The Smuggler
"Have you ever watched dragonflies mating?" Rose whispered, each syllable a drop of honeyed velvet, issuing into the night air and carried away by the breeze.
The question, as oddly out of place as the two forlorn riders wending their way down the tree-lined trail, was offered more as a means of passing the time than anything else, a pleasant contemplation to break up the monotony of row after row of gnarled tree trunks and crackling underbrush.
At her side, the raven-haired fellow offered a puzzled glance in response, but kept his eyes ahead, watchful for the turn in the path that would lead them towards the shore at last. He was anxious to have this night's business complete, to return to the comforts of home and put the risk of discovery far behind himself and his Mistress.
"It's rather a lovely sight," she drawled. "They couple in flight, dipping and swooping through the air, almost like a dance..." Her words faded off to a lyrical sigh, and she turned to study him, amusement creeping into her features as she noted his unease. "It'll be all right, you know. No one's used this inlet for years, and Rohaj is far too enamoured of my gold to have taken any unnecessary chances."
"Of course, Mistress," he replied, in a solemn hush. Her words of assurance did little to ease the tension in his shoulders, however, and so rather than persist, Rose swiveled back, turning her own emerald gaze on the trail ahead and digging a booted heel into the flank of her horse, nudging the beast slightly ahead.
Both riders were draped in cloaks of ebony velvet, but there the similarities ended...
Even in the absence of all but the faintest moonlight, Rose's mere posture commanded respect... or, at the very least, obedience. She rode high in the saddle, her spine straight with pride and arrogance, and her porcelain features, smooth and unblemished as though carved from a single block of alabaster, were lifted to the sky in an imperious tilt. The folds of her cloak fell away at the front, to reveal sleek legs wrapped in leather, black as pitch but buffed to a high sheen. Keeping a tenuous, almost careless grasp on the reins were a pair of gloved hands, their slender digits cased in ruby kidskin.
James, the young man at her side, was equally proud in his bearing. He rode high on his dark stallion, his handsome features set in consternation as he contemplated what will lie ahead. He chanced a glance in the direction of his beloved mistress as she pulled slightly ahead of him.
The cool night air blew serenely through his thick raven locks as they rode, the ebon cloak streaming out behind him, tugging lightly upon his neck, his electric green eyes carefully studying the path as it unfolded before them.
He squeezed the steed between his thighs, urging him to a faster gait, although careful not to inch ahead of the fire-haired woman at his side... He looked again to the woman at his side and shivered softly as his eyes fell upon a leather clad thigh... Oh, he would do anything for her...
Mistress and servant rode in complacent silence, until at last, they reached their destination. Where the trees parted, the trail lost its covering of brittle leaves and twigs, and the ground beneath the horse's hooves became moist and soft, prompting Rose to motion both mounts to a halt.
The sight that greeted them was not spectacular - merely a sliver of beach some ten feet across, and a short pier, clearly old and long unused judging by the barnacled and pitted condition of the wood that jutted out into the inky water. Roped to one of the cleats at the dock was a skiff, bobbing up and down in the gentle tide. The boat was nearly as long as the pier itself, and inside, Rose could make out the shadowed figures of at least four people - one was the smuggler she had come to deal with, and the other three, huddled together at the stern of the craft, were surely the subject of this evening's business.
As they emerged onto the deserted inlet, the burly figure of a man dressed in a tattered greatcoat of some dark velvet rose from the bow of the ship, his movements causing the boat to rock slightly, sending the light from a single lamp on board skittering down over the black waters and causing the ripples to glisten like a treasure trove.
"Rohaj," the name purred from Rose's throat with a deceptive warmth and graciousness, as she swung from her seat, alighting on the moist, gritty beach with a soft crunch. For the first time, the velvet cowl dropped back, revealing a startling display of flame-red waves that burned around her face, even through the dead black of night. The folds of her cloak swooped down around her, and with a fluid ease, she unclasped it at the collar, lifting it from her shoulders and draping it over the saddle.
That brief formality accomplished, she began to saunter down towards the pier, hips swaying deliberately with each step, sending a riot of shadows and light swimming over the surface of her leather catsuit. James, by this time, had dismounted and was following close behind, his gaze cautious as the smuggler Rohaj stepped out of the skiff and began clomping down the dock towards the pair.
"Mistress Rose... good evening...," Rohaj crooned, his voice like an oil slick, so rife was it with hidden intentions. He extended a meaty hand, as their steps brought them face to face, but Rose waved it away with a brisk, businesslike snap of her wrist.
"The properties, Rohaj... time is of the essence tonight." On that note, she offered a meaningful glance around, at the surrounding woods and the waters beyond the inlet, and James mirrored her gesture, his own gaze lingering far longer, ever searching and alert.
~~~Rohaj~~~
In the whorl of shadows surrounding his face, his sneer was barely noticeable, evidenced only by the glint of gold at the corner of his mouth, a capped tooth making itself known as he regarded her casual dismissal. No matter, he thought - he would have her gold, and if he played his cards right, he might yet have her. Of course, there was still the matter of the watchdog she had brought along with her.
The scar beneath his eye twitched with nervous menace as he glanced over the pitiful excuse for a bodyguard. A boy! A mere boy! A handsome toy for the Mistress, he considered, but no match for one of his years and experience.
"Of course, Mistress Rose," he uttered, the words growling out of his weathered throat like the snarl of a hungry dog. His eyes never left their perusal of James as he dropped to a crouch and wrapped one beefy hand around the end of a chain that was strewn along the edge of the dock. At his tug, a chorus of pitiful cries rose up from the shadows inside the skiff.
"C'mon, girls... can't keep the Mistress waiting," he barked. Another cruel yank on the chain brought three figures stumbling into the meager light. They were three girls, each one shorter than the last, their slight, huddled figures arranged in a row in Gorean fashion and shackled with their hands before them to the chain that linked all three.
One more pull on the chain signalled the frail figures to make their way onto the dock, and in the pale moonlight, it was evident that none of them had been well cared for on their voyage. All three were gaunt, their near skeletal bodies draped in the rags of what once were fine gowns. Daughters of noble homes they may once have been, but the privateer was not about to waste precious food and medicines on chattel that would soon enough be passed out of his hands.
The girls stumbled onto the dock at his summons, but with no free hands to brace themselves, their progress was awkward at best. The last girl in the chain, a towheaded waif of no more than thirteen years, her eyes ringed with dark circles and shot through with red webbing, tripped on the edge of the wooden platform, landing on her knees and dragging her sisters with her.
At the sound of the chaotic impact, Rohaj wheeled around, his free hand diving into the folds of his great coat to retrieve a flail of worn black leather. He brandished it menacingly as the girls hurried to right themselves, and the last one, the one whose clumsiness had caused this whole display, suffered the sting of the whip at her shoulder as the slave chain trooped forward.
"Straighten up, now," he snarled, poking and prodding the girls as they stopped at the edge of the dock. "Make yerselves presentable fer yer new owner."
With a malevolent wink, he turned to Rose. The flail disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared, and he produced a ring of brass keys from somewhere within the depths of his many ragged coats.
"The gold, fer the keys, that's the deal," he said, dangling them in Rose's direction, and his features twisted into something akin to a leer, his attempt at a charming smile.
~~~James~~~
James flexes unconciously as the grungy man eyes him, noting the malice hidden within the stare. His jaw sets slightly as he meets the smuggler's gaze momentarily before allowing his electric green eyes to flutter past Rohaj to the figures obscured by the black of night.
Growling inwardly as the man leans down to retrieve the chain, James still feels the eyes locked upon him, although does not allow Rohaj the pleasure of a glance in his direction. He winces softly at the sound of the young women as they are tugged into the light. James swallows hard as he eyes the *well being* of the girls. He shoots a rage filled glare in Rohaj's direction, although the man's attention has already been averted... turned back to Rose, eyeing her greedily.
Drooler... James thinks as he allows his gaze to travel over the frail, and obviously weakened bodies of the girls and absently begins to clench and unclench his fists which hang tensely at his sides.
He steps forward as if to catch the fallen girl as she is jerked to her knees, although holds himself in check and can only watch the domino effect as they each helplessly follow her lead. Already he dispises Rohaj, although struggles to sustain his composure, never to disobey his Mistress.... as of yet...
~~~Rose~~~
Her face remained expressionless as she observed the girls, these pitiful excuses for slaves that Rohaj had dredged up from gods knew where. She did not miss the glances exchanged between the smuggler and her Favorite, either, but still her cool austerity did not waver... she merely reached to the side, to lay a gentle gloved hand over one of James' clenched fists, motioning him to still.
She had dealt with Rohaj before, and if it became necessary to take action, she knew that he would always find his way back to the rat-infested, downwind neighborhoods of Rhy'Din eventually.
"Those girls don't look too healthy," she commented at last, punctuating the statement with an irritated clicking of a silver barbell against the back of her teeth. "I don't think they're worth the price we discussed."
Without missing a beat, without even waiting for a denial or an explanation from Rohaj, she spun on her heels and sauntered across the moist ground towards her mount.
She could hear the trader sputtering behind her, and a ghost of a smile shadowed her lips as she pretended to fumble with the buckle on a saddlebag.
"But... but we had an agreement!" he fumed, dropping the keys to his side with a muffled clink.
"We did," she purred, lifting her chin and offering her sweet whisper to the night. "But that was for three slaves... not three half-starved, barely alive pieces of meat!"
On that last, she hissed, whirling around and sending her curls blazing through the air. One hand lay resting across the back of her horse, and the other clutched tight to a simple leather pouch.
~~~Rohaj~~~
For as long as the woman's back was turned to him, his face was contorted in an angry scowl, and the blazing rage in his eyes traveled from her, to her boy, and back again. In truth, he was less furious with her than with the failure of his ruse... he had hoped that the darkness and gloom enveloping this meeting place would lend some disguise to the girls' poor condition.
In a fit of frustration, he dropped the end of the chain and spun around, kicking his boot into one of the wooden planks of the dock, then came full circle, smacking a meaty, grubby paw across each of the slaves' shoulders, as though they were responsible for this outrage. As he completed the turn, it was to find himself face to face with two pairs of angry, unblinking eyes - one electric green, the other a dark, mystic emerald - and he froze in place, his fists curled into painfully tight balls.
~~~Rose~~~
"James, hold out your hand, please." The words escaped from her tightly pressed lips like steam released from a boiling kettle, as she tugged at the purse's opening. Her gaze remained narrow on the smuggler, however, as she dug into the bag of coins and began to pluck them out two by two.
