Chapter 21
"I better find it exactly the way I left it," Chaska warned, as a staff girl relieved her of not one, not two, but three flintlock pistols.
Ever since Shiro had bought her the poncho that let her carry them without drawing attention, she'd taken to wearing them a lot more than he'd ever intended when he gifted her the guns.
Shiro watched the exchange with a quiet chuckle as he emptied his own Vanguard's cylinder, then handed it to the same girl, who clearly hadn't expected the weight of it but recovered quickly before vanishing deeper into the establishment.
"This way, please," the woman in charge said, leading them down a corridor.
Shiro glanced at Chaska, a little conflicted about what they were walking into, but seeing the calm on her face, he followed her into a room that turned out to be a bit different from what he'd expected.
Instead of the wall-to-wall debauchery he'd braced for, he found a large, pleasantly scented lounge furnished with plush velvet divans in a riot of colors.
The room seemed designed more for relaxation than anything more intimate, though Shiro figured that with the right occupants and intent, it would serve either purpose just fine.
Right now, the brothel's women, dressed in low-cut, colorfully varied gowns, were doing exactly that, lounging on sofas, some on the carpeted floor, which honestly looked comfortable enough on its own.
Most were just chatting and relaxing, but a handful were entertaining guests, men Shiro assumed were here for the same reason he and Chaska were.
One fed grapes to a man with an impressive beer belly. Another gently stroked the bald head of a heavily bearded black man, an Arad, as he remembered Chaska calling Maiq's people. The last guest sat between two blonde women, an arm around each shoulder, hands cupping their chests.
“How greedy,” Shiro judged internally.
It didn’t take Shiro long to come to the conclusion that what he saw felt tame, comparatively, next to whatever was happening downstairs.
The noise from below had faded to a nearly imperceptible whisper, one he definitely wouldn't have caught if his ears weren't actively listening for that kind of trouble.
Could anyone blame him, though? A commotion like that was pretty much guaranteed at a place like this.
Their arrival drew the attention of several of the unoccupied women, who, after a subtle nod of approval from the madam, approached together.
Quite the welcome, Shiro thought, watching four of them converge with genuine eagerness in their eyes, only to realize, with mild disappointment, that every bit of that eagerness was aimed squarely at Chaska.
"Hi," they greeted her softly, which made Chaska, to Shiro's baffled surprise, blush in a way he'd never seen the normally stern, stubborn Andoe do.
"Hey."
"...So pretty," one of them said.
"What's your name?"
"Thanks… I’m Chaska."
"Chaska! What a pretty name, I wish I had one that pretty. I'm Morgana."
"I'm Lily."
"Nice to meet you, Mo—"
"And I'm Joanna."
"Girls, you're overwhelming her," one scolded, before turning back with a warm smile, an arm coiling around Chaska's waist as she guided her forward. "Chaska, why don't you come sit with us over there? We'll just talk, get to know each other, take it at your own pace. How does that sound?"
Like a complete amateur, Chaska let herself be led toward a divan, where the rest of the group immediately settled in around her.
"What do you think of our girls?" the madam asked, beside Shiro.
"They're good," he conceded, bitter that none had approached him, though he suspected that had something to do with the motion the madam made.
"Wait until you meet our upstairs girls."
"Upstairs?"
"These aren't all of them," she said, mischievously.
Figured, Shiro thought, catching the particular climactic crescendo drifting up from somewhere in the building's basement.
"We've got girls on the upper floor too," the madam said, leaning in as if sharing a secret. "Our best."
"Is that so."
"It is. Which is exactly why access to them is limited to our VIP guests."
"Mm."
"We could arrange to make you one of our most esteemed members. We just happen to have an opening." Her eyes flicked briefly toward his purse, from which he'd already paid the entrance fee, which, notably, hadn't covered anything resembling an actual activity. Those were negotiated separately.
"How much?"
"For a measly five Baelor, darling, you get exclusive entry for a full lunar cycle.
That gets you onto the VIP floor, unlocks our private stock of top-shelf wine and spirits, and guarantees absolute privacy in our finest rooms. More importantly, it gets you our very best girls, women whose talents I personally guarantee will leave you breathless.
Face, body, and mind, they got everything.
On top of that, VIP patronage is what funds a wardrobe and accessory collection extensive enough to cater to whatever specific taste you bring through those doors. "
"Alright," he nodded, his brain still stuck on measly five Baelor, especially considering it might end up paying for something he couldn't fully enjoy anyway.
"You guys have aphrodisiacs?"
She looked briefly surprised by the question but recovered quickly. "We do, of course we do. VIP membership grants you heavily discounted access to our private apothecary, rare aphrodisiacs and stamina elixirs, available for separate purchase."
"Hm."
After getting the rundown and paying for his membership, Shiro was led upstairs, leaving Chaska behind, who by then seemed to have forgotten he existed entirely. So much for worrying about her wanting to visit this place. She seemed even more at home here than he did.
The first thing Shiro noticed reaching the VIP room was that the madam hadn't oversold the difference between this floor and the one below.
