The Temple Thief

The Temple Thief

Bromm III

Dusk descended slowly over the great port of Torvuls and a young sailhand eagerly pressed his way through the crowds. The city's nightlife sprang to life as the drinks flowed freely in taverns and winerooms. Music, an eternal presence in the city, sounded louder and livelier. The constant chatter in the streets changed subjects from business to pleasure. Along the streets near West Square, the sailhand had heard people talking in tongues from as far away as Laraebos and Leiyan, as befitting Torvuls' status as the port at the center of the world.

Now, he stood in the common room of the House of Silk, an expensive brothel offering only the finest of entertainment. Sailors such as himself were uncommon here, the clientele mostly being drawn from the wealthier classes of the city, but on this night the young sailor Bromm was ready to spend the money he had long been saving.

His afternoon had been spent at a bathhouse outside the city, washing and scrubbing furious to remove all trace of the sweat and everpresent tar of the ship's rigging. After dusk, and after being appropriately washed, oiled and with a change of clothes, he made his way through the city's Old Wall to West Square in search of the House of Silk's famous red lanterns.

Still bitter over the exorbitant door charge he had paid, he looked around the common room at the array of delights before him. The edge of the room was lined with luxurious couches on which patrons relaxed, drinking fine spirits, and making idle talk with the House's whores. Shaven boy slaves and dancing girls in naught but their jewels roamed the room in search of clients. A pale, almond-eyed woman with a large tattoo of a dragon coiling around her left shoulder was sitting in the lap of a fat merchant, provocatively drawing patterns on his blouse with her finger. She wore only roundels over her nipples and a brass girdle from which hung two bits of wispy silk between her legs. Seated on his lap as she was, the silk was parted to allow Bromm a view of her shaven sex. Already anxious at the sights before him, he felt his heart race faster.

His mind began to wander as he passed his gaze over the beautiful whores and courtesans before him. He imagined some day in the hopefully-not-so-distant future where he was a mighty pirate lord, presiding over a grand palace and a harem of his own delectable concubines. A vision formed in his mind of a pleasure garden with flowers in bloom and a long bathing pool where his women played and bathed while they waited for him.

Alas, he was painfully aware that such a life was well beyond his means. The door charge he had paid out had exceeded his expectations and been a painful reminder of his poverty. As a mere sailhand, and an indentured crewman on top of that, he was all too short of coin.

A former indentured crewman, he reminded himself. As if on cue, he thought he spied across the room the face of his former captain, Master Baathas of the Taciturn Griot. Baathas, stood by a couch where one of the madams displayed a naked girl, olive-skinned and dark haired, for their consideration. The captain held a fat purse of coins before him, while his first mate looked about the room for other entertainment.

Before the captain could spot him, Bromm darted from the room. He fled into an adjacent salon and threw his back against a pillar facing away from the door. His plans for the night would not go well if he were hauled before the captain's mast and flogged for desertion. But I am a man now, he told himself, I will enjoy myself tonight as a man does and find a new ship in the morning. Fighting to steady himself, he dared to peek over his shoulder in search of pursuers. Through the curtain hanging across the door, he spied the captain again, but to his relief he realized he had been mistaken. The man he saw was not Baathas at all, merely someone who bore a resemblance to him in the dim lamplight. His fearful mind was merely playing cruel tricks on him.

Turning around, he found a woman standing in front of him. She was dark-skinned with long black hair drawn into thick braids flowing down her back to her broad waist. She wore a fine golden chain from her shoulders across her chest, meeting between her large breasts before crossing to reach her girdle. From her girdle she wore two thin bits of silk that reached down between her legs to her ankles. Her breasts were bare, but her nipples were pierced by golden rings with a chain running between them.

She looked at him with a wry look and smiled, showing pearly white teeth in between her dark lips.

"Hiding from someone?" she inquired innocently. Bromm found himself speechless for a moment, confronted with his goal after so much anticipation. His coins felt heavy in his belt pouch as he let his eyes wander up and down her bare body. He resisted the urge to embrace her immediately, barely avoiding losing himself in lustful fantasies concerning her and some of the other nude women in the room.

Suddenly conscious of his awkwardly long silence, he started to reply only to have his words come out in a stammer. He took a deep breath and steadied himself.