"For the food they will no doubt require, to make them strong enough to serve again." She lifted two golden disks, pinched between thumb and forefinger, and turned them to glint in a shaft of moonlight, before dropping them into James' outstretched palm.
"For the clothing that must be replaced, as I will not have slaves in my service dressed in rags." Again, a pair of gold coins made the journey from her hand to James'.
"And for the inconvenience of having to adjust my price. Call it a processing fee." With a prim smirk, she dug four coins from the purse this time, depositing them with James and then cinching the top of the pouch closed once more.
"Now, as you were saying, the gold for the keys. That's the deal."
Rearing back, she swung the pouch into the air, aiming for his head as she tossed it towards him.
~~~Rohaj~~~
With a grunt, the smuggler jerked his arms up, to catch the pouch, but was just an instant too late, and accepted a blow to his already scarred and weathered face instead. The purse slammed right into his nose, and as he lowered it, he could feel the beginnings of a crimson rain trickling down over his lip.
"Argh," he snarled, hissing and spitting a few droplets of blood onto the dock, but he made no further comment, choosing instead to swallow back his bitterness with a pinch of sweetener - the knowledge of what was inside that bag.
"Take the girls! I'm glad to be done with the lot of ya!"
Hefting the bag of coin into one hand, he tossed the keys with the other, with no regard to where they would land. He refused to meet Rose's eyes, but he spared one last baleful glance to the boy, punctuating it with a curl of his lip. As his boot heel churned against a wooden plank, he spun back towards the skiff in a flurry of greatcoat skirts.
The flamboyant gesture disguised the elbow jabbed into the ribs of each of the first two girls on the slave chain, but as he came to the last, the most frail of the three, he made no effort to hide a cruel backlashing of his hand to a skeletal cheek.
It was his due, after all, for the shortchanging, and if the Mistress had anything to say about it, he would be long gone before the words could even reach his ears.
Tossing the coin purse ahead of him into the bow of the boat, he jumped down to a crouch from the dock, sending the lantern swaying once more, and reached for the oars, intent on putting as much distance as he could between himself and the party on shore before any more of his chicanery was noted...
~~~Rose~~~
The thundering of horses' hooves swells in the distance, a cloud of dust preceding the arrival of a pair of midnight black stallions, as the entire company - James with the frailest and most fragile of the three in his arms, and the other two riding separately, on Rose's horse - gallops to a halt outside an inauspicious old house in the middle of nowhere. Only the outlines of this seemingly abandoned old home are visible in the moonlight, along with the silhouettes of creeping moss and ancient awnings.
A wraith-like current of ink winds through the air, blacker than the pitch of night surrounding them, as the ethereal Rose flutters in behind. At first, the only indication of her presence is the cloying scent of roses that cuts through the musty air surrounding this guise, the entrance to the infamous torture chamber, the Emporium.
James dismounts carefully, so as not to disturb the girl in his arms any more than needed, and slowly pulls her into his arms causing her to wince audibly. "That guy was a jerk," he mutters, more to himself than anybody else.
Content to let the other two girls suffer in their chained misery for the moment, Rose merely circles around the second mount, her phantom form drifting down to James' side, where it billows out to a miasma of charcoal smoke... seconds later, the smoke clears away on the wings of a thieving night breeze, leaving behind unmistakable flashes of molten emerald and flame red, the rest covered by an unusually sedate cloak.
"Yes... yes, he was," she purrs, stealing a glance at the pair doubled over on the back of her own horse:: ...I'll wager that these pitiful excuses for girls won't last a fortnight...
Flinching slightly at the sudden appearance of the woman at his side, he looks to her and offers a slight smile, nodding, "Shall we... I take them into the Emporium?"
"Rohaj used to have all the right connections... but the quality of his properties has dropped dramatically over the years," she muses, then winds around, with a pensive smile, her shoulder lifted in a shrug. "Of course... yes... let's get them inside... ::and she brushes apart the folds of her cloak, extending both gloved hands to wrap around chained wrists, and offer the two new properties guidance on the way down.
The smallest of the three, the girl in James' protective embrace, shifts slightly, and clutches fearfully to his cloak, unsure of her present fate.
Of the pair on the other horse, the one at the front inhales sharply, as the touch of leather pressing cold chains into her skin rouses her from a fitful sleep, one in which she indulged dreams of freedom, and she wakes, blinking, and loses her balance, slipping off of the horse's back, and pulling her sister with her to land in a heap on the ground.
With one arm wrapped tightly around the waist of the girl at his side, James moves to assist Rose in her unchaining... he grunts softly as he shoots an arm out to catch at least one of them, and does succeed in snagging one, while the other falls to the ground, harshly jerking both pairs of arms.
"This," Rose snaps angrily, throwing one hand up in the air and flexing her fingertips, as she stomps her frustration, content to let the girls fall where they will, "is the kind of merchandise I get from Rohaj these days... clumsy children who will likely kill themselves, unless we protect them from their own mishaps..."
"Rose--" James comes up short and attends to the girls, praying she did not hear him.
Her eyes drift closed for a moment, as she struggles to stifle her fuming, and then the fringe of lashes drift apart again... she always hears him... but she does not always choose to answer... or to chastise.
Holding them by the chain, James tugs them to their feet, no longer as gentle as before, in a hurry to get inside before the sun rises... as well as his Mistress' temper,
Content to huddle on the ground, the last of the girls, too, can only seek solace in her dreams, taking herself away from this wretched place with fantasies about food... and warm clothes.. until the straining screams of her muscles jerk her awake, and she climbs to her feet as quickly as possible.
The girls are extremely quiet, aware that anything wrong, be it purposeful or not, will only anger the fire-haired woman further.
"Let's go." He pulls the girls after him and toward the steps, pushing through a door hanging on the last vestiges of rusted hinges, and crossing a dusty parlor to the staircase leading down into the Emporium. Although his strides are firm, he still carefully favors the smallest, who is still cradled in his right arm.
Checking the horses' reins with a glance, to assure that they are properly tethered, Rose throws one side of the cloak over her shoulder with a flourish and follows inside, the heels clicking over old wood exciting a decidedly foreign creak from the nearly rotted floorboards, different from the usual delicate tapping, as thigh-high boots, and not stilettos, carry her down to the shadowed sanctum of the Emporium. Brushing past the frightened girls, with a momentary pause to study the weakest of the three, leaning in James' capable arms, she presses her palms to the door, and like magic, they part, swinging away to welcome them, the whole chamber blazing to life with the sudden flickering of beeswax candles.
The waif of a girl clings tightly to James, her head resting weakly upon his shoulder, as though she had the strength to do anything else, strangely absorbing some sort of security within his embrace. Shifting to support her limp frame a little easier, he smiles as the room seems suddenly alive, feeling better already to be home and waits for the Mistress to enter first.
Rudolf and Gregor rise immediately, of course, lifting from their haunches and padding over towards the Mistress, striding past the Emporium's newest addition - a trio of diminutive cages, holding cells for the three new properties, until they can be sold. Twirling the ring of keys from Rohaj, she tosses them to an end table and reaches into the neckline of her suit, plucking out a long, slender length of crimson ribbon... at the end, a brass skeleton key that fits each of the cage padlocks.
James grins at the dogs and leads the two girls to stand before their twin cages, although he does not dislodge the third from his side.
With the velvet cloak still swimming behind her, revealing only a hint of the slick leather catsuit beneath, Rose saunters along the row of cages, unlocking them one by one and swinging the heavy iron doors wide:: Let's get them in here, shall we?
The dogs check in with their Mistress before trotting over to say hello to James. "Hello daaalings...," he teases, leaning over and giving each an affectionate scratch before returning his attention to the business at hand.
"You know...," she muses, turning a glance over her shoulder and offering a rare thoughtful smile as her beloved pets stroll over to lick at the hands of yet another beloved, "I've often wondered how *you* would fare in a cage." The corners of her lips curl upward in a teasing, feline grin, as she waits to see his response.
James stops petting the dogs and looks up to his Mistress... curiosity as well as a twisted desire slowly begins to burn brighter within himself as he returns the smile, trying desperately to obtain a poker face.
One of the slave girls, the one who so clumsily toppled herself off of the horse outside, stirs in place. Her head and vision clears, and she finally notices the cages, and as she deduces their purpose, she begins to back away, tugging on the chain that binds her to her sister, her mouth framing a terrified, soundless "Noooo"...
James' head snaps in the direction of the soft movement and he shoots a quick glance at Rose before striding over to the end table and retrieving the keys, the girl on his arm getting a bit burdensome by this time.
She comments no further on the remark about the cage, perhaps distracted by the movement, or perhaps just saving that game for another time... as the sluggish clink of heavy, moving chains reaches her ears, she too snaps around, the cloak spinning out behind her, and reaches for the retreating girl, one gloved hand closing into a fist about the chain that holds her.
James approaches the two sisters and unclasps the hands of the closest girl, only to push her forcefully into the middle cage and close the door.
"I wouldn't advise that," Rose hisses, giving the chain a sharp tug that drives the other girl, the one contemplating escape, crashing to her knees on the earthen floor.
Flinching slightly at the whimper heard from the girl on her knees, James hurries to Rose's side. "Shall I put her in...," he gestures to the third cage, careful not to anger her further...
"I think we have our first volunteer," she croons, shooting a wicked grin over her shoulder at James, at the same time striking out to deliver a sharp backhand to the girl's defiantly upturned cheek. "Put the small one away for now... we'll feed her later... but first...," running a gloved fingertip along the tenderized cheek of the one who dared to defy her, she leaves the rest of the sentence dangling, an ominous and unspoken threat.
James chances a glance at the mohogany "X" bolted to the far wall, thoughts drifting momentarily away before aquiescencing. Carefully, he walks to the farthest cage and ever-so-gently sets the girl upon the floor within, softly closing the cage door behind her.
With her sisters safely locked away, the entire length of the tethering chain remains locked to the slave girl's wrists, pooling around her throbbing knees and weighting her down, to prevent her escape from the fate at which she can only guess. Sniffing curiously at her nearly prone figure, the pair of Dobermans trot over to their usual spot and curl up to lie down, uninterested in the present happenings of the Emporium, and making a point to investigate the newcomers at a better time.
With one hand still on the chain, the other raised to strike again if necessary, Rose glances to James once more. "Pet, would you please remove my cloak, and hang it up in the back bedroom," shrugging to indicate the heavy velvet mantle still draped over her shoulders.
Walking over to the girl, although careful to keep a small distance between the two, he crosses his arms over his chest. "Indeed I shall, Mistress," moving over behind her and gently easing the cloak from her regal shoulders, draping it over one arm, he turns on his heel and makes his way to the back bedroom, where he hangs his own up beside the one presently in his arms.
