I could spend my life in this sweet surrender
I could stay lost in this moment forever
Every moment spent with you is a moment I treasure
- Aerosmith - "I don't wanna miss a thing"
~I wish I was a *little* bit taller.~
Casually smiling, Duo made his way through the noisy crowd. Apparently, some noble or
other was parading through town and causing a stir. Somehow, this `noble' had to be a
fake. He couldn't for the life of him imagine anyone with money and a good lick of common
sense stopping in THIS town.
There was only the one run down shack of an inn. The food there was bad and the owner tended to water down the wine. He kept doxies in the upstairs rooms and honestly Duo thought that was where most of his custom came from. Not exactly the type of place where a lord or lady would decide to spend the night.
He bit into a yellow apple, sucking on his fingers to catch the cool, tart juice that ran down his chin. Weaving his way forward, he moved toward the center of the confusion. If there was a foolish noble around, Duo would be there to lighten their pockets.... Along with every other pickpocket in town. He moved faster.
The closer he got to the Rolly Polly Pony Inn*, the harder it was to force his way forward. After a lot of irritated shoving and squirming, Duo made it near the front. Light, above! Someone up ahead was screaming as if they were being murdered, but no one was moving. They all stood like frozen statues, murmuring to each other.
Growling under his breath, Duo shoved at an opening in the crowd and burst through amist a lot of angry complaints. Straightening his clothes, and making sure his waist length braid was still attached to his scalp, he took one look gasped in pure astonishment.
A guard dressed in a fine uniform and sweeping cloak was standing in front of a naked, trembling man strapped to a strange wooden X. Long platinum blonde hair swept down past the man's shoulders, clinging to the trails of sweat running down his, firm, toned body. The powerful muscles in his arms and his thighs flexed and bulged with his frantic struggles, his face red with the exertion. A band of leather was wedged between his teeth, effectively muffling his screams and holding his head back so that he could only stare up at the sky.
The guard lifted a thick leather strap over his head and ruthlessly brought it down across the helpless man's thigh. It was then that Duo looked down and saw his plump, straining erection. The man was pumping his hips, desperate for release, groaning continuously. Even as the guard brought the strap down across his reddened nipples in quick, painful little strokes, he was rocking his hips, pleading desperately. The guard suddenly laughed and reached forward to smack at his throbbing, red penis. The man screamed pathetically as his shaft was roughly slapped back and forth between the guard's hard hands.
Breath coming quickly, Duo edged his way past, trying to ignore that pitiful sight. Gods! The rumors were true! There was an actual noble in the town! And that man on the X must be a runaway pleasure slave! A shiver of dread and anticipation ran down Duo's spine. The pickings would be rich, but the price was so, so high! It would be the loss of his right hand for sure if he was caught. He tossed his mostly uneaten apple aside and took a deep, steadying breath.
Still, if he was lucky he could steal enough to get Uncle Garret to forget him for a while. The man had been starting to look at him lately in a very unpleasant manner. Duo never forgot that it was his uncle who supplied a few of the whores to the rooms upstairs at the inn and a few of them were not willing employees. He shivered again and this time it was fear that chilled his guts. He supposed that he was attractive enough to have his own little room up there somewhere. If he decided to run he'd have to run fast and far because he knew that Garret would never let him go so easily as him picking up and leaving. The only defense he had was to find ways to prove he had more use than being on his back.
With that in mind, he slipped into the inn. It was a virtual forest of guardsmen inside! And the nobles! There were several all around, laughing quietly and talking to one another. Passing through the crowd, he headed toward the other end of the room, trying to look innocent and small. He was twenty two years old and didn't look a day over sixteen. An annoyance when trying to get a guy to treat you seriously when you traded the valuables you stole for gold, but useful when you were actually in the act of stealing. People tended to look at him and smile, totally missing the fact that he was lifting their wallet or their expensive handkerchief or jewels.
As he was doing now, carefully taking a ring here, or a purse there. He even managed to steal the knife right off a guard's belt. Fine metal. It would fetch a very high price. With this piece alone he would appease his uncle. As he reached the end of the room and casually made his way back, Duo realized something unsettling. Everyone once in a while, a lord or a lady in their fine clothes would stop and take a second look at him, running their eyes over his body in appreciation and... lust?
