A Way With Words - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The trouble for Hannah, as she realized some time after her quick departure from the alley, was thinking of a way in which someone like her could spend a golden eagle on food and actually get change back on her purchase instead of suspicious stares and a report to the guards. Ten silver ducats to an eagle, ten copper pennies to a ducat, and eight bits to a penny, and most food vendors sold their wares for two or three bits. An upscale restaurant of the sort favored by the truly wealthy might not think it too odd to make change for an eagle, but there was no way she'd be allowed in one, not with her ragged clothes and missing hand.

It was just like her meeting with Kale itself: an ideal circumstance turned bitter by complications. It was inevitable that her luck would run out someday, and when it did Hannah had only hoped that the person who caught her would be merciful enough to grant her a reprieve: a kindly priest, perhaps, who would invite her to the temple for a hot meal and an earnest lecture on morality that she could ignore. Perhaps a stern merchant, who would cuff her about the ears and force her to clean his shop top to bottom as penance, but would let her then stay for supper before casting her back out. Or, if she were allowed to dream, maybe a renowned master thief who would recognize her potential and recruit her as an apprentice for a new life as a dashing burglar.

Instead it was this wizard, Kale, who had not only shown her mercy but defied the guards to do so, and left her with a handful of gold coins when they parted, more than she expected to steal all week. But he was no pious, generous victim turned benefactor; he was a sarcastic and disagreeable fellow, unable to speak more than two sentences without one of them being some sort of smart-assed mockery. He even spoke of buying nice clothes, and meeting for a date this evening! So of course she had kissed him. She was, she knew then, too full of stupid hope to survive on the streets for much longer.

Hannah spent the next half-hour or so sitting on a bench and thinking. She was thinking about the hunger gnawing her stomach, thinking about Kale, and his money that defied her to spend it. Then she was thinking about how best to proceed next when a tall man approached. His features, stubbly and craggy, were mostly obscured by a hooded black cloak that Hannah suspected contained a hint of obfuscating magic, but his hands were rough, his skin a grayish tan. "Good woman, I think you dropped this," the man said in a deep, rumbling voice, and he unhooked his money pouch from his belt and flipped it into her lap. Before she thought about it, Hannah reflexively took hold of it, then looked up at the man. The pouch had some weight to it.

"I-I don't understand," Hannah said, her brow furrowing in befuddlement. "Is this some joke, or some holy day where people give far too much money to beggars? What's the trick?"

"Hmm," the tall, gray man said with amusement. "I suppose it could be such a holy day, if that's our story. Come talk to me in the storage room behind that shop." He pointed to a furniture store, the windows dusty from disuse, a yellowed sign hanging on the door reading 'Closed For Repairs' in faded ink.

"I-I don't think that would be wise," Hannah said. The familiar tension, driven away in the reverie following her meeting with the strange wizard, was back in her at once. The Overhands, an illegal slave-trading group, were known to be taking prisoners on the streets in recent months, gathering slaves from the poor and wretched who would not be missed. She had always assumed that her missing hand made her totally undesirable as a slave, but with the real very threat upon her now, she found herself reluctant to test that assumption. She was again a coiled spring, ready to fight or run for her life. As she always was.

"You will speak to me in the storage room behind that shop," the tall man said, "or he will be very interested in why you are now holding my money pouch." He pointed to an Oromikalis Guard across the street, browsing a stand of leather goods. "I believe you've already had one encounter with the guards already, correct?"

"How do you know?" Hannah asked. "Wh-what else do you know?" She thought back to her meeting with Kale just moments ago, and tried in vain to put together a clear picture of what was happening here.

"You won't be able to run," the tall man said. "I have associates down the street in both directions, waiting to intercept you and make a citizen's arrest."

Hannah swallowed. "B-behind the shop?" she asked. "You won't hurt me?" It was the question of a naive child, or that of a cornered beggar who had no other good options remaining.

"On the contrary," the tall man said. "I will solve all of your problems in this life. You need only help me solve one of mine, with very little effort required." Despite the hood, she saw his dull, thick, purplish lips twist in a smirk. "I'll bet you clean up rather nicely."

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Back at his room at the Honored Place of Rest Inn and Suites, Kale sat in the leather armchair in the bedroom, wearing an old, worn union suit of red wool, and went through his belongings one more time, to make sure he was packed and ready to leave at dawn tomorrow to go back to work. Whether he would find his next assignment in the laboratory or in the field, either was well and good. Work was simple, predictable, straightforward, and rewarding. It was these fucking days of leave that were stressful and nerve-wracking.

