…go all in on waiting; it's worked so far.

Waiting. Waiting seems safer. Through the broken keyhole you look at her body: toned with muscle yet still womanly. She’s tall for a woman and much taller than you as a result, and every inch of her form is willing and able to fight dirty. How many people must have rushed her with knives over the years? And yet, still she is here.

You look to your own pitiful self, bruised and beaten. Between your legs, you feel an ache; more the memory of pain than anything else, and the bite you suffered stings as though venomous. Your legs are also cramping while squatting like this, and it’s the only part of you regretting your choice to remain still. Nevertheless, you watch silently as she finishes, rubbing between her legs before she leaves. Any second now.

Any second now.

Now.

Now?

She leans heavily against the door frame, wiping with one rag wielding hand between her legs. The gown obscures it, but her arm can be doing no other action. You consider how you would feel to be seeded by a man like Roland and you begin to sympathise; you’d want at least a dozen washes before stepping out the room, and a little cloth, far from gratuitous, doesn’t seem enough.

She sighs heavily, blowing a gust of air noisily though her nostrils. She’ll need to tie her gown closed before leaving, lest she give all those waiting in the foyer the same sights Roland (and you) received. Perhaps that’s her intention? The gown is thin enough already and you wouldn’t put it past her.

The rag drops from her hand, crumpling to the floor in a little heap of its own, but she remains still, though not frozen; her hand, now ragless, still moves between her legs. What is she doing? You shift yourself silently, checking if your other eye can see more clearly, genuinely curious at the possibility of some trick known to whores and women of loose virtue. Perhaps there is something you’re supposed to do down there, after sex? Or this could be the trick that some women use to avoid pregnancy! You watch what she does, trying to work out her movements from the other side of the gowns flowing vale, like a magic trick. Since being on this island and escaping the clutches of its denizens, you really regret not asking your mother more questions when she told you about such things. In all fairness, she probably wouldn’t know anyway, or she would, you don’t know which is worse. Actually, it may just be too embarrassing to bring up, making what you see even more valuable for its education.

She drops her hand, swinging it up to rest it on the door by her other and drumming her fingers on the wood as she did on her bosom. You note the wetness of the digits. Seed perhaps? Can you just dig it out? Tilting her head back, she sighs dramatically, closing her eyes and running her breath down, until she can only mouth a silent resigned word.

“Fuck.”

She turns and walks back to the bed with leaded steps, and you shift back to the hinges crack to watch what she does. Throwing herself down on her back, the gown splayed about her naked figure, she reaches the same hand to between her legs, and you see it land on the lips of her womanhood, three fingers pressed to the point. She begins to stir.

You watch as her fingers turn in circles: up, left, down, right, the slow clockwise tick pushing and pulling her hairless lips. Her eyes close, her head tips back, and a slow exhale, not so resigned as before, blows through her lips as though full of savoured pipe smoke. Her position is much the same as when Captain Roland was atop her, with legs open and bare to the room, giving you ample sight at the grinding of her fingers. Moisture once more glistens upon them, and you see why as the red lips of her flower begin to stream like the sweat of her brow. The fingers dive. She moans.

‘That…That…That whore!’ you think, watching as she pleasures herself. It can be nothing else. The fingers move back and forth, as Roland did within her before leaving. What is this? Did she want it or not!? The bored and frustrated expressions she wore when upon him become confused in your mind. She hid those expressions from Roland, yet used them to deceive you? Did she really just want a whore’s unpaid work? To satisfy her lusts? But they both… at the same time, didn’t they? Unless she faked it?

Not for the first time in your life, or even this evening, you feel a blossoming sense of naive stupidity. Of course she faked it. She wanted to be satisfied, carnally, but her partner didn’t or couldn’t ‘keep up’ so to speak. Now she’s satisfying herself? She can do that? You suppose, why not. But what of her words to Roland: those that seemed some kind of manipulation? **** for not doing it right? You just don’t get it, but maybe you need to be a certain kind of person to follow her logic. If she has any.

She rubs with her fingers, twitching her hips with a silent intensity. Watching her now, it does seem more genuine, and perhaps as a result, more private and personal. You don’t look away this time though. There is something about the sight that’s…empowering? It’s not really the right word. Real perhaps. Genuine. You felt duped before, but your earlier anger fades and you watch with renewed curiosity.

