The Citadel Ch. 03: The Streets

Chapter 3 - Walking The Streets

© 2018 by Pitch Black

Edited by Dannysuling

The murky light made them look like grey shadows, scurrying between the blurred silhouettes of the dark houses. For a moment she felt like a floating ghost on its way back to its rest in some dark and icy grave, but her muscles, still aching from last night's torment and the numerous bruises on her skin, told her that she was far from becoming an ethereal creature. Annie, she thought acrimoniously, I am Annie from Hearthome, a living person and an honest respectable townswoman. She felt not like a nothing or a nobody and certainly not a lewd person Scarface and his filthy buddies had accused her wrongfully.

Moping around and cheapening herself wouldn't help her at all, even though the situation looked hopeless at first blush. She had received some hammerings in her life so far, yet survived somehow....

... Like so many young women she had had to leave the farmhouse she had grown up in, because there were too many hungry mouths to feed. One day, shortly after her twentieth birthday, she had set off alone and wandered through the countryside until she came to this city. Not the best choice—Hearthome was only an insignificant town somewhere at the borders of the empire and not as grand as the capital, another five-week journey to the west. But she thought that this city was big enough for her ambitions and that she should take the chance to find a way to make a good living instead of travelling further on.

Hailing from a poor farmstead, she hadn't brought much money with her, only a few copper coins. Most of them had been taken off her hands immediately by a crooked landlord, who had rented her a small chamber in the attic for her to stay. The room was nothing more than a decrepit wooden shack with a ramshackle excuse of a bed in it. She was sure that he watched her through a hidden peep-hole in the evening when she had to undress and put her nightgown on, because every time he spied on her he caught her the next morning at the foot of the stairs with a cheesy grin, addressing her with suggestive compliments about the size of her buxom breasts, ample buttocks and how sweet they were to behold uncovered.

When the last of her coins had vanished into his greasy hands she tried to hold out the next payment to him as long as possible. She could watch him becoming daily more impatient, questioning her hasty excuses. For a week she was able to fob him off successfully, but then one evening he invaded her bedchamber unannounced and vociferously demanded his rent.

"Hey, Annie! I want my money! No more of your lame excuses. I don't want to hear them anymore! Pay now!" he shouted peevishly at her, standing straddle-legged in the middle of the room.

Taken by surprise by his violent intrusion into her bedchamber, she watched him cautiously. Even though he showed signs of age he was still a beefy man. Wrought-up as he was, she didn't want to add fuel to the fire and enrage him even more. Although she was far from being a frail woman, she didn't know if she could fend him off without bruises if he decided to get rough.

She had already taken her gown off and was dressed only her nighty, in preparation for sleep. The gauzy material didn't contribute much to veiling her feminine charms. Wearing only this flimsy outfit she felt especially vulnerable and exposed, but on the other hand maybe she could take advantage of this provoking situation. When she watched his eyes bulging at the barely covered sight of her ample breasts and the teasingly cute triangle of her love nest framed by sweeping thighs, she decided to play on his blatant zestfulness. Maybe she could carve out more time for herself without compromising too much and still get rid of him now. Deliberately she threw herself into an even more provoking pose.

Caressing the inside of her upper legs in a sultry manner, she drew her palms gently towards her pussy and breathed with a most innocent flutter of her eyelashes, "Ohhhh.... Good sir, I assure you, you will get your money. Tomorrow for sure. Tomorrow I will bring it to you. Promise!"

Pretending to look bashfully at the ground, she watched covertly how his resolve was shell-shocked visibly by her sensible demeanour.

"No, no.... I want my money now!" he panted out, thick beads of sweat showing up on his forehead.

"But I don't have it." she whispered shyly, pretending that she had to brush away a tear that had welled in her eyes.

"Then you will have to leave. Pack up your belongings and out with you! At once!" he barked at her, although his voice was already quite wavering.

"Oh, milord, you want to throw me out in the middle of the night?" she cried out, then added with feigned desperation, "I am all alone and don't know where to go." Turning half away from him, she covered her face with both hands as if trying to stifle a heart-rending sob.