The burden of heavy velvet lifted from her shoulders, Rose stirs from her statue's pose at last, the sheen of oiled leather glistening in the candlelight as she takes a step back, and then another, yanking on the chain, this time driving the girl roughly to her forearms.
James' ears perk at the sound of the gruff grunt expelled from the girl as she falls forward, and reappears from the bedroom, standing passively in the doorway, watching Rose and the girl until called upon.
Said slave girl turns defiant eyes upward, in spite of the pain shooting up her forearms and immobilizing her in its unwelcome clutches. The girl's upturned chin is, contrary to most times, a welcomed convenience, as Rose wedges the toe of her boot against the scrawny neck, a gentle nudge kicking those features even higher.
Glancing at the two girls within the cages, checking to be sure their conditions have not worsened, James returns his attention to the girl on the earthen ground.
Leaving only the faintest trail of road dust along the girl's neck, Rose moves her toe ever upward, imprinting already grime-coated skin with another layer of dirt from the bottom of her shoe, as she lifts it to rest against the girl's mouth.
"James...," she purrs, the cashmere of her voice taking on a more gravelly tone, her amusement at the girl's sputtering attempt to turn her head leaking through.
His eyes jerk up toward the source of the voice and he forces a pleasant smile. "Yes, Mistress?"
"...Perhaps you'd like to join me tonight?" Leaving the meaning of that enigmatic suggestion unexplained for the moment, she snaps her chin forward, emitting a sudden, sharp hiss that causes the frightened girl to bolt back in startlement.
His eyes narrow slightly as they fall upon the girl's features and he thinks of the meaning hidden within her pleasant words. "Join..." then the full question hits home and he looks up once more, only to find those twin emeralds staring right back into his face.
The low echo of her laughter rumbles through the chamber as she drops her foot to the ground once more, and she whirls around, carrying the chain along with her and dragging the girl towards the mahogany "X".
"If it is your will..." He fiddles with the hem of his shirt and and settles with cramming his hands into his jean pockets... She knows my weakness for women... Grrr...
"It.. is..." The effort of jerking the girl to her feet and slamming her back against the cold, unyielding wood of the frame causes her to gasp.
"You'll make someone else a fine pet someday, my pretty," she hisses at the girl, "but first, you'll need to learn not to be so daring..."
(SNAP)
Caught unawares, the slave can only groan as the harsh impact of her back against the wood racks her body with trembling, but the snap of a bracelet, seemingly from nowhere, around one of her upraised wrists, causes her eyes to flash wide with shock.
James steps forward and walks to the "X," chancing a glance in the direction of the various whips and whatnot before his approach.
(SNAP)
He eyes the girl as she squirms pathetically against the new restraints, slowly taking in just *how* frail and sickly she is... although she appears to be the healthiest of the three.
Throwing her hands to the air with a dramatic flourish, Rose steps back, a satisfied grin tilting the corners of her lips. Those hands drift down with all the ease of frost-bitten leaves settling to earth on a cold winter's evening, coming to rest at her hips, and she turns to James, all fluttering eyelashes and solicitous smiles. "You can choose, darling," nodding towards the menagerie of torture devices on the wall. She also notes the girl's frailty, but it is simply not in her nature to care.
He glances to the wall and gives it an "oh gee, *can* I" look, although his back is carefully turned from Rose's stare.
The fingertips of one hand thrum lazily over the boning of her stays, and thick tendrils of flame-red frame an expression of contained anticipation.
James stands there, contemplating the least painful of them all, and reaches decisively for the lightest of the floggers, as she wagers in her own mind as to whether or not James will choose the ... oh, yes, he does indeed... his habits are still predictable to her, his misguided sense of compassion still familiar to her.
"Will this do?" A lopsided grin is plastered across his handsome features as he returns to her side.
One sleek leg winds before the other, as she sways past him and to a safe distance just a few feet away. "It will... it will do handsomely...," turning to face him, her smile unreadable, as glittering emeralds take in the deceptive harmlessness of the tiny threads of leather on the end of this whip.
An amused emerald gaze dances from the cages, and the pathetic wretches huddled therein, to the desperate look of pleading on the face of the girl crucified... to the apparent hesitation in the shoulders of her Favorite, as he stands before the "X"... and with a low, comforting whisper, something otherworldly, layered with the voices of dozens of ancient victims, but most certainly coming from her, she steps forward, sending gloved fingertips to crawl and tickle up his spine.
He flinches at her touch, but does not turn his gaze from the girl before him... the flogger resting uneasily in his hands, he begins to whisper, "I can't hi--"
"Oh... of course you can...," she coos, that hand sliding up and cupping reassuringly over the firm muscle of his shoulder.
He merely stands, glancing from the flogger in his able hands to the girl... so frail... so limp within her restraints...
Again come those whispers, thousands of ancient, arcane voices, barely audible... but the velveteen of her voice rings through with crystal clarity. "Of course you can... I know you have something of your father's blood in you... as well as mine..." And her fingertips slide from that shoulder, rising up to weave through the silken tresses.
"But... *Look* at her, Mistress..." He turns to look at her and takes a step backwards, which only brings him closer to the girl.
Her fingertips, pulled loose from his hair by the momentum of his backward step, wriggle in midair in something of a spidery flex, and a cultured brow rises, her amusement clearly wearing thin. "Would you prefer to take her place?..."
He sighs softly at her reply and turns to the girl... the fear... and yet a distinct lack of cooperation... raging behind her eyes. "Nae..."
"Look at her...," she mutters, casting a disdainful glance at the girl. "A moment ago she certainly had enough gumption to bolt for that door... I wonder that she seems so melancholy now... do you think, perhaps, that she's faking it? Oh, but no, why would she, when it only means perhaps a lighter sentence..." That brow is still lifted high, as she hisses over James' shoulder at the girl.
He simply stares at the floor, carefully listening to each syllable breathed from his Mistress' desirable lips... glancing at the harmless flogger in his hand, he nods, turning back to the girl. His pity is now masked by a blank expression... One would be almost fearful at the sudden change. "As you wish..." He raises the flogger over his head and eyes the girl, devising the best place for the flogger to strike, and follows through, bringing the thin leather across her frail form.
The crack of the whip barely masks the click of Rose's steps, as she sidles up behind him once more, just out of range of his swinging arm, but certainly close enough that her leather-clad hands can curl about his waist, and her fingertips flex there, massaging, winding up over his lower back, and then around again, to slide over his belly, as she closes the gap between them, cooing with satisfaction as she molds her body to his back.
"Again...," she hisses, her breath cool as it washes over the curve of his neck.
He freezes momentarily at her sudden presence, only to lean lightly back into her, and nods... There is nothing he will not do to please his Mistress... A fleeting smile crosses his handsome features as he brings the flogger back the other way across the young girls slight frame... Wincing slightly as the girl does, he still follows through, trying hard to avoid looking at her pained expression.
"Excellent...," comes her silken purr, the word drawn out to caress his ear, even as her hand slides around, to caress the top of his thigh. "Please... continue..." Her voice, so soft and ethereal, is ominously close now, as her lips brush across the bottom of his ear. "See how defiance still burns in her eyes?..." And as though in a separate dance, a gesture entirely distant from the beating going on before her, yet somehow inspired by it, her hand drifts up, to ride along the waistband of his slacks... a gesture so full of promised rewards...
His shoulders sag as he must continue, biting hard upon his lower lip, angry at himself for becoming aroused at a time like this... Trying to remain angry at her for making him do such a thing to this poor girl, although her seemingly simple caresses urge him onward. "As you wish." Again he draws his arm up and this time brings the small flogger down, straight down her slight body... between the valley of her cleavage, down to her stomach and finally halting at a skinny thigh.
Punishment and reward, punishment and reward... the cycle goes on, endless and eternal, although sometimes the lines between those elements become unalterably blurred... as the girl flinches, and bites her lower lip to stifle a cry of pain, Rose utters her own gasp of joy, and the hand that once toyed now grows insistent, wedging down through layers of fabric, leather flexing over solid muscle and bare skin.
James clears his throat and eyes the girl... Three strikes once satisfied his Mistress... that was when *he* was receiving his punishment... Allowing his arm to remain at his side, his eyes flicker shut for a moment, as he revels in the feel of her leather-wrapped fingertips against his bare skin.
Indeed, the only time three strikes were enough were with her Favorite... no one else ever received such lenience... and no one ever will.
"Again..." This time, the word is barely above a whisper, muffled as it is by the closeness of her mouth to the shell of his ear, and punctuated by the tongue that darts out, to lap playfully at his earlobe... lost in pleasure and barely aware of his reluctance, her hand continues its exploration, finding its hardened quarry and curling around it.
A soft sound escapes his lips and his eyes flicker open once more. He studies the girl's expression with concerned eyes, although his need to comfort her is nearly drowned by the urge for his Mistress' affections. Perhaps to earn Boy Scout points, he asks, "Any requested areas, Mistress Rose?"
"Oh, yessss...," she murmurs, her voice vibrating gently against his earlobe, "...her chest, of course... that shift needs to be replaced, soon, anyway..." A tiny curl of pleasure takes up the corner of her mouth, as she muses on how the most harmless seeming things - like thin strips of leather - often cut the deepest... and the very thought drives her hand to tighten its grip, and she plants a series of tight, fierce kisses along the taper at the side of his neck.
A shiver snakes its way down his spine, only to finally taper off through the ends of his fingertips. He frowns deeply, although his eyes - and every inch of his body - respond differently. Her mere caress is enough to drive him wild. Her sensuous kisses... place him at her mercy. He swallows hard and extends his arm to the left, bringing it back, sending the flogger screaming across ripe young flesh, shredding the already tattered shift which scarcely covers her anyway.
A brief upward glance, and she takes in the delicious sight of a band of red lines, mere slivers of welts, crisscrossing the girl's chest, now bared by the falling away of old and rotting fabric, then her eyes drift closed once more, as she purrs against his skin... and the hand that was inactive before now joins in the seduction, writhing up beneath the hem of his shirt and grazing across his taut belly, molding itself to the sinews of his chest.
Deeply inhaling her femine scent, as well as the ever-enchanting scent of roses, he allows his left hand to move daringly behind him, fingertips grazing the outside of a supple thigh as he moves his right yet again to the right, his torso shifting slightly; rippled stomach flexing against her gloved hand and brings the leather flogger back across the girl's ample swells, curving slightly downward along her ribs, creating a fine lattice work of angry red welts. As he watches the girl weaken, he does as well, knowing he cannot carry this much farther...
