Chapter 13 The Morning After
The Morning After
Osric
Osric discovered something about himself that night.
He had told Fairhrim that he was an all-or-nothing sort of man, but he had been wrong.
He took exactly what she would give him.
Crumbs. Touches. A drunken exchange of orgasms that, she repeatedly reminded him, meant nothing.
He took the crumbs and was grateful for them, like a pathetic cur whining at her ankles.
Afterwards, Fairhrim had pulled her nightdress back on and moved to the other side of the bed. That was where she slept now, her lips parted, her breathing slow and regular in the dark.
He reached towards her, caught a strand of her hair, and let it fall through his fingers.
Pathetic.
He rolled onto his elbows, crept over to her, and pressed a kiss to her forehead.
Pathetic.
This was beneath him. She was a Flight of Fancy.
Had it been a mistake to sleep with her?
As long as nothing happened between them, he had been cursed with the what-ifs, and now that something had happened, he was cursed with knowledge.
He knew what her hand felt like around his cock.
He knew what she felt like, sounded like, when she came.
He knew what she tasted like, and wanted to taste her again.
He didn’t know whether to regret or celebrate.
Osric fell into a deep sleep, from which he was roused, hours later, by his personal enemy, the sun.
A bit more of his brain awoke. There was another enemy present. This one took the form of a woman slouched over him, fiendishly cutting off all circulation to his lower extremities. His hungover brain recalled that the woman was Fairhrim.
Her nightdress had bunched up, granting him an exquisite view of bare legs tangled with his. He wanted to bite his way up them. There were some lovely dimples up the backs of her thighs that he wished to kiss.
Actually, the blood wasn’t cut off to all of his extremities—one particular extremity was fine. Rising to the occasion.
In many ways—barring the blinding sun—this was just how Osric liked to wake up. Warm, sated, a bit hungover, vaguely postcoital, suffocated by a beautiful woman. Bit surreal, really, to be lying down half naked with Fairhrim.
Mostly lying down, obviously, except for his cock, which was, due to the sight of her legs, and the memory of the sensation of her hot clenching around his fingers, now standing upright.
What to do with this development? Normally he’d press his erection interrogatively at whoever was in bed with him, but the whoever was no longer Drunk Fairhrim. He had no idea how Sober Fairhrim would take a friendly cock poke.
She had said it was a onetime thing.
He was not pathetic enough to wank off in bed with her passed out on top of him. He was only pathetic enough to do it behind the closed bathroom door, thank you.
Osric walked to the bathroom, where he showered and expended what was left in his balls.
The latter activity heavily featured memories of Fairhrim, her scent, her taste, and ideas for further activities, if she should demonstrate an inclination towards them.
Notably he wished her to sit on his face.
He stepped out of the bathroom wearing only a towel wrapped around his waist. It wasn’t that he wanted to show off—he was a modest man—but his clothes were in his suitcase, not the bathroom.
A look in the mirror confirmed that he was madly attractive.
If Fairhrim looked his way, she would be in for a treat.
Fairhrim did not look his way. Fairhrim crawled out of the bed like a worm.
She muttered things to herself. Their activities of the night before did not feature in these remarks; she confined them to the theme of Drinking, with subcategories of Why Did She Do It and It Was All His Fault and General Regret, in a voice that sounded like a runny egg.
Osric asked why so great a Haelan as Aurienne Fairhrim couldn’t cure herself of a mere hangover. Fairhrim gave him a look that held all the despair in the world and said one couldn’t use seith to cure hangovers. Was there any tea on the premises?
There was: a breakfast tray awaited just outside the suite’s door. Osric fetched it and placed it upon a table. He felt a breeze down below; his cock was slipping out from between the folds of the towel.
Fairhrim did not notice. She bent over the table and made a sloppy cup of tea. (Gods forgive him for what he thought about doing to her from behind.)
He wondered if he could convince her that orgasms helped with hangovers. He liked to think that he could outsmart a worm.
The worm oozed her way into a chair. The exercise taxed her; she rested her forehead on a saucer and looked as though she might cry. She asked Osric to pass her her notebook and a pencil, and to please, for the love of all the gods, draw the curtains closed.
If she remembered the night before, she suffered too much to show it.
Osric revived her a bit with a second cup of tea. She pushed the foodstuff away as far as her arm permitted.
“I had a few ideas in the night,” said Fairhrim, scribbling things down in spite of her condition.
