Welldark B1 Ch. 07

On the opposite side, Esther was being called by tables with majority men on them more often than not. That I was eventually going to these same tables when their glasses were about to be empty, just so they couldn't call out to her, wasn't something I actively realized for a long while. Once I had noticed that about myself, I noticed that Esther was doing much the same for the female crowd. Which of us had started was anyone's guess.

I could have reversed that trend after realizing it existed. Ultimately, I decided not to. Yes, flirting with more girls would have been pleasant. However, that would have been all they could have been: pleasant. Trading in that pleasantry to be a wall between Esther and the flirtation attempts of other men was something I was happy to do. Minorly insecure and overprotective behaviour, perhaps, but I would be lying if I said I was perfect.

Another thing I learned quite quickly was how to courtfully deny the offer to drink a round of shots with the customers. Welldark didn't have a tipping culture. You generally paid for what you got and you paid the pre-agreed prices with an automatic transaction. While transferring more Dark than asked was a thing people could do, it clearly wasn't a thing anybody expected.

Which people from more tip-enthused societies compensated for by insisting I drink something with them. Sometimes I obliged, but by far, not every time. Otherwise, I would have been swaying around drunk within two hours of my shift. Instead, I just got slightly tipsy.

All of those general trends aside, I had some highlights as well. Such as throwing a couple out for having sex in a toilet stall. Something they were not particularly thankful for. At another time, I had to repair the pool table (of which there was only one). Something had been stuck in the mechanism that let the balls roll into the hole in the side to retrieve them for the next round. Not an immediate problem until somebody had sunk the white one. As I was somewhat mechanically gifted (and pool tables weren't too complicated) I got it done in about ten minutes.

Another thing that happened was that someone cleared off their table with a swipe of their arm in a drunken and heated argument. The shock of the breaking glass at least convinced them to leave off their own accord. That I could just materialize a dustpan where I was with my powers, rather than having to fetch one, was noted by Hannibal. In a joking fashion, he suggested that I should be hired as a janitor instead.

Lastly, on a lewd note, was a wonderful moment where a whole table of girls decided that it would be funny if they all flashed their breasts at the same time. Something that I appreciated tremendously, but would have had to throw them out for if Esther hadn't been on the case quicker than a bee was on honey.

When a debate ensued about Esther being 'no fun' Hannibal got involved and all the girls consequently were banned from the establishment until the end of the month. A decision I had to agree with, given that this wasn't that kind of a bar, but which made me unhappy regardless.

Speaking of Esther, the bar work was clearly better suited for her than the general maid work -- especially during the hectic stretch of the evening. Her 'to the point' personality made her incredibly efficient and people didn't really care that she was missing the gentle and nice personality they were likely looking for in a maid. To put it easily, the lower amount of customer interactions worked out in her favour.

As for the worst part of the evening, that was probably when I dragged someone out who had groped Esther's butt in passing. Something she would have happily done herself, I am sure, but I happened to be around and took offense quite quickly. Didn't take a lot of force to get rid of the guy either. Once I had won a basic strength contest, I just pulled him to the door and he stumbled away with the rest of his broken pride.

After eight hours of this and just general work, Hannibal called us to the bar. "Alroight..." his tone was slurred, clearly influenced by the alcohol he had been drinking. His hands worked with the same precision as they had been from the start, however. "...Is pasht midnight. Your shifts are over in a bit."

I looked at the bar at large. It was still full, although I didn't expect any new arrivals to replace who were currently present at the tables. "Can we just leave?" I asked regardless. "I'm willing to work overtime, if that makes things easier."

"It is as Karitas says," Esther nodded. "Although I would demand compensation for the additional time."

"No, no, is fine," Hannibal grabbed the glass of beer that he had prepared for himself and took a chunky gulp. "Is the same every year. First years think they can be silly here, some stuff happens, and starting around midnight things ebb away and by two in the morning basically everyone is gone. Brunt of the work is done." He put the glass down and blinked, his black eyes focusing me and Esther properly in a semi-sober moment. "You did pretty well. Most new people can't even hold the tablet right. Next week will be a repeat of this. After that, it should mellow out a lot. Most of our regulars avoid coming here while the freshman parties are ravaging about."

"I mean..." I remembered all the things that had happened during the shift. "I guess I can't blame them." I took my hat off, more or less as a sign that I was starting to get out of my uniform, and then said. "I hope we'll get along well," I offered a handshake in goodbye, an offer that Hannibal took firmly and then repeated for Esther, basically repeating our introduction. Then the two of us headed for the stairs in the back and left the bar behind.

I was out of the building and in the pleasantly cool air of the summer night long before Esther. I could hear the buzzing of the bar around the corner, but just kept standing where I was and waited. After over eight hours of near constant talking and walking, standing in relative quiet was pleasant. Sitting would have been even better, but there was no convenient bench around.

'She is taking really long,' I thought, when I stood there for a full five minutes. I hadn't changed back at any quick pace myself. Aside from my boxers and my socks, every last article of clothing I had worn had been part of the uniform and I had taken the time to hang all of them back into their proper place. After another two minutes, I decided to head back inside and check what was taking her so long.