Her expression is serene, with her eyes closed and a look of emotionless concentration on her face. Her tanned skin begins to glimmer, faintly shining with beaded droplets of unshed sweat, but her finger keep to their slow and gentle pace. There is no man hammering out his rough pleasure, or a convincing show to put on. There is just her, on her bed, taking her time as she pleases. Her hips roll, her legs adjust, and the first twitch scrunches her brow for only a moment. Still, back and forth her fingers run, not in deep plunging motions like Roland did, but small rubbing motions that speak of quality over quantity.

Beyond her hand and its personal work, the rest of her is quite a sight as well, and you could imagine any man paying for her services in the days she walked the streets. They’d pay more now, and double again after such a private and sincere sight. Her faces red lips are slightly smeared, but the rest seems to glow with her perfectly applied makeup, highlighting her cheekbones and eyes and giving her an ageless maturity. Her body is strong, but not thick muscled like a dockworker; instead, her form looks powerful, capable, even now, even naked. The rest -the things a man’s eyes would see nothing but- all cast a shadow of womanhood that leaves you in the dark, and fantasies of possessing a body like that for your own half form in your mind, kept from maturity by the question of what you would do with it.

Her head tilts, rolling to the side with a moan, as though stirring from sleep. The dreams or wild imaginings stirring behind her eyes knit her brows together, first drawn down, then up, each move punctuated by a fresh shock of the hips or twitch of her legs, or sudden deep draw of breath. It all carries an intensity to it, quiet and slight though it is; like a dreamer in the throes of a nightmare, though clearly opposite and growing more so by the second. The deep roaring breaths through her nose spill out as her lush lips part, gusting shaking mouthfuls back and forth, and a pained expression twists her serene features, painting them with an anguish that seems joyful, wanting, even reverent.

You watch as her toes begin to curl, her other hand joining the first. One quests with deep reaching fingers while the other rubs the jewelled knocker at the forefront of her lips with increasing speed. Her legs draw together, briefly pinning her hands between her thighs and hiding much of her work from you, before reluctantly parting under her own shaky insistence. Her head tilts back, looking up with eyes closed and spilling out **** quiet sounds as her body shakes, riding waves that buckle her from head to toe and bend her down, drawn over her work as though each rub is the tightening of a knot. Hair spills forward like a waterfall, drenching her chest in dirty blond locks as she looks down, face constricted and warped with a joyful pain that you did not think women were capable of. Whatever lightning courses through her, she rides it, throwing her shoulders, stretching and unstretching her legs, leaning back, leaning forward. She keeps rubbing, sometimes with both hands and sometimes with one, the other gripping the bed or some part of her body, and for minutes she keeps to the saddle of her bucking and unruly pleasure, before it and her collapse into a sighing exhaustion.

You find that you’re breathing heavily as well, and the touch of your own free hand lays between your squatting legs, pressing against yourself in unthinking imitation. You remove it, slowly, grudgingly, as though some part of you doesn’t wish to let go, and a single mid digit scratches a nail along the taught black material, hoping to ease the strange itch that had made its way there. Unlike her, you do not have the luxury of distraction. And yet…and yet…

The whole thing had none of her previous cries or curses, or moans and platitudes. Just deep breaths and bodily shakes. There was a beauty to it that had you transfixed, and still you swallow heavily, watching her naked body as it pants for breath, watching her hand as it parts the curtain of hair before her still closed eyes. It feels as though you’ve been given a key to a door, and you know that when you get home… you’re going to use it. The though makes you bite your lip. What would that make you? Like her? But no one would know. No one _will _know. Your finger itches again and you mentally slap yourself to your senses.

Rather than sleep, she stands with great **** and wonders across the room to the door as though carrying the weight of her weariness. There is no pause this time as she walks through it. You watch through the keyhole as the door drifts to a half open state, and you trace the delicate slaps of her bare feet on the wood floor and the low wood table as she crosses the room. Door of the rooms far side opens and the words she speaks at the top of the stairs are as legible to you as they are to the men in the foyer.

“Forgive me gentlemen, I think I won’t have time to see you all this evening, though I’m glad you’d had the chance to talk to each other.” She doesn’t even sound tired, and had you not seen how she acted before, you would never have heard the deception. “Mr Drogger, if you’d like to visit the cellar you can familiarise yourself with the goods we can discuss tomorrow morning. Rock there, or one of the maids, can show you the way down if you don’t remember the way. Fainus, if you’d be so kind as to join me?”

While she’s outside the room, you take a moment to shift your position, sitting on your behind instead of your painfully squatting legs. They almost creak as you quietly stretch them out as far as you can, and you move some of the material to compensate, sacrificing your view of the bed to cover you and give you more of a chance to strike should she come your way. If you’re going to wait then you may as well be comfortable. You look at your position and realise how familiar it is, leaning against the wardrobe wall with legs bent and slightly parted. No distractions! As she walks back in, bringing another man to her bed chamber, you wonder how long you can wait her out, and if your boatman will still be there when she’s done.

