by Sarah Hawke
“Look, honey, there’s only one solution to your problem and we both know it,” Aluriel said when we finally pulled apart. “You need some cock, and you need it badly.”
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Aluriel—”
“No arguing until I’m finished,” she scolded. “Look, I get that you don’t feel like you can frolic around the city sucking off every knight that smiles at you while you’re the Ranger-General. And honestly…you’re probably right, as much as I hate to admit it. That’s why we need to approach this from a different angle.”
“Meaning…?”
“Meaning that anonymity is our friend. Meaning that if you don’t want to be Ranger-General Serrane all the time…why not act like someone else?”
I stared at her for a long moment as I tried to figure out what she was up to. “What are you getting at?”
Aluriel smiled impishly as she hopped out of my lap. “Do you remember how I told you that this belly ring holds an enchantment that protects me in battle?”
I glanced down at the glimmering jewel. “I remember. You also said it made you better in bed.”
“Yeah, well, I was a half-lying,” she admitted. “Let me show you.”
She touched the gem and whispered a word of magic. Her body shimmered briefly, almost like she had stepped into a heat mirage, at which point her physical appearance changed right before my eyes. Her nose, her lips, her ears….they all morphed just enough that she no longer looked like my best friend. When she spoke another command word, her brown hair turned jet black and shortened several inches.
“Illusion magic,” I whispered.
“Powerful illusion magic,” Aluriel said. Even her voice was slightly different. “Very few mages in the city are capable of seeing through the disguise.”
My brow furrowed as I studied her new body. She had the same exact physique as before, though her tanned skin tone had lightened somewhat. “I thought appearance-changing items like that were illegal.”
“Oh, they are. The Archmage thinks they’re dangerous, and he’s probably right. But it’s still possible to find them if you have the right connections.”
“I’m not sure I want to know…”
Aluriel shrugged. “Do you remember that half-elf girl that got kidnapped by the drow a few years ago? The one from the village south of Riverbend?”
“Solemi? Of course I do. I still can’t believe she managed to escape.”
“Well, it turns out that she learned a great deal about magic in the Underworld. She’s an illusionist—a really powerful one, as far as I can tell. And she has taken to hosting certain…events…that I find entertaining.”
“I definitely don’t want to know about those.”
“You may someday,” Aluriel said with a wink. “Anyway, she’s the one who made this gem. I’m fairly certain I can buy another from her, especially if it’s for a good cause.”
I swallowed and licked at my lips. “This is a terrible idea.”
“Actually, it’s an incredibly good idea.” She tapped her stomach. “This is what freedom looks like, honey. We’ll make you a costume, and you’ll finally be able to go out and enjoy yourself without worrying about your reputation. It will fun!”
I sighed reflexively as she crawled back into my lap, but I had to admit that I was intrigued. The prospect of pretending to be someone else for a night was incredibly liberating for some reason, but it still seemed…wrong.
“If either of us got caught using an illegal magic item, we would—”
“We’re not going to get caught,” Aluriel promised. “Besides, we’re rangers, not paladins—we only have to obey just laws, remember?”
I grunted. A part of me wanted to reject this insanity out of hand, but the other part—the frustrated and lonely part—saw an opportunity that might never come again. I had to try this, at least. Otherwise I was only going to get more and more miserable by the day.
“Fine,” I said. “If you can get your hands on another one, I’m willing to try it out. But I’m not sure what you expect me to do. I’m not just going to walk into a random tavern and fuck the first man I find.”
“Of course not. This isn’t about sex, honey. It’s about letting go. It’s about having fun.” Aluriel shrugged. “If some young stallion happens to bend you over something and fuck you until you can hardly walk…well, we can consider that a bonus.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t know how much I trust an illusion. If it breaks or someone sees through it…”
“We’ll try it out where no one will recognize you anyway. How about Riverbend? It’s only a few hours away, and I know a guy who hosts some pretty interesting events.”
“Events?”
“Parties, honey. Fun, sexy parties.”
“Okay, and then what?”
“Then,” Aluriel said, her eyes twinkling, “you can just leave everything to me.”
Chapter Four: Submission
Riverbend was almost thirty miles southwest of Highwind, enough that we never could have made the trip in a single night without horses and magic. Thankfully, we had both. I cast a spell on Whisper to vastly increase his speed and endurance, and even though we didn’t leave Duskwatch Tower until nightfall, we still reached town almost an hour before midnight.
Aluriel had managed to get a second gem of illusion, though this one came in the form of a jewel-studded choker rather than a navel ring. We tested it before we left, and I couldn’t believe how well it worked. I had been taught the basics of magic from the time I was a toddler, and I still couldn’t detect any flaws in the mirage. Assuming Aluriel’s story about where she bought it was true, this Solemi woman must have been an incredibly powerful illusionist.
Still, I was happy that we weren’t pressing our luck by trying it out in Highwind. I knew very few people in Riverbend, which had helped me muster the courage to go along with Aluriel’s plan. The fact that she had refused to reveal any specifics so far had me worried, but I forced myself to roll with it. I trusted my friend not to do anything too reckless. Mostly.