"It's nothing," he replied finally, "they have mistaken me for someone else. Hello there," he continued, in what he hoped was a flirtatious tone.

"Hello there yourself," she replied, one leg sliding out to expose its luxurious length. "What's your name, sailor?" she asked.

"I'm Bromm," he replied, eyes wandering along her leg.

"Nice to meet you, Bromm," she replied. "I am Antha. What ship do you sail on?" she leaned in closer, putting an arm around his shoulder.

"I--" Bromm stammered, thrown off by his condition as much as by her advances, "I am between ships at the moment," he replied at last, his heart pounding in his chest. "I'm in port for a few days to have some fun. Are you in the business of having fun?"

"I am," she purred in his ear, taking his hand and guiding it to her breast, "Shall we find someplace private, or will a couch in the salon suffice for you?"

His heart racing and his hard cock straining against his breeches, Bromm looked about the salon. Men sat on couches around the room, much as in the first room, dandling naked girls in their laps. A few of the men instead caressed boy slaves, shaven, oiled, youths no older than Bromm himself. One man had a boy wrapped up in his arms, sliding the boy whore up and down his long cock.

On another couch lay a naked older woman, rich, judging by her jewels, with a naked boy slave's face buried between her legs. On the couch with her was another such slave, his hard cock in her hands as she stroked him while encouraging the other. In the center of the room, a fat man lay on a velvet couch. Straddling his cock was a pale young beauty with ripe, full breasts that bounced as she rode him. He wrapped his thick hands around her throat, one meaty finger reaching into her mouth, thrusting his bulk up into her as men watched from their couches. The girl squealed in either real or feigned pleasure and the watchers smiled in delight, one man applauding politely.

Bromm envisioned himself on one of the couches, fucking Antha while the rest of them observed. These men all had the looked of seasoned brothel patrons. Judging by their wealth, these men were likely no strangers to the women here. If I were rich, I wouldn't leave this place until I had fucked every woman they had, Bromm thought. I can't fuck a woman in front of them, they will surely know me for the novice I am. Each of them must fuck more women in a night than I have all my life.

"A room," he gasped as Antha slid her hand into his breeches, "We should have the privacy of a room."

"Very well," she said, pulling down his breeches enough to expose his cock. "Let us find the hostess and book a room. But first, the matter of payment."

Bromm's hand went to his purse. "Yes, of course, the payment. Um, how much for--- for your company--- um, how much do you cost?" he stammered.

She told him and Bromm's face fell as he held the coin pouch in his hand. After weeks of carefully counting and saving his meager wage, he knew precisely how much money he had in it, and he was well short. As he struggled to find the words, she discerned the problem from the look on his face.

"Not enough?" she asked, her comely demeanor fading.

"I am just a poor sailor," he pleaded, "I've been an indentured servant aboard my ship since I was a boy. Please, I've left my ship, I have nowhere to go, I just wanted one night in luxury with a whore."

Antha gestured at her body and the finery upon it. "Boys' coppers don't keep me looking like this. If you cannot pay my price, I bid you goodnight and good luck. Apliss keep you, Bromm."

"I just wanted a whore," Bromm said sadly, his dreams going up in smoke in front of his eyes. He was sure he could find another ship now that he was free of the Griot and her captain, but he had his heart set on this night. He had planned for months, spending hours on leave outside the House of Silk, imagining finally going inside and finding the woman of his dreams. "What if I'm quick about it? Or you just give me Nystra's Kiss?"

"Hm, boys like you are usually quick, but no," Antha said, her eyes already roaming the room in search of a new client and Bromm scowled in frustration, "I have to earn my keep. With a purse as light as yours, try the Sailor's Purse."

Bromm's scowl deepened. "The Purse is fit only for sea rats. Their women are plain-faced, old, or half-starved, or all three," he protested, but she was already moving away. "I paid the door charge," he called after her, "how can I just walk away from that money?"

"Then stand and watch," Antha called back, "my price is my price." With that, she passed through a curtained door into another room and Bromm was left to stew in his own disappointment.