The smell alone told him this operated on a different budget entirely, layers of pleasant scent mingling in the air, sweet, then floral, then something he'd have sworn belonged to a particular liquor he couldn't quite name.
The room still had divans, like downstairs, but none of the flirting, feeding, or chest-fondling going on below.
No distant noise either, he noted. Only soft, sweet conversation, which fell quiet as he stepped into the large room, divided into sections, each holding a bed separated from its neighbor by little more than a sheet of colorful fabric.
This can't be the privacy I was promised, he thought, before the sight in front of him swept the thought away entirely.
On those beds, and on the divans scattered through the middle of the room, sat women dressed each in their own distinct style, waving him over with varying degrees of invitation.
If he could've split himself into multiple men, he'd have happily offered a piece of himself to each of these beauties, but unfortunately he only had one body to work with.
He chose the girl with long, fluffy black hair arranged into twin tails and deep, sun-kissed skin. Her smile was beautiful, brightening the sharp lines of her high cheekbones, though Shiro found it strangely easy to picture that same face settling into a sterner expression.
Sitting on the bed, she was draped in a scarlet gown that flowed with her movements like liquid fire.
The gossamer-thin silk was nearly weightless, catching the air with every breath, shifting against her skin as she waved him over.
She moved closer across the bed, the fabric gliding over her body with each motion.
It wasn't entirely see-through, but the way the material clung and shifted left just enough to the imagination, tracing the contours of the chest hidden beneath. He guessed that was entirely the point.
She held out a hand as he approached. "Shiro," he said, taking it. "At your service."
"That's supposed to be my line," she laughed. "I'm Thalia. My lord."
"I'm no lord," he said, remembering his ongoing grudge against nobility. "Do I look like one?"
She gave a mischievous nod. “A foreign prince.”
"Well, maybe. That said, I think I lack the required greed for the job." He drew the curtain shut behind them, then climbed onto the bed at her invitation, a grin he couldn't quite suppress spreading across his face.
A more considerate man would have taken his time, put in more effort to actually get to know her before things went further.
But given his circumstances, Shiro decided he could skip that.
He closed the distance between them, hand held forward, palm angled slightly upward, fingers relaxed and parted. "Say, Thalia, can I?"
She shifted her weight, leaning closer, mirroring his motion, until they were nearly pressed together.
"Yes, Shiro," she murmured against his ear, her palm sliding against his, warm and steady. One by one, her fingers slid into the gaps he'd left, index first, then middle, until their grips locked tight, fitted together like pieces of a puzzle long meant to match. "Yes, you can."
He closed his hand gently over hers, thumb brushing the back of her wrist, anchoring them for what came next.
With his other arm, he drew an arc around her waist, pulling her body against his, rewarded with the sensation of her chest pressed through the fabric between them.
It was pleasant, though nothing compared to what came next, claiming her lips, a moment he wanted to linger on.
But despite the carnal pull he felt toward her, he was there on a mission, one he hadn't forgotten, which was why he pulled away from her grip before long.
She, unsurprisingly, knew how to free herself of her garment far better than he could manage on his own.
He took a few seconds to take in the view, half expecting, at this point, neither surprise nor disappointment, then just moved forward, trying things he hadn't gotten to try with Anya.
Back then, beyond his first attempt, everything he'd done had been in retaliation, pleasure for pleasure's sake.
Here, he was putting himself first. Unfortunately, it yielded about the same result.
He knew little about her, wasn't sure if she leaned submissive by nature, but she certainly did her best to respond to what, to anyone watching, would have looked increasingly erratic.
Halfway through, though, she must have pieced it together, because her submissiveness climbed another notch, to the point it actually started making him feel bad.
Don't look at me like that, he wanted to protest.
"Is there anything I can do? Something that might help?"
Noooo, don't ask me that either, he winced.
"We have aphrodisiacs," she said, reaching into the drawer beside the bed and producing two vials, the sight of which made him wince harder.
"This one's called—"
"Kraken's Awakening. And that's Morpheus Brew."
"You know these?"
"Unfortunately." He pointed to each in turn.
"That one gives me catastrophic diarrhea.
Good thing I tried it in my own room and not anywhere else.
That one, I've seen it work once, but you'd need to chain me down to use it safely.
There's another one I've tried too, but it doesn't seem to do much for me.
Couldn't finish what I started with that one either. "
She was quiet a moment, then sweetly offered, "We have chains. I can get them, if you want. A friend has them."
Shiro didn't know whether to laugh or cry. With a heavy exhale, he said, "Forget it. Sorry."
"Why are you apologizing?" she said, with a look that didn't help matters, then brightened with a new idea. "Tell me about it. Your problem. Maybe I can help find a solution."
"That," Shiro conceded, "is actually a great idea. In fact, let's take it a step further. Bring the others in on it," he said, raising his voice. "Come on, I'm sure together we can figure something out, right, girls?"
He looked at the curtain. It didn't move. A moment later, though, it did, revealing a 7-girl audience.