Actually, Kale was forced to admit, it hadn't been that bad. If he couldn't handle a throng of annoying merchants and a clumsy thief who couldn't even make it a full city block with his money, he had no business in Oromikalis or any other major city in the first place. That was a part of life. It was his meeting with Hannah that troubled him, and the idle time that he had to keep company with his own mind.

Hannah's smile, her prickly intelligence, and the odd conflicting mixture of resignation and boundless hope in her bearing had crawled into Kale's consciousness and taken root. He still remembered the feeling of her lips on his, the strangely alluring smell of her unwashed hair, and the warmth of her scrawny body pressed in close to his as he lied to the guards. He had given her five golden eagles, likely more money than she had seen in one place in her life, but not enough to change her life in the long-term. Yet he found himself hoping that she would somehow find a better place in life, even as his cynical mind knew that her finish was in starving after the other hand was lopped off for stealing, or in cutting her own throat with the hook before that could happen, as she had been ready to do today.

It wasn't bad enough that Kale cared about what happened to her in the future, however. He also found himself wistful that he wouldn't see her again. Of course he wasn't pining for the company of a beggar and thief he had only met once; surely not! Nonetheless, he felt as though something was unfinished. There was at least one more exchange of words between them that should have taken place, and didn't. Kale couldn't guess what those words might be, and that gnawed at him too. There were few enough people, anywhere, who exchanged words with more puissance than he did. Had their meeting been allowed to continue, he supposed, he might have said one more thing to him, perhaps. Then he would have found the reply, and then, once everything had been said, he might know peace. Or perhaps not. His desires made little sense when he thought them through like that, which was all the more reason why he wished he could stop thinking about her altogether.

There was a knock at his door. Kale sighed and stood from the chair and answered the door, dozens of acidic replies ready at his lips for whatever he might encounter on the other side. "How odd," he said wearily as he opened the door, before even seeing who it was, "I don't recall ordering a..."

It was Hannah.

Hannah's dark brown hair was washed and brushed, and though it remained straight, it now had a bit more bounce and body than the oily, flattened tangle she'd had earlier. Moreover, she wore a low-cut high-waisted dress, the top black on one side and pink on the other and filled more admirably at the bust than she'd earlier seemed capable, with a knee-length skirt with an abstract black and white pattern resembling wheels or flowers. It wasn't precisely the apex of modern fashion, but she looked nice. Very nice indeed. The barb to Kale's one-liner never came, and the sentence caught in his throat.

Hannah stepped in, attempting a sultry smile, but there was more than a little nervous giddiness behind it that made the demeanor ten times more appealing than if she'd actually played the vamp successfully. "I'm here for our date, Kale," she said, "with nice new clothes, as you so generously offered." Her smile was sexy, but also hopeful and tense.

"So that's actually something that we're doing?" Kale stammered. It wasn't the quick, snappy reply he had wanted. He was caught completely off-guard by her presence.

Hannah giggled. "I don't understand," she said with mocking false innocence. "You tell me to dress up nicely, and you're wearing that ratty old thing?" She gestured to the union suit which, in fairness, Kale could admit looked ridiculous on him even though it was uncommonly warm and comfortable.

Nevertheless, Kale caught the opportunity to draw this back into a contest of banter, and fled to it eagerly. "Well, perhaps if it troubles you so much, I should take it off," he said with a lecherous grin. That comment, no doubt, would disarm her into giggling indignation and earn him a swat on the arm.

"Yes," Hannah said, drinking him in with eager eyes, "and the sooner, the better."

Bluff called. But this was the kind of naked intimacy that Kale could manage. He unbuttoned the first several buttons and shrugged a shoulder free from the suit, then stepped forward, took Hannah in his arms, and kissed her again. She kissed him back, her hand going to his shoulder, stroking his bare skin, as their lips entwined. Despite her fancy dress, she still wore no perfume, and only the natural scent of her hair and a lingering scent of simple soap filled his senses as they kissed. Somehow their lips parted enough for her to mumble "hook release" and let her hook fall to the floor, and then they were right back to it.

Hannah's handless arm circled around his neck and head, holding him in the kiss, and her hand reached down to work at the other buttons of the suit, trailed by her mouth as it left his to trace featherlike kisses down his chin, his neck, and then his tongue. As she left his chest and stomach bare, Kale felt a certain degree of pride in his physique. Though he was no barrel-chested warrior, the benefits of his exercise showed in the lean muscle of his rippling, firm abdomen and taut chest, which seemed uncommon features among his wizard colleagues, even in a group with military trappings such as the Adelcot Guardians.

