…or, Getting The Boot
I’d expected some soreness after our marathon session with nothing but water and then Iason’s own contributions for lubrication, but I woke up feeling like I’d just lost my virginity all over again. Actually, for one confused moment I was sure he was shoving his cock back into me, and I rolled away and hit the other side of the bed with my fist.
“Good morning, Iamie,” Iason said from the tub, where he was relaxing. “The mattress was not up to my specifications, either, but I simply filled out a comment card.”
I scowled at him, though he hadn’t actually done anything.
“I have already arranged for breakfast,” he said. “I thought I would combine two things I have recently seen you enjoy, and ordered venison sausage.”
This added a blush to my scowl.
“If you aren’t planning on using your mouth for its other purpose, perhaps you could come here and do something productive with it,” he said, getting up out of the water and sitting on the edge of the tub with his morning glory in full display.
“I want a shower,” I said. I got out of bed and walked right past the hot tub into the bathroom area. The shower was in the rounded-off corner. There was no stall, just a curtain on a circular golden rod. I turned the water on at lukewarm and warmed it up gradually.
It wasn’t simply the repeated ass-pounding that I was feeling more clearly in the morning after; I was a lot more aware of the sweat that had dried on my skin than I had been when it was fresh and new. I was also aware that it wasn’t all sweat.
Things are different in the heat of the moment. The night before had been about passion and emotion and arousal and—aw, fuck it, maybe a bit about love, or at least romance. It was like everything else: only real in retrospect. This morning it was true that I’d sucked a guy’s pee-stick after it had shot seed all over the inside of my ass.
At the time, though? At the time, we’d been fucking, and what is that if not living out a fantasy? Reality need not apply.
Yeah, I sometimes could get philosophical when I haven’t had my first cigarette.
“If you want that blowjob, you’d better come and get it,” I called. “My mouth is going to have something better to do as soon as I’m out of here.”
“Are you talking to me, or the gentleman from room service?” Iason called back. I opened my eyes and turned to look and see just how much the frosted glass wall obscured, but luckily it was completely misted over. I pulled the curtain around me anyway. “Because you know how I feel about sharing you, though on the other hand, it is customary to tip.”
I turned off the water and stood there until I heard the door open and close. I grabbed a towel—which was naturally way too small—and peered around the edge of the bathroom area.
Iason was alone. He was also still naked, and still sporting a giant hard-on.
“Were you like that the whole time the room service guy was here?” I asked.
“No, it was much bigger and firmer,” he said. “He was a very attractive man. I thought I was going to split my skin.”
I rolled my eyes. If Iason wanted to make somebody jealous, he’d picked the wrong potential future mate.
“Where are my cigarettes?” I asked, hunting around the side of the bed for my clothes
“This is a nonsmoking room,” he said just as I spotted the plaque on the corner of the nightstand that informed me there was a twenty silver fine for smoking in it.
“Yeah, well, that makes this your next expensive present for me,” I said, finding my pants and pulling the pack out of the pocket. He glared at me as I fumbled one out and got it lit. “What?”
“I’m going to train you out of that habit,” he said.
“You’ll be stabbing yourself in the foot if you try,” I said. “My ability to put up with bullshit is pretty strongly related to my ability to lay my hands on a cigarette when I want one.”
A hot shower, my first cigarette of the day, and a big breakfast made me feel a lot better. The bout of mutual oral satisfaction that came after the cigarette didn’t hurt anything, either.
“So, what’s our agenda for the day?” I asked. “I don’t know if we’re going to find a tattoo parlor in the high streets.”
“No, but I thought we might take the opportunity to browse among the shops, anyway,” he said. “Unless you are in some particular hurry to return to the campus.”
“Not really, no,” I said. “I’m going to a dance with Missy tonight, but other than that I’m wide open.”
“I am not surprised, after the reaming I administered last night.”
“Yeah, just so you know, we aren’t making a habit of that no-lube thing,” I said. “You pull that ‘oops I forgot’ thing again, and I’m sending your ass out to buy some. Don’t think you can get around it by springing it on me in the middle of the night, either. The Walled Market is open twenty-four hours.”
I slipped the ring we’d used for the sixty-nining off my finger and started to toss it in the trash, then stopped. The one from the night before was sitting on the nightstand, next to my silver chain. It was kind of funny to see the two next to each other. It was almost like the ring was an actual piece of personal jewelry. Maybe that was what put the idea in my head. I strung the two rings onto the chain and then put it on.
“Keeping souvenirs?” Iason asked.
“Just trying something,” I said.
He grinned. I didn’t like that grin.
“What?” I asked.
“That’s almost better than my name across your ass,” he said.
“It’s not like they have your name on them,” I said, bristling a little. “Or that anybody will even know what they mean.”
“I know what they mean,” he said.
“If you make a big deal out of it, I’m throwing them away,” I said.
We checked out and Iason arranged to have my new music box sent to my dorm so we wouldn’t have to carry it around all day. Right across the street from the inn was another big old house—a compound, really—that had been converted into a block of shops.