"You... can stop now...," the words melting into a low moan, almost a snarl, as one hand tightens, flexing and drawing upwards, and the other buckles in, closing around a firm pectoral muscle, and her lips and teeth clamp down in a playful bite against the sliver of skin where his collar and the ends of his hair don't quite meet.
His left hand slides behind her, tightly gripping her thigh and squeezing gently before sliding down a bit, his back arching the slightest bit at the sudden sensation in his neck.. His right hand lowered... the item nearly forgotten and about to fall loose from his fingertips...
Angry red stripes on tender, virginal skin... agonized, muffled cries of pain... her own closeness to the body she favors the most - her precious, darling James... all of these things, in concert with the misery in the air, create a chain reaction, sparking the fires within and sending them billowing upward with volcanic fury... drawing her hand quickly from beneath his shirt, she reaches across, to knock the flogger away, and laces her fingers through his, her eyes opening briefly to offer a wink to the shocked and distressed slave girl, before closing again, as she swivels her head around to the other side, lapping at the skin just beneath the circlet of silver chain.
"Mmm..." His head droops a bit, allowing her easier access to the skin peeking out from beneath his collar. The flogger falls softly to the earthen floor, and his right hand falls into place opposite his left, hungrily caressing her right thigh, gingerly sliding up to her waist and lowering once more... The girl is forgotten for the time being... Time seems to stand still... or has become rather irrelevant at the moment as he turns the slightest bit, skilled fingertips gliding across her inner thigh, lightly teasing as he inches higher, only to drop down once more.
Her curled fingertips suddenly flex and flatten, affording a lingering caress leading up to his belly, as she withdraws her hand and curls it around his waist... and with a whip-quick movement, she winds around before him, her hands gliding to rest at the small of his back, encircling him, even as one leg rises, to coil around his calf, and she draws him in closer, her emerald eyes sparkling with unvoiced promises.
Electric green eyes seem to spark despite the glow already held within as he allows them to trace along her seemingly too perfect features, down past those regal shoulders along her tantalizing curves. Unable to withhold his desire for her, his hands slide around her hips, slowly sliding up along the slick surface of her suit, barely touching just beneath the curve of her ample bosom.
In an elegant arabesque, the leg wrapped around his curls away, and she takes a dancing step backwards, drawing him along with her, her eyes, her entire body, flushed with radiant heat and beckoning... the fringes of sable lashes lower in sultry invitation, and her tongue darts out, tracing a moistening line along the contours of her upper lip, as she backs right into the suspended figure of the slave girl, grinding her slick suit against the fiery welts even as she tugs her favored one forward, sharply, demandingly, and crushes her mouth over his in a ravaging kiss.
Taking a large step forward, he answers to her tug, grinding his hips into her own. His hands glide along her sides, although soon smooth past her to the girl behind them, lightly caressing the sides of her scantily clad torso.
Sandwiched between the two bodies, one fierce with desire, the other offering murmured cries of shock and surprise, and pain, at the rubbing of leather against her already brutalized skin, Rose continues to devour him with her kiss, her lips parted wide, tongue dancing like a ferocious hurricane wind, seeking, searching, tasting with her characteristic wanton greed... the sound of rending fabric splits the air, undercutting the layers of panting and moaning
A groan escapes his lips, only to be muffled by their anxious kiss. He stands to his full height, pushing himself against her, reaching up to clasp the silver zipper and draw it down... contrary to his usual sensuously slow pace, he releases her from the suit in one swift motion... His tongue flickering into the depths of her mouth and breaking free, flickering along her well defined jawline and lower still to her unadorned neck where he begins to suckle gently .
As the catsuit is drawn back over her shoulders, the rough edge of its leather collar grates down along the series of welts on the belly of the slave behind her, and the girl lets out a gust of desperate whimpering, her eyes growing wide with shock as Rose jerks back, dropping her head against the girl's chest and pressing hard...
~~~~~~
Their own entertainments kept them occupied far into what remained of the night, so that by the time dawn's radiance broke over the rest of Rhy'Din (carefully stepping around the pocket of gloom that hid the Emporium's upper facade, of course), morning found Rose curled in her bed, with James wrapped around her.
The pens were arranged in a neat row along one wall, and placed close enough that, were all three occupied, their inhabitants might have formed a chain by touching hands. But as it was, the slave girl originally destined for that center cage was still bound to the wall, frigid and bruised, her only company provided by a pair of guard dogs.
Some time during the course of that seemingly interminable next day, the smallest lump of grey muslin and matted hair stirred inside one of the cages. As she lifted her head against the unbearable weight of disease, her eyes, surrounded by hollows of deep purple, bruised not from any beating, but from a simple lack of nutrition and sleep, peeled open to slits, to study the dank dungeon room.
She had no way of knowing day from night - the chamber permitted no natural light of any kind, and every candle had been extinguished with the Mistress' plummet into sleep - so that, when she awoke fully, it was to find herself in the bottom of an inkwell, cognizant only of the cold steel bars lacing beneath her haunches. Every other sight and sound was denied her, save the echo of a distant scream... a scream she never actually recognized as her own...
Deprived of any other sensation, she soon forgot her rumbling belly, and the aching in her joints, even lost touch with the memories of a grand home and high-born Mumsy and Dadsy... her name... the ebony eyes of her beloved pet poodle... the exact number of carats in her jewel collection back home... the shade of aqua silk of the gown she had been wearing the day she diverted from her usual daily walk, inspired by a guileless, girlish sense of adventure to wander just a fraction too close to the docks... All of these things were confetti bits of information, images that tumbled on a lazy spin cycle through her fevered brain...
Oh, but wait, there was another little insignificant something to arouse her nerves and cement her conviction that she was either mad or dead... the smell of rich soil, infused with the musty, dusty odor of the grave...
Her heart thudded in the darkness, straining against her ribcage and running a furious race with time, and lunatic fingers began scrabbling at the rungs of the cage, as though she could somehow loosen the lock and dig her way out of the crypt, but her only reward was the burning at her cuticles as her nails ripped away, the sweet scent of her own blood, and the sticky warmth of its running down the back of her hands to her wrists. Still, faster and faster she flew, her heartbeat keeping cadence, her panting breath thundering out through velvet shadows, her fingertips shredded to raw nubs by the furious pawing...
"I'm not dead...," she croaked, so unaccustomed to the sound of her own distorted voice that it made her heart leap, "there's been a mistake... I'm not dead... let me out... I'm not dead..."
But the poor girl's heart was already so taxed by terror, and its walls weakened by days without food (and weeks before that without *enough* food) that they collapsed as the last word left her lips, making the declaration a lie as she slumped into the embrace of steel bars...
~~~Rose and James~~~
Just two nights later, Rose ventures out into the town, accompanied by her Favorite. They share a common ire for Rohaj, the snake of a trader - her mind is burning with the fury of having been cheated out of so much gold, for what amounted to little more than a worthless carcass, and his is heavy with anger over the inhumanity the pirate showed towards the girl, the neglect that led to her death.
As is becoming more often the case these days, she allows him the luxury of sitting by her side, almost as equals, as they share their bloodwyne and commiserate over the fate of one swindling pirate, and mentally calculating just how little time he has left on this earth.
"Thank you, my pet," comes her lush velveteen drawl, but instead of taking the chalice he slides towards her, she lifts a gloved hand, brushing the back of it in an adoring caress down his cheek before reaching for her glass.
"You are in high spirits this eve, Mistress..."
"High spirits?" Curling slender fingertips around the stem of the goblet, she lifts it to just before her lips, then pauses for a moment. "...I suppose I am... though I can't imagine why... business has been dreadful for me lately..." She takes a delicate sip, then tilts the chalice back into place, her tongue darting out to capture a renegade droplet of the bloodwine at the corner of her mouth.
James turns his gaze to the milling patrons and sips from his own chalise, leaning casually against the bar, although with a slight tilt of his body, so as to bring him inches closer to his Mistress' person.
"I think that you should prepare yourself, James..." She traces circles around the rim of the chalice, her fingertip sliding lazily over its edge, and he clears his throat as her velveteen voice enters his thoughts, and turns to look at her. "...for an expedition," she continues, "into one of the most base, decrepit parts of this town... have you ever had the misfortune to visit the local docks?"
"Aside from the time we went to get the girls... " He nearly snarls at the last word and clutches his goblet tighter.
"No, no... the wharf... where the shipments come in..." Idly thrumming those fingertips now, over the edge of the chalice, her eyes distant, and yet roiling with the makings of some sinister clockwork machinations.
"No... I have not," he replies, staring absently into his chalise, "But have no qualms about paying a visit..."
Splaying her fingertips, she flattens that hand so full of nervous energy on the bar top, only barely suppressing the urge to pull of the leather sheath and rake her nails across the lacquered wood. " There are only two or three places that he might be ... if he's still in Rhy'Din, that is..."
James notes her sudden tenseness and sits up straight, glaring into his chalice. " He's too stupid to leave."
"Perhaps not stupid... but certainly lazy... Either way, I expect to exact a price for that dead girl..."
He swallows hard at the mention of the girl and nibbles upon his bottom lip, but before he can say a word, she interjects once more.
"Have you moved her body yet?", she asks abruptly, the sudden thought overtaking her and forcing her eyes up, a pair of cultured sable brows into questioning arches.
"Aye..." He shudders in rememberance and unconsciously rubs leather-wrapped fingertips against his thighs. "Early this eve..."
"I trust you took it far from the Emporium," lifting the chalice to her lips once more, "*Very* far..." With a shudder of her own, she tilts the cup against her lower lip and takes a dainty sip.
"Yes... I took *her* far from the Emporium." He withholds the urge to look at the expression on her face after such heartless words, but then again, where did he ever get the idea that she *had* a heart?
With a sudden clatter that rises over the din of the many voices in the room, the door swings wide, and in strides a woman in very masculine breeches and tunic, sweeping a feather adorned tricorn from windtossed auburn tresses. Her unyielding hazel eyes scan the room, resting a moment on each patron, before she strides toward the bar, the bullwhip at her side swinging with the movement of her hips.
"Any requests when I find him?" James takes a long sip from the chalise and allows it to remain at his lips a moment longer before patting his bomber down for a clove.
A slow, rumbling giggle wells up from deep within Rose, finally presenting itself in the form of a silent smirk. "...hold him for me... I want his payment to be exacted slowly... and at my discretion..."
James shivers, already pitying the man despite the thick wall of hate that he has already raised, and it occurs to Rose to think that though their motives differ vastly, the end result will be the same for Rohaj.