Hannah kissed down the ridges of his abdomen and pulled the suit down from where it had caught on his now-erect cock, sending it to the floor at his feet. Through the use of alchemical balm, Kale kept himself hairless as an elf below the neck, more from a personal sense of fastidiousness than anything else, and it brought a surprised smile to Hannah's face even as she sank to her knees in front of him and took his erection in her hand.

"Oh, I'm not sure it's necessary to-" Kale nearly stammered, sounding more like a babbling virgin than he could ever recall in his life. At a loss for dignified words, he forced himself to shut up and watched in dumbstruck wonder as Hannah gave first the head, then the shaft of his penis a few playful, experimental licks. Her brown eyes locked with his, smiling, as her lips pursed on the tip of his cock and gently sucked him in.

Kale's face grew hot. He had nothing to say, no retort or reply apart from drowning in the smiling, affectionate stare of Hannah's dark brown eyes, staring down at her like a slack-jawed idiot while she sucked his cock. Her soft tongue slid and quivered along the underside of his cock, filling him with a deep, rising, trembling pleasure throughout the core of his shaft. Her head bobbed and her tongue caressed him as she sucked gently and lovingly, drinking in his lust-struck expression with her beautiful stare.

Entirely too soon, Kale felt the feelings cresting and pulled back. "Excuse me for a moment-" he started, but Hannah followed him by lunging forward, and a light rolling vibration traveled her tongue as her sucking and stroking took on just a bit more intensity. Her eyes, still affectionate, now also held a glint of hunger and deliberation. She knew what she was doing, and was quite determined to take him over the edge.

Lost in her dark brown eyes, Kale obliged her, twitching and exploding in her mouth as a maelstrom of pleasure swirled over his consciousness. It had been a long time, entirely too long, since he'd had any sort of release, and he had never had quite this kind of slow, attentive blowjob from a woman who, against his nature, had so utterly captivated his attention. All the response he could muster was a soft groan as he stroked her hair softly and poured his climax over her tongue in blissful spurts.

All too soon, that perfect moment had to end, and Kale found himself dazedly staring into Hannah's eyes as she drew away from him, then rose. She made a cute face of disgust, then visibly swallowed. "As bitter as your namesake," she said, and then offered an adorably sheepish smile.

Kale chuckled. "Why'd you just swallow it, then?" he asked. Finding himself alarmed at his own rising feelings of affection, he stroked her cheek as she stood up. It was warm to the touch.

"It was yours," Hannah said, blushing. "I wanted it inside me."

"I have no reason to believe that you taste any better," Kale said with mock indignation. "At least, not yet. But rest assured that I plan on investigating the matter personally, quite extensively." He guided her, squirming and laughing, to his bed, and started to pull her skirt up around her waist when she stopped him.

"Wait, what about our date?" Hannah asked, laughing as she brushed him off.

"Of course," Kale said. "Forgive me for being rude. I know an excellent colahouse where it would be my pleasure to treat you."

"A colahouse?" Hannah's scandalized expression delighted him. "The only people who take their dates to colahouses are shameless rakes who just want to get a girl excited and lure her into bed."

Kale just smiled at her.

"Really?" Hannah said, smiling as she arched an eyebrow. "Is that all you can think about?"

"You ask, after sucking me off within seconds of walking in the door," Kale said.

"It's not my fault you only lasted seconds," Hannah said, grinning.

"Yes it is," Kale told her.

Hannah sighed. "Did I make a mistake, then?" she asked with a weak smile. "You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"

"I don't see why you should get to forget it," Kale said. "I never will."

"You're ridiculous," Hannah said with a soft, nervous laugh. "And are you going to the colahouse dressed like that?" She gestured to his nude body.

"Good point," Kale said with a shrug and a smirk. "This may be my best outfit, but it gets rather cold in those places."

But Hannah watched him as he took his nice clothes out of his luggage again and dressed in front of her in a tailored white cotton shirt and dark gray woolen slacks and vest with a subtle wavy pattern. He felt more exposed with her watching him dress than he had standing naked in front of her, keenly aware of every time his foot would catch in the fabric of his trousers or his collar needed straightening. He was at a loss for words by the time he rose from buckling his shoes under her watchful smile, so he just cleared his throat and blurted out, "You ready to go?"

Hannah chuckled. "We're in your room, and you're the one who needed to get dressed," she pointed out.

He still couldn't find the words to respond to her. His face hot, Kale offered her an arm where she had a hand to take it, and they left the room together in silence.

Continued in Chapter 3...

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