More Tales of MU

…or, Diss Orderly Conduct

I was still giving Iason a slow handjob when our hired carriage rolled up to the gates of Enwich, joining the evening traffic that was headed inside the city walls before the main gates closed for the day.

“Oh, shit,” I said, letting go when the carriage stopped behind the other vehicles in the entry queue.

“Don’t stop,” he said, taking my hand and putting it back in place.

“What if they’re checking IDs?”

“You have a free hand.”

They didn’t stop us, though if the people in the coach alongside us had looked over at the right moment, they might have gotten a bit of a show. Whatever. It was Iason’s bit of flesh that was on display, and it seemed he didn’t care.

Iason let the act reach its natural conclusion once we were inside the town. While he cleaned up, I slid over to the window and took a look around. The narrow street was paved with flat, irregular stone tiles that were fitted together for a perfectly smooth ride. The broad sidewalks were clean and glittered with quartz pebbles. The whitewashed store fronts and sidewalk cafes looked very upscale.

“Have you ever been to Enwich, Iamie?” Iason asked me.

“Yeah, we spent a night here when we were visiting for early orientation,” I said. “But I think we must have gone in through a different entrance.”

“Undoubtedly,” Iason said. “This is the upper city. I promised you a nice dinner.”

“Are we going to be underdressed?” I asked.

“I hope so, later,” he said.

“I mean, for wherever we’re going.”

“No, I do not think so,” he said.

The carriage was headed uphill, through a steep section of town where the buildings were taller and closer together. They were built at an angle to the street, so that their tops were level. We passed banks and trading firms, and then upscale clothing stores and high-end enchanters’ shops, and then we came into a break in the urban development.

The top of the hill was a park, green and growing. The trees didn’t show any signs that autumn was underway. The carriage stopped in a turnaround and the footman opened the door to let us out.

Iason held my hand and helped me down. It was interesting how an action could be completely emasculating at the same time as it threatened to provide a firm reminder of my manhood. He clasped the footman’s hand and patted him on the back, passing something shiny in the process, then shook the driver’s hand as well and waved them off.

“Won’t we need them again?” I asked.

“The restaurant is at one end of the park and the amphitheater is at the other,” he said.

“Won’t we need them afterwards, for when we go to the inn?” I asked.

“I told you, Iamie, I have no intention of sharing you with other men,” Iason said. “Though the sheer level of your appetite surprises me.”

“The inn is close by, then?” I asked.

“Not far, no,” he said. “But I could carry you, if you’d prefer not to walk.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head.

“You don’t think I could?”

“I don’t think you will,” I said.

“Would you stop me if I tried?” he asked.

“Let’s not find out,” I said. “That would be a great way to ruin the evening.”

The restaurant was a large eight-sided pavilion with the kitchen in the center, and all eight sides open air. Even as we approached, I could tell that we would more or less fit in. Some of the people were dressed in fancier clothes, but some were more casually dressed. We were about in the middle.

The path led up to the entrance, where there was a break in the railing. Iason once again took my hand and helped me up. I threw him a sideways glance, expecting to see the smug grin that was just on the right side of being a sneer. What I got instead was a look of attentive adoration that almost knocked me on my ass.

All the things he said and did to get to me, and the one that might have needled me the most was something he was sincere about.

Well, it wasn’t so bad to let him show a bit of honest affection. As long as he didn’t want to hold my hand when we were walking around.

“Hi, welcome to Astral’s in the Park!” the hostess, a very well-endowed woman who didn’t look that much older than me, said. “We do have an hour wait tonight, is that okay?”

“We have priority seating,” Iason said. “Iason.”

“Excuse me?”

“Iason,” he repeated. “That is the name it’s under.”

“Oh!” she said, stepping back behind her podium and flipping open some pages. “Can you spell that?”

“I can,” Iason said. “Can you?”

Her face reddened, and she began looking through the registry line by line.

“I-a-s-o-n?”

Iason just stared at her.

“Yes, that’s him,” I said.

“It’ll be about ten minutes,” she said.

“That’s fine,” I said.

Iason leaned in close to my ear. I repressed the urge to elbow him in the stomach.

“She has udders like a cow’s,” he whispered. From the way the hostess turned from pink to crimson, I was sure his words were reaching her, too. “If only she had the brains to match.”

I stopped repressing. He grunted in surprise.

“Please excuse us,” I said to the hostess, grabbing Iason by the collar and pulling him away from the podium and back outside the pavilion so she could help the next people.

