Honour Among Thieves

It was always a surprise as to what kind of bawdy and raucous distraction Thrain Krull would stage as the conclusion to the monthly meeting of the Thieves' Guild, traditionally held in the spacious cellar of a local wine merchant. As an impeccably shrewd guildmaster, Thrain assured maximum attendance with his "Afters," as they were commonly called among guildmembers. Rarely was the performance specifically advertised in advance, and as a result rumors ran rampant about the possibilities, though there was a strict injunction that these activities not be discussed outside of the guild.

Odds were generally in favor of a strong sexual component, Thrain being notorious for his voracious and varied carnal appetites. Once in a while there would be a musical number, or a talented magic-user, but speculation about the spectacle largely centered on extravagant and occasionally aberrant sex acts.

Hearsay held that Thrain was in some way sexually handicapped, though the exact story changed versions depending on the teller. Some said his genitals were deformed. Some said he had been cursed or spelled by a scorned lover. There was even an often-guffawed theory about a childhood illness.

Despite any deformity, actual or imaginary, he was widely regarded by men and women of most races as being unusually attractive. Over six feet tall, Thrain had a broad-shouldered, lithe and lean build that spoke of his physical abilities. He had a thick, mane-like mass of red hair, infinitely expressive eyes that were almost golden in color, high cheekbones, and a pencil-thin mustache a shade darker than his mane.

However, as handsome, clever and powerful men are prone to do, Thrain had expertly parlayed this mystery to his advantage. The mystique surrounding his sexuality augmented his significance and social standing as guildmaster.

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Three heavy, long wooden tables had been arranged lengthwise down the windowless room, perpendicular to the raised platform at one end. Their benches bore a fantastical and secretive collection of humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes and halflings. Five massive chandeliers suspended from chains above spread a mixture of magickal and real-flame light throughout the subterranean meeting room. A well-endowed crew of serving wenches brought a variety of drinks to the tables while matters of thievery were discussed and voted upon. Though by rights such a crowded and enclosed place should have smelled worse, the air in the room had the pleasant odour of leaf-smoke and savory winespices.

Thrain sat in his usual place, a large but not ornate wooden chair up on the dais at the front of the room. This evening, everyone noted the plush couch off to his left which hinted at impending debauchery with its satiny black fabric and suggestively-curved brass accents. Beside the couch, less noticeable, was a small table. On the table lay a plain leather pouch and a silver-chased tray holding a glass filled with a sparkling iridescent liquid.

When the mundane business had all been addressed, Thrain's eyes roved the gathering of thieves at the three long tables in front of him, and came to rest on an emerald gem.

The gem was the half-elven thief Oriana Yu. Almost six feet tall, her slender and statuesque figure was swathed in a nearly luminescent green garment. The sleeveless dress drew attention to her olive-toned skin, and an intricate gold band clasped her left arm. Her long raven-dark hair was brushed down simply and neatly, and the pointed tips of her elfin ears peeked through the curtain of surrounding black. A twisted golden cord was sashed about her narrow waist.

"You look lovely this evening, Oriana," said Thrain and beckoned with his hand for her to approach his chair, presumably so he could admire her at closer range.

Though it was unthinkable, for the briefest of moments Oriana thought about declining his invitation, but realized immediately how stupid it would be to refuse the attention of the guildmaster under any circumstances. She rose from her seat and made her way to Thrain's chair on the dais. She stood in front of him, at a respectful distance, knowing that the crowd was riveted on the scene.

Thrain held out one of his hands to her, and she tentatively took it, feeling a shiver of something at the base of her spine. He gently pulled her a little closer, but then held out her hand as if he were truly appreciating her attire, and deftly guided her to turn and face away from him so that the thieves below could partake of the view.

"Lovely," he reiterated with her back toward him, and the crowd emitted echoing murmurs of admiration. Oriana could not suppress a flush in her cheeks at the excess of attention.

She felt him stand up from the chair behind her. "Come have a seat with me," he said, not waiting for her answer, but slipping his arm easily about her waist and directing her toward the couch. The crowd persisted in its mutterings, which were growing slightly louder in anticipation.

