Forgetting. It was the greatest temptation, and the most dangerous of them all. Gottfried puffed on the purple leaf while he drank and let Iris engage him in conversation, and he was for the present, supremely happy. He forgot the silver collar around her throat. He forgot that he might as well have fixed it around her throat in person. It was so easy, and it felt so good. He let out a deep laugh when she let out a high one, and he leaned back into his booth as she leaned back in her chair.

Minutes flowed past like water around a bend after a swift rain. Far too quickly. He reached out and touched her hand, she tensed only for a moment, and then it was gone, and that brief tension, before he could ask about it, that was forgotten too. He ran a hand through his dark straight hair and sighed when the laughter finally broke.

“So where will you go next, My Lord?” Iris asked, and Gottfried gave her an indulgent smile that exposed his pearl white teeth.

“Please, when we’re alone, you can just call me Gottfried. It’s just us, nobody will hear.” Gottfried urged, and Iris was briefly taken aback, leaning against the rear of her seat, she thought that over for a moment.

“Al-Alright. Gottfried, then. If you want. Only when we’re alone, though.” Iris answered, “I wouldn’t presume anything about your public life.”

‘I’m your naughty little secret, after all.’ She thought with a mix of bitterness and resignation.

“Next… I’m here for a while. My mother’s…” He paused and took a bite of a smooth white bellied fish, using that moment to think over his answer, “my mother wants me to relax. To have some fun, I suggested I remain in this city. So for a few weeks, we’ll see a lot of each other.”

“And… after that?” Iris asked with a trepidation she didn’t quite expect to feel… but felt anyway. She blinked her eyes to cover it.

“My uncle wants me to go south again. The country your city tried to betray us to… they’ve been making trouble. Detaining our merchants, accusing them of being spies, that kind of thing. A show of force should be enough.” Gottfried remarked, but Iris only huffed.

“Aren’t they spies, though?” She asked, leaning forward a little so that the glass of wine was against her cheek.

“Not all of them, no. And you can’t just come outright and say it like that. Not unless you want to escalate conflict. Me, I think my mother is playing her games again, but who can say? She plays it close to the chest, the same as my uncle.” Gottfried replied and finished his glass, the rich dark wine slid over his tongue and down his throat.

Iris smirked, “How do you know ‘I’ am not a spy, isn’t it a little reckless of you to tell me this much?”

Gottfried shook his head, “Not a chance.”

Iris frowned, her ruby lips turned from their former happiness, ‘He sounds absurdly confident, it was a joke, and I’m not, but still…’ She looked him dead in his bright blue eyes until he looked away. “You had me checked out, didn’t you… Master Gottfried.” She accused him.

“To borrow your phrase, ‘Wouldn’t you, in my situation?’”

Iris settled down, “I… suppose I would. So… now I’m curious.” She sat up straight again and drained her glass. “What did you find out?”

“You’re serious, you actually want to know?” Gottfried asked.

“You didn’t have much time to do it, barely the better part of a day, maybe a little more if… you… saw… my… mother…” She froze, “Did you… did you see my mother? The night you went to the temple… did you?” Iris asked with a desperate urgency. “Is she alright? I haven’t seen her in months…”

Gottfried swallowed, “Iris, your mother is how you’d expect her to be. She’s not getting any better, but she’s not getting any worse either. They keep her stable, she can talk, and move, she knew who I was when she saw me. I told her about you, but I left off what you were doing.”

“Thank you, for that. If she knew I was here it would break her heart.” Iris replied and bowed her head with gratitude.

“I talked with her for a little, she said good things about you, and so did the other priests. They expressed some admiration for someone who would go so far for their mother. One of them said he even used you as an example in a sermon, though he left your name off of it.” Gottfried chuckled at Iris’s dismay at that last revelation.

“It’s hard to believe…” She said, “I thought they didn’t like me much.”

“They’re naturally severe.” He answered in turn, “But most of what they found was fairly normal, not popular nor hated by the others here, your mistress seems to favor you, and you don’t have any visitors for…” He stopped when she looked crestfallen.

“What I mean is, no ‘handlers’ nobody passing on information.” Gottfried added with haste.

“It’s fine, Gottfried.” She said and put up her left hand, “It’s fine, I know what you meant, but it’s just something My Lady would say to me, to all of the fallen ones.”

“What’s that?” Gottfried asked, “Or… would you rather not say it?”

Iris shrugged and refilled both their glasses again, pouring till the bottle’s last drop made a ripple in her glass that bounced back and forth from the glass sides to the center and out again until its energy was entirely lost.

She set the bottle down, and said, “Not that it matters. But there’s nowhere for us to go. She can be genuinely kind to us, we get real meat, even if the stew is bland. We have beds, not just mats or piles of straw, but the whip is always on the wall. No visitors, no families, nowhere to run that won’t turn us in.”

“It’s a cruel thing…” Gottfried admitted.

“It’s a cruel world.” Iris pointed out. “Its bright points exist, but most of us pass through that warmth between two long spans of darkness, and even when we live in it, there’s no telling when the light we live in will go out.” Iris said and drained her glass.

She looked across the table to where a somber Gottfried sat, unsure of what to say, so she stood up, walked around the table to where he sat, and before he could ask what she was doing, she began to undo his shirt.

