The Midnight Apothecary Pt. 03

The Midnight Apothecary #3

Rolduin didn't know where the little woman had gone, but she hadn't come into this back chamber where he was. The tall, thin man who had ushered him through the door into this room had said nothing. Rolduin had simply followed him because it was his only chance at staying out of sight of the Preserver of Rites and Rites Keeper Galanthus.

However, he had not been prepared for the sight that met his eyes in the back of the apothecary shop. As soon as he came through the door, he froze and stared. The room was lit dimly with candles held in sconces on the walls, and it was filled with shadowy, moving figures and the sounds of soft moans. The moans were cut through with the thuds of a blunt weapon hitting flesh and a whip snapping, and then—suddenly—a single cry of pain. He tensed up at the sound, ready to defend himself.

Slowly, the sounds stopped one by one, as people turned to look at him. A woman came up to the man who had brought him in here. She was naked, except for what looked like a light scarf the color of a clear sky tied around her slender hips. The scarf barely covered anything, and a bit of dark hair peaked out beyond the fabric near the knot tied at the front of one hip. In fact, that small tuft was the only hair visible on her body, as her head was completely shaved. She was lean and fit, and he could see the definition of muscles in her shoulders, arms, and abs. Her breasts—entirely exposed—were a soft contrast to the rest of her body. He tried not to look at the nearly naked woman as she spoke. "Sharl, what is going on? Who is this?"

The tall man—Sharl—shrugged. Then he gave a sideways glance at Rolduin before answering her. "The Chaperone's got problems out there. We all need to stay quiet." Sharl eyed Rolduin again. "And say as little as possible to the stranger."

A troubled look crossed the woman's face, and she turned to look at the center of the room. Rolduin's gaze followed hers. There in the middle of the space, a man had a naked woman bound in rope, and he was crouching over her. The woman's long, wavy, brown hair draped down her back and down the side of her cheek, obscuring her face. As Rolduin watched, the crouching man sunk his teeth into the immobilized woman's upper arm. The woman moaned.

Rolduin lunged forward to help her, but Sharl and the woman in the hip scarf each grabbed for one of his arms. The woman hissed at him. "Stop."

They were no match for his strength, but he didn't want to use force yet.

"He's hurting her."

"You don't understand."

He glared at her. "No, I absolutely do not understand what is going on here."

"Just wait until the Chaperone gets back."

Rolduin saw that the bite had left a wet, red ring of teeth marks in the bound woman's flesh. As the two held his arms, he watched the man on the floor twist the already tight ropes, and the woman shrieked.

He gritted his teeth. "Why are you allowing this? What kind of horrid ritual is happening here?"

The woman answered. "Use your eyes. Look at her face. She's enjoying it."

"How can you say such a thing?" Rolduin didn't understand how they could be so cruel as to not extend help to the tortured woman, but he watched the scene, ready to spring and break their hold on his arms to help her.

As he watched, the man crouching over the woman on the floor brushed the hair away from her cheek and then smacked her across the face. Rolduin burst forward, breaking free from the two weaker people's grips and stalked toward the couple at the center of the room, but as he reached them, the woman turned her face toward the man who had slapped her, and she grinned mischievously at him. Her eyes, in fact, twinkled at him.

That stopped Rolduin in his tracks. His mouth opened slightly as he watched the scene in front of him. Could it be that this was a game? That the woman was, indeed, happy about being smacked in the face? She looked, if anything...triumphant. And perhaps taunting.

Rolduin shook his head and really took in the room. Everyone was watching him now, and they looked afraid of him. The man at the center of the room broke his concentration on the bound woman and stood, cocking his head at Rolduin. The woman he'd been administering to grinned at Rolduin from under loose strands of hair and winked at him.

He felt confused. The bald woman in the hip scarf approached from behind him. She lightly touched his arm, and he turned toward her.

"I can understand your discomfort here. Everything will be explained when Chaperone Cantrell returns."

"I thought she was an apothecary."

"She is...of a sort." The woman looked off and grinned. "She certainly found the remedy I needed." The woman's gaze returned to his face. "My name is Nissa."

He glanced around the room, hesitating before offering his own name. "Rolduin."

"Why don't you come sit with me on a mat? I'm sure Chaperone Cantrell can explain all about the Midnight Apothecary when she returns."

As his panic and concern for the bound woman calmed, he remembered that Nissa was nearly naked. His face got hot, but at this point, following her seemed less uncomfortable than standing awkwardly in the middle of this room full of strangers. Plus, no one here seemed too keen on clothing. He followed Nissa to a mat off to the side.

"What is this place?"

"You'll have to wait for the Chaperone. This is her place of business." That was all Nissa would say to him. After that, he kept his eyes facing down toward the mat until the halfling woman returned.

Fortunately, Rolduin didn't have to wait long for her. When she came through the door, everyone in the room had already gone silent. He felt guilty, like he had interrupted something, though another part of him felt like perhaps this was something that should have been interrupted.

