by Logan Jacobs
“That might work.” I sat back on my elbows as I mulled over the idea in my mind. Then I stared at Cimarra’s naked form and wondered if I had time to take her again.
“Would you like to see the stables and decide for yourself if it’s what you need?” She clicked the chastity belt back into place upon her hips and then wiggled into her skimpy dancer’s outfit. “The smell in them isn’t great, but it will supply you with a place to work.”
“I would love to see them,” I said with an exaggerated bow, and the dancer giggled. “Lead the way.”
Cimarra grabbed the lantern off the floor, and she climbed up the makeshift ladder I hadn’t noticed last night. My need to bed her had pushed all other thoughts from my mind. The ladder consisted of pieces of cracked boards and a severely frayed rope I was sure would break the moment I stepped on it.
I placed one of my worn leather boots on the bottom rung and carefully climbed my way to the top after her. As I ascended, the boards whined and creaked beneath my feet to alert me of their exhaustion. The ladder led to an empty dressing room, and we walked into a hallway and then toward what I guessed was the main hall.
“You never told me what was in the blue bottle that healed me,” I questioned her.
Her shoulders stiffened slightly, but any untrained eye wouldn’t have noticed the change.
“It was magic, as I am sure you have figured out for yourself by now,” Cimarra stated. “Count Kieran has a dealer in the Elven District who comes by every so often to resupply us with magical items. Once the Count had his hands on the water wall, he needed to have more, but I think he’s playing with fire.”
I nodded my head in agreement. It worried me how the Count had dealt with the elves, but then again, any elf who sold magic to humans shouldn’t have posed a threat to other illegal businesses. It was illegal for an elf to sell anything magic to humans, after all.
It did beg the question as to why an elf, one of the highborn who had everything, would have decided to form a business with the Count, but I figured a lot of shady things had happened in the Entertainment District as well as in this very theater, and the elf hadn’t ratted out either one yet.
“Please disregard the mess,” Cimarra stated when we walked into the back of the theater. “The Count has a bad habit of refusing to throw anything away, and it ends up in storage along this hallway. It used to be confined to one room, but over the years it has expanded tremendously to this ugly monstrosity.”
“We all have our demons,” I chuckled as I shuffled my way around a particularly large pile of animal harnesses.
“What are your demons, Wade?” Cimarra asked with a grin as she shoved aside a mound of old banners.
“You know, the usual,” I shrugged, “constantly on the run from the law because I’m a dashing kleptomaniac.”
Cimarra laughed as we rounded the corner.
“Also, I once fell in love with the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,” I went on as I shot her a sidelong glance, “and I spent all night making love to her before I told her my dark secret and plans for world domination. Maybe I’m too trusting?”
“You can trust me,” she said as she glanced over her shoulder.
“I’m hoping so,” I replied.
“Do you think I want to be a circus dancer for the rest of my life?” she asked as she raised an eyebrow.
“Probably no more than I want to be a cutpurse,” I sighed.
“Exactly,” she laughed lightly. “So, I’ll show you this place, and you’ll trust me, and I’ll trust what you said last night after you filled my womb with your seed.”
“Agreed,” I said, but before she could say anything more we came across a faded red door which had seen better days. It creaked open at Cimarra’s touch, and we both headed out the back side of the theater.
I walked beside her to the well-fortified stone building across the street, but I could tell it was in disrepair. The walls were leaning to the right, and the tiled roof was sunken and decayed.
Cimarra walked over to the heavy barn doors and flipped open a compartment built into the side of her thick chastity belt. It was hidden and barely noticeable, and only required the twist of a small unnoticeable latch to open the space at her waist. She produced a set of keys from the compartment, and she used it to undo the rusted golden lock. The lock opened with a click beneath her dainty fingers, and I followed her inside.
The interior of the barn was massive, with high arched ceilings and stalls bigger than most halfling houses. Cimarra was right about the smell, too, as it reeked of animal dung and moldy hay. The entire building was made of rough-hewn stone, and that included the dirty floor. The noise from outside the theater was faintly heard, but the fact that it drummed through the stone walls in a consistent drone meant it would be perfect to mask any sounds made by my new endeavor.
“It needs some work if you want to use it, and the roof does leak over the far stall,” Cimarra said as she pointed to the far side of the stable, “but if you plan to use this side, it really shouldn’t affect your efforts.”
I looked around and realized this building wasn’t the best, but it also wasn’t the worst I’d seen, either. The space was large enough to hold my operation, and I thought the stone walls would be thick enough to hold the noise and contain the smell.
Then my eyes locked onto the giant forged water tanks secured to the wall.
“Do those tanks hold water?” I asked as I tried not to get too excited.
“Yes,” she said. “Or at least, I think they do.”
“I’ll take it,” I agreed. “Once I start, I’ll share a portion of the profits as a building fee, just in case the Count ever does find out about our arrangement. It saves your neck and puts a few extra coins in your pocket.”
“I think we have a deal.” Her clear blue eyes pierced me with a playful intensity as she walked up and planted a kiss on my cheek. “The place is yours, and I’m happy to help in any way I can.”
“Any way you can?” I asked as I raised an eyebrow.
