Chapter 2:

It wasn't until she made the attempt, that Sonya realized how hard it would be to find a decent whore in a small town like this one. Normally there was one or two hanging around the side streets in most of the cities in Corvallia, but not here. She'd ask about a brothel but doubted this place had one. She decided to try her luck at the local drink house, of which there was only one.

Sonya made her way down the street to a building she spied with a crudely painted picture of a mug of ale on display above the entrance. She strode up to the door of the nameless hole-in-the-wall joint and shoved open the door. The resulting bang captured the attention of most inside, the rest too drunk to notice. Sonya walked up to the bar, tipping the hat of a man she walked past so it slid down to cover his eyes. He barely took notice of it, too invested in his frothy beverage to care. He simply righted the hat again during a messy sip that found most of its way down the front of his shirt and not down his throat.

"You old enough to be in my bar?" The tender asked as Sonya leaned on the counter with an elbow, her chin resting in her hand.

"Just barely, old man," she replied looking up at him. The man's hair was short and receding and he wore a scowl under a flat, squashed nose. "Besides, I'm not here for drinks, I'm here for women." She shook the bag of coin at her hip.

The man rose an eyebrow and looked her up and down. Sonya was short with blonde hair the color of gold tied back in a ponytail. Her face was short and pretty, each feature delicate. Pouty lips smiled up at him under a slender nose topped with rich, hazel eyes.

"You should be chargin', not payin'." It didn’t come out as flirtatious.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind," she said in reply. "Now, show me to the women I know you have for hire around here or I'll take my business elsewhere."

The man belted out a hearty laugh. "There is nowhere else, sweetheart." He nodded towards the back corner of the room. "Those three over there. Whoever you take better not come back bloodied."

"They yours then?" Sonya questioned looking over at them.

“No, I just look after em'. Their coin is their own."

Sonya nodded thoughtfully. "Self-employed whores. I like it." The smile on her face was unmistakable. She appreciated a woman who could make her own fortune, however it had to be done.

Without turning back to the barkeep, she flipped the man a copper piece and pushed herself up from the counter. She resisted the urge to tip the drunk man’s hat a second time as she crossed the room, halfway across which she grabbed and dragged a chair behind her the rest of the way. The resounding scraping and squealing of wood on wood once again earned her the looks of most inside. She loved the attention.

Sitting in the chair backwards with her head resting on her crossed arms on the chairs back, she took in the sight of the three women. All but one seemed conscious. The whore on the far left was slack-jawed and about to fall over in her seat.

"What's wrong with her?" Sonya tilted her head in the girl’s direction.

The one in the middle answered after exhaling a thick plume of smoke from a cigarette. The smell of tobacco was overwhelming. "She had a cheek full of kasha root not half an hour ago. If she ends up working tonight, she won’t know it." She took another drag as the woman on the right snorted with laughter.

"Lucky for you two then. I won't need her. I'm looking for someone who’ll stay conscious during tonight’s fun. My boss is a hungry man."

"That's unfortunate. I was hoping for the touch of a woman tonight," the woman on the right said as she bit her lip at Sonya.

"Flattered, but I'm looking for my entertainment elsewhere tonight." The run-in with Thomas earlier in the day flashed through her mind. "Now who's up for a night of fucking?" Both the women raised their hands. "It's settled then. I'll take you both," she said rising from her chair. Neither of them were quite what Colt was looking for, but combined they'd do just fine.

“Where we goin'?" This was from the one surrounded in smoke. She coughed into a fist.

"The inn up the street. Ask for the room with the big scary guy. I'd take you but I have things to do. You'll get paid in the morning."

"Is he rough?" Asked the snorter.

"No more so than a kitten," assured Sonya. "He'll treat you like a princess. Now get going. He's waiting for his relief." Sonya watched them leave then turned to the remaining girl. She had started to drool, and her head hung lazily down on her chest. Sonya was surprised she hadn’t fallen over yet.