After tying up Whisper in the woods outside of town, we strolled into Riverbend wearing our disguises. Other than ogling at us as we walked by, the guards weren’t interested in harassing a pair of elven girls in riding gear, and Aluriel directed us to one of the inns were we bought a room and changed.
“You probably haven’t worn a dress since you left Nelu’Thalas, have you?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” I admitted. “I haven’t worn makeup, either, and I definitely haven’t worn heels.”
“They’re not so bad,” Aluriel said as she slipped into one of the shoes she had bought for us. The five inch heels were absurd by any measure, but they did look good on her. I had already tried mine on a little while ago, and I had to admit they weren’t as uncomfortable as I’d remembered.
“Do the men you meet actually care about lipstick?”
“You don’t need it, but it will drive them wild. A touch of black around the eyes and a touch of red around the lips…when a man sees you, all he’ll be thinking about is how nice it will be when you’re staring up at him with your mouth wrapped around his cock.”
I snorted. “That’s not all men think about.”
“Believe me, honey, it actually is,” Aluriel said. “Sometimes it’s annoying, but tonight it’s perfect.”
After finishing my eye shadow, I stepped away from the mirror and appreciated my handiwork. The illusion magic in my earring could easily simulate clothing and cosmetics, but the less we asked it to conceal the better. It still felt strange to put makeup on a face that didn’t quite look like my own, but I used my blue eyes as an anchor.
The matching black dresses Aluriel had picked out for us were incredibly light and flimsy—not to mention scandalously short—but at least they didn’t restrict movement. She had tried to convince me to eschew my thong as well, but I wasn’t willing to cross that line just yet. One step and a time and all that. There was still a g
ood chance that this would completely backfire.
“You look great,” Aluriel said, slinging her arm around my waist. “We look great.”
“We look like sluts.”
“Elegant isn’t the same thing as slutty.”
I pulled up the back of her skirt a few inches and slapped her naked ass. “This isn’t elegant—it’s whorish.”
“It’s fun,” Aluriel insisted. “You are here to enjoy yourself, remember?”
“I feel silly.” I shuffled on my high heels. “And helpless.”
“Being helpless is fun sometimes. Knowing he can do whatever he wants to you, knowing you’re just a collection of warm holes for his amusement…” Aluriel shivered in delight and squeezed at my waist. “But trust me, you’re more powerful than you realize right now. Once you see the way the men look at us, you’ll feel like an enchantress holding them under your spell.”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” I said, taking in a deep breath. Despite my growing anxiety and lingering embarrassment, my quim tingled in anticipation. At this rate, my thong would be soaked through by the time we reached our destination.
“We need to get moving. I told my contact that we’d be there around midnight, and we’re already late.”
“I still can’t believe you found a party in a town this small,” I said. “Who is this contact of yours, anyway?”
“You’ll find out in a minute. Come on!”
We scurried across town as fast as we could while wearing heels, though Aluriel made sure to slow down any time passed someone on the street. Not many people were up and outside at this hour, thankfully, and we eventually reached the lakeside tavern where her contact was having his “party.”
“We’re not going in the front door, honey,” Aluriel said, grinning at my discomfort. From the noise alone I could there were a lot more people inside than I had expected, and a handful of drunken sailors were already leering and shouting at us from the porch.
We maneuvered around the building until we reached a set of stairs leading down to the tavern’s basement. Only one person was waiting for us near the door—a tall, dark blonde human male I instantly recognized from my trip into the Shattered Peaks.
“Knight-Captain Cassel,” I murmured, freezing in place. “He is your contact here?”
“Surprise!” Aluriel said, squeezing my arm. “You said you thought he was handsome.”
“He is, but—”
“Then this is perfect,” she went on. “You can flirt with him as much as you want, and he won’t even recognize you!”
I tried and failed to swallow the anxious lump in my throat as we descended the stairs. What if he did recognize us? What if his knightly training allowed him to see through our disguises? I was quite certain that the embarrassment would literally kill me…
“Good evening, ladies,” he said when we reached the bottom of the stairs. The way his dark eyes hungrily drank in our half-naked bodies set my quim on fire. “You must be the sisters Aluriel was talking about.”
“Faewyn and Laryssa,” Aluriel said, offering him her hand.
He gently kissed her knuckles. “Such lovely names for even lovelier girls. Is it true you came all the way from Nelu’Thalas just to visit our sleepy little town?”
“Aluriel promised us it’s not that sleepy,” my friend replied, flashing him her most seductive smirk. “I hope she wasn’t wrong.”
Cassel grinned back. “Some of us know how to have fun. And trust me, the folks here are very welcoming to outsiders.”
“That’s good to hear,” she cooed, tapping her fingertip against his lips. “I was starting to wonder if we’d even be able to find a place to stay…”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem. The Order bought me a house on the docks not far from here. There’s, uh…there’s plenty of space for you and your sister.”
“I guess it is true what they say about the Silver Fist, then. You really are chivalrous.”
Cassel smiled and gently ran his fingers through her hair. “I live to serve, my lady.”