“We are trusting each other,” she whispered, and then she softly kissed me on the lips. “You are either the best thing that’s ever happened to me, or the worst, Wade.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” I chuckled.
“Then maybe this will work between us?” she asked as she raised an eyebrow.
I grinned in response. “I will be back tomorrow with my two friends who are in the business with me. I think they will like it as much as I do. Then we’ll get started cleaning and organizing.”
“Till tomorrow then.” Cimarra placed a key in my hand, blew me a kiss, and sashayed her hips as she walked out of the stables.
I shoved the key in my pocket and pulled the hood of my cloak over my head once again. Then I took in the sights of our new workplace, turned, and made my way back to the Thief’s Guild to share the good news with my friends.
It didn’t take me long to get back to the Halfling District. When I arrived, I entered the back door of the Guild and found Hagan had waited for me. He sat in his favorite evergreen chair with an empty bottle in his hands. I expected him to be drunk at the whorehouse by now, but I was sorely mistaken.
“So did ya bring me anything of value or did ya extenda ya day off?” Hagan fumed as he pointed the heavy glass in my direction.
“The day isn’t over Hagan, and just because I didn’t come back at the crack of dawn doesn’t mean I wasn’t thieving,” I remarked as I threw him a decent bag of coins and a few expensive pieces of jewelry I’d lifted on my way back. “Not all women kick their men out of bed in the morning, you know. And I didn’t even have to pay her.”
Hagan bared his crusted teeth as he chucked the bottle at my head. I expected the attack and easily dodged as it splintered into thousands of pieces against the dirt-stained wall.
“Ya little piece a’ shit,” Hagan growled. “I don’t care if ya bedded a fuckin’ angel, but I care abouta me money and this here is nothin’. Now get ya laz
y ass backa out there and pull ya weight.”
Luckily, Dar walked in the back door as Hagan’s scream tapered off.
“Hey there boss man, give the young lad here a break. He’s no halfling, so what did you expect? Here, this is what I brought in today, and it’s more than enough to cover his share.” Dar took Hagan’s palm and shoved a giant bag in it. “Now take a few extra coins for yourself and go enjoy pretty little miss Bubblegum before Madame Rindell has to replace her with someone you don’t like.”
Dar shot him a wink and shoved me past Hagan as we escaped up the rickety stairs to the attic. I heard Hagan’s screams all the way up two flights of stairs as Dar roared with laughter behind me.
We passed the second-floor landing, and Thurgood’s violet eyes danced with laughter.
“I hope she was worth it Wade,” Thurgood joked. “Now, tell us which whorehouse you found her at so we can all have a go.”
“Not a whorehouse,” I explained. “And my lips are sealed, my friend. It’s not my fault you got that ugly rash from the last girl whose bed you frequented.”
Thurgood’s face flushed at my words, but I was lying. I never went to the whorehouses.
Dar snorted behind me as Jed and Basher howled with laughter.
“It was one time, damn it!” Thurgood exclaimed. “She swore she was clean.”
“That’s what everyone says who frequents that place,” I chuckled. “I know it can be hard for you, but next time try to find a girl you don’t have to pay.”
“I doubt that’ll happen with that big ole nose of his,” Basher chimed in.
“His nose?” Jed asked. “I was going to say his entire personality. I watched one girl he tried to talk to run for the Halfling Hills.”
“Why am I friends with any of you?” Thurgood questioned.
“Because no one else will tolerate you,” Jed retorted.
Basher, Dar, and I howled with laughter as Thurgood’s face turned sour.
I continued my walk to the attic, and the muffled voices through the walls told me Thurgood would never live that one down.
The attic door creaked open, and I was relieved to not see Penny’s face. I would have loved for the whole team to be there, but I didn’t want her to find out about my recent lover. I wanted Penny too, I probably always would, but Cimarra had been wonderful, and my brain was already half filled with thoughts about seeing her again.
“Do I get to know any of the juicy details?” Dar asked as he plopped down on the lounger with a smile.
“As much fun as it might be to share every intimate detail about my night, I would prefer to keep this one under wraps. What I did find, though, was a place for us to conduct our business,” I offered to distract him from my little romp in the hay.
Dar and Penny were probably going to meet Cimarra soon, and if I told him about our night, I feared what inappropriate comments might have come out of his mouth at our future meeting. The halfling was quite direct when it came time to talk to women I had slept with. Poor Joplin would never recover from the scandals that left Dar’s mouth after I told him about my night with the girl.
Luckily, my distraction worked, and Dar sat on the edge of his seat with a hearty smile.
“Where is it at?” Dar asked. “Don’t leave me hanging, Wade!”
“The Entertainment District in the old elephant stables behind the theater,” I announced triumphantly.
Dar looked at me curiously and then contorted his face in disgust as realization sunk in.
“The elephant stables?” He gagged. “I’m sure the whole place smells like moldy dung.”
“It’s the perfect place, Dar,” I argued. “It has giant metal tanks we can convert into distillers, and they haven’t been used for years. The elves and dwarves will never think to check out a run-down building in the Entertainment District, so we’ll be able to hide in plain sight. But, most importantly,” I grinned as I pulled the weighted iron key out of my pocket, “I am one of the only ones with a key.”