"Now, now, don't cry," he muttered somewhat embarrassed, torn between the conflicting feelings of anger and his mounting lust. He cautiously drew closer and put his arms comfortingly around her. Feeling quite a bit cooped up inside his bearlike hug, she decided hesitantly to continue on with the game. Maybe a bit of caressing and hugging was all she needed to play for time. Snuggling against his chest, she pretended that she was able to stifle her sobs.

Licking his lips, the landlord stammered, "I didn't want to be that harsh." Sensing that her fish had become hooked, Annie sighed and dropped her head submissively, coincidentally increasing the pressure of her buttock against his hip. The provocative touch close above his privates raised his arousal even more and helped him swiftly to find the right words for his rising desire. "There's something you can do for me."

"Ohh.... That's fabulous, good sir," she purred into his ears, deciding that the groping had to come to an end. "I am so curious. Shouldn't we get more comfortable?"

Without waiting for an answer, she turned around and shoved him gently backward until he hit the bed and plonked himself down onto the mattress. One small step and she ensconced herself beside him at the edge of the bed, stroking lavishly his hard-breathing chest. The cheeks of his face had gone from red to crimson purple now, and his toad-like pop-eyes bulged out of their sockets.

"Well..." he struggled for the next words, pointing with a feeble gesture towards his crotch, "Little Willy has been all alone for such a long time. I am wondering if you can give him a little attention and turn him up."

"Little Willy? Really? Where have you tucked the little rascal away?" she asked him playfully, covering her rising discomfort. If "Little Willy" was the thing she suspected it to be, the whole situation was slowly getting out of hand. She shifted uncomfortably around, but since she couldn't discern a way to save her butt unmolested she continued on wearily.

Slowly her hands went to his waistband. She needed some time to fumble the belt buckle open. All the while he was puffing and panting like an old warhorse and didn't lift a finger to help her in any way. When the cords holding his fly together had been unlaced she pulled his trousers hesitantly almost down to his knees. The ensuing sight made her yelp with surprise. Yet she was able to stifle her gasp just in time and bent down over his private parts. Little Willy was indeed as big as his nickname suggested, and nowhere to be found in the dense undergrowth of his short-and-curlies.

"Please, please, can you give him a little rubbing? I am sure he likes the soft touch of your feminine hands," he panted, struggling for breath.

She lowered her hand carefully towards his crotch and poked with one finger into the furry mess. Eventually her fingertips touched something soft and meaty. "Oh, there he is! Hiding away," she stated ironically, but wired up as he was, the landlord missed her sarcasm completely.

"Yes, yes, sometimes Little Willy can be a really shy one," he answered bashfully. Yet her light touch must have aroused him so heavily that Little Willy went suddenly stiff and drew himself up like a clicking snake, bursting out of the hairy jungle.

"Go on, touch him more! He likes to be caressed by your beautiful hands. Play with him!" he urged her on, staring totally enarmoured and absentminded at his wiggly member. He hadn't noticed that Annie's other hand had begun desperately groping around the floor beside the bed.

There must be something, she thought, almost at the end of her tether. Normally she had the bad habit of leaving all of her stuff lying about on the ground, but today everything seemed to be swept clean and out of reach. Reluctantly she closed her hand around Little Willy and started to slide him up and down at an increasing pace. Her patron groaned with relish and, closing his eyes, he surrendered himself to her ministrations. After some more rubbing Little Willy seemed to catch fire inside her hand, growing almost twice its size, pumped full with hot blood.

"Ahhh..." a long drawn sigh escaped his lips, "...so good."

At this moment her heart suddenly surged with excitement: her other hand had found what she had been searching for so exasperatedly.

"Sorry, but I think its past time to put Little Willy to sleep," she breathed triumphantly into his ears. Before he could utter another word she smashed the heavy earthen pitcher she had found over the back of his head with a loud Crack! A little sigh escaped his lips, and then his whole body went limp as the jug shattered against his skull-cap into thousand pieces, spraying all over the bed. Yet not before an enormous ejaculation had escaped Little Willy's own head. Sidetracked by executing her assault she had forgotten to remove her hand, and now the viscous liquid was running into her hand, stickily gumming up her fingers. Disgusted, she shook her hand violently to get rid of the icky substance. She wiped the remnants of his ejaculate on his pants and used the leftover water in the basin of her washstand to thoroughly clean her fingers.

