The Inn Ch. 09

[The story so far: Simon Kettridge, fantasy author, has been transported to the setting of his novels, the Phaeland Empire. Once there, he accidentally derails the plot of the book he's dropped into, dooming the world to destruction at the hands of an evil necromancer. With his heroes eliminated by Simon's unintentional intrusion, the only thing standing between Phaeland and the hordes of Necromanata is Simon, who has just his pen and his knowledge of the world as tools. Simon takes up letter-writing in an attempt to undo the damage he's instigated. But letters are slow and expensive in the fantasy universe, forcing Simon to find ways to meet his expenses. At the encouragement of the inn's serving maid and resident courtesan, he dabbles at being a gigolo, with some success - until a poisonous snake-woman bites him in mid-coitus and sends him into a hallucinatory catatonia. He wakes a week later, and struggles to recover ...]

*****

On the plus side, I felt better and better over the course of the next day, and even better the day after that. But on the minus side, once he learned I was out of danger, Burgham the innkeeper started pushing Leyna really hard to stick to her duties.

"He has a point, you know, Simon," she insisted when I said it was unfair. "I earn my room and roof and meals doing the inn's chores and waiting tables. Truth told, Burgham's had a pretty loose hand on my reins this past week while I've tended you. He's gruff, but he means well - and I owe him for, well, for a lot."

I reminded myself that I really didn't know that much about Leyna's situation with regard to her employer, but that wasn't enough for me to drop it. "Whatever you owe him, does he always have to imply that you're ... moonlighting, when he yells for you to get back to work?"

She laughed and picked up the meal tray she'd brought me shortly after noon. "In case it's escaped you, Simon, I do occasionally sneak off and earn a few extra coins when I ought to be about my duties. You'll notice he never yells at me for being a slackard. We have an arrangement - and for all his grousing, I get away with quite a bit. And he's never once asked me to make up the difference in his bed. Not before I came of age nor since."

"You've been here since before -"

"Leyna!"

With a roll of her eyes toward the open door, she said, "The master calls. I'll tell you the whole story some other time - I hope after you've finished the next play and we can chat about Elterawisse!

But we barely ended up with a breath of time to talk the rest of that day or the next. Burgham kept her busy straight through working hours, and her evening clients hogged her time after the dinner rush fell off. She only peeked in to apologize and explain.

"I'm down to the scraps of my rainy-day coin jar, and you said you've another letter to mail soon. So there's a couple of horny ones in the common room and I need to get to it while business is good. You understand, don't you?"

"Of course," I insisted, though I was recovering to the point that sex without premature ejaculation or aching after-pangs might be a possibility. I could hardly ask her to screw me for free when I'd depleted her savings with my infirmity.

So Elterawisse it was, with a side-order of writing my next letter to Kleburn Mandermorte.

Luckily, the plays of Phaeland's greatest author made the hours fly by. Although I've never considered myself much of a poet, I think my prose is pretty good - but Elterawisse put me to shame on all counts. I'd sweated for hours over the half-dozen or so quotes I'd written into The Stage Grievous to make it clear the guy was this world's answer to Shakespeare. Every scrap of lyricism I could manage, I pulled together, squeezed into the most condensed and pure form possible, and then bled onto the page and worked and reworked and threw out and rewrote and re-rewrote until the absolute limits of my talents had been reached.

And now, reading the actual plays, I found that every single line matched or beat mine in beauty and wit and ingenuity. A Gadabout in Disarray, the first one I read, knocked the shit out of the very best of my Juliette Ravendark novels - on dialogue, on plot, on wordsmithing, on characterization. Even his quick, razor-succinct stage directions left my best-described action sequences in the dust. And Gadabout was supposedly one of his lesser works.

I didn't know whether to feel like a genius for dreaming the guy up or a hack for being so far out of his league.

Fortunately, reading the four plays in Leyna's book absorbed my attention so thoroughly I didn't need to think about it - or to think about how normal it somehow felt for this girl I was crazy about to be fucking strangers half the night without me being the least bit put off. I basically saw her when she brought my food and hardly anytime else. Elterawisse made it tolerable and gave me something to gush about to her in the few minutes each day she had to spare.