As soon as Oriana was seated on the couch, she understood that she herself was meant to be the evening's entertainment. She usually excused herself for Afters, preferring to return home to enjoy the tangible company of her half-dragon lover rather than devote herself to voyeurism and vicariousness. But she was by no means a prude, and did not disparage others for indulging in alternate amusements.

He sensed the commencement of her decision-making process. "Don't think too hard just yet," Thrain laughed, "when I haven't presented you with the particulars."

She smiled, a very small smile, and bowed her head just a little. She looked at him with seriousness in her clear hazel eyes and told him, "I'm listening."

Thrain reached for the pouch on the table, picked it up and placed it in her lap. The weight and feeling of it suggested coins.

"Look inside," he enjoined, and waited for her to unlace the strings and glance at the contents. There were gold coins, lots of them, and the glint of a good number of precious jewels besides.

"You have my word that no harm will be done to you," he began.

Oriana was hardly foolish, and took his statement to mean that no physical harm would be intentionally inflicted. She saw that there could be incidental injuries, not all of which might be limited to the physical.

Her greatest concern was for her reputation among the guildmembers. Though unquestionably attractive, she wasn't very highly regarded at any rate. Being half-elven, she had been enured to racial biases since early childhood. As she was also a magic-user, many considered her not to be a true thief. Oriana had reason to believe that whatever was going to happen on the stage might actually improve her standing in the guild, notoriety being far preferable to anonymity.

"I'm still listening," she said.

Thrain smiled, and continued to lay out the terms. "In exchange for the pouch you are holding, you'll exchange pleasures with a volunteer and myself."

Oriana imagined herself being subjected to the carnal affections of a horrid-looking gnome with buck teeth and a hunched back who had sat across the table from her earlier during the meeting. He had made a show of groping the serving wenches and leering unabashedly in Oriana's direction.

Unable to stomach the prospect of pleasure with a grotesque partner, she was about to decline as politely as she could manage. Just as she was about to open her mouth to begin, Thrain started talking again.

"I, and you, have the liberty of refusing any volunteer without giving a reason and asking for another." He seemed to have read her mind.

"And all you have to do is enjoy yourself," Thrain concluded with calculated nonchalance, as if his proposal had been about something far less shocking.

Oriana considered in silence for a few minutes. While she was not swayed by Thrain's conclusion, the meatier parts of his offer seemed to hold some merit. His promise of no intentional physical harm, the right of refusal, and the size of the purse were respectable.

"I accept," she said, though it was impossible for her to dispel all doubts.

"We'll need a volunteer," Thrain told the audience.

"Me!" came an anxious gurgling cry immediately from one of the tables. It was the gnome. He'd climbed up on the table and was pointing at himself with two gnarled thumbs.

"No, thank you, Master Hobblegood," Thrain said kindly. The gnome in his drunken clumsiness got down from the table, and Oriana suppressed the urge to breathe a visible sigh of relief. It had been thoughtful and shrewd of Thrain to refuse the gnome and save her the mild inconvenience.

"Next?"

"I volunteer," said a female voice, soft, seductive and strong. A beautiful elven woman, not quite as tall as Oriana, stood up from the bench on which she sat and stood in the aisle between the tables, hand on her hip, where Thrain could get a good look at her.

The woman was a shapely, fair-haired, fair-skinned elf who wore a dark cloak over her brown leather side-laced leggings and flimsy white slip of a shirt.

"Nienna! How unexpected!" Thrain declared approvingly. He looked to Oriana, obviously waiting for her acceptance. The crowd appeared to collectively hold a hopeful breath.

Oriana had a bristle of suspicion that this was not necessarily an unexpected offer, that it could have easily been previously arranged. She gave her answer regardless of suspicion or previous planning.

"No, thank you," she said. "I'm flattered," she added, wanting to ensure that she had not inadvertently offended the woman. Though she was able to assess the other woman objectively as being attractive, Oriana had in point of fact never in her forty elven years found another woman sexually desirable.

The elf woman Nienna did not appear to be manifestly insulted, and resumed her seat much more gracefully than the gnome had.

Before a disappointed Thrain had a chance to ask for the next volunteer, another male voice called out, "I'll do it."

Both Oriana and Thrain looked hard to see who it was. The voice was considerably clearer and soberer than the gnome's.