The sea-faring woman who entered a few moments before turns her attention to the bar, searching for a tender, but she looks up as the door opens once more, and smiles in greeting to a new adventurer who has entered in her wake. Resting her elbows on the bartop, stretching legs wrapped in cotton breeches, she hooks booted feet on the rung below the bar and leans over, reaching for the bottles on the other side.
"Well met, Captain," comments the man, addressing the woman as he strides towards her.
"Pet..." Dropping the chalice to the bar top once more, Rose glances up, fixing her Favorite with a curious, unreadable stare, as though she were looking at him for the first time.
"What'll ye be 'avin', Mr. Blackthorne?"
"What are you having?"
The two strangers haggle over scotch and brandy, one declaring to the other that anything's fine, so long as it isn't bloodwyne, but Rose only gives them passing notice, still enraptured in her study of James, who places the chalise upon the bartop and looks to her with a clove at his lips. "Mmm?"
Running a gloved fingertip over the contour of her lower lip, she studies him a moment longer, her eyes drifting from the chain around his neck, to the nearly worn lock there.
James glances away almost nervously at the intensity of her stare and light his cigarette.
"It occurs to me that it may be time for a change..."
"A... huh?" He takes a deep puff from the cigarette, exhaling a billow of snow white smoke.
That gloved fingertip parts company with her lips, stretching across to slide along the side of the silver collar, and as his own gloved hands move unconsciously to the object of her scrutiny, she inadvertently meets his own hand along the way.
The two strangers, meanwhile, slide into their respective chairs at a table in the center of the room, and again that feathered tricorn is tossed, onto the table, as the pirate woman tugs the cork from her bottle with her teeth.
"You've worn this for some time...." Rose continues, her hand rising, to brush across the chiseled angle of his chin. "And in that time, your responsibilities... your position... your demeanor... have all changed..."
"Aye... That they have..." His fingertips glide across the underside of her hand as a curious smile flutters across his finely chiseled features.
"If I were to set you free... where would you go?" The words are barely above a whisper, marked by the wistful pursing of her lips, and a melancholy dampening of the emerald light in her eyes.
The woman, after taking a long draw on her bottle, licks her lips thoughtfully, listening to the room.
James smiles, although he turns away in thought. "I may mill about here for a bit longer... And perhaps return to Isle Voletta... There would be nothing left for me... Probably get myself into trouble..." And then, with a smirk, "It is not something I care to explore, to be honest with you, Mistress."
As quickly as the wind can change direction, a greedy smile appears on Rose's lips, and she pinches at his earlobe. "Well, I'm not going to do that... so don't trouble yourself over it..."
"Lookin' fer more information, as always..."
"About slavers?"
The woman glances at James at the word "Mistress", curious, then turns her attention back to her table companion, and with a nod, takes another swallow from her bottle.
The relief is seen in James' posture if not on his face as he eyes the smoldering cigarette in his hand.
"But I expect to see you around the estate more often... or you can expect to be penned in and *never* allowed to leave..." With another playful flick at his earlobe, she returns her attention to the drink before her.
"An' ye, Mr. Blackthorne...surely ye've other things tae do then 'ang out with a slaver 'untin' sailor, hm?
"There are female slavers as well, Captain..didn't you know that?"
The woman growls a little. "Aye...I know," she answers, keeping half an eye on Jimmy and his "Mistress".
James chuckles softly and nods, turning to look to her chalise as well. "I will, Mistress... I promise."
As the conversation in the common room swims around her ears, Rose's hand makes a detour on the way to that chalice, reaching instead to her belt, and loosing the bull whip there, to set it before her on the countertop.
Another set of fingers slide over another bullwhip, and with the flick of a wrist, a dagger slides out from beneath the cuff of a cotton sleeve. At that moment, a new stranger walks in, approaching the pair at the center table and addressing them in a daemon monotone.
Rose turns languidly on her stool, a brow lifting in amusement at the impending fray, as James takes a final drag on his cigarette and carelessly flicks it away, although careful enough not to hit an unaware victim.
In the midst of the argument ensuing in the center of the room, the pirate woman jumps a little, as Jimmy's cigarette flies toward them, only to drop a few feet away.
Reaching for the chalice once more, and lifting it to her lips, Rose's eyes narrow to emerald slivers as she sniffs at its content, her nose crinkling in distaste. "This... wants for something... I always do find the domestics a bit bland..."
James turns his gaze to his Mistress and a smirk flutters over his lips.
A cultured brow lifts in challenge to that hinted-at smirk, and without a moment's hesitation, she lifts her hand with a flourish, brushing leathern thumb across forefinger to elicit a demanding (snap).
"Your wrist, pet, if you please...," she purrs, drumming her fingertip against a spot on the bar just beside her cup.
He eyes her for a moment before removing the ebony gloved from his hand and offering his wrist, although not without cautious eyes.
Even in the middle of the heated argument, the pirate woman cannot help but notice, and she steals a glance at Jimmy and Rose, her lip curling slightly.
Glancing past her Favorite's shoulder, to a dark-haired knight addressing her, Rose purrs with as much grace as she can muster. "No... I wasn't speaking to you," and returns her attention to James, lifting one hand to her mouth, to tug one of the gloves off in her teeth.
James flinches at her baring of her hand and nearly jerks his arm away, but she catches the furtive movement of his forearm from the corner of her eye, and lifts a single fingertip, in a sharp gesture that motions him to halt. He quickly halts all movement, although keeps an attentive eye on her further actions.
The debate at the center of the room appears to have settled by now, as the third party has retreated to the hearth for the moment, leaving the man and woman to crow over his antics.
"Now, now...." Rose croons, her voice like cashmere draped over steel, "...this won't hurt a bit..." Scooping his wrist up in her still-gloved hand, she positions it over the mouth of the chalice.
His eyes widen into saucers as her intention hits home, although he remains, more fearful of her actions should he choose to disobey, and her eyes flash wide with anticipation, and she lets out the tiniest of gasps from between parted lips, an eerie accompaniment as her fingertip swoops down, dashing across his pale skin and opening a seam to make way for the ribbons of burgeoning scarlet straining to get out.
His arm tenses and his fingers close into a tight fist, and he flinches, a wince escaping his lips.
The pirate woman hands her companion a glass, trying not to look at the bar, muttering to herself, "Vampire slavers...gaaah..."
The reflexive tightening of his fist propels the crimson nectar out in veritable gushers. With his arm flexed, James instinctively tries to withdraw his wrist from her grip, and as he jerks back, a few drops from the scarlet river drip over the edge of the chalice, forcing her to tighten her grip - in the interest of neatness, of course.
He bites hard upon his bottom lip, drawing blood there as well, although this only slightly detracts from the screaming sting of his wrist. Rose watches with greedy eyes as blood flows into wine, her tongue darting out against the corner of her mouth... and just as the pool of crimson reaches the rim of the glass, she snaps his hand up, crushing her lips in a passionate kiss to the open wound.
An irritated hand shoves an auburn strand from the woman's face, and she shifts in her chair, shooting a glance toward Jimmy and Rose.
James squeezes his eyes shut at the contact to the wound and holds his breath.
Fingers twitch about the dagger in her hand, but then, the dagger vanishes into her sleeve.
Rose suckles gently at the cut, until it diminishes to a mere sliver, then the mere trace of a scar, then slips her tongue over it and settles back, to watch as it disappears altogether.
"Are you all right, Dorriane..?"
"I ne'er got on well with vampires..."
James leans heavily in his barstool, his head spinning slightly as he struggles to concentrate on the floor tiles.
"That is understandable..."
"C'n we go somewheres else?"
Curling her hand around his, she gives it a comforting squeeze, refusing to release him until she sees that dizziness washed away from his features. He blinks as the tile begins to come into focus and swallows hard, only to turn and offer a reassuring smile in his Mistress' direction.
Slipping her feathered tricorn onto her head, the woman steps out, tucking her bottle into her belt.
Patrician features soften into what might pass for affection on any other face... but for Rose, that's as good as it gets... drawing his hand up towards her mouth, she brushes a delicate kiss across each fingertip, then releases him with a teasing half-smile. "And now I think that it's time you set off after Rohaj... don't you?"
He rubs his wrist... not a trace of abuse there... and retrieves his glove, nodding, slightly flustered. "I do..." In the blink of an eye, his hurry perhaps a reflection of hers, or perhaps a nervous wish to escape any further bloodletting, he slips from his stool and glances about once more before winking at his Mistress and heading out into the night.
Rose watches after him with an admiring glance, then lifts her coveted chalice, with its carefully cultivated contents, and slips from the stool, making her way in the same direction.
~~~Rohaj~~~
At the end of the wharf farthest from the blinding, inquisitive glare of civilisation stood a ramshackle tin-roofed hovel. Well, it did not so much stand as the panels themselves leaned upon one another for support, that they might not collapse, and inside, the overhead beams sagged so perilously low that on any given evening, no less than a dozen stacked felt hats found their way into the sour ale puddling the floor.
Natty Dred's was a one-room dive bar, more shack than tavern, and the only thing that merited that moniker was the fact that all manner of sea vermin were known to congregate here, to drown the profits of their dubious adventures in watered-down swill and the reconstituted dregs from the bottoms of rum barrels.
The original Natty was long dead, and no one could recall how many had taken his place between the first and the current proprietor, but legend had it that each one was a permanent part of the place, buried somewhere in the grounds outside, more likely poisoning the daisies than pushing them up. The current incarnation of Natty Dred was a stubby, chocolate-colored man with a thick French accent, one eye of blazing gold, the other of cerulean blue, and rumor had it that *he* had killed the *previous* Natty Dred and not only taken his name and his tavern, but kept his soul, as well, in a clay jar over the back of the bar.
Among the motley crew of faces sat one that might be familiar to the reader, a scarred and weathered mug with a permanent five o'clock shadow to frame the permanent smug grimace. How he camed to be here, when he should have been miles away, at sea, was a tale in itself, a story of the putrid frailties of human willpower. As he was rowing back to the ship, the night of his exchange with Rose, the weight of the gold in his pocket, diminished though it was, began to sing to him a sweet siren song, telling him all manner of pretty lies about one shot of rum might not hurt. In fact, it would be his last chance for a decent drink before going shipboard again, and so he might as well relish the opportunity.