Something caught his eye that made Duo almost cry out in alarm. In the center of the crowd, there were more naked people kneeling on all fours on the inn floor. Their heads were obediantly bent, eyes meekly cast to the floor. Women knelt with their legs spread wide exposing the deep velvet wells of their womanhood, glistening moistly in the lamplight. Strong, muscled men and willowy, delicate men alike were presenting in the same fashion, exposing the tight dry entrance nestled between the cheeks of their rounded bottoms.
Occasionally a lord or lady in their rich crushed velvets or smooth silks would bent and pat a slaves head with their bejeweled fingers glittering in the light. The slaves would nuzzle contentedly into their absentminded caresses, moaning in hedonistic pleasure.
Oh hell...
Duo moved a bit more quickly, trying to make it back to the doors. He was trembling so hard that he thought he would fall to his knees in front of all of them. The looks on the nobles faces were now mocking and a few burst into cheerful laughter.
Making the door, Duo breathed a sigh of relief trying to move as naturally and unsuspiciously as possible. Before he could take a step over the threshold, a small group of people crowded the doorway and forced their way inside, almost knocking him over. He was unable to stop or turn aside as they made their way to the center of the room right in the middle of the group of laughing nobility. Panicking, he tried to force his way back, beating and jabbing at arms and legs that refused to let him pass. A man in the front of the group roughly pushed him out of the way.
Biting back a loud cry of shock and surprise, Duo sprawled out in the middle of the floor. A little dazed, he lay there for a while, shaking his head. A strong hand gripped his shoulder and gave him a quick shake. Opening his eyes painfully, Duo was confronted by a pair of shockingly intense cobalt blue eyes. Freezing like a rabbit faced with a rattle snake, Duo's stared silently, unable to move or speak. Every warning siren in his head went off at once as he looked into this man's beautiful, perfect face. This man, he figured after quickly looking him over, could snap him like a dry twig. His hand on Duo's shoulder was hard and held the lanky thief firmly in place.
Duo almost moaned when the man's strong fingers flexed and tightened. None of his past lovers had been so strong and so perfectly handsome. The man wasn't tall. In fact, Duo was pretty sure that he topped the young lord by an inch or two. He wondered briefly what it would be like to be pressed along the length of his body, to have the strength in that powerful body gentled to lovingly stroke and caress him.
Then another, more impotant thought hit him. ~If they search me, I am sooo dead!~ He whimpered to himself.
All the while Duo lay there, mind a million miles away, the lord was looking him over, no expression on his face or in his eyes. His mouth opened to say something but his intese gaze was dragged away from Duo's sprawled form to the group.
A young woman stepped out from the middle of the protective circle of men and a few of the nobles made appreciative noises about her looks. Duo wasn't paying much attention to what they were saying above his head, too worried about trying to find a way out of the situation he was in. The woman spoke for a long time, her voice low and melodic.
A slightly bored look crossed the young lord's face and he shifted his grip from Duo's arm to his sleeve. *Still* not letting go! The theif began to panic. ~Well, shit!~ he growled under his breath. ~Get off me already!~
Abruptly, the man waved his hand, cutting the woman off mid speech. "I accept." he nodded to one of the guards, "Strip her." Duo and the woman both breathed identical gasps of horror.
The woman squealed as a guard strode up to her and removed her dark cloak. She panicked and began to fight as he grabbed two handfuls of her pastel pink dress and ripped it off her shoulders, exposing her silken shift. Her guards tood silently, shifting on their feet with uncomfortable looks on their faces.
Duo stared at the woman's tearstreaked face and mussed hair as her clothes were torn from her body and he looked back at the lord holding him. The man was watching with that same bored expression, eyes lingering over her exposed flesh.
Tearing himself free, leaving a scrap of cloth in the young lord's hand, Duo jumped up and dove at the guard as he shoved the naked and sobbing woman to her knees. The guard gave a surprised shout as Duo swiped at him with his stolen blade. Grabbing the woman by the arm he ignored her continued shrieks and shoved her at her guards.
It seemed as if every guardsman in the room jumped on top of him all at once, fists and booted feet pounding him into the floor. Distantly, under the ringing in his ears and the haze fogging his mind, Duo could hear the woman and the young lord screaming for the guards to leave him alone. Curling up into a ball to protect his head and his body, Duo tried to roll away. A boot slammed into the side of his head and Duo went down into the darkness of unconciousness.
* * *