Nissa rose from the mat and walked over to Chaperone Cantrell, whispering something to her. Then dark-haired halfling walked over to where he still sat on the mat.

"Well, boy. I suppose you've discovered the source of your thumping noise."

He shook his head. "I still don't understand what this place is. How is this a place for treatment?" He glanced over to the couple now sitting in the middle of the floor, the woman released from her bindings. Angry red marks in the shape of rope twisted around her skin in various places. "How does any of this help people?"

Chaperone Cantrell laughed. "This place soothes what ails many people in this town, but you must be young indeed to have no clue what's going on here. How old are you?"

He felt his face heat up. "Twenty."

"Yes, about what I guessed." The small woman smirked at him. "This shop is a meeting place for individuals with different tastes from the usual." And when he didn't respond, she added. "It's a place where people come to act on creative sexual desires."

Now Rolduin's face really was hot. The little woman stepped closer and looked up at him. He met her gaze, this person who had possibly both saved him and damned him this night. "You run a house of sin?"

Chaperone Cantrell narrowed her eyes at him. "House of sin? This is no such place. I sell salvation. The only kind that's available to mortals."

"And what kind is that?"

"Connection."

Rolduin looked around the room and, trying to ignore the bare bodies, really looked at the implements they were using. In fact, the instruments they held in their hands were not weapons at all, at least not any kind that he'd used, though one person appeared to be holding a flogger, like the priestesses used for flagellation. Another person held a paddle, like a parent might use on a child.

As he looked, he saw that torture and obscenity were not the only things that happened in this place. They were simply the most noticeable. In other spots, people had set up areas to engage in sensual practices like massage and ritualistic meditations. Had he truly entered upon some kind of religious ritual, then? Perhaps different from the kind he was accustomed to. His own mother had warned him about the people who lived in the rural areas and how their religious customs were strange.

At the thought of his mother, his jaw tightened and his brow furrowed. He shook his head, releasing the tension. She wasn't right about everything.

Rolduin looked down at the tiny woman again. "Okay. Show me."

Chaperone Cantrell raised an eyebrow. "Show you?" She laughed. "I don't think you understand. Our membership is exclusive." When he didn't respond, she added, "You're not invited."

"But I've already seen some of what you do here. I'm curious. I want to understand."

The chaperone turned to look at the others. "Does anyone here know this man?"

Heads shook. She turned back to him. "I'm afraid there's no one here to vouch for you. We only take members with referrals."

"There must be some way I can prove myself trustworthy."

"Nothing comes to mind."

He puffed out his breath in frustration. "Do you really think I'm a friend of the authorities? I'm on the run from them myself."

That got the halfling woman's attention. "Yes. Why are you being chased?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "That was the Preserver of Rites herself outside the door, not just some random guard."

He lowered his gaze to the floor. "You don't say?"

"I think you know exactly who's after you, and that's another good reason not to let you stay here a moment longer. I don't need the zealots breathing down my neck."

"What if I worked here, for you?"

Chaperone Cantrell put her hands on her hips and, looking up at him, laughed. "You don't even know what we do here!"

"I'll learn."

"Most people don't want to learn."

"At least let me try."

"How can I be assured that you won't go to the authorities?"

"You have no assurance of that now."

Chaperone Cantrell gritted her teeth. "Damn the fate that sent you to my door."

Rolduin smiled. "I can't help that I have the face of an innocent lamb."

"I don't like innocence."

His smile faltered.

"If you're going to stay here, your innocence will be stripped away quickly, but you'll get something better in return."

"Connection?"

"Hey, you're a fast learner." Chaperone Cantrell turned to the rest of the group. "He thinks he can handle it here." She laughed. Then she appraised him for a moment, looking him up and down. "All right." She turned to the tall, thin man. "Sharl, let's show him."

Sharl reached into a sack sitting in a corner nearby and pulled out a blanket, which he spread on the floor a few feet away from the wall. Then he pulled a few more things out of the sack, including several lengths of rope tied into neat hanks. While he prepared, Chaperone Cantrell performed a couple of stretches, and then she kneeled down on the center of the blanket.

Everyone else in the room had gone quiet, and they were watching the scene about to unfold.

The tall, thin man leaned in close to the halfling woman, pressing his cheek against her hair. His eyes closed, and it looked as though he was breathing in the smell of her. Chaperone Cantrell's eyes closed, as well, and her own breathing slowed to match Sharl's. His hands went to her shoulders and rested there briefly. Then he slid the sheer robe off her shoulders, letting it fall to the sides and down her back, still belted at the middle and covering her lower body.

Chaperone Cantrell's pale body shone in the dim candlelight, shadows dancing over her flesh. For a moment, Rolduin imagined the shadows were demons and was sure that he would be damned to the underworld for being here. Still, he was intrigued by the sensuality of what was happening before him.