She headed for the door herself. As she walked past the counter, she bounced a copper piece off its ugly surface. The coin flipped through the haze of the smokey room and was swiped out of midair by the barkeep.

“That’s for the sad thing unconscious in the back. Make sure she doesn’t spend it on fucking kasha,” she said with distaste. The man nodded and pocketed the coin.

Before she left, Sonya looked one final time at the back corner. The whores’ face rested flat on the table she was at, each shallow breath making bubbles in her pooled saliva. Sonya sighed and walked out.

The sun was low in the sky and shined in her eyes across the tops of the rickety buildings across the street from her. The town was bathed in the fading orange of evening light which cast long shadows off everything it touched. Sonya wove her fingers together over her head and stretched. Several things popped and she moaned in pleasure.

Time to go find my plaything. Sonya took a deep breath of the fresh air and hopped off the deck of the bar. She made her way down the main street where the market stalls were beginning to close for the night. Most of the townspeople had gone home and the streets were more or less empty.

She headed down the strip past empty stalls and saw only a couple people, all heading home. She didn’t know why she was even trying to find the man from earlier. She doubted he’d still be out and about at this hour. Sonya stopped and leaned up again the side of a fruit stand that sat at the head of a back alley and looked down the street one way, then the other.

No Thomas.

Sonya was about to turn for the general store to continue her search when she a shuffling behind her. A quiet sound that hinted at attempted secrecy. She slowly dropped a hand to the hilt of a long dagger strapped horizontally to the back of her waist and waited. She made no other movements. The scrape of a knife leaving its scabbard presented itself to her ears and soon the metal tip she had envisioned in her mind gently pressed into the small of her back. She didn’t move but she remained calm and confident.

“Now, now. What’s a dainty thing like you doing out all alone?” The voice was weaselly and Sonya could smell rot on the stranger’s breath.

“I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.” She replied with the tiniest of smiles.

“Is that a fact? Well, a big girl is bound to have some coin on her.” He uttered a short chuckle. “And a nice cunt to go with it I bet.” He placed a gnarled hand on her ass and began to squeeze.

In a blink, Sonya’s leg coiled and shot out with monstrous force, striking the man in the knee with a loud crack. It bent out at an unnatural angle. A shriek of pure surprise and agony erupted from the man’s mouth as he went down. Planting her foot back in the dirt, Sonya reached around and wrapped her arm around the strangers’ neck as he fell, and she rolled his body over her thigh. She held him here by the throat in the crook of her elbow as he clawed at her arm and his good leg spasmodically kicked around in the dirt. Soon his struggles lessened and eventually he was out cold.

After dragging him down the alley from which he had emerged, Sonya took what coin he had on him. She almost walked away but instead turned back and, in a sudden fit of rage, kicked out what teeth remained in his mouth with her heel. She brought it down onto the bloody maw two more times, hard. His head snapped to the side with the force and a hearty spray of blood and teeth painted the dirt beyond him.

“Fucking asshole,” she muttered, an almost shaky quality to her words. “If you had left my ass alone you would have been about to chew tonight.” She spat on his unconscious face and, as an afterthought, drove her foot into his groin three times for good measure as hard as she could. He’d feel it when he came to. Sonya didn’t mind thieves, crooks, or criminals. She was one. What she loathed more than anything was men like him. Hopefully spitting and pissing blood for a week would make him rethink his methods, although she doubted it.

Now, in a foul mood, Sonya decided to call it a night. Her appetite had been spoiled and she just wanted to lie down and rest. She pulled her cloak tightly around herself to ward off an oncoming shiver and made her way towards the inn, all the while praying Colt had the foresight to get her her own room. Yet another thing she doubted.

. . .

The sun was just throwing the last of its light across the town when Thomas walked through the front door to his house, the smell of a stew drifting into his nose. Hints of rabbit, potatoes, carrots, and various herbs and spices danced with his sense of smell.

“Mother, I’m home!” He called out as he sat on a stool by the door and pulled off his muddy boots. His mother came into view from the other room wiping her hands with a cloth.