From the way her eyes glimmered at him, I half expected her to drop to her knees and inhale his cock right then and there. But instead she chuckled again and backed away. “Of course, I doubt we’ll be able to stay here long. Our trip was very expensive.”
“The good people of Riverbend are welcoming and generous,” he assured her. His thick hand slid down her back and squeezed her ass beneath her skirt. “Assuming you’re willing to give something back to the community.”
“My sister and I love to work, don’t worry,” Aluriel said. “What do you normally charge in this fine establishment?”
“Ten silver at the door on slow nights. Twenty if we have something special to offer.”
She nodded. “Then tonight you should charge fifty.”
Cassel grunted. “Well, you know I want to be accommodating, sweetheart, but I can’t just—”
Before he finished, Aluriel leaned up on her tiptoes and began whispering something in his ear. I couldn’t make out her words even with my keen elven hearing, though from the reaction on his face and the sudden bulge in his trousers I didn’t have any trouble imagining the context.
“Fifty it is, then,” he said, smirking. “I’ll just, uh…I’ll just need a few moments to get everything ready.”
“Of course, mellonamin,” Aluriel said. “Now how about you let us inside and show us where we can freshen up?”
Cassel nodded and placed a hand on each of our waists. “This way…”
Based on the lighting and the clouds of smoke wafting out from the doorway, I was fully prepared to walk into a den of iniquity that was every bit as dank as the sleazy as the seediest Highwind brothel. I wasn’t disappointed.
The tavern itself was little more than a single room with a bar, a dozen tables, and an elevated stage right smack in the middle. The current performer was a twenty something human girl with a mediocre voice and enormous breasts, the latter of which were practically bursting out of her skin-tight bodice. The patrons—nearly all male and nearly all laborers, by the looks of them—were leering and jeering at her in roughly equal measure.
“Nobles have more interesting depravities, but these salt-of-the-earth types have way more enthusiasm,” Aluriel whispered into my ear. She switched to Elven so only I would understand.
“I’m not sure what that means,” I admitted.
“It means that your average noble won’t be able to get hard without tying you up, putting you in a mask, and then playing some perverted little game. These men won’t bother with any bullshit. They’ll just throw you down and fuck the hell of you right then and there.”
My quim tingled. “Which do you prefer?”
“Both have their place, but sometimes it’s nice to be with a simple, honest man who just wants to stuff his cock inside you as quickly as possible.”
I bit down on my lip and squeezed my legs together as we walked. My quim was so wet my knees were wobbling, and I didn’t know how far I could make it without tripping in these heels. Thankfully, Cassel gestured to an empty table near the entrance a few moments later.
“The two of you can have a seat while I make the necessary arrangements,” he said. “Enjoy some Riverbend drinks and hospitality.”
“We will,” Aluriel said, planting a kiss on his cheek. She led me into one of the chairs against the wall so we could both face out into the bar and cross our bare legs beneath the table. “It’s important to give them a little taste whenever possible.”
I nodded and smiled back. Almost everyone in the room had noticed our entry at this point, and they stopped paying attention to the bard almost immediately. They whispered amongst each other, and my keen ears could hear a few of them trying to figure out why a pair of nearly identical elf maidens had shown up in a small-town tavern. Their companions didn’t seem to care—all they could think about was how much they wanted to fuck us.
“I still can’t believe a Knight of the Silver Fist would be inv
olved in something like this,” I murmured.
“I told you they were all sluts,” Aluriel said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. In most human cities out west the local knights at least pretend to honor their chastity vows. In this part of the world I’m pretty sure the Highlord buys every squire a whore to celebrate their knighthood.”
“You seem to know this guy well,” I said, glancing towards the back room where Cassel had vanished. “You’ve slept with him before, haven’t you?”
“No. Well, not yet.”
I shook my head and turned back towards the stage. The bard had started glaring at us the moment she finished her last song, probably assuming—rightly—that our appearance would cost her tips. A few of the nearby men stuffed coins into her purse or between her ample breasts, at which point they smacked her ass and helped shuffle her off towards the back rooms.
“Don’t feel bad,” Aluriel said. “She’ll be helping us out soon.”
“How? By singing?”
“No, though I’m sure her mouth will be busy.”
I grunted and crossed my legs more tightly together. Until this moment I hadn’t fully appreciated just how sheltered I’d been most of my life. I was a hundred years old—three or even four times older than most of the humans in here—but I’d spent virtually all that time in the forest, in the barracks, or on the battlefield. I had learned to appreciate some aspects of city life after moving to Highwind, but I never experienced anything like this despite the fact there were probably a hundred places just like it scattered all across the city. I should have been disgusted, and yet…
It’s like the air is crackling with energy in here. All the heat, all the bodies…and every man in this room has been staring at me from the first moment I walked in. Back in the city they would all fear and respect me, but here…here they just see me as a piece of a meat. They’re thinking about my ruby lips wrapped around their thick members or my slender legs squeezing at their thrusting waists. They’re thinking about my pleading whimpers while they bend me over a table and pound their cocks into my ass…