He watched as the shadows danced across her exposed shoulders—partially obscured by her dark hair—and played across her collar bones and down over her breasts. The color of the nipples and areolas screamed out to him, even in the dim lighting, against the porcelain paleness of her skin. The shadows seemed to suck at them, first covering the dark areolas and then revealing them in the light. He couldn't pull his eyes away from it, and he felt ashamed.

As he forced himself to continue watching, Sharl picked up one of the bundles of rope. It was tied into a tidy hank. With a simple flick of the wrist, the hank came undone and fell to the floor with a light thud. Keeping his body close to Chaperone Cantrell, Sharl took the rope in both hands and drew it through one of them, straightening the lines. Then he raised his hands over the halfling woman and lowered the rope in front of her body. He wound the rope around her chest, under her breasts. The man's hands pressed into the soft flesh, slightly raising each mound as he passed the rope beneath them.

Each movement was slow and intentional. Rolduin saw goosebumps rise on the halfling woman's breasts, and her nipples hardened in reaction to the touch of the man binding her in rope. Her head lolled to one side, and Sharl brushed his lips against the exposed side of her neck, again causing goosebumps to form, running down her shoulder and arm on the side he kissed. He continued wrapping the rope around her, over her shoulders, creating a harness on her chest that somehow lifted her breasts and made them look more prominent.

He leaned her body forward a bit, forcing her to tighten her core and hold herself in that position while he tied off the harness at her back. Once the knot was done, he grabbed the place in the back where the ropes crossed one another and used it like a handle to lean her body forward and to one side and then the other. As he tilted her, she tensed and put a hand out to the side.

Sharl growled at her. "Relax your body, and trust me."

The halfling woman took a deep breath and let it out, and Sharl proceeded again to control her movements, holding tightly to the ropes on her back. As she moved, her dark hair fell across her body, spreading over her shoulder and spilling over her chest. Rolduin didn't know what this act was, but the imagery was intoxicating.

He shook his head. He shouldn't enjoy watching this. He couldn't deny, however, that his body was reacting. Every time he saw goosebumps rise on the little woman's body, he felt them rise on his own, as well. Suddenly, he realized that he wanted Sharl to teach him everything he knew. To make a woman's body react like that—it was like a forbidden power, and now that he knew it was possible, he could not leave this place without learning everything they could teach him. He lent a prayer to the gods thanking them that his stiffened cock was not visible through his bulky, leather clothes. Then his face went hot as he realized what an offensive and inappropriate prayer that was.

Whatever gods ruled in the back of this apothecary shop, they weren't the ones he had learned as a boy.

Sharl's hands were now tracing figures over the woman's chest and trailing down her breasts. Without warning, he violently dug his fingernails into the soft, pale flesh, pressing them against her chest. She gritted her teeth and sucked in a breath, at which Sharl only dug his nails in further. A grunt escaped her lips, and Sharl seemed satisfied at that. He smiled and slowly let the nails pull away from her breasts, and as he did so, she shuddered at the new sensation.

Then he grabbed her hands and pulled them together behind her, leaning her over to one side until she was lying on the mat. Keeping her hands in one of his, he picked up another hank of rope, flicked it like the first to let it trail free, and wound it around her wrists, binding them together and then letting go of her hands to tie a knot.

Now that Chaperone Cantrell was no longer kneeling in front of Sharl, Rolduin noticed that the tall man was also responding to the sensations he provided to her. His blood-filled cock projected outward from the opening at the front of his robe. For perhaps the dozenth time since he had arrived in this place, Rolduin's face turned hot again. He'd never seen another man's cock like that.

As he watched, now mesmerized, Sharl rolled the little woman back onto her knees. Her hands were tied behind her, and Sharl held onto the ropes at her back. The tall man bent forward and put his free hand on her still-covered ass. With both hands, he pushed her forward and knelt behind her with his legs spread.

Sharl pulled up the back of the little woman's robe, revealing the round globes of her ass. She was now uncovered top and bottom, with the colorful robe draped over her middle. Still holding onto the rope at her back and bracing her ass with his other hand, Sharl directed her toward his dripping cock, lowering her onto it.

Rolduin wished he could move to get a better view of what was going on, but his own guilt and worry about manners kept him frozen in place. He still saw quite clearly as Sharl's cock disappeared inside Chaperone Cantrell, and he began pushing the halfling woman forward and then pulling her back down toward him, slowly and methodically, using her light body to pump his cock rather than thrusting into her.

As he pulled her onto him, her ass cheeks jiggled each time they made contact with his body. Rolduin's own cock was uncomfortably hard in his leather trousers now.

Chaperone Cantrell turned to face him, tangled hair falling across one eye. She grinned. This time, he was too much in awe to blush. These people had turned sex into a religion. It was blasphemous and wonderful, and he felt both terrified and infinitely curious.