“Oh good. You’re home. Set the bread on the table and we’ll eat.”

Thomas froze. He had completely forgotten the real reason he had gone to the general store. His hand moved down to trace the outline of the pin through the cloth of his pants pocket. He cursed himself, yet again, for getting distracted so easily. He felt like he shouldn’t blame himself so harshly though. Aimee was indeed a natural at stealing his attention. The thought brought a brief smile to his face, and he grew warm inside.

His mother noticed his sudden vacancy and startled him when she was suddenly by his side resting a hand atop his shoulder. Thomas gave the smallest of shudders before looking at her. He had been so lost in his own mind that he failed to notice her approach.

She smiled up at him lovingly. She was a hair shorter than he was and seemed even more so now due to a slight hunch she had adopted. Her dark brown hair had started to grey, and her face had begun to show lines of wisdom that crisscrossed her features.

“I’m sorry, mother. I forgot the bread,” he confessed. “In my defense, I’ve had a very strange day.”

“It’s alright, dear. Stew is still stew without bread.” She patted his shoulder then shuffled back to the kitchen where a pot hung over a fire, her hand pressed to the small of her back the whole way.

Last year she had been thrown from one of their horses and she still hadn’t recovered fully. Thomas knew she never would. His mother, on the other hand, held onto hope and constantly spoke of a future where she once again would have the strength to fend and care for herself. Until that nonexistent day, Thomas had and would take care of her.

Thomas followed her after stowing his boots away in the corner and when he entered the kitchen, he saw his mother spooning stew into a bowl from a heavy cast-iron cooking pot. He rushed over to relieve her of the burden that she apparently thought she could handle despite her struggle to hold it up long enough.

“Mother, please sit down. I can take care of this.” He took over the duty of serving the meal.

“Oh, Tom. You’re such a sweet boy.” With a frail touch she gently patted the hand of his that held up the pot by its handle and eased herself down into one of the chairs at the table with a slight groan.

“So you keep telling me,” he said smiling, then seated himself as well after returning the pot to the fire.

“I keep telling you because it continues to be true.” His mother put extra emphasis into this nugget of truth. She slurped a large spoonful of stew and let out a satisfied sigh at its rich flavor. “Don’t ever change, dear. You’re a gem of a son, and you’ll make an excellent husband for Aimee.” She tried to add that last part in casually, but Thomas still almost choked on a chunk of rabbit meat regardless as he ate.

“Mother! Not you too.” Thomas was flushing red again. A habit he’d had all day it seemed.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I mean. Have you been talking with Aimee’s father about this? He’s been saying the same sort of things the last couple of weeks.” It was at the mention of Mr. Westler that Thomas’s mother avoided the sharp gaze of her son. She was certainly up to something.

Thomas put down his spoon and reached across the table to gingerly cover the hand of his mother with his own. “I wish you would trust me to go at my own pace, mother.”

“Own pace?” She lightly scoffed. “Dear, if I let you go at your own pace, you’d still be freezing in front of her like a scared child a year from now and I might never see grandchildren.”

This time it was a hunk of potato that nearly lodged itself in Thomas’s throat as he was yet again caught off guard by his mother while attempting to down another spoonful of stew. He swallowed it painfully and coughed into the crook of his arm.

His mother gave a light chuckled and reached out for his free hand and cradled it with both of hers. Her look was tender. “Thomas, I know you’re a shy man,” she spoke softly, “but it’s only because you have such a kind heart. You’re mindful of others and caring. I have no doubt you know what’s best for you. You may not see it but you’re very, very bright. I’m sure you can figure this out on your own. I just want to help you along.” She smiled with her eyes as much as her lips. “I’m very proud of the man you’ve become.” She brought his hand up to her face and kissed his knuckles.

“Thank you, mother.” He upturned his hand and squeezed her fingers. “I’m glad I have you.”

“And I’m glad I have you too, darling.” She paused as if in thought. “Now, tomorrow is Aimee’s birthday. Do I have that right?”