Oriana felt both relief and worry upon recognizing her housemate and fellow thief, Devlin Creede. They'd left the house separately earlier, and were generally more prone to fits of intense rivalry than friendship. She'd recently perpetrated an ultra gutsy stunt by slipping a love potion into his orange juice at breakfast several weeks ago. And when he'd fallen instantly amorous, she had sweetly and slyly asked for all of his money. Of course he gave it to her without the slightest hesitation, being under the influence of the potion. The effects lasted a while, several weeks in fact. At the sanctimonious insistences of their party's clerics, Oriana had relented and reversed the situation, and returned a fuming Devlin his money.

"Now THIS is terribly interesting!" Thrain exclaimed, fairly clapping his hands in delight and gesturing vehemently for Devlin to join them on the dais. "Come up! Come up!"

Devlin ascended the dais steps and came to the couch, taking up a seat on the unoccupied space on the other side of Oriana. His demeanor suggested some reluctance as well as a strange resolve.

The first thing Oriana noticed when Devlin sat down was that, though she was several inches taller, the difference in their heights didn't seem to be as great. He was also trim and well-muscled, with a dashing reckless mess of brown curls and blue eyes.

He couldn't very well return to the house and report to the rest of the party that he'd just stood by while Oriana was publicly used for pleasure.

"Are there any conditions to your participation?" Thrain asked Devlin.

"Half the money," Devlin said flatly, staring blankly at the polished wooden planks of the floor. A moment later, he added, "And no one else touches her. Just me and you."

Thrain thought all of that extremely funny. After suppressing his mirth, he asked Oriana, "Do you accept those terms?"

Striking a bargain between true thieves is a most difficult endeavor, as it is in their natures to want to take more than their fair share. Devlin's demand that the contents of the pouch be split equally between them seemed to her like more than his fair share. But if she refused, he could easily step down and allow another unfamiliar volunteer to take his place. A stranger might not be so considerate as to limit the number of participants in the performance.

"I accept," Oriana said, feeling she didn't really have any other viable choices.

"Fantastic!" said Thrain, smiling widely. "We have an arrangement." He motioned for an attendant dwarf who stood just below the dais in a corner to take the pouch on the table and divide it equally into two. Then, he reached for the glass on the table.

"Drink this," Thrain encouraged, holding it out to Oriana. She took the glass, but he noted the concern in her expression. "It would be silly of me to poison you in front of everyone," he pointed out good-naturedly. "It will help you relax."

She shot a glance at Devlin, who was watching her closely. For some reason, she sensed he was her protector in this situation, whatever else he might be. He gave a nod, a simple silent assurance. She drank it all in a single gulp. There had been but one glass on the table, but even so Devlin was determined he wasn't going to drink anything.

"Have you ever seen her naked?" Thrain asked Devlin, not taking his eyes off Oriana, leaning a little closer to her on the couch and fingering the golden cord at her waist.

It was difficult for Devlin to answer truthfully and quickly, chiefly because he could not dispel two particular memories.

Once he had run into her in the downstairs kitchen late at night. Thinking no one else was awake, she'd carelessly thrown on a thin white ruffled blouse which had barely covered her damned heart-shaped ass. Even in the nearly pitch black kitchen it had been impossible for him to ignore, though it seemed she completely disregarded him as she gathered up a plate of fruit and some drink to bring back upstairs.

On another occasion, passing by her bedroom door, he had glimpsed through the crack a vision of her long bare arms outstretched, her wrists tethered by red velvet straps to the posts of her bed while her dragon lover, in his human form, took her from behind.

Devlin was hardly starved for sex himself, having now a buxom little housewench at his disposal, before which there had been a nearly interminable string of willing village girls.

"Not completely," Devlin managed after a moment or two of distracted reflection. He realized that Oriana had been searching his face, anxiously awaiting the answer.

"Stand up for us, lovely one," instructed Thrain. The crowd subsided into a respectful quiet.

Oriana did as he bade, and he stood up with her, though Devlin remained seated.

Having assessed the assembly of her garment, and standing to the side so as not to obstruct the audience, Thrain's dextrous fingers undid the knotted cord at her waist. He tossed the cord onto the couch. It landed in a random ropey pile next to Devlin.