How could prices be so high? He wondered. It seems everyday that a ship arrives in the city bearing a hundred new pretty slave girls for the brothels. When the Taciturn Griot had last made port, he had watched the pirate Gonnsar, fresh from a successful raid, march a hundred captive Amazons down the Slaver's Walk to be sold at auction.

He heard a chuckle at his side and turned to look. On the couch beside him was a man in a dark blue tunic and white breeches. Beside him knelt a doe-eyed, raven-haired girl clad in only a silver necklace. Her companion had one arm draped around her waist. The man's thick upper arms showed from under his tunic, while his open breeches displayed his hard cock, wetted by the girl's mouth. There was a mocking look in his green eyes and his mouth crooked upwards.

"This place is too nice for the likes of you," the man said in a clipped foreign accent, "run along back to your gutter, boy, and leave this place to your betters."

Bromm glared at him, his cock still hanging awkwardly out of his breeches. He found the girl's look to his liking, with rouged cheeks and round little breasts. But she was surely as expensive as Antha and Bromm felt even poorer as he looked over the man's clothes. The man waved dismissively at him, an emerald ring flashing in the lamplight.

"Begone, sea rat," he snapped, his other hand climbing the girl's back to grasp her by the base of the neck. "It is hard for me to keep my cock hard when looking at something as wretched as you."

The girl looked piteously at Bromm before lowering her head to suck the man's cock again. Bromm's eyes shot daggers at his tormentor but he stormed off all the same. The man's mocking laughter followed him and he quickened his pace until he found himself out in the hall.

This hall was not unlike the salon he had just left. In the day, it looked out over the House of Silk's flower garden. As the last light of the day faded, Bromm could make out the many-colored flowers outside through tall glass windows. The furniture in this room was finely crafted, white wood with velvet cushions.

To his immediate right, he found an older man leaned against the wall, his head tilted back in pleasure as a young man sucked his cock. But Bromm's eye was drawn to the center of the room, where a pair of women danced on a raised platform around a tall pole of polished iron. The women wore high heels and lacey thongs around their waists. At their feet were a pair of discarded brassieres that matched the colors of their thongs. Bromm moved to stand behind one of the couches that were set up to afford sitters a view of the display. He was enraptured by their lithe, limber bodies and the sinuous moves of their dance. The girls moved over and under each other, hips gyrating and legs twirling erotically. Bromm instinctively reached for his cock and found it still hanging out of his breeches.             

He ashamedly stuffed it back in, wondering how many people had seen him flee the other room with his cheeks reddened and his cock flopping lamely about. The men in this room hardly noticed him, their attention focused on the beautiful dancing girls in front of them.

They writhed around the pole before one assumed a kneeling position facing her audience. Spreading her knees, she began slowly pulling down her thong. The crowd murmured in appreciation as her shaven sex came into view. When the thong reached her knees, she stood up, letting it fall away to the floor. Nude but for her stiletto heels, she struck a pose for the onlookers. Bromm felt his cock straining against his breeches again. The men seated on the couches clapped softly in appreciation of the girl's dance.

She retreated to the rear of the little stage as her companion came to the fore. Turning her back to the audience, she thrust out her butt and began to pull down the thong. Her bare ass was round and plump, and Bromm felt the urge to leap onto the stage, pull out his cock and mount the girl before everyone. He imagined himself thrusting into the girl while the audience's applause filled the room. But when he thought to move on her, his legs would not obey. His cock could not recognize a bad idea, though fortunately his mind could.

Once they were both nude, they returned to their dance.

"Magnificent, aren't they?" said a man seated on the couch next to Bromm and Bromm suddenly realized the man was speaking to him. He looked down at him for the first time. The man was fair-skinned, with green eyes, light brown hair and a close cut beard. He wore an open coat of dark blue cotton, showing a white shirt beneath it. He was barefoot and his white hose rolled up to expose his legs almost to the knees. His feet were wet, freshly washed, and his black leather belt undone.

The man was accompanied by two women, both in the nude. Across his lap lay a tawny-skinned girl, her small breasts covered by her long black hair. She had crossed her legs to conceal her sex, but gave Bromm a taunting smile when his eyes wandered down her slim body. Behind the man was a pale girl with hair dyed blue. She had draped one white arm about the man, but her stare was aloof and directed at other couples in the room.