Thomas nodded. “Yes, she’ll be 20 this year.”

“Excellent. Do you have a gift in mind?”

Thomas could feel the impression the pin was making on the skin of his thigh. “Yes, of course.” It was difficult to keep his excitement in check, but he willed it into submission.

“I hope you plan on getting close to her as well, dear.” There was a sly look in her eyes.

Thomas sighed. “If you promise to leave me alone about it from now on, I promise I’ll…” He tried to find something easy to satisfy her, “…hold her hand tomorrow.”

“Hold her hand?” His mother’s voice oozed disappointment. “No, no. At least give the girl a kiss, Thomas.”

Red crept into Thomas’s skin yet again. “You’re quite the handful sometimes. Do you know that?” He delivered what he saw as a solid fact with a nervous chuckle. She smirked at him as if to say she knew all too well.

“Just assure me you’ll do your best and I’ll drop the matter.”

Thomas merged a groan with a sigh and let the nose escape his exhausted self. “Fine. I will do my best tomorrow.”

“Good enough for me, sweetheart.” She rose from the table and began the slow journey down the hall and to her bedroom. “Now, I’m going to lie down. Would you be a dear and clear the table, Tom?” She had turned around at the threshold of the hallway to ask it.

“Yes, it’s no trouble. Have a good night, mother. I love you.”

“I love you too, dear.” She turned and made her way down the candle lit hall to the room at the far end and closed the door.

While Thomas was filling a bucket with water from the well to scrub the pot his thoughts began to run wild. Tomorrow was a big day, yet he had no plan. No ideas for places to take Aimee, no way to present his gift, and not even a way to somehow hold her hand, let alone kiss her.

Nothing.

He set the bucket down on the lip of the well, the lamp he had brought out soaked the area about him in an orange glow. He’d probably be up all-night thinking about it. Thomas closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between them. He was already so, so tired too.

. . .

Colt lay stretched out on his back atop the warn and dirty mattress in his room in the inn. He took a long pull off the rolled cigarette clenched between his lips, then passed it to the woman wrapped in his arm to his left. The second woman was on his chest with her head in her hands. She pitched him a smile that dripped with satisfaction as she stared up at him.

“Coin well spent,” Colt said. He passed the smoke back to the woman on his side.

Jeanine was her name. “Coin well earned, honey,” she said. Her brown, shoulder length hair spewed forth from her head in a chaotic tangle.

Looking down at Molly on his chest, he saw that her curly red hair wasn’t any better. She gave him a big grin, little brown specks populating her nose and cheeks.

Thank Ovaro for freckled women, he thought. She was a keeper if he ever saw one.

Molly dipped her head and kissed his chest. “That girly was right about you,” she giggled.

Colt put a massive hand on the girl’s ass hiding under the bed sheets and easily dragged her up so her face was closer to his. She leaned in and licked the tip of his nose with a playful smile.

“What did she say about me?” His face was straight, but his voice was serious. He was edging towards irritation.

There came three rapid knocks at the door. The thin wood creaked on its loose hinges with each pound.

“Get in here!” He knew who it was. Sonya opened the door and entered the room.

Even though the group was mostly covered, she looked to be on the verge of gagging when she saw them. “Gods! Couldn’t you have made yourself decent?” She said averting her eyes. “Why would you tell me to come in when you’re like this?” She had a hand to her face. “You’re practically my father.”

“Oh come now, girly,” the redhead cooed. “I bet it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.” Molly looked Sonya up and down. “You come to join us, have you?”

Colt ignored all of this and tore his gaze into Sonya. “What did you say about me?” The irritation in him grew and he had an eyebrow raised.

Sonya belted out a laugh but didn’t reply. Instead, she crossed the room to grab the man’s cloak, and tossed it at them to cover as much skin as she could. Molly was hidden by the cloth, and she uttered a few muffled chuckles in response.

Jeanine took another drag of her cigarette. “She said you were as gentle as a kitten.” She tapped a finger to his nose as she said it.