Forgetting it was Iris’ greatest desire, a great danger, a great temptation, but one she felt the urgent need to give into, Gottfried tried to speak, but she lowered her mouth to his and captured it in a kiss.

The warmth of his body felt good to her, it sent tingles down her spine which she was sure he shared, and when his hands went up to the laces of her dress, she started to breathe harder, pressing her breasts against his face, he tugged the front down to taste them, a moan of pleasure escaping from his body, to which she added her own, wrapping her arms around his head until he peeled her dress away.

She rode him there in the booth, the heat of their coupling was a comfort that warmed her from the cold winter thoughts of earlier. She had her lips on his when she found her release, and was still dueling his tongue when he eventually found his own and felt him soften and slip out of her.

That gradual downturn from the high returned again. And that which she had forgotten, had felt like she had escaped from for a little while at least, returned to her. She kept her eyes closed when she kissed him again, so that she didn’t have to see, and could pretend a little more.

When she had to stand, removing herself from him, she was slow about putting on her dress.

“I wasn’t expecting that…” Gottfried gasped and began to put his pants back on.

“Then you have a great deal to learn, Gottfried, my cohort.” She said while doing up the laces behind her back.

“I… suppose that is true.” Gottfried admitted with some reluctance, then brightened, “I hope I’m a quick study.”

Iris glanced down at the purple braid around his waist that marked him as part of the royal family, then raised her eyes to meet his own. “I have no more experience than you in that, My L- Gottfried. If you want more… I won’t do it every time… but, I- I think we will again. Until you leave.” She said with a little smile that hid the unspoken words she could barely cope with.

She glanced over her shoulder, realizing all of a sudden, “It’s dark… oh… we’ve been here for a very long time, they must have closed hours ago… I will see you out.”

Gottfried, once dressed again, didn’t find the will to refuse, though he left a lingering look on her fresh, smooth face until she turned it from him, her long dark hair bouncing at her back. Her walk down the steps was casual and cautious, ‘I wonder if she forgot we were up there…?’ Iris mentally laughed off the question, and hit the glowstone at the base of the stairs.

She felt Gottfried a few paces behind her and when the light came on she saw the orc brothers near the only entrance. The tables were put away and the area cleaned up, it was strange to see as such, the only hint of light was against a far wall from her owner’s office.

“Thank you for joining us at The White Stag, Master Gottfried.” Iris said when she opened the door and stepped out into the darkness, the bodyguards stepped out after, taking up positions that would put Gottfried between them when he came out. They looked down at her, and grunted.

She tilted her head back up at them and cocked it, “It means they’ve decided they don’t dislike you. They don’t say a lot, but whatever they say, they mean.”

“Oh… th-thank you, master Xagen, master Xagin.” She gave them a little smile and bobbed at her knees once as Gottfried passed her by.

“I’ll return again soon.” He said to her, his mouth opened once more after, as if to add her name, but he held off.

“I-I’d like that. Goodnight, master Gottfried.” She replied, and stepping inside again, she closed the door and locked it.

“Iris, come here.”

Iris turned toward Lyrica’s voice, shut the chain over the door, and answered. “Yes, My Lady!” She hastened to obey, rushing past the empty tables and the dark hardwood bar to the well lit office of the mistress of the White Stag.

Lyrica sat behind her desk and pointed to a small red vial. “Did he fuck you?”

Iris froze.

“I asked you a question, slave.” Lyrica didn’t sound angry, her eyes were not full of fury, if anything, Lyrica sounded perfunctory.

“H-He left very happy.” Iris replied, and the expression of her lady became harder, more cold.

“Is that ‘yes’? Do I need to have you checked?” Lyrica’s voice was very calm.

Iris slowly went down to her knees. She finally nodded her head. “I-We-I-it happened. He was my first.”

“Then drink this.” Lyrica replied, picked up the little red clay vial with a small wax seal over the top and tapped it lightly on her desk several times.

Iris bit her lip, she wanted to argue. That in and of itself, ‘Why do I want to argue?’

She reached for the vial with a trembling hand.

“Hurry up, Iris.” Lyrica ordered, “I can’t have you getting pregnant, that’s an unnecessary burden on my business.”

Iris closed her eyes, her hands closing around the vial, the whip sat there the way it always did. Lyrica stood up, Iris grabbed the little red wax lump over the top, pulled it off, and jerked the bottle toward her lips to drink. The bitter fluid hit her tongue, the foul taste made her start to cough.

“Drink it. All of it.” Lyrica said and approached the kneeling woman. Iris gulped and swallowed, then hacked and coughed, dropping the red vial to the floor where the cheap thing shattered and the pieces slid around the floor.

Lyrica stepped in front of the desk and put a hand on the still hacking, coughing Iris. “The first time is… important, it’s something you’ll never forget, I hope it was a positive experience. Call this aftermath an object lesson for your… place. No matter how good it is at first… bitterness follows. Clean up the shards you dropped, then go clean up whatever is left upstairs, then you can go sleep, take your time coming upstairs tomorrow, you’ll be sick for part of the day. I won’t charge you for that vial or its contents, but the rest going forward will come out of your tips. Am I understood?”

Iris gave tiny nods, but said nothing.

“Lock up the side exit when you’re done. I’m leaving for the night.” Lyrica added, then left the office behind.

When she was alone Iris got down on all fours and began to pick up the shards.