Fainus, which a passing glimpse through the keyhole confirms is one of the merchants from below, trails behind while staring at her behind. You recall which one he is from those you saw; he’s the one with the gaudy gold silk overcoat and thick gold rings about his even thicker podgy fingers. You don’t see or recall much more of him, but an impression of flabby sweat and the ill health of substance **** shine about where you think he is, like an aura glowing through the door.

They talk, and truth be told, you don’t really listen. Beyond the first greetings, the conversation descends into the renegotiation of some contract or other. Fainus, as it happens, is some manner of **** manufacturer or seller, specialising in Wyverns Rest and its derivatives. Captain Washkin’s ships transport some of that produce to its distributers and processors like twisted versions of the merchant ships they rob, taking a cut of money and substance for their troubles.

The negotiations sway to her favour as a nervous quality enters his already whiny and pubescent voice, and it’s not hard to picture the slip of a gown or the stroke of her finger. Her cut gets bigger and bigger, until it climaxes in a shower of promises and platitudes from the pathetic sounding man. Evidently, she is part of the bargain, and male moans begin to sound, this time without the fake female moans of Roland and his failed attempt. Instead, the only sound you hear from her is a brief and quiet hum, followed by a noisy swallow and a gasp after his moans had reached their height. You can’t see her through the keyhole, but he stands and you get the impression that she kneels. As he leaves, you wonder how much that cost him.

He’s swapped out for the next man, a Mr Bekinsail, and the negotiation goes much the same way, though dryer and less eventful. It’s almost like a genuine business deal that might take place in a clerk’s office. It takes place entirely at the table, with the captain never touching the dressing gown and the man’s eyes never wavering from hers. Her charms don’t fail her, but instead it’s a different game being played, with the will of each person contesting fairly in business. The man looks old and dry, with the kind of sad power some old men have when they have spent their life hording gold and playing the miser. Rather than moans and extortion, this one ends in smiles and a handshake; a bulk of ill-gotten goods passing in promise to the satisfaction of both parties.

Your impatience nags at you as the next man comes in; an ill sounding whale of blubbery tanned skin, with a bald head poking through a loose red gown that bulges with a poorly hidden gut. He talks in a disgusting simper that coughs and sniffs with cold, but his conversation is more interesting, if only for its bizarre tone. Whether by design or a natural habit, the man talks in a very roundabout way, mentioning people and things not by name but as ‘mutual acquaintances’ in such and such a place and the ‘items’ and ‘things’ and ‘property’ they have. The more he talks, the more he shows his occupation to be that of an information broker, and his every passing word seems wrapped in obfuscation and hidden meaning, to the point that his description of his journey over seems the start of some grand plot. You struggle to follow any of it, but you think the captain wishes to speak with someone about something and he agrees to put the two of them in communication for a small fee. Kisses on cheeks are exchanged, but only promises go further, with the captain offering a special treat when he is feeling better.

Finally, after a miserable drag of time, the forth and hopefully final man is invited into the room. His attire marks him as different from the others and somewhat piques your interest. ‘Mr’ Marsh Nokim, as the captain calls him, is dressed in a very distinct attire that you have neither seen before, nor had explained to you, yet the style of which can only be intuited a certain way.

He dresses like a noble.

The dark green velvet top is almost black and cuts to his form with an expert design hewn with skill by expensive hands. It’s lightly brocaded and trimmed in silver strands with silver buttons, and it looks like another stolen masterpiece in the worn and dimly lit room. He carries a black cane with silver edging the same way he carries himself, with perfect propriety, yet the face you see is not that of a carefree aristocrat. His eyes are shadowed and his face gaunt, but neither are withered by a sickness of the body, which looks healthy if a little full. Instead, a kind of madness, like an insatiable hunted hunger, lies behind his wary eyes: a rich man thieving from a dragons den, or a dying man bargaining with **** itself.

You have no doubt his ‘Mr’ is as fake as the rest of his given name. Only lords and ladies care to spend so much on clothes, and the dark colours match the fashions of the principalities, making the other men look gaudy and clownlike by comparison. After a series of polite greetings back and forth, the two begin to converse, and the encounter remains a weary one. They match wits like circling animals, predators both, yet the captains ease shows how confident she is in her claws. The man’s air of crumbling superiority doubles by the second, starting small and growing into a chorus of constant swallows and oozing flop sweat, made worse with each veiled barb and each faltering back and forth.