Colt grabbed the rolled tobacco from her and took his longest drag from it so far that night. A head of ash fell to his bare chest and Jeanine blew it away with a smile. “Oh, did she now?” He exhaled through his nose and turned to Molly who had peeked out from underneath the cloak only to be met by a cloud of acrid smoke. She gave a few small coughs and waved the rest away. “Was she wrong?” Colt asked the women.

Jeanine danced her fingers in the curls of Colt’s short, black beard. “No, no, no. You’ve been a right fine gentleman.” She nibbled on his chest a bit.

Colt didn’t voice a reply and seemed pleased with his portrayal. He took one final draw of smoke from what remained of the cigarette, ground the butt into the bedframe, then tossed the rest to the floor.

“Next time I come to Yalum, there’s an extra copper for both of you to drop whatever sorry sack of shit who’s paid to knock you around and come running to my door.” He said.

Molly pushed herself up on her palms, the cloak sliding down her back. “Don’t have to pay me nothing extra. Being treated with respect is bonus enough.” Jeanine raised a nicotine-stained hand to second that statement.

“Well, I can see you clearly aren’t finished.” This from Sonya who already looked uncomfortable enough. She edged towards the door. “I just came to tell you we’ll need to head out early tomorrow. You know we shouldn’t linger. I’ll have the horses ready at dawn.” Colt simply nodded as he raised a couple fingers casually to show he understood. “And don’t stay up too late. I don’t want to deal with a total prick in the morning,” Sonya added. She turned and left the room, slamming the door shut behind her.

. . .

Sonya descended the beaten, cracked stairs to the first floor. Getting her own room was obviously going to have to be a must. She refused to sleep on the floor after her long travels as well as endure the sights and sounds of Colt’s pleasures. The thought threw a shiver up her spine, and she felt acid rise in her throat.

She leaned against the counter when she got to it. The man tending the inn noticed a little too late and scrambled to his feet from his lazy slouch in the chair he had occupied. Before he could utter a word, Sonya tossed four coppers on the rough surface.

“I want a room with a bed that doesn’t reek of piss or swallow me whole in the night.” She wanted a decent night’s rest tonight. Who knew how long it would be before she saw bearable accommodations again.? Not her, that’s for damn sure. It was worth the money spent.

“Clean and comfy. Of course, miss.” He turned and grabbed a key off the wall. “Third floor, second on the left.” Sonya noticed he hadn’t asked her name for the registry. She didn’t know if it was because she seemed like she wouldn’t give it or if her looks had made things easier for her. She preferred to believe it was the latter. Either way she was glad. The less of a footprint they made when they stopped, the better.

Sonya raised the key in thanks without a word and headed back up the stairs. When she got to her room she locked the door behind her, kicked her boots to the corner as she unclasped her cloak and shrugged it off her shoulders, then crossed the small space and fell face first onto the mattress. Eventually, after lying there for a moment and absently twirling the bedsheets about one of her fingers, she managed to find the will to roll over to her back, displeasure filling her features.

Tomorrows continued journey South to the Holy Capitol was easily the one thing souring her mood above all else, but just behind that in the line of succession in her mind was the glaring fact that her man-toy had eluded her. Sonya never relied on the employ of whores, female or male. She preferred to find her meals in the wild, and todays catch had gotten away.

Sonya sighed deeply and it eventually turned into a frustrated sounding thing. She crawled her way to the head of the bed, grabbing the pillow and holding it tight to her chest. The closeness comforted her immensely. The feeling of another pressed up against her, the attention given and received, and the warmth. She had to imagine this last one. The pillow was as cold and lifeless as her love life. What could she expect from a life on the road, though?

She gripped the fluffy mass closer and curled about it, sleep creeping in deep inside her. In her lethargy, and mostly a byproduct of her dominant ways, she began to nibble on the corner of the cushion and locked her arms in place, preventing its escape. The action caused an immediate wash of comfort that blanketed her and pulled her down into the depths of slumber.