Once at Natty's, the single shot became two and then three, and the voices began to ring with the resignation that, well, the amount of coin was so little anyway, tbat he may as well use it to enjoy himself with a woman and some song, as there was not really enough to do much else with it. Night melted into day and found him sleeping in his place, passed out cold and sleeping with his head resting on one of Natty's tables. Oh, but Natty was a kind host - he and Rohaj went way back, and so when Natty picked his friend's pockets as he slept, he left half the coin, to allow his buddy the sport of at least buying some more rum the next night, that his money should not have disappeared entirely for naught.
Muddled by alcohol and exhaustion, Rohaj awoke the next evening, jarred awake by shouting and music, as the room began to fill up with raucous signs of life. His first thought, of course, was to call for another mug of rum. Well, actually, his first thought was to relieve himself from the dock, but as soon as he came back, he had that mug of rum, the fateful mug that would lead him on to another and then another, and keep him there all night, most likely, to lure him into forgetting, once more, why the the idea of leaving town before Rose could catch up with him had once been so urgent.
~~~James~~~
James squeezes the Hog tighter between his thighs as he seems to fly effortlessly through the night. Raven locks rippled by the steady stream of wind in his face, he makes his way to the docks. His target: Rohaj... James snarls as he thinks the name... And the man that fits *with* the name.
The docks loom in closer as he squeezes the handles of the Harley tighter. Finally parking the bike outside of a bar, James slowly enters. The corners of his mouth tilting down, newly-lit clove between his lips bobbing with each confident step. He haults near the bar, leans back and takes a long drag. James Tarrant fits in surprisingly well here. The stubbly beginnings of a beard has formed along his masculine jawline and his mussed hair gives him a more rugged appearence, although he looks more like a drifter than a sailor.
A few gruff looking men look up as his electric gaze sweeps across the bar. The tender moves over to him. He is a rather tall man, wirey with a stained white t-shirt and a grimy apron folded down over his pants. "Wha' c'n ah git'cha?" His voice is gruff, sounding like sandpaper as James turns around to face him. "A shot'ta Tequilla."
The tender nods and fills a shot glass, spilling some on the already filthy bartop. "Tell me something... I'm looking to purchase some slave girls... And I heard there might be a man out here that could help me..."
James reaches a hand up to the black turtle neck which hides his collar, pulling it up a bit higher.
James takes the shot glass and downs its contents with a *slightly* soured face. "Aye... You a slaver," comes the gruff reply. His lips tilt in a gentle smile as he knocks his cigarette on an ashtray, "Neh, just the errand boy."
The man eyes him momentarily before seeming to come to a decision. "Ye know th' man's name?" A cold sneer crosses his demented features as piercing brown eyes study James. Jimmy's own eyes narrow coldly at the tone the man uses... as well as at the smirk. Plucking the clove from his mouth, he tosses it to the floor, grinding it with the toe of his boot. His jaw sets as his lips curl in distaste. He knew he should not be asking questions, but how *else* was he going to find this..... man.
"Yeah, I do." His expression has now become challenging, and he is quickly angering. "Rohaj." He spits the name out with disgust and studies the man's reaction. The tender only looks to James as well as past him, locking eyes with a set of men at a back table. James flexes, aware this was going to happen sooner or later, and reaches a gloved hand beneath the bartop to a handle strapped to his thigh.
Three rather large men approach the bar and surround James, although he does not break the contact between the tender and himself. "I' der a probl'm," comes a voice over Jimmy's shoulder, as well as a heavy hand placed upon his upper arm. "You boys know Rohaj?" What could be the harm in asking, when he's gonna get there first?
With a smirk to the tender, James has a knife out in his right hand and is shifting his hips in the stool, propelling the knife into the stomach of the man to his right who doubles over with a soft cry of surprise, unaware even what hit him. The tender takes a step backwards as the man behind James reaches for him, but is a moment too late as he ducks off of the stool and is already bringing a knee into his stomach and grabbing him by the hair, twisting him backwards and slamming a booted toe into his spine.
By now the man to his left is already on the move with a loaded fist headed full force into Jimmy's jaw, causing his lip to split open and squirt blood onto the man writhing on the floor and dribble down his shirt. James staggers backward into the bar and feels the tender grab his upper arms and pull him up onto the bartop. With a sharp growl, James slams his foot between the man's legs causing him to scream with pain.
Soon James has turned over onto his belly, and caught the tender's arms at his sides. He jumps down from the bar and wrenches his gun from the waist of his pants and jams it into the tender's neck.
Aware he does not have much time before the men recover, James screams into the tender's face, "Where's Rohaj!?" The tender stutters, shaking violently beneath Jimmy's harsh grasp. "Ch-check N-natty's..." James sneers at him, "You'd better *pray* he's there... Or I'm comin' back for you."
With that, James is out the door and astride his motorcycle, tearing up the docks, not knowing where the vulk "Natty's" is.
~~~~~~
The drunken man haults in his tracks as his ears pick up the distant rumble of a motor. Through blurred vision and squinted eyes, he can see a dark figure riding toward him.
With the smallest of smiles, James begins to slow as he nears the staggering shadow of a man. Gliding to a rumbling hault, he watches the man nervously stare at him. Barely audibly, the man murmers, "Sur'ly ah d'rk fig'r' ah th's tim' o' night... cou'd nae b' goo'."
A soft chuckle escapes Jimmy's lips as he steeples gloved fingertips and courteously asks, "You know where 'Natty's' is?"
The tension seems to ease from his shoulders as the man replies, "Aye."
Seeming momentarily puzzled by the question, he studies James through barely conscious brown eyes before bumbling off directions, "Natty Dred's i' jus' ov'r th' 'ill." With a slight shift to the right, he continues, "Mik' ah lef' a' th' f'rs' road an' ye c'n't miss 'er."
With a flash of a pearly smile and polite nod, James stands up and guns the Harley, soon to roar off, hurriedly following the man's directions. The drunken only man winks and watches James take off before turning once more and stumbling along his way, continuing his nonsense mutterings to himself.
~~~~~~
Natty Dred's... The outside barely looked like a tavern... Or perhaps it did, but was concealed so thoroughly, James almost breezed past it.
Parking his bike just outside the enterance at the curb, James stands pensively outside, gazing into the smokey recesses of the bar. Upon entering Natty's, James haults in the doorway, allowing lucid eyes to cautiously scan the inhabitants of the bar. If Rohaj sees him now, it'll be all over before he could blink.
Taking a deep breath, he steps inside and suddenly stops dead in his tracks. What was that familiar form seemingly passed out at that table...? No... But that would be too easy...
Electric green eyes narrow to small slits as he stands a moment longer... lips curling upward in the cruelest smirk ever to form on James Tarrant's handsome features before he vanishes once more into the devouring shadows if the quickly diminshing night.
~~~Rose~~~
Natty Dred's...
The moment she heard the name, she knew it would be a "dress-down" evening - in the tin roofed shack that regularly masqueraded as a bar, she with her flair for drama would stand out like a sore thumb. In fact, anyone with relatively good hygiene habits would stand out there. Heck, a man who actually had all his *teeth* would be a spectacle there.
And so she stands at her wardrobe, poring listlessly through layers of latex and rubber, leather and PVC... even the shimmering satins will not do... never before has she been faced with *this* perplexity - at a loss for something to wear?
Bristling impatience, she finally parts the hangers, thrusting them aside and slamming the garments violently against the inner walls of the cabinet.
"I'll have to make do, I suppose," she mutters, a comment more closely resembling a snarl than anything else, as she bends at the waist and dives into the dark morass of clothing and accessories.
Bra tops and high heels fly out behind her with random alarm, landing in senseless heaps all over the earthen floor, to be joined soon after by mateless lace stockings and a zippered corset or two... hoods and chain mail... a rubber air mask... Just once, she stands up, lifting a bottle of liquid latex into the light...
"Hmm... I wondered where that went..."
This, and this alone, she sets carefully to the ground, and then it's back into the fetish pit.
Glovesbootsropeshooksskirtschainsuniformsbustiersgauntlets...
She emerges one final time, her dainty nose crinkled in disgust as she withdraws a simple pair of leather pants and a sleeveless biker vest and drapes them over the crook of her arm. There's no telling how something so bourgeoisie made it into her wardrobe, but it's practically guaranteed that, once this little exercise in retribution is over, it will find a new home in the incinerator.
To accompany the pedestrian outfit, she plucks out a pair of worn leather boots, their heels, outrageously, a scant *three* inches! Imagine!
Gritting her teeth, and holding the boots gingerly between thumb and forefinger, keeping them as far away as possible, she determinedly resists the urge to polish the creased leather, and makes her way to a dressing screen instead.
~~~James~~~
After a final inspection of the parked Hog, James makes his way into the Emporium. Upon setting foot into the room, he freezes.
Clothes, various items for punishment... a jar of liquid latex is strewn about the room, leaving it in disarray. Bending down to examine the jar, James' electric gaze suddenly widens and he drops it, although to his *very* good fortune, the jar does not break.
Rising to a cautious stand, he guardedly scans the room, "Mist--" His voice cuts off as he spies a rather shapely form moving about behind the dressing screen. His ears perk at her familiar grunts as she struggles with the *horrid* leather pants.
With a playful grin, he sneaks a bit closer, bending down now and again so as to retrieve some of the discarded items, although, all the time, his gaze is rivited to the shadow moving gracefully behind the obscuring screen.
~~~Rose~~~
"Och!" comes her cry of frustration and outrage, as she wriggles behind the screen, smoothing the leather over her hips and fastening buttons at her bosom, all the while attempting to straighten the outfit into some semblance of elegance, regardless of the fact that elegance is the one thing she should *avoid* tonight...
"Is the motorcycle ready?" she chirps, her otherwise succulent lips pressed into a thin, flat line as she peeks out from behind the paper wall. This time, there are no frothing tendrils of flame to spill down at her shoulders, as her hair is drawn back into a neat ponytail, and tied with a *disgusting* piece of leather thong. As though to temper the laughter she is sure is about to come, from James, she narrows her eyes in warning, and her lips tighten the merest bit.
Biting back her humiliation, and placating herself with constant reminders that there is a job to be done this night, and a certain way to go about doing it, she slowly winds around the edge of the screen, and bit by bit, her curves come into focus, outlined not in gloss or shine, but in rustic matte black.
Lifting her arms out to the side, and putting on display the hourglass shaped in slim leather pants and a rough-edged vest (her one solace, that it is cut daringly low), she executes a pirouette on tottering stacked heels.
"Well, do you think this will be quite the thing for a place like Natty Dred's?"
~~~James~~~
James Tarrant's mouth drops open as she emerges. Slowly he allows his gaze to sweep along her supple curves before grinning like a fool, dropping to all fours, lifting his head to the inky ceiling above, and howling a long obnoxious wolf-howl.