After washing and drying her hand she stared hatefully down at her landlord's still-unconscious body. For one moment she thought to take a knife, cut Little Willy off and feed this pathetic piece of meat to the watchdogs in the courtyard behind the house. But although she was longing for revenge her sense of reality told her that this act wasn't worth the trouble. Besides she didn't know how long this slob would stay in the land of dreams. It was better to hurry, before he would awaken in a filthy mood and with a nagging headache.

First she changed from her nightgown to the old and darned peasant dress she brought with her from the farmstead. After lacing its front tight she took her washed-out and patched cape from the wall peg and flicked it over her shoulder, wrapping the thick woolen cloth around her body to fend off the chill of the night. Finally, she gathered the small amount of her belongings and sneaked down the back stairs and out of the house....

... As in the memory of her hapless flight from the greedy landlord, the streets now were almost equally empty, save for some die-hard nightowls who had celebrated until the early morning hours and were now on their way back home. Some windows were already lit, and she could hear faint clatters accompanying the early preparations for breakfast.

Silently she followed their lead. Stinker was now the front man of their small group, while Scarface had returned to yesterday's position and trudged together with Slaphead behind her. After leaving the watchtower, they made a lot of suggestive comments about her detention last night and how she would be treated once they had her securely under lock and key in the citadel. She cringed with disgust when they pictured every one of the gruesome abuses and tortures she would be subjected to and how much they would enjoy watching her suffer.

Still, Annie didn't know what they had accused her of, or why they had snatched her so brutally away from her home. She thought about asking them, but then dismissed this idea as valueless. She was sure to get no useful information from them, either because their lord hadn't told them much at all or because they would spitefully carry on swearing at her. They had treated her like she was the scum of the earth all the while, so why should they suddenly change their mind and become nice and polite? Ultimately, they were merely the spitting images of their masters. The nobility in this part of the land at the edge of the empire were known to make their own rules and didn't much care for the rights of the peasantry. As arbitrary as they were, their underlings and henchmen were even worse. They were well-known for their crudeness and savagery. Almost everybody in the city avoided crossing their paths needlessly or getting deliberately in their way.

In the meantime the semen combined with the grease from her breakfast had dried on her face and bodice, but still clung like a sticky mess to her skin. When the little group passed a small square with a draw-well in the center, she asked them against her better judgment to stop and allow her to wash her face and quench her thirst. She felt so dirty and soiled, and her throat was so parched, she had to give it a try. Maybe they would deny it to her, but at least she would had asked.

At first they laughed about her plea, but then a sneaky smirk passed over Stinker's face and he pulled her in front of the well. Someone had recently used the bucket to draw up water, and it still rested well-filled on the broad stone rim. Annie knew that it was useless to ask them to untie her hands and so she bent over and took some sips of the metallic tasting water. After quenching her thirst she plunged her face into the water. Its coolness soothed her skin and, although she had nothing to rub her face with, she shook her head right and left to dissolve some of the dirt and muck from her skin. She felt refreshed and cleansed when she stepped back from the well.

"That's all?" Stinker asked. "More like a cat lick. Here, let me help you!"

With one swift move he grabbed the bucket and emptied the entire contents over her head. She yelped when the water hit her in one cold gust and splashed all over her hair and clothing. The torrent spilled from the bodice down her skirt and soaked every part of it to the skin. Her hair stuck wetly to her head and hung down over her face to her chest. The remnants of the goo and dirt that had gathered since her capture mixed with the water to produce a greasy swill, spreading out over her body and soiling her clothes from head to toe. Her drenched and slushy garments now clung like clammy rags to her shivering skin and made her feel like a drowned rat. She clenched her fists and pressed her jaws tightly together, else her rising anger would have prompted her to jump at her smirking captors were standing idly around her, battering them with whatever was available to her.