It was mostly a mixture of the nicer chain stores you’d find in a mall and actual independent jewelry and clothing stores, with a few antique stores thrown in. Iason stopped outside the window of one of these, looking at a wooden rocking horse.
“How old do you think that is?” he asked me.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Fifty years, maybe?”
“Is that all?” he said.
“It’s older than you.”
“I am not that old,” he said. “I don’t understand why humans have to keep making everything new.”
“What do you mean?”
“Every child must have new toys,” he said. “Every person must have new clothes. Each new couple buys new dishes and silverware. New books are made, read, and discarded. Old houses are torn down and new ones are built. Most of you won’t even live for a full century. Why remake everything for each generation, sometimes several times over, when nothing you will own has a chance to get old before you die?”
“I think that disposable culture thing has only really started up in the last century or so. People used to be a lot more concerned with heirlooms and things. Like, my axe is over a thousand years old,” I said. “Well, it’s probably a lot older than that, actually. We only know how long it’s been in my family.”
“Yes, and it’s a very pretty little weapon,” he said. There was enough genuine admiration in his voice for me to overlook the adjectives.
He headed for a clothing store and I followed. A woman came up as soon as the bell over the door tinkled.
“Hi! Can I help you gentlemen find something?” she asked.
Iason scowled and looked away, so I said, “I think we’re just looking,” and started to pull him away.
“Alright, well, I’ll be nearby,” she said.
We browsed through the store, which sold clothes and leather that bordered on Iason’s level of flamboyance. Iason had me try on a few different pairs of boots, but didn’t seem satisfied with any of them.
“I’ll try these on, but I’m not actually wearing anything with a heel,” I said.
“Certainly not so tall a heel,” he said, frowning. “I like you shorter than me.”
“Are these even men’s boots?” I asked.
“It’s a men’s store,” he said. He held up another pair with one-inch heels. “Take those off and try these.”
The store seemed to be really well-staffed. One clerk or another seemed to be within arm’s reach the whole time we were in there, and we were frequently asked if we needed help finding anything, or we’d like them to hold onto our selections at the desk. Iason’s irritation grew with every time one of the workers—all women, of course—interrupted us.
“Come on, Iamie, we’ll find better boots in a different shop,” he said finally, shoving the boots he was holding into the hands of a flustered clerk who’d just opened her mouth to speak.
“You know, I’m not actually in the market for footwear,” I said, following him out the door. “And I’m really not interested in learning to walk in heels.”
“We’ll look for flats at the next establishment, then,” he said.
The staff was just as courteous and solicitous at the next one we tried. Iason seemed to be just as put out by this, even though they were of mixed sexes. Unfortunately, the merchandise was, too.
“These say ‘ladies’ on the tag,” I said when he came to me with a pair of black boots with silver buckles on the side, pointed toes, and folded-over tops.
“I do not like any of the men’s boots with flat heels,” he said. “They are clunky and inelegant. Try these on, Iamie, I’m sure you can pull them off.”
“I’m sure, too,” I said. “Within two seconds of realizing what I’m wearing. I don’t need boots, Iason.”
“We’ll try one more place,” he said.
We received the same royal treatment in the third store we visited. I was impressed with the level of service, and annoyed that Iason refused to even look at the people who were being so courteous.
“People in the upper city sure are nice,” I said, trying to gently call him on his behavior.
“Have you never gone shopping in a human city with your maternal ancestors, Iamie?” he asked me in response.
“Uh, not really, no,” I said. “My grandpa takes me out for ice cream whenever he’s in town, but mostly it’s us visiting them.”
“Ah,” he said. “Well, if you wish to be waited upon so attentively in every shop you enter, all you need to do is have the tops of your ears trimmed a little.”
“I don’t follow,” I said. “Or I think I do, but I’m not sure I want to.”
He snapped his fingers at the clerk who’d last attempted to help us, who was now folding shirts on the table next to us.
“You, girl. What is the saying?” he asked her.
“Excuse me, sir?”
“You have a saying about us, in your craft,” he said.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re—”
“‘Elves will either buy the store or steal it’, or words to that effect,” Iason said. “Isn’t that right?”
The salesgirl was frozen, a horribly guilty look on her face.
“Sir, I’m just trying to be helpful,” she said. “There aren’t many customers in the store at this hour, and—”
“Come, Iamie,” he said. “I think I’m done shopping in the high streets.”
I wasn’t sure if I should apologize to the shopgirl or if he should have been apologizing to her, so I shrugged at her and followed him out onto the street. It was now pushing noon and the shopping area was much livelier than it had been when we’d started.
“We will take lunch and then hire a cab to take us down to the market,” he said.
“Wouldn’t it be cheaper to go downtown and eat somewhere down there?” I asked.
“I never want to hear that word pass your sweet lips again, Iamie,” he said.
“Excuse me, but you were the one who was trying to score a free meal last night,” I said.
“Yes, but the meal I was trying to ’score’ was not itself cheap,” Iason said. “That’s an important distinction.”
“I’ll try to keep it in mind,” I said.
“See that you do,” he said. “But all the same, we should keep an eye out for decent boots in the second-hand stores. We may be forced to accept a bargain, in order to get you properly shod.”