Then, sometime late in the evening on the second day after I woke up, she knocked on my door as I sat in bed with the book on my lap and my mind reeling from finishing the last page.

"Simon?" her voice came softly through the door. "Are you still up?"

"Yeah," I said, blinking. The key turned in the lock and she came in.

"Oh, good. I didn't know if you'd just fallen asleep with the lamp on or were still reading." She had a rumpled look to her, hair tousled and the bodice of her dress half unlaced. She shut the door behind her, but I noticed she didn't lock it. "How are you feeling? You look a bit ... gaffed."

With a squeeze to the book on my lap, I said, "Well, I just finished binge-reading four of the best stories I've ever come across. I mean, they're not really just stories at all, are they? They're ..."

Leyna beamed and shook lightlly, and I swear a hint of tears even swelled in her eyes. "I know, aren't they? Which one did you like best? Gadabout? The Wan Cottager? Pavaziel? Sanavar's History? I can never choose. One day it's one, the next day another, the next day two or three all in a dead tie. Pavaziel is so ... but then, I laugh so hard at Mistress Thimbleblister in Gadabout ... and doesn't the dead princess in History make your heart just about burst?"

"I'd need to read them over and over to have any chance at picking a favorite," I said.

"It doesn't help!" A magnetic joy lifted her and washed the end-of-day weariness from her. The transformation made me marvel. "The more I read them, the harder it gets. Every time, you find something different, something he's hidden away between the beats, painted over with fire and laughter and wit and ... there's so much treasure under every line! Did you recognize the young minstrel from Cottager come back as the greybeard mendicant who tells us Sanavar's tale?"

"The -" Holy shit, she's right! The instant she said it, a half-dozen clues leapt into my head, each one ringing with the poetry of Elterawisse's dialogue. "Oh my god, how did I miss that?"

She laughed. "Don't fret - it must have taken me two or three years of reading them as my bedtime stories before I saw it."

I just sat for a minute and watched her and breathed.

"What?" she asked. "You think I'm a ninny, don't you? You probably saw more in one trip through the book than I have in a hundred."

"No," I said. "I think you're perfect."

Her eyes landed on mine as if trying to see whether I was joking. Then she ran a hand through her hair, glanced down, and self-consciously tightened up her bodice strings. "You're playing. I'm a right mess, full of one man's cum and on my way to wash up and take some more from another fellow waiting at the bar. You read through that whole book in a day and a half - it takes me twice that long to get through just one of the plays."

Under the covers, my still-Eesia-poisoned cock throbbed and lurched upward at the thought of Leyna having guys lined up to screw her. Somehow, it made her even more beautiful. Why? Shouldn't I be jealous? And I was, of course. But the fact that she would tell me about it so openly crushed my envy to paste. I felt privileged to know what she did, to know that she enjoyed it and wasn't lessened by it. And ...

"A fast reader isn't always the best one, Leyna," I told her. "I'm sure you're acquainted with a few things where slow turns out a better result than speed does. What's really important is," and here I gently circled my hand across the cover of the book, "not only is this the most amazing thing I've read in my life, and not only did you give it to me - but you've got a mind that can appreciate it. I feel like an absolute ass, sucked in by how beautiful you are, and how funny and sweet and kind and sexy, and somehow I completely failed to suspect that you're also brilliant."

Her blue eyes rolled and her face colored. "Oh, Simon, please. It's not like I wrote it or anything."

"No. But you know it. It's part of you, in and out - the way the excitement just exploded out of you when you started talking about all the plays - I've seen that before, plenty of times. But usually when people do it, they don't actually have anything to say. They just gush and blather. You get it. I could hear it in every word you said. This is deep stuff, and you're all the way down in it, and I never even guessed."

"It's just one book," she said, as if trying to excuse herself. "And I've had an awfully long time to figure bits of it out."

"And how many people would have taken that time? Burgham? Healer Sylva? The guy waiting at the bar downstairs?"

She laughed and covered her mouth, wide-eyed. "Hramda's heavens, no! But - now that you've reminded me he's there, I'd best get to it, hadn't I?" The 'I' trailed off into a sigh. "I so wish I could just spend all night sitting and talking plays with you instead."