"Hey, come on! Be glad that we didn't dump you right down into the well," Slaphead laughed at her. "We´ve really done you a favour. You look much better now—even somewhat clean—and you don't stink like a pisspot anymore."

Annie didn't want to dignify these pests with an answer, and instead turned her back on them. Scarface gave her an encouraging pat on her back when they once more got under way. The next hour was filled with stony silence, as she kept her mouth shut and stared mostly at the ground before her feet. Besides an occasional slap on her butt or a sudden jerk of the leash, they desisted from harrowing her, and so she was able to resume her ponderings of the last events unmolested...and Scarface's accusations from the morning in particular.

"A whoring bitch" he had called her, and not only once. She couldn't figure out why he spoke this way, because she had never before in her life met him or any of his comrades. They seemed to belong to the sort of brutalized men who rode roughshod over every woman who crossed their path. Not that this was unusual behaviour; she had experienced it quite often since she had come to this city. Back in the countryside men too called the shots, but they treated a woman with some respect, especially when she was a hard-working one and kept the house tidy and clean....

... After the hasty departure from her first dwelling place Annie had spent a cruel month on the streets. It was a harsh and brutal experience for her, and she had been glad to get a job as a tavern maid, serving dishes day and night. Most of her fellow lasses had tried to add to their meager wages by offering more bawdy services to their tipsy customers. But she had refrained from getting involved in such dirty games, and didn't mingle at all with the more randy customers. Not that it was possible to avoid a slap on her buttocks now and then, and more than one bloke had tried groggily to make a grab at her bosom, but she was lucky and such ribaldries had always been successfully fended off.

Playing shy or acting deaf, as the case may be, it was possible for her to evade possible suitors or stop their advances short in due time. Although she listened extensively to the salacious tales of the other tavern maids, she didn't mess around with men. It wasn't that the one or other handsome guy hadn't caught her attention, but somewhere deep inside her heart she was sort of proud that she was able to stay chaste and even keep her virginity.

Not that she minded much about the fuss the duplicitous priests made upon this circumstance. But as her old grandma had once told her, it was sort of a token that could be traded for higher gains at a certain time, and not thrown away at whim after the first pretty face that came along. But though her time as a tavern maid was ended, now, she had heeded the advice of her granny all along. Although it had taken her some time to gather enough money, by saving drastically she could eventually quit her job and run a more decent business, free of the need to expose oneself to every challenge....

... Out of the corner of her eye, Annie watched the city slowly come to life during the early morning hours. More and more peasants were filling the streets, and the first beggars emerged from their ramshackle lairs to snatch a good place for their daily collection of alms. After some time the group passed a big market square where some merchants had already begun setting up their wares and goods. She was trotting along a row of stands when she heard a croaky voice calling her name.

"Isn't that Annie? Oh dear, I didn't recognize you at first, with all those sodden rags on and your hair sticky wet!" an old crone hauling a small vendor's tray exclaimed and stepped to her side. When she recognized her miserable conditions, she groped around her goods and pulled a towel out. "You've come a long way from the west side," she crooned, and then eyed the goons around her suspiciously. "What sort of bad company are you hanging around with?" she continued on, and then began to wipe Annie's face clean with the kerchief.

"Oh, it's you Miriam!" she exclaimed. "Please...." When she recognized the rising anger shading Scarface's look she added hastily, "Please, tell Jean where you have seen me. And that they are taking me to the citadel...."

That was all she could pant out, before Scarface grabbed Miriam by her shoulder and shoved her roughly away. "Get lost, you ugly hag!" he snarled, and raised his hand threatening to hit her. "Leave us alone, else I will break your neck!"

"Oh no, good lord!" Miriam squealed and backed off hastily. "Don't do that. I am right on my way!" She took a few more steps backwards and then scuttled off to vanish behind some market stands.

"Filthy pest!" Stinker muttered, and when he recognized a faint smile of satisfaction on her lips he spat, "And you? Did we allow you to talk idly?"