“You’re so violent today, Iamie,” he said. “I had no idea you were such a hellhound.”

“Knock it off, or I am leaving,” I said, dragging him back from the path. “And if I have to keep making ultimatums to make you act like a decent h—person, I’m leaving, anyway.”

“Fine,” he said, smoothing his shirt out. “You don’t have to be so serious all the time, though. You could let me have some fun.”

“‘Fun’ is what we had in the carriage,” I said. “This is you being a dick to somebody because you can get away with it.”

“In my defense, that is much more fun than when you can’t,” he said.

“If you treated people decently, you wouldn’t have to worry about getting away with it,” I said.

“Where’s the challenge in getting away with nothing?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But it sure seems like what I’m asking is beyond your abilities. I shouldn’t have to keep making ultimatums to get you to knock this shit off.”

“Well, you’re welcome to stop doing that at any time,” he said. “You demanded that I be straight about my intentions towards you and so I have been, but at the same time I am supposed to be less-than-honest in my opinion about the woman behind the podium?”

“You carried your whisper to her,” I said. “You can’t pretend that wasn’t a deliberate attempt to be hurtful.”

“The list of things I can’t pretend is vanishingly small,” he said.

“Look, just don’t be a dick to people and then turn to me like you’re expecting applause and a blowjob,” I said.

“I do not require applause.”

“I’m serious,” I said. “And I’m getting sick of having to say so.”

“Fine,” he said. “Does this enjoinder against dickhood include women, too?”

“Why the hell wouldn’t it?”

“It may be obvious to you, but it isn’t to me,” Iason said, brushing my cheek with the back of his fingers. “I can’t read your mind, Iamie. I won’t know what you mean if you don’t tell me.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid, Iason,” I said. “But if you really can’t tell that it’s not okay to treat people like that, then I don’t want to be involved with you.”

“I forget, you want to bed girls,” Iason said.

“That isn’t why,” I said.

“No, it’s fine,” he said. “I do nice things for you. I suppose, in a way, it’s only natural that you would want to do nice things for girls that you meet.”

“Not calling someone a cow isn’t exactly going the extra mile,” I said.

“I didn’t call her a cow,” Iason said. “Is that your opinion of her?”

“Uh, Iason, party of two?” the hostess called. “Iason, party of two?”

Iason refrained from saying anything as she led us to our table. He didn’t look at or acknowledge her, either, but it was progress. If you can’t say something nice, and all that.

“Your server will be with you shortly,” she said, handing us menus. Iason wouldn’t take it from her hands, but picked it up and hid behind it as soon as she set it down in front of him.

“Thank you,” I said to her.

“You’re very welcome.”

“Just for my own personal reference,” Iason said from behind his as she left, “would you find it more objectionable if we ran out on the bill, or if I staged a scene to get our meals for free?”

“You mean you don’t have money to pay for this?” I asked.

“Well, of course I do,” he said.

“Good.”

“I simply don’t have it upon my person,” he said.

“Why not?”

“It’s the principle of the matter,” he said.

“What principle?”

“That there is no reason to pay for an expensive meal unless you need to impress somebody,” he said. “Maybe I am a little arrogant, but I feel that I have already amply demonstrated my purchasing power to you, Iamie. I came here with the intention of being given our meals for free, but you have been so touchy this evening that I’m afraid to put my plan into effect.”

“Did you skip out on the carriage bill, too, somehow?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I had to pay for that in advance, including a hefty deposit. I have also bought our concert tickets and booked our room on my charged card. Considering this meal will likely be the least expensive item of the evening, I’m actually a little insulted that you would think it beyond my means to pay for. I think you owe me an apology.”

I glared at him. He sat there placidly. Before I could think of what to say to this, our server—a short, stout girl with wavy black hair and a snappy black uniform with a bowtie—arrived.

“Hello, my name is Anna Louisa, and I’ll be taking care of you two tonight,” she said, putting two water glasses with lemon wedges down. “Can I start you off with some drinks, and maybe an appetizer?”

“Bring us a bottle of North Forest Gold and two glasses,” Iason said.

“Okay, I’ll just need to see some identification,” she said.

“Was somebody claiming to be us ordering wine before?” Iason asked her.

“I’m sorry, but we get a lot of college students in here, and anyway, it’s the law,” she said.

“You can actually cancel the wine. He forgets the human drinking age is twenty-one,” I said. “He’s actually very forgetful. In fact, if you could give us a few minutes before we order, he needs to run down to our carriage to get his coin purse, which he forgot there. Right, Iason?”

