elliot felt the deepest recesses of her around his head. And it did feel good. It felt very good. When Elliot thrust against Sam’s rolling body, his cock throbbed with lewd lightning. He began to grunt as the pleasure wiped his mind clean.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Sam cried as she was penetrated. “Oh yes! Oh y-y-yes!”
She was loud and crass, no more the pretty, dedicated apprentice that had sat across from him in the study hall. This was a Sam that nobody else had seen. This was a Sam revealed only to him. And that thought, more than the sweet flame in his blood, pushed Elliot towards climax.
A clatter by his side preceded a stiffening of Sam’s bent body. She must have grabbed the shelf with her hand. Now her bouncing was punctuated by a rhythmic rattle of wood, a natural percussion to her singing voice. Her back was laced with sweat under his hand. Her rasping, keening voice was all he could think about.
“S-So close! So close! D-Don’t stop!”
In a moment of inspiration, Elliot bent forward against the curve of her back and slipped one hand down to her thigh and through her hair. Still deep inside her, he sought again the treasured mound with his fingertips. And Sam threw her head back and bashed his forehead with the back of her skull.
“A-A-Ahh!” she bellowed. “Oh… fuuuck!”
She twitched and writhed around his cock. She leaked fluid around his shaft. And with a musical, breathy handful of moans, she deflated. Sam was finished. She had made that obvious.
“Th-That was…” Elliot tried to say. But his lips were dry, and his brow was bruised. He was seeing stars, and it was hard to think.
Sam heaved herself off his cock with a shuddering moan. She remained bent forward with her hands on the shelves. She sucked air into her lungs.
“D-Did you finish?” she asked.
“U-Um… no.”
“Oh. Well… Go on, then.”
Her weary voice only disappointed Elliot a little. He was bloated with desire. He had to let it out. Elliot took hold of his cock and padded towards his partner.
“No, not inside. I don’t want a child.”
“O-Oh.”
“Use your hand. I’ll wait.”
This time, the disappoint was more pronounced. Elliot rested the head of his cock on the small of Sam’s back and pumped it with his fist. It felt cold, distant, compared to their earlier intimacy. And Sam wasn’t paying him any attention at all. Her wobbling form may well have been falling asleep.
But he was close, and she was beautiful. She had still given him a precious gift. Elliot rubbed himself hard and fast. He savoured the touch of her bare hip under his hand. And in no time at all, he was coming.
Sam giggled as he shot a powerful load of semen across her back. “Mmm,” she murmured with a lovely hint of pride. And she held herself steady as Elliot humped his hand to completion, grunting and moaning as he did. He drained every drop he had onto her skin.
She began getting dressed without him. Sam took a sacrilegious handful of parchment from the shelves to wipe herself clean of his semen, then left the smelly bundle on the floor. Elliot’s addled mind insisted the scriveners and servants would know it was his by the scent, but he forced it to calm down. There was no way. He got dressed in the same silence as his partner.
And then, he took her home. Sam’s dormitory was not much further along the corridor. She didn’t bother to knock, just pushed her shoulder against the wood and stumbled inside.
“Are you going to be-…?” Elliot tried.
The door sealed shut, and she was gone. Elliot waited outside for a further half an hour in the hope that she would remember him. But in the end, he walked home alone.
And three days later, when he next saw her in Lady Arranea’s study hall, she didn’t meet his eyes. When he tried to talk to her in the corridor, she turned her nose up at him.
“What do you want?” she spat.
She’d forgotten him. Elliot let Sam go off with her friends, none of whom were prepared to give him the time of day. In the new year, Sam earned her place in the scrivener’s hall, then a seat in the prestigious Accord Audit Office in High Tower two years later. While Elliot was still here, still lying in the same bed in Castle Layman.
Elliot caught his breath. In his haste to pleasure himself with his memory of Sam, he’d forgotten that he didn’t have a spare cloth to hand. He cleaned up his mess with an undershirt from the laundry, then lay back down. This time, shame and anxiety chased him into deep, dark slumber. He was asleep in a matter of moments.
laymenstory
Ewan Stone 
Leave a comment