Almost positive this will simply *top* off his tab, although he cannot help himself. Besides, they are pushed for time this evening as he bends his elbows, lowering his chest closer to the ground, his tongue lolling in and out of his mouth as he pants like a dog in heat.
Hoping this will at *least* raise her self esteem about the utterly *vomitroceous* get up she now wears... He slowly rises to a stand, giggling like a madman and nods, bowing deeply, tilting the corners of his mouth downward, and in his most *snobbish* of voices, "Your ride... awaits, your majesty..."
Holding the deep bow, one arm crossed over his stomach, the other behind his back, he raises his head just enough so as he may perhaps observe her reaction.
~~~Rose and James~~~
The wind whistling across her cheekbones was like a bracing splash of chilled champagne, as she clung to James' waist, riding the metal monster through Rhy'Din's back streets and alleyways, twisting over cobbles and cracked pavement on the way to the waterfront.
She could smell the wharves long before the shifting lights from skiffs and rocking halibut boats came into view - no keen senses needed for that. The air smelled of ancient salts and the bile of rotting fish, and she burrowed against her Favorite's shoulders to block out the stench, as her ponytail, like twists of scarlet ribbon, whipped out behind.
In the curtain overhanging the ramshackle skyline along the waterfront, the moon poised like a manna wafer, its lower half obscured by the film of cloud layers. Water sloshed weakly against the barnacled piers, and along the shores could be heard the echoes of drunken singing.
The loudest racket came from Natty Dred's - the tin shack was bouncing, lights in its cutout windows quivering to the beat of a grainy steel drum recording.
As Rose thrust through the door, with James close at her side, a hush fell over the room (but of course).
James could just barely contain the grin that threatened to pervade. Always... She was always a show-stopper.
The room was littered with rogues and scoundrels, the floor with empty bottles. The place stunk of rum and rye, and scars and missing limbs seemed to be the order of the day. By the fireplace, a grizzled old man, with one eye and a wooden calf, sat at the hearth, warming his back to the flames as he regaled his audience with tales of his own bloodthirsty exploits, long since past and grown more elaborate with the passage of years. From time to time, a serving wench, with only a few ragged teeth left in her smile, but ample flesh spilling out of the top of her bodice to make up for the lack, passed between the tables, slopping ale from a pitcher and more often hitting the tables and floor than the mugs.
When the crowd had had its fill of leering at the Mistress, in her ruffians disguise, and the social buzz resumed, Rose curled a gloved palm over her shoulder, motioning for James to follow through the rows of plank tables, to a booth in the corner shadows.
Not needing her beckoning fingertips as he was already on her heels, James was ready for an onslaught at any given second. Electric gaze sought Rohaj for a momentary inspection before meeting the eyes of others that dared meet his own.
Kicking her heels up onto the tabletop, and grimacing a little at the sight of those boots, she leaned back, calling for a round of drinks with the flourish of one gloved hand, and a mesmerizing gaze directed at that bar wench. With a significant glance, and a nod, she gestured that James, for once, should stay at the booth. Let someone else serve her tonight - he would be needed at her side.
Rose fixed her attention on the charlatan Rohaj almost immediately, and for the hours that the pair - Mistress and faithful servant - reclined in their booth, downing shots of unrefined whiskey and whatever else came along, her emerald gaze rarely shifted from its inspection.
The drunkard privateer kept to the company of a few companions, Natty himself among them, at the bar on the opposite side of the room. Except for an occasional rumble of laughter (visible in the shaking of his jowls, if not actually heard), he wiled away the hours by hugging an amber bottle, and staring at the wall panels. Fascinating, Rose thought, as she observed him, how the man could be so foolish, confident enough to have allowed a few nights of reveling to waylay him. Never had he glanced to the door, even when Rose came in, and never did he exhibit signs of wariness.
Just once, she imagined that his glance was traveling her way. His eyes had come unglued from the wall, and he seemed to be blinking his vision clear, his pudgy nose wrinkling as he sniffed at something suspicious on the air.
Sliding her mug towards the wall, Rose reached across, to lay her palm over the back of James' hand, pressing it flat to the tabletop. Beneath her firm palm, she could feel James tensing as the abhorred gaze crossed closer to the pair. With a placid smile, barely a trace of emotion allowed to sculpt fine alabaster, she pursed her lips, and kissed the air… the kiss melted into a whisper, an eerie, sepulchral whisper that only the keenest of undead ears could have heard.
"Do not see me…"
And Rohaj didn't. Though his gaze whisked around, taking in the smoky and crowded detail of the room in one haphazard sweep, he saw neither Rose nor James… for, surely, if he had, he would not have taken the next careless sip of rum, and so quickly resumed his drunken zombie trance.
James blinked as Rohaj seemed to look past them and continued about his conversation. A slow, mystified glance to his Mistress and James seemed to relax once more... As relaxed as one can be in such a time and place...
She could have walked right into the low-life tavern, she supposed, walked in and snatched Rohaj out of his seat, then taken him into a back alley and killed him without even breaking a sweat, and without arousing a moment's notice from the bar crowd. But that would have been too easy. Tonight, she had plans to toy with her prey… her revenge would be as slow and satisfying as his betrayal had been careless.
~~~~~~
As the hours crawled by, and the night reached its summit then started into decline, the noise began to die, along with the embers at the hearth. But outside, past a grime-coated window, the moon could be seen to hang ripe in the sky, still young and full, still ready to illuminate a fight. A besotted mind would be easy prey…
Past midnight, the tavern began to clear - if not from patrons leaving, then from patrons passing out on the floors and tables… regardless, it made for more elbowroom.
"See me…"
And Rohaj did. This time, as his gaze traveled over the walls, it swiveled right past the pair in the booth, then caught, and doubled back. At first, he blinked several times, as though trying to bring her features into focus, and then the clarity of recognition set in, and he began to smile.
Yes, that's right - he smiled! He, with his lopsided, fissured teeth and mangy, scarred chops. Was it the alcohol? Or did the man simply not realize why she had come?
With a drunken pitch, Rohaj launched himself from the barstool, and staggered towards the back of the room, catching himself on chairs and tables all the way. Rose stood to meet him, rising in a fluid serpentine, and if she was a little disgruntled that the leather didn't squeak, not like her slick latex, it hardly changed the serenity of her smile.
"Rose… hah've ye been?" he slurred, leering towards her with not nearly as much grace. "Hah're ye enjoying those three girls? Found proper owners fer `em yet?"
"Well… I'm enjoying two of them just fine," she crooned, reaching out to lay a gloved hand across his forearm, a pretended offer of help to steady him in his wobbling. "But the third… well…"
Her grip tightened by slow, steady fractions of degrees, but still her smile was rife with lush indulgence.
"I imagine it will be difficult to find anyone who wants to buy a carcass… although such tastes are not unheard of, precisely."
It took a long moment for realization to sink in, but when it did, even Rohaj's sloppy bulk could have been knocked over with a feather. Memories tumbled past his eyes, pictures of those emaciated girls, starved for economy's sake, barely able to walk under their own power when he had last seen them at the dock. His complexion, ruddy from drunkenness, blanched to pristine white, illuminating the scar beneath his left eye.
He wanted to run - Rose could see it in the horror replacing presumption in his features - but she was not about to let this prize go, not when one body was needed to replace another.
Her eyes softened to yielding shades of forest and hunter, the shades of warm foliage and mesmerizing woodland that pulled down the walls of his inhibition and replaced them with false comfort and assurance.
"It's quite all right, Rohaj." And though her voice was barely lifted above a whisper, it rang like preternatural thunder in his ears, resonating and echoing, splitting into thousands of such ghastly velveteen tongues that buffeted his senses and forced him to believe.
"These things happen in the slave trade, you know… Please, won't you join us for a drink?"
With a gracious sweep of her forearm, she nodded towards the booth, and Rohaj, bewitched, had little choice but to follow. Some trifle of instinct remained - his hand clung jealously about the neck of a near-empty bottle as he settled his bulk into a chair - but with a subtle flourish of fingertips, Rose invited him to lean back, balancing on the chair's two hind legs… not because it presented any particular advantage… merely for the amusement of knowing she could.
The three of them made pleasant and polite conversation for some time, with Rose occasionally cautioning James to keep his temper in check, at least until the moment was right, and daintily pulling the strings for Rohaj, to keep him calm in kind (a task none too difficult, given the slow draining of that bottle).
At one point, Rose decided she needed a drink… something of a darker vintage than the domestic bog swill she had been suffering through all night… With a knowing smile, verging closer to insanity than benevolence, she swiveled towards James, tabasco curls tumbling over her shoulders and bladed lights flashing in her eyes.
On any other night, James would not be so apt to surrendering his wrist to her ravenous appetites, although on this night, with the hated man across the table, James downed his drink, to empty the mug, and almost defiantly thrust his arm before her, electric gaze narrowing coldly upon the stomach-turning form of the privateer before him.
With the quirk of a cultured brow, and little else to register her surprise at his eagerness, Rose paused, studying the mug as though it were a revocable prize, and studying him with no small amount of suspicion etched into the emerald of her eyes. The pause dissipated quickly, and her smile brightened the slightest bit… reversable or not, the offer of a limb pulsing with vitality was not one at which she would turn up her nose.
"Why, James... how very accommodating," came her tremolo purr, with a lilt fashioned both to tease her Favorite, and unnerve Rohaj at the same time. She traced idle circles in the mess of spilt liquor on the tabletop, but for just a moment, and then like a cobra striking at its prey, a gloved hand darted out, gripping around his wrist and drawing him harshly closer.
His expression wavered, but only for the most meager of moments as he was jerked slightly to the side. In some twisted sense, James felt as though he were rebelling against the hated man before him, the one who had once addressed him as "boy". His jaw locking in anticipation for the sensations to follow, he only stared, his eyes seeming to bore holes through the man's head.
Her own hands were gloved, and would remain so, for a reason... there was always a calculated reason for everything she did... with a coquettish tilt to her shoulder, she leaned forward, drawing James' wrist up before her mouth, her grip firm and unyielding, and peeled back the cuff of his glove with her free hand, tracing over the tender flesh of his inner wrist, adoringly, almost lovingly, with a single leathern fingertip.
An almost-smile graced his lips as he turned his head so as to look at the beloved Mistress, flashing her the hint of a grin, although careful not to meet her eyes. He lingered there a moment longer, drawing serenity from her mere *presence,* much less the more than invited caress before turning his attentions back to Rohaj.