As the conversation goes on, his false name cannot hide his position, and you learn that he is the Dock Master of Lilia’s north bank; a position not purchased cheaply. The power and prestige gained from it doesn’t seem enough for him though; you listen with bulging eyes as he sells access to the markets and safe ports of the city, whose safety had been entrusted to him. A word to the Guard when you get back to the city is in order; the nobility is not something to tangle with alone. You could do something about it here, but from the way he keeps that cane close you’d wager that sharp steel makes up some of its inner work. Besides, you have enough to think about right now.

The negotiation goes on for a while. The first act on captain Washkins part is of intimidation, softening the noble’s grand ego before anything can be considered. After that, the talk moves to coin and cuts and the man shows his competence and comfort, before she casually mentions how his wife is barren. It seems to shake him, clearly a secret not many know, and when the price is settled between the two, the terms lean somewhat in her favour. He’s not selling his betrayal cheap though, and for a moment you think she had once more slipped herself into the deal, so sweetly laced are the saccharine tones of her voice as she strokes him possessively. His back goes straight(er) at the gesture and you can see why; her gentle strokes over his arms and shoulders and face are more akin to an old woman and her favoured jewellery than anything romantically seductive. Her greedy eyes sparkle, and when it’s over, he practically runs for the door.

Finally alone and finally done, she blows out her lips in an unflattering horse like snort before circling the room, snuffing out the candles with thumb and forefinger. When the room had grown dark, illuminated only by the flickering light on her nightstand, you hear -but do not see- the fall of her gown and the squeak of her bedframe, followed by the rustle of fabric as she shuffled to its centre. The final light that glows through the keyhole goes out and her sheets flap like wondering sales before settling like a thin layer of snow upon her naked body. You want to move now, to see through the hinge-side gap as you did before, but a stillness descends upon the room, and you picture her lying there, much as you have lain in your own bed after a hard day’s work, listening to the world and heavy with fatigue. Sleep takes time, but its time you have and it does come; her deep breathes grow long in the room, and eventually they rumble with the sound of sombre snores.

She’s asleep.

She’s asleep! It almost needs to wake you up, so long have you been sitting between the dresses of your box and lulled to dreaming by a bed of flowing silks and saffron. You move like a slug, by design instead of stiffness wherever possible, slowly manoeuvring back into a crouching squat and facing the doors you had grown so familiar with. You look into the room by key and hinge, but the gaps may as well not be there, the dark without looking as deep as the dark within. You feel the weight of the knife in your hands, feel down its strong edge and fine point. There can be no other time but now.

With a slowness exclusive to stalking predators, you open the door without a single creak of wood or squeak of hinges, and pour your legs down to the bedroom floor. Soft soled pumps kiss the wood with a waft of black fabric, and carry the rest of you forward with the grace of a floating spectre. The moon had set, and in the dim reflected starlight only shapes and impressions painted by memory can be seen. You know there are some clothes on the floor there, or there, and you know the bedpost floats in the dark at the end of your gently reaching fingers. The captain’s breath is guide and comfort both, still sawing and rattling back and forth with unobtrusive regularity. The room smells of sleep, under sweat and musk, and the late hour and the hammocked hours you laid before tempts you to lower your eyes and rest with the early new day. But your heart hammers. You feel awake. Maybe more awake than you ever have.

You time your footsteps to the slight rumble each breath brings, cautious of any loose boards that escape your memory. It’s a strategy that takes you silently to her side, where you look down at the black space and see only by the vague rise and fall of her chest, where she lays. You squint and squat and try to get the lay of her where you can, wanting your first strike in the dark to be your last of the night.

Satisfied, you feel your own chest, over your pounding heart, reassuring yourself of its side and position. You try to calm it. Should you poison your blade? It seems unnecessary. The room is hot and the air is still, its only breeze blown at you by her steady breath. You grip the hilt of your stiletto dagger with both hands and raise it over her chest. Its point shakes.

She sniffs and sniffs again, mumbling sleepily.

“Is that blood?”

You bring the dagger down with all the **** you can muster, sinking it between her ribs and glancing off the bone. Her hand snaps to your wrist, jumping to it as though it had always been there, and the vice like pressure of it makes you jump and squirm. You feel more than see, her once sleeping face twisted in agony, and as the seconds wear on, her grip begins to fade, until pulling free of her is no harder than the tug of a spider’s web.