"Me too," I said. Except that we'd have to take an occasional break or my balls would burst. I didn't say that out loud though - just lay still and watched her eyes.

"Well ..." She smoothed the front of her dress and stepped back toward the door. "Someday soon."

* * *

The next morning, I woke to another knock at my door and sat up quick enough to make my head spin.

"Come in," I said, putting a hand to my stomach in case my light-headedness turned queasy. Instead, my belly rumbled, and I noticed that the chair beside the bed had a tray on it with a dish of porridge and a sliced apple. I guess she's been in once already and had time to come back?

The doorknob rattled.

"It's locked," said a voice from the other side - not the one I expected, but not unwelcome either.

"Galufrand?"

"Indeed," he said. "Are you well enough for a visitor?"

"Yeah, hang on. Let me ..." I started to crawl down the length of the bed in order to work the latch without standing up - only to realize I still had nothing on but my shirt. And the brush of my swinging cock against my thighs and shirttails gave me another instant Thanks, Eesia boner. "Uh, hang on."

Unsteadily, I put one foot from the bed to the cold floor, then the other, then levered myself up with a push on the frame at the foot of the bed. That put me a step away from the desk, so I chanced it, tottered there, and leaned heavily against the desktop when I made it. The trip left me gasping for breath. No way I'm going to be able to drag a pair of pants on. I grabbed up my boxer-briefs, readied myself, pushed off of the desk, and staggered back to flop onto the mattress.

"Are you all right in there, lad? Should I fetch the chambermaid and her key?"

"No ... I'm ... okay. Just give me ... a second." Crawling back up onto the bed, I somehow wrestled myself into the underwear. "All right ... almost there ..."

Finally, I had something covering my hard-on if not totally concealing the bulge, and I got to the corner of the bed nearest the door and unlocked it.

"Okay." Like a dying beetle, I collapsed onto my back and wiggled my way back to the heap of pillows at the far end of the bed. "'sopen ..."

The old scholar came in, looked around the room as if trying to discover the source of a stench, then caught himself and smoothed his expression over before turning to me. His throat cleared heavily a couple of times and he said, "Well. Good to see you're at least somewhat on the mend. Sorry if I've pressed in too soon - Leyna said you'd been doing better, so I thought I'd come and look in on you."

"Thanks," I said, still woozy from my exertion. "But ... I thought you'd have left town by now. Is your gout still that bad?"

He looked down at his foot and wiggled it. "Mostly tolerable, and has been almost the whole week. But I couldn't very well continue on my travels after hearing one of the viper-folk of Dor had been here and actually had business with an acquaintance of mine!"

"Oh," I said. Of course he'd be interested or even obsessed by Eesia's visit to the Nestled Goose. Now how do I keep from letting on why she was here and what I'm up to? He's bound to ask ... "So - I take it you didn't see her yourself?"

He shook his balding, grey-haired head and scowled. "Slept in. I was still tossing and turning from the gout making my foot ache at that point, so I wrote until the wee hours arrived and the discomfort succumbed to pure exhaustion. I could have kicked myself for missing the opportunity - except that I'd either have to stand on my gouty foot or use it for the kicking, and either one would have left me hobbling even worse."

"Haha," I said. "Sorry I didn't ask her to stick around and chat with you, but she wasn't entirely pleased with me."

"So I heard." He gave a sage nod and then a conspiratorial look toward the door. "I don't suppose there's much chance of you sharing the reason why?"

"It's ... kind of a private matter."

"Yes, I heard that as well."

My face reddened. "I'm guessing the whole inn heard it - especially when she bit me."

"Hah! Another guest or two did say you let out quite a yelp at the end of all the ... activity. But honestly, the more prurient details interest me less than any reliable knowledge you might let me in on about the snake people, or their cult of Septra."

I opened my mouth, searching for an excuse to claim ignorance or confidentiality ... but Galufrand went on before I got a word out.

"One of my correspondents is an archaeoherpetologist, you see - and any tidbit I might pass on to her would put her in my debt. Scholastically speaking."

My mouth closed again of its own accord. I'd never thought to ask just who Galufrand mailed all his copied treatises out to. Obviously it would be other scholars. What do I know about that I don't know the useful details of? What if Galufrand could trade around for information on my behalf?