But with the gloves in place, all that remained to her were the daggers of her smile, and as her lips curled back in maniacal glee, those tools came clearly into view - a pair of pearl-white fangs, delicate and pointed like razors... with a fawning flutter of her lashes for James, she milked the moment for all it was worth, fighting back her thirst to enjoy the simple thrill of the taste of his skin, her tongue sliding out to rake across the inside of his wrist, the silver barbell catching momentarily on the edge of his glove.
Again, he looked to her, although not without noting the thunderstruck expression on the privateer's face, and gave in to his own desire to passively eye her. James flexed his fingertips and placed his free hand casually atop the table, suddenly longing for a clove.
A kiss, so deceptively sweet, was brushed to the pad of his hand, pressed through leather, a subtle prelude to what was to come... the moment between gentle silence and carnage was brief as the flickering of a candle's flame, and with one last wink, she reared slightly back, driving her fangs through skin and into the pulsating crimson lure of his veins.
James screwed up his face momentarily as the sharp sting shimmied up his arm. He did not look to Rohaj and unconsciously curled his fingertips into a tight fist, which only caused the precious fluid to pump faster through his veins. Swallowing hard, James gripped the tabletop with his free hand and concentrated on the dirty table, so as to remain perfectly in tune with their surroundings instead of fading out into the quickly hovering dizziness which so rudely threatened.
A hint of a taste at the tip of her tongue, just to whet her appetite, and she quickly poised his hand and wrist, to hover over the mouth of the mug... not quickly enough, apparently, as a few droplets of the precious ichor splattered onto the scarred tabletop along the journey, but soon her Favorite's essence was flowing freely, splashing into the cup as though it were the finest of wines...
...and she, with a smile serene and lips pursed in thought, settled back to wait, with one eye on the increasing level of scarlet filling the mug, and a periphery glance to delight in the nausea overtaking Rohaj's features.
Having had enough of his careful study of the tabletop, James chanced a glance up to Rohaj, only to grin darkly at the sickly expression upon his grimy and scarred face A rather insulting comment rose to James' lips, although the sudden wave of dizziness and the spinning room, quickly halted his doing so, as well as removed the grin.
Rivers of crimson poured themselves into the mug, a veritable waterfall cascade of life spent... but let them say what they would about her, she was not *entirely* insensitive to the needs of her slaves, particularly this one... and as the trademark grin faded from his features, and she sensed the light-headed sway that pulled him away from her, she slid forward, dipping her chin and turning his wrist skyward, to close her lips over the gusher of the gaping wound.
A soft clearing of his throat as her lips enveloped the stinging wound and James was instinctively pulling away from her strong grip. 'Eck… This is always the *fun* part of such shenanigans,' he thought, as his temple begin to throb, eyes squeezing tightly shut, trying to keep himself conscious::
She wasn't ready to let him go, not just yet... Rohaj was growing more unnerved by the moment, and she took too great a pleasure in lapping at the wound, teasing herself with just a taste, an appetizer if you will, and closing the clean line of the gash with her own attentions... and with every stroke of fleshy pink, the raw edges began to knit themselves, until a scar was formed, a scar that faded from anger to inflammation, and finally to little more than the phantom of irritation.
His eyes weakly flickered life, as he continued to watch the room encircle his person. Still gripping the tabletop, James leaned back heavily against his chair and struggled to focus on a bottle setting undisturbed upon the bar. Swallowing hard, his eyes narrowed in pensive concentration, hoping *Rohaj* was nice and disturbed, and his Mistress deliciously satisfied The former as well as the latter thoughts brought the ghost of a smile to his lips.
At last, she released him, but not without another soothing kiss to his palm, as his hand trailed away... there was a third kiss, too, this one blown to the air, a seemingly facetious gesture, but one designed to show James just how grateful she was that he had not struggled this time, had not given her cause to disturb the terror that they, as partners for once, were instilling in their unwary victim.
James would heal, of course - but more importantly, and exactly to her design, Rohaj was unnerved… even through the bewilderment of her spell, his jaw slackened, and his skin began to take on a distinctly greenish hue.
~~~~~~
The hour had grown late…Almost no one was left in the tavern… Natty had abandoned the common room for a bed in the smaller shack behind this large one… The old man at the hearth had long since passed out, apparently exhausted by the pageantry of his tales… Even the squalid bar wench had disappeared, most likely for some back alley whoring.
A clock in the corner struck two, and this time, there was no din of chatter to keep its meager bells from chiming out. Who could say why Rose had chosen this precise moment? But there it was… the tolling was her cue, and with a taste of mocking in her smile, she pushed the mug aside, flattening her forearms over the tabletop and crawling forward.
Like a sinuous serpent, she crept, keeping her bosom pressed flat to the wood until she had mounted, then drawing one leg after the other before her, and maneuvering the boots with deadly precision as she rose, writhing, to tower over Rohaj and James.
She stepped gingerly towards the edge of the table, through the tiny pools of James' blood and spills of alcohol, one hand on her zipper pull, hips swaying like a clockwork pendulum.
Rohaj watched in awe, hardly believing what he was seeing… but hardly protesting, either.
A steel and slate industrial beat began to thump in the background - where it had come from was anybody's guess, but it seemed to grow louder and more powerful, as she took another step, and then another, and with each step, the zipper came down another inch.
"Want me to come a little closer?" she purred, the mysterious hunger in her eyes shaded by a fringe of heavy lashes.
"W' yes, do believe 'd like that." He snarled and simpered, eyes darting this way and that and apparently about to pop out, as he tilted the chair upright, slamming its legs to the floorboards.
She had known he would... but toying with this piece of animal flesh was proving to be so amusing… step, zip, sway... step, zip, sway... lower and lower went the zipper, and she drew nearer and nearer, until, by the time she stood directly in front of him, the vest hung open over her sleek belly, and the curved shadows between her breasts were clearly visible, as the leather clung to them, molding itself around buoyant swells and rock-hard gems.
The privateer was incredulous… could hardly believe his luck, in fact… somewhere, in the back of his mind, lurked suspicion, a modicum of wonder at why she had not killed him on sight… but frankly, not enough pistons were firing in there to make a difference, and he just sat there, inanimate, gaping fish-mouthed, not uttering a word, but wheezing through alcohol-soaked whiskers.
"Well... you know... if I'm boring you..." With a coquettish shrug, she took a step back, and the zipper came back up a few inches.
"No no no," he sputtered, nearly dropping his bottle. "I was just… er… thinking…" One side of his mouth tilted up in a roguish grin that bordered on the comic, so adamant was it.
"Well I don't mind dancing for you Rohaj," came her low, teasing whisper, clipped at the end by a wink. "... so long as I get at least the occasional wolf-whistle."
Following her cues as though he were being led by a ring through his nose, Rohaj leaned back, pursing meaty lips and howling to an imaginary moon. A few heads turned, but not for long, and some of the unconscious bodies littering the floor and tables stirred.
"Much better...," she commended, the words like velvet trimmed with strychnine lace. With a wink and a kiss blown to midair, she tugged the zipper back down, leaving the vest to hang open as she continued on, to the top of the crude leather pants. Another zipper sound ripped through the air, revealing a hint of sable hair just at the bottom of a triangle of ivory flesh... hips rolling in time to the beat, she began to circle... as though she were working a hula hoop... but very, very slowly…
She stopped when her back was to him, but her hips kept going... and going... and going... and she wove her hands up above her head, like two jet serpents, torchlight glancing off the surface of her leather gloves. Tossing her curls back, she glanced over her shoulder, her eyes heavy-lidded, lips puckered up in a playful pout, arms still stretched high above her head...
Plucking at the cuff of one glove, she began to peel it off, tugging it up inch-by-inch over her forearm, and sliding it over her fingers, then tossing it backwards, right into the privateer's lap.
Rohaj watched, intent, oblivious to the fact that his tongue was hanging nearly to the tabletop.
Rose's hips gyrated in time to the roll of her shoulders, and her eyes never left him, and that lolling tongue, as she peeled the second glove off, and tossed it his way. Gee... hmm... what else was there to take off?.. oh, yes.. the shoes…
Absentmindedly, the smuggler gathered the gloves from his lap, turning them over the back of his hand and playing with the cool, wilted fingers as he gawked.
Still watching from over her shoulder, she bent one knee, unzipping a boot and kicking it off, then following suit with the other… as her arms lowered slowly, and although Rohaj couldn't see it, it was pretty clear from the bend in her elbows that she was sliding her hands down over her own bosom.
Suddenly tossing her head back, and rolling the riot of flame red curls between her shoulder blades, she began to peel the vest away, baring first one shoulder, then the other. With feet planted at shoulder's width apart, she shifted the circular motion of her hips, and rolled them from front to back instead, a ripple rising all the way up her spine, then back down again, and carrying the vest with it, leaving her bare from the waist up... but of course, all he could see was her back.
Rohaj shifted his head from left to right, resembling nothing so much as a carnival clown, as though the comic performance would somehow enable him to see more.
Again whipping those curls around, she peered over the other shoulder, and this time, her expression was far less playful, and far more hungry... with one arm curled over her writhing belly, she reached across with the other, crooking a fingertip at him, and luring him in with her dark promise...
"Come here…" she whispered... not a request, but a demand.
~~~Rohaj~~~
Consciousness returned to him with all the subtlety of Thor's hammer, exploding outwards from the center of his brain and peeling back his eyelids with hurricane force. Every spiderweb vein of red crisscrossing in trails over the whites of his eyes was felt as a burning reminder of the night before, permanently branded on his senses… muddled though he may have been then, he recalled every moment of his catalepsy, and so when he felt the cold of iron bars beneath his hands, it came as no surprise… a defeat, but certainly no surprise…
His vision was a little more furtive in coming back, perhaps due to the relentless gloom… a candle lit here and there was all the light afforded, but it was enough, eventually, to illumine some of the details of a cavern outline… the rest he dredged from memory, of stories he'd heard, to piece together a picture of the dreary underground dungeon.
Almost casually, he reached to one of his shirt cuffs, feeling his way past the rotted lace to a wide band of leather… not unexpected, not in the least… nor was the strap of the same buffed latigo that encircled his throat. But it hardly worried him… annoyed him, more like…
His crew would come soon, he had no doubt. Every one of those men had had dealings with the Mörkai in the past… they knew where to find Rose and the Mörkai estate… assuming that this cellar was in the estate… but of course - where else would it be?… it was just a matter of time now, and with that complacency set in his mind, he leaned back against the bars of his new, cramped home, and set about lulling himself to sleep once more…
((Note: This post thread, in its entirety, is the collaborative work of myself and the mun of James Tarrant.))