Osric had a sneaky glance at her notes to see whether these ideas involved further sex, but they consisted of words like immunohistochemical, and honestly, it was no wonder she had a headache.
Had she entirely forgotten what they’d got up to last night? Tragic.
Osric’s tācn tingled suddenly with a zingy, snappy sort of seith. It was Sacramore’s deofol asking for permission to materialise. Osric went onto the balcony, drawing both curtain and door closed behind him.
Sacramore’s deofol was a secretary bird composed largely of eyelashes and impatience. Her head plumes bristled in annoyance at Osric as she took shape.
“Where were you last night?” she asked. “You missed the meeting.”
“I had other business to attend to.” Osric did not specify that the business involved sex that meant nothing and was, incidentally, going to supply his wank bank for the rest of his life.
Sacramore’s deofol took in her surroundings: the sunlit lake, the early walkers milling about on the promenade below. “Business? It looks like you’re on holiday.”
“What does Sacramore want?”
“We’re moving headquarters, which you would know if you’d attended the meeting. Sacramore has identified locations that need to be scouted. You’ve been partnered with Leofric.”
“I don’t need a partner.”
“Consider it punishment for not being there to argue for yourself.”
“What’s the location?”
“Leofric will brief you. Enjoy the rest of your business,” said the deofol, and she disappeared in a cloud of feathers and bad temper.
When he returned indoors, Osric found Fairhrim packing up. He wanted to talk about his cock, she wanted to talk about logistics, so they compromised and talked about logistics.
“I’m going back to Swanstone,” she said. “I shall send my deofol when I’ve worked out what clinic we can go to, to get a diffractor reading. It’ll be a pain to schedule again.”
“What about now?”
“What do you mean, now? We can’t just barge into a clinic.”
“I happen to have a diffractor at Rosefell Hall.”
Fairhrim blinked. “What?”
“I stole it from the last clinic.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“We need it,” said Osric. “The clinics are too difficult to get into at the moment. Also, it was an act of revenge, for freezing me and pushing me into a wardrobe.”
“You stole a diffractor?” Fairhrim’s head fell into her hands. “You need to return it.”
“As soon as we’re done with it,” said Osric.
Fairhrim did not look impressed. She also did not have the energy to fight him.
She rubbed shadow-ringed eyes. “Let’s go to Rosefell, then.
And you’re to return the diffractor the moment we no longer need it.
I can’t believe you did that—that is a highly specialised, expensive piece of equipment. Someone’s going to notice…”
They packed their things. Osric’s errant cock was tucked back into decency, unnoticed. Fairhrim wore another lovely holidaying dress, in a soft peach, which clashed beautifully with her sickly countenance.
They were conveyed to the waystone in one of the hotel’s carriages, whose side-to-side nautical action only served to make Fairhrim sicker.
When they disembarked, Fairhrim swallowed at the sight of the waystone and asked weakly, “Must we go by ley line?”
“How else do you want to get to Rosefell?” asked Osric.
“Crawl,” said Fairhrim. “Drag myself there using only my teeth.”
She sighed, then her mouth found a stubborn set, and she pressed her palm to the waystone. Osric did the same. Mind the gap flashed, and they were whisked into the ley line.
The ride through the ley line did not agree with Fairhrim, who turned a swampy sort of green upon arrival at Rosefell Hall. Osric gently propelled her up the drive towards the house. Her limbs went in every direction but forward.
She flopped into a flower bed and was violently sick.
Amid the sounds of retching came the voice of the critique cricket, unusually pensive: “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you and vomits in your peonies, it’s yours.”
“Do fuck off,” said Osric, helping Fairhrim into the kitchen.
Mrs. Parson was within. She gasped upon discovering Fairhrim’s state and led her to the nearest toilet to freshen up.
Having shut the door on Fairhrim, Mrs. Parson turned to Osric. “Poor thing. What happened yesterday?”
“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, but—between you and me, Parson, I will acknowledge that the woman can handle a cock.”
Mrs. Parson stared blankly at him. “I meant the healing.”
“Oh—right,” said Osric. “It went well. We’re here to confirm success with the diffractor. Also, we drank a bit too much. Hence the—”
From the toilet came the sound of more retching.
Mrs. Parson tutted. “How could you put her through a ley line in this condition?”
“I didn’t know she was that bad. She only looked a bit tiddly last night.”
“There’s only one of her. Take better care.”