Before even he knew what he was doing, Devlin had snatched up the cord.

Thrain placed his hands on her shoulders, pulling her forward a few steps, and then moved to stand behind her. His hands stroked her shoulders, and she could already begin feel the effects of the drink. It was making her very warm and very sensitive.

When Thrain's hands, which now seemed to her to be somehow much hotter than they had been only a moment ago, started to slide the shoulders of her garment down her arms, Oriana knew she should feel at least a twinge of embarrassment about being denuded in public. But the slipping away of her self-consciousness was another effect of the drink.

She was now totally nude, save for the gold band that adorned her left arm and her golden sandals with their thin sparkling strings criss-crossing around her calves. She'd not bothered with undergarments this evening. Her high full breasts scarcely needed support, and she hadn't wanted the bulk of a pair of underdrawers to disturb the smoothness of the silken dress across her bottom. A nearly perfect triangle of short dark hair graced the juncture of her strong thighs.

"Put your hands behind your back," Devlin told Oriana, standing behind her now and holding the cord in his hands. She knew what he meant to do. Thrain put forth no objection. She placed her hands behind her back, crossing her wrists together.

With skill comparable to that which Thrain had demonstrated in removing the cord, Devlin wrapped it around her wrists and bound them with a solid knot.

"She's a magic user too," Devlin explained unnecessarily to Thrain. "Wouldn't want her to accidentally cast a spell."

Of course Thrain already knew that Oriana was a magic-user. As guildmaster, it was his duty and delight to have vast and intimate knowledge about his guildmembers.

"Might be too late," mused Thrain, who brought one of his hands to her jutting tits and bent his head down to wetly worship a hardened nipple.

Devlin clutched her other tit tightly, squeezing. He brought his fingers to the nipple, pinching and twisting. He had seen enough in passing to have exquisite instincts about precisely the kind of treatment his housemate truly enjoyed.

Struck by the contrast in their simultaneous caresses, Oriana let her head fall back and closed her eyes to try to sort out the sensations. They stopped before she wanted them to.

Thrain, being the larger of the two men, picked up their delectably trussed parcel and arranged her on the couch so that she was on her knees. He pointed to the end of the couch where her head was, meaning for Devlin to sit there. Devlin lifted Oriana's head by grabbing a handful of long dark hair and pulling up, then sat with her head on his knees. Her face was turned upward toward his, her features fixed in an expression he couldn't quite read.

Thrain moved the small table aside and went to his knees too, on the floor beside the couch and ran his hot hands all over her ass.

"Is she wet?" Devlin asked Thrain, though his eyes were locked with Oriana's. He still had her by the hair.

Thrain's hand went between her legs and his fingers opened her pussy. With a single digit he shallowly swiped her slit. "Very," he confirmed. The crowd offered hushed approval.

"Would you like to fuck her ass?" Thrain asked Devlin, spreading her ass cheeks and eyeing the beguiling pucker of her asshole. He touched it very lightly with his wet finger, and when Devlin did not respond, Thrain turned to the crowd.

"Would you like to see that?" he asked them, at which they broke into a loud chant.

"Fuck her ass! Fuck her ass!" they shouted joyously, banging their ale tankards and fists clamorously on the tables.

Thrain made a shushing gesture at the thieves below, and when they had sufficiently quieted, looked pointedly at Devlin. "Make sure she gets your cock nice and wet."

Thrain then buried his face in her asscheeks and began licking lustily at both of her holes. Oriana groaned and gave Devlin a desperate look. Her eyes fluttered closed, and when they opened she was fixated on his crotch. Her lips parted and her tongue darted across them hungrily.

Her hunger snapped Devlin out of his state of shock and disbelief, and he unfastened his pants. He'd even felt a passing twinge of concern at her desperation, momentarily unsure of whether she wanted this whole crazy thing to come to a stop. But at the sight of her tongue, he knew she wanted more.

He drew out the hard thickness of his cock and shoved it into her eager mouth. "You heard him," Devlin told her. "Get it all sloppy wet so we can put it in your lovely ass."

"Mmmm," she moaned agreeably around Devlin's cock.