Uncorked by the pull of the sunken blade, her veins beat free with the power of her hearts main vain and a red veil spills out with vibrant ****, glowing a river of hot and ruby red that glitters even in the dark. She coughs, once, twice, then stills in the sheets, the cloying smell of blood mixing with the nights sweat and summer warmth. The smell was on you before, but now it hits with ****, filling the room and your head with alcoholic headiness. You feel where it sprayed as you rub your soaked fingers together idly, stirring as you watch what you cannot see.

It’s done. She’s dead. What now?

The thought is an odd one, and lonesome in your head. What do you do now? Success was not chef among the scenarios that played through your head as you crept up. Success didn’t need to be thought of. A million what if’s whither on the vines of your mind and it takes a moment for new thoughts to take their place. Eventually, you reach out gingerly and feel for her chest, your fingers as gentle as though she were still sleeping. You brush her hot warmth and flinch back. Of course she’s not cold; not yet. Why would she be? You’re being foolish! The idea of her faking it in the dark is immediately dismissed as nonsense, but the idea of you succeeding so completely is equally absurd. You shake your head in the dark and reach down with a deliberate casualness, determined to treat the body with the professional detachment you imagine an assassin should have.

Time to get the amulet and go.

Feelings course through tips of your fingers; first traveling air, then heat and blood and skin. The steamy liquid is like oil, softening and lubricating the flesh beneath, and your fingers skate the surface of her body until they come across something bearing a different unexpected texture. You grab-

Breast. The soft skin almost makes you recoil again, and the strange texture pressing your palm with a nipple nubs hardness makes the image of them comes sharp to your mind, rising and falling as she rubbed herself to completion. Even on her back and flattened with weight, they fill your small hand, and the heat creeping upon your face is not from any splash of blood. Still, if that’s…her breast, the necklace must be…

In the space between her bosoms, your fingers wrap about the slick metal curls and gilding of the famous necklace, and you lift it up, drawing the fine chain from her bloody chest like an anchor from the sea. You pass it to the hand also holding your blade, before reaching about the back of her neck to unclasp it. The action seems… in poor taste. First you grope her breast, now you lean in close as though for a sleeping kiss? Were anyone to see it, they would think the worst of you. You almost smile for the thought. The distinction between **** and base indulgence -even just assumed- is so trivial that your mind may very well be broken.

The clasp puts up a fight, and bloody fingers and tangled blond hair slow things further. You feel your frustrated breath bounce off her serene and still face, as though she breathed once more. Under the blood, you smell perfume, both mixing so oddly.

The clasp forces you to regroup, wiping the dagger on the bedsheets and fitting it back through your trouser slit and the leather loop about your thigh. Freed up, you resume with both hands, trying not to keep your face so close to hers and failing out of necessity. After a while, you consider that you may make a good -or at least fair- assassin, but your skills at robbing the dead are as poor as they can be. It takes a long time, but the necklace comes free, and the far easier battle of sealing it about your own neck begins. That done, you head for the window, keeping quiet on instinct and eager to reach the sounds of the night. The silence you leave behind is an oppressive one, like the pregnant pause in a long argument, and you have no desire to be here when it breaks.

You climb out the open window and onto a short roof waiting below, sliding down until you can drop the distance from the slight gutter to the grassy lawn. It doesn’t look far, but the impact makes you lose your footing and roll in the grass, stopping on your back and looking at the stairs twinkling above. You look at their grandeur for a moment, saying a silent prayer of thanks before putting your feet back under you and slinking away from the building like a midnight animal. After a few steps you give the world a quick and suspicious look, and seeing only empty night, you take up a trot, then a run across the open space, disappearing into the woods without call or comment chasing you.

The forest of the island is not grand, and the back shore is not far all things considered. Still, picking your way through the trees is a slow affair that turns your run into a crawl. Stopping to look up at the sometimes hidden stars to guide your way is a constant frustrating must as well, and you head off course a couple of times just to find your way. Nevertheless, the sea does finally great you long before the rising sun of morning even considers it, and the dull shape of your guides island rendezvous looms large in the distance. You’re not the strongest swimmer, but after what you have accomplished, you wade out into the cleansing waters of the archipelago with confidence.

As you swim with the weight of 50,000 gold and an island about your neck, as well as the lives taken and the pain you suffered, you do not sink. With the unseen wings of righteousness -of justice for the dead and vengeance for those still living- you do not fly. You’ve been bitten, beaten, bruised, and blooded. You’ve suffered and seen suffering. Each kick of your legs drags tiredly in the water, and the prospect of what’s to come -convincing the navy to free those captured innocents and mop up the disorganised remains- is a daunting one. But for tonight, the jobs done.

Your task complete.

You’ve won, and you allow yourself a tight smile.