It was his turn to give a death stare, which just made him look more attractive in a broody way. He pushed his chair up, stood up, and turned and stalked away towards the entrance.

“Is he coming back?” Anna Louisa asked.

“Yeah, he just has a delicate temperament,” I said. “He gets embarrassed easily, especially in front of pretty girls.”

“Oh, really?” she said.

“Yeah. Thirty years old and he’s never had a girlfriend. If he comes off, you know, rude or abrupt or whatever, it’s just because he’s nervous,” I said. “Sometimes, he thinks he tries to cover it by being funny, but his sense of humor is a little off. If he says something awful, try not to take it personally. He usually realizes what he’s done later and makes up for it with a big tip.”

“Oh, okay,” she said. “I’ll just get you a basket of bread, then, and keep an eye out for your friend.”

“Thanks,” I said.

We’d passed banks on the way up, and I knew Iason wouldn’t take long getting there and back. I paged through the menu to pass the time. Astral’s seemed to be a grill, with elven-themed dishes. There were a lot of game bird and hare dishes available in addition to the standard steak and chicken breast.

Iason returned before too long. He looked pissed, but he had a full coin purse in his hands. Anna Louisa hurried over to see if we were ready. I’d seen a lot of different things that looked good, but nothing that had jumped out at me. Before either I or she could say anything, though, Iason took my menu from me and thrust both of ours into her hands.

“We will both have the venison medallions in gold wine sauce, and please make it quick as we have concert tickets and would like some time to enjoy our meal,” Iason said, not looking at her.

“And do you want the soup or salad with that?”

“Salad,” Iason replied, in a tone that suggested he was bewildered and offended by the thought that somebody would consider ordering the soup.

“Would you like that with the herbed potatoes, the—”

“Wild rice,” he said.

“And to drink?”

“Iced tea, I suppose,” he said sullenly.

“And for you, sir?”

“Tea’s fine,” I said. “Thanks.”

“I’ll put your order in and bring out your drinks and salads,” she said. “House dressing okay?”

“How can I say if I’ve never tried it?” Iason asked her.

“It should be fine,” I told her.

“Should be, but I suppose we’ll find out,” Iason said.

“I’ll get those right out, then,” she said, and hurried away.

I turned to face Iason, who was turning his eyes away from me. We sat in stony silence while Anna Louisa brought us our iced teas, for which I thanked her.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked Iason when she left again with a promise to return with the salads.

“What? I just ordered,” he said.

“What’s your problem with women, exactly?” I asked him.

“I am not interested in them,” he said.

“What I’m seeing isn’t disinterest.”

“Iamie, you have a perverse attraction to honesty, so let me put it this way: women are useless whores,” he said. “Distinct from boys such as yourself only in that you are a useful whore.”

“Now you’re calling me names,” I said.

“When I am nice to you, I can expect something in return. What do I get for being nice to Anna Louisa? It is her job to be nice to me. If you’re going to make me pay tonight, I don’t see why I need do anything further to earn good treatment from her.”

“You know, the only reason I’m not walking away right now is that she just put our order in and I don’t want her to have to cancel it,” I said. “But I am not a whore, and I’m not going to stand for you calling me one again.”

“I’m sorry if you don’t like the label, but what else do you call somebody who has sex in exchange for—”

“I have sex because I like it,” I said. “I didn’t ask you for jewelry and flowers and carriage rides. You give me those things because you want to. Even when you’re ‘being honest’, you act like you’re only interested in my body, but you keep giving me these things anyway. You might tell yourself that you’re only doing it to keep getting into my pants, and maybe that makes you feel, I don’t know, more macho or something, but—”

I cut myself off, as Anna Louisa was returning with our salad plates.

“Here you folks go,” she said, setting them down. “Your meals will be ready in just a bit.”

“I am sorry for being brusque before,” Iason said. “I felt foolish for having forgotten my money, and was in a bad mood. I should not have taken it out on you.”

“Oh, um, that’s okay,” she said. “We all have bad days, right?”

“I suppose we do,” Iason said.

“I’ll try to have your entrees out as soon as they’re up,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said. When she’d left, I said to Iason, “Okay, you apologized without prompting. I’m a little impressed. Do you have something to say to me?”

“You mean, do I intend to apologize for what I said to you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“No. I think all boys who take it are whores,” he said. “That includes you, but it does not mean you in particular, and it doesn’t mean I can’t respect you.”

“But do you?”

“I’m learning to.”

“Well, that’s a start.”

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