Necromanata's daughter. I'd named her, somewhere in my notes. If any of my scholar friend's colleagues could tie a place to that name, I might be able to find the arch-mage's power focus. But what was the name? Some play on his name, I remember. Blahblah Manata. Yaddayaddamanata. DeNada Manata. Nada Yadda Ma-

Natalia Manata. It was that or something really close to it.

"If I give you some inside scoop on the Children of Septra, do you think you could ask around about something for me? See if one of your contacts can find someone?"

"Yes, yes, of course!" The old fellow's yellowy eyes brightened, and a grin split his beard. Then he cast a look around the room - particularly toward the desk. "Should I fetch some paper and a pen to make notes with?"

"Um, well, maybe in a bit," I said. "I haven't actually had my breakfast yet. Or done any other ... morning routine things."

"Ah. Oh! Well, goodness me. I'll toddle off then and give you a bit for that."

"Thanks." And it will give me a chance to sift through what I can and can't safely give away about Eesia and her people ...

"Certainly, certainly," Galufrand said with enthusiasm. Then he stepped out the door with a spring in his once-gouty step and left me to eat and piss and think.

* * *

By that evening, the evening of my third day awake, I could make it across the room and sit at the desk to eat the dinner Leyna brought me, which I did while she changed the linens on the bed.

"Phew, what a fetor!" she said, stripping away the bottom sheet. "Your maid could certainly have done with changing these a day or two earlier, sir. You should scold her, next you see her."

"She has a habit of sneaking in while I'm sleeping or napping," I said, ladling up a spoonful of stew. "Also, I don't know if I want to risk making her mad - she's got quite a mouth on her."

That earned me a wink and a smile over her shoulder. "Still, these domestic types - sometimes you simply must be firm with them. Firm and persistent! Otherwise they'll take terrible advantage of you."

My cock surged at that wink and her wordplay. A day earlier, I would have steered the conversation in another direction to avoid the throbbing ache it would have given my balls. But for the moment, they seemed tolerant of arousal.

"I'll admit I'm easily taken advantage of," I said. "A pretty girl with a nice smile can get me to do just about anything."

With a quick spin of both arms, she rolled the soiled sheet in a ball and tossed it over by the door. "You, um, think she's pretty then, this maid of yours? With a nice smile?"

"As pretty and as nice as they come," I replied.

"Do they come?" she asked, unfolding the fresh sheet. "These pretty girls who take advantage of you?"

"All the time," I said. The stew was excellent - rich and thick with chunks of soft potatoes and strands of shredded beef. "In droves. In fact, the firmer I am with them, the more it happens."

Bending to tuck in each corner and side of the sheet, Leyna inadvertently - or deliberately - presented the full sweet curve of her bottom to me within the sunny fabric of her dress. "If that's so," she said, "maybe you haven't learned to give them a proper tongue-lashing."

Throb.

"Ow," I said. "My balls are reminding me they're unwell. Maybe we should be done with that game and talk about something else."

She turned a bit to see if I was serious. The look on my face apparently convinced her, because her expression changed from a mock pout to one of sympathy. "Oh, poor Simon. I'm sorry."

"No, no," I said, lifting a hand. "I can't get my legs back under me if I don't try to exercise them."

She glanced at the door, open a crack. One fine blonde eyebrow lifted. "Hm. Should I help you with a bit of quick exercise, then? Relieve some of that pressure?"

"Uhh ..."

ThrobsolutelyThrobsitivelyYes!

Again she read my expression, then straightened from the mattress and stepped lightly to the door to shut and latch it.

"We'll need to be quick," she warned, hurrying over with enthusiastically wide eyes. "There were already a couple of dinner customers popping in when I told Burgham I was bringing you food and changing these sheets."

My face went red. I'd masturbated six or eight times the last two days and hadn't lasted more than a minute, minute-and-a-half at the longest. "Yeah, that part's still not going to be a problem."

"Haha," she said, with a hand to my cheek and a lean and a kiss. Her lips felt divine. "Don't fret, silly. I've heard several times what you're capable of with my own two ears, so I'm not going to judge by how you do when the weather's washed you low. Get those knickers down, would you?"