"The dancers?" Bromm asked before indicating the man's companions, "Or your women?"

The man smiled and squeezed the tawny girl's breast.

"Both, I suppose. Come, young man. Sit with me." The man had the same clipped accent as the mocking man from the other room, but carried a friendlier tone. Bromm obeyed, gingerly sitting on the couch's edge where the girl's legs did not occupy the space. "What is your name?" the man asked.

"Bromm," Bromm replied, his attention diverted by the pale girl's long, slender legs as she stood up and walked across the room.

"Bromm," the man repeated, "Good to make your acquaintance. I am Albrecht, a dealer in fine objects. Such as these," he said, indicating his two companions. The tawny girl laughed, though her companion was out of earshot, nearing the room's door. "This is here is Tarilla and you just saw Anelesse walk off to find us some drinks."

"They are beautiful girls," Bromm said, studying Tarilla's body.

"They are indeed," Albrecht replied. "My position affords me much in the way of luxury. Tell me, Bromm, what is your position?"

"I am a sailor," Bromm replied as Tarilla sat up and drew closer to Albrecht. Her dark nipples peaked through her hair for a brief moment and Bromm unconsciously licked his lips for they were suddenly dry.

"A common sailor?" Albrecht asked, "How does a common sailor come to be in a palace such as this? Have you plundered some great prize?"

"No," Bromm replied, turning sour now, "I have gravely underestimated my wealth. I saved for years to come here someday and only now I find out I only have the money to get inside the house, but not a woman."

Anelesse returned, followed by a serving wench bearing a tray of bottled spirits and glasses. Bromm eyed the serving wench, who wore only sandals and a narrow belt fitted with a coin pouch. She was slender, olive-skinned, short-haired, and small-breasted. In this place of long-haired goddesses and buxom trollops, the serving wench almost might be mistaken for a boy, though clearly she had no cock. Albrecht slid a handful of coins into the wench's coin pouch and took the tray from her, setting it on the small table next to the couch. He dismissed the serving wench with a slap to her tight butt.

"Sit here and drink with me, Bromm," Albrecht said, filling a crystal glass with dark brown liquid from one of the bottles. "I see some of myself in you. I was once young and foolish with money."

"Someday I will be wealthy," Bromm said determinedly, "I will have a palace, with concubines, and be one of the lords of this city."

Albrecht smiled as he handed the glass to Bromm, who took it carefully. "Indeed," the man replied, "it would behoove me to make it into your good graces now, so that I might witness and profit from your rise."

He filled glasses for himself and the whores before raising them in a toast. "To your eventual success," he proclaimed, and four glasses clinked together. Bromm took a deep draw on his glass and the dark spirits burned his throat as they went down. He was no stranger to ship's grog, but this burned worse and yet tasted sweeter. He stifled a cough and swallowed hard, studying his glass as a cover.

"This is fine stuff," he managed, rasping from the liquor despite his efforts, "what is this?"

"This is Black Gold Rum, right from the distillery by the Sugartongue River." Albrecht replied, courteously disregarding Bromm's inexperience with the drink, "The House of Silk has a special deal with them since the two founders are cousins."

"It's good stuff," Bromm said, trying to sound knowledgeable. "Certainly better than what my captain provides."

"Captains are notoriously cheap," replied, settling Anelesse into his lap as he set down his glass. "The finer things in life always require money. For example," he kissed Anelesse deeply, one hand brushing along her bare white breast.

He pulled away from the girl after a long kiss and lifted the rum bottle. "More rum?" he asked, looking at Bromm. "Or would you like to try the wine? I have a sweet Patrassian red and a darker Vestinian red."

Bromm had never drunk either. "I'll have the sweet one, if you please," he said, unsure of the correct response. The Taciturn Griot had once carried a shipment of wine casks from Sostrum to Queensport and throughout the whole voyage, the captain and his first mate had argued the merits of various wines. Unfortunately, Bromm remembered little of what they had said.

The sweet red was more bitter than he had expected from the name, but Bromm gladly drank two glasses of it all the same. While at sea, he drank only grog and once ashore, all else he could afford was cheap ale. Wine, bitter or not, was a welcome change.