Dar’s eyes widened in amazement as he plucked the key from my fingers. It was the color of aged iron and had a stamp of an elephant on its front. It was another key to another door I’d never dreamed I would open. Another key in the journey to unlock the potential of my whiskey business.
“Well … ” the halfling pondered as he looked over the trinket. “I guess if you think it’ll work. Fine. But if my clothes end up smelling like elephant shit, I’m putting you on laundry duty.”
“Fair enough,” I chuckled. “But we’ll clean it up real good before we get to work ‘stilling. Speaking of getting clean, do you know when Penny will be back?”
The pixie-like girl never stuck to a specific schedule, so I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was gone until the priestesses made night fall upon the city.
“I saw her when I was on my own way back breaking into the second-story of some house she must have had a tip about.” Dar explained. “If it’s a big score, I would bet she’s back here any minute.”
As if right on cue, the door opened, and Penny’s scarlet head appeared. If Cimarra was darkness and addicting opium smoke, Penny was sunlight and the breeze flowing past flowers. She sauntered in with a smirk that told me her hours of thievery had been far more profitable than ours.
“I heard you had an eventful day today, anything you want to share?” I asked, even though I knew she planned to shove it in our faces anyways.
She tossed her hair over her shoulder as she smirked. “Nothing much, only a pile of jewels to cover my share for the entire week.”
I might have been surprised if this hadn’t happened before.
Penny, with her expertise in the art of aerial jumps and acrobatics, was the only one of us nimble enough to scale buildings unnoticed, and I wondered for a second what she would look like dancing with Cimarra while wearing the same kind of outfit the dark-haired beauty wore during her performance.
“Well, while you were off doing that, I found us a space to make whiskey in the Entertainment District,” I shot back coyly. “I figured we would head out tomorrow in the early morning before Hagan stumbles back in through the doors to give us some monotonous or risky job.”
I filled Penny in on the finer details I’d already explained to Dar, and even though I’d just spent the night making love to Cimarra, I couldn’t help but stare into Penny’s eyes and still feel the desire I always had.
Didn’t rich men often have multiple wives? I really needed to get this business going.
“I like it,” Penny asserted. “We should gather supplies tomorrow while we are out there. It should be easy to steal enough coin to please Hagan, too.”
I nodded my head in agreement, and Dar did the same. Coin was always easy to come by in the Entertainment District. People traveled there with their pockets filled to buy items from the vendors and left with next to nothing by the time we were done with them.
“We will utilize the elephant water tanks for distilling and creating the wash,” I explained. “We will also need copper piping, a heat source, grain, kegs, and cold water to make this work. The cold water we can take from the Omelian River, but what about everything else? Any suggestions?”
“Can’t we just use the still you made at Adi’s?” Dar asked.
“That will make a bottle,” I said. “These tanks are much larger. We need to design the still with them in mind so we can make bigger batches.”
Penny tapped the floor with her slippered foot as Dar racked his brain for ideas. Suddenly, Dar leaned forward, and his dark eyes glowed with an otherworldly light that made him look more elf-like than usual.
“The copper pipes are sold at the apothecary a few blocks down from the theater. A lot of the businesses in that district are protected by the orcs, so we will have to be careful if we plan to steal from him,” Dar cautioned. “The kegs I can get from Adi. He has access to an unlimited supply with his catering business. He usually uses them to carry water or tea, but they should do the trick.”
“I’ll find the fuel sources,” Penny chimed in. “I have a connection who can supply us for as long as we need.”
“And who do you know that has fuel, huh?” Dar questioned her.
“Does it really matter as long as I get the fuel you need?” Penny retorted.
“I was just asking,” Dar sniffed.
“Have I ever let you down before?” Penny glared at him.
“Shit Penny,” Dar groaned, “what’s gotten--”
“Okay, Penny, you find the fuel,” I responded before things got any more out of hand. “Dar, you’re in charge of the kegs, and I will figure out how to steal the copper piping and the grain. I know someone who might be able to help us.”
My friends nodded their heads in agreement, and Dar dragged out a deck of cards.
“Anyone up for a game of halfling rummy before bed?” Dar said as he expertly mixed the cards in his hands.
“If it’s not strip poker I’m out,” I laughed, and Penny choked on the cracker she was eating.
“Ass.” She playfully chucked a cracker at my head, and I deftly caught it between my teeth.
“You aren’t curious to see Dar’s package, too?” I joked as I chewed on the cracker. “I’ve always wondered if halflings were all normal down there, or if it was as short and stubby as they are.”
“It is quite impressive, if I do say so myself,” Dar crooned. “But a magician doesn’t reveal his secrets.”
Penny pretended to be sick before she sent us both a vulgar gesture.
“Deal me in for halfling rummy. I’m not playing strip poker unless it’s against people I know can beat me,” the pixie remarked sarcastically. “I wouldn’t want to end the night as the only one fully clothed.”
Dar and I howled with laughter, and Penny giggled from her corner. The halfling dealt us in, and we spent the remainder of the evening playing the game, until we all finally passed out in our attic.