I walked through the empty staff area. It was a bit unnerving, not in the scary but in the unusual sense. Once I had been to this place a few more times and saw it less as a vacated restaurant and more like my workplace after closing hours, that feeling was bound to fade.

I went to the changing areas and looked around. Another woman walked by me. Not to any worry, I had seen her face before, she was another employee. What she was doing there at this hour, I didn't know, but there was surely more to do than man the bar. We passed with only a minimum of niceties. She didn't seem to be in a hurry, but neither did she seem enthused to stay longer than she had to.

Once at the changing area, I looked around. The door to the men's changing room was as open as I had left it. I approached the other side and the closed door. In a very interesting turn of thoughts, I could actively feel the alcohol in my system tell me that storming through the door in a sudden movement was the absolutely best idea anyone had ever had. Thankfully, I was only tipsy and I remembered how Esther had reacted when I had accidentally lifted her shirt even the slightest bit in the past.

Instead, I only knocked on the door and asked, "Esther, you in there?"

"Yes," came the quick and surprisingly hard answer. "Stay outside."

"Didn't plan to open the door," I promised and took a deliberate step back. After about three minutes, Esther came out, looking as sexy as usual in her casual clothes. "Sorry, just wondered what delayed you," I assured her. "Didn't want to hurry you up or anything."

"The room was occupied," Esther simply stated. I peeked behind her, just to confirm that the women's changing room was as large as the men's. There was no reason she couldn't have changed along with the other woman -- aside from personal issues. I looked at her clothes, how they covered the majority of her skin and was reminded of the fact that I had never actually seen any part of her torso naked. "Please do not ask," I heard her whisper, her voice was incredibly weak for those four words.

"Let's go out," I decided, obliging her request with a smile on my face that was meant to be distracting. Some very sensitive subject was being touched upon and I wasn't going to unearth it unwantedly.

"Indeed," Esther let a relieved, audible breath flow from her lungs and resumed her usual straightness. "We should leave the building."

"No -- I mean, yes, also that," I babbled and laughed, taken aback by how literal she took that. "I mean let's have a date, right now." She looked at me with a raised eyebrow, but I was already putting an arm around her waist and pulled her along. An affirmative gesture like that often got her to go along with my demands, as I had observed. "Just trust me, my lady, and I'll make it worth your while."

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Fundamentally, I wanted to continue Sunday's date. Although no restaurants were open at this hour, I was sure we could find something to pass the time. There was always something to do. Personally, I found watching people in and of itself quite interesting. Especially if those people were young, drunk, and making bad decisions.

As Hannibal had said, the majority of freshmen were in the process of leaving. What was still shambling about was a wrecked mix of the drunk and the tired. Aside from my fellow students, people in dark uniforms marched through the streets. They had numerous responsibilities, such as breaking up fights, poking people that had fallen asleep on benches or washing vomit off the sidewalk. They seemed to be police and cleaners rolled into one.

"They keep their city in order," Esther stated with an approving nod.

"Just the right amount of it," I agreed and was given a questioning glance. "I don't like cities that are too clean. Makes me feel like I'm not welcome there, with my dirty shoes and what not... did you ever visit Hell?"

It took her a bit longer than usual to formulate her answer. "I have been there once. It was a visit of limited duration and scope. No time for sightseeing."

"Well, Hell is separated into Sin-Districts and those are then further sub-categorized," I quickly explained. "In the pride area of Hell, there is a particular set of blocks where the denizens obsess over their surroundings. The streets there are cleaner than dinner plates. Never liked it."

"I would have to be there to gain an impression," Esther returned. "I can imagine it to be oppressive. However, it also occurs to me to be a great ideal."

I chuckled, as I already knew her to be the sort of person that arranged cooking ingredients in a cupboard by size. "No, I don't think you would like it there," I told her. "For your ideals, my dear lady, are that of practicality. Theirs were that of sparkling vanity and their desire to clean had been driven to its pathological extreme. It is a place made to look perfect, not to be interacted with."

"A place of appearances over practicality does sound infuriating. I shall believe you then, good Karitas." Esther brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, a gesture that I couldn't help but marvel at. "We are being watched," she stated afterwards and I followed her gaze up to one of the many bell towers that rose against the night sky.

Atop one stood a person with a glowing staff, illuminating himself just enough that I could make out their shape. What direction that watcher was facing, I couldn't even guess and I had, as far as humanity was concerned, exceptionally good sight. Esther having those snake or catlike eyes wasn't just for show. Which made me wonder if she was incredibly light sensitive in return. I would investigate this another time.

"Must be the tower's bell watcher," I made the rather easy conclusion. "I guess they are wary of drunk first years daring each other to go into places they aren't supposed to."

"Were you ever in the presence of one of those bells?" Esther asked, evidently intrigued.

"A couple of times," I kept it vague, not wanting to dwell on the topic for too long. "I haven't had a teacher, so I needed to follow the ring while I learned to travel. What about you?"

"Never," she shook her head. "I had a teacher and talent. Instructions carried me to safer places." Lifting her gaze from the bell tower watcher, she looked at me. Piqued interest reflected in her amber eyes, "It has never been brought to me what makes the bells dangerous."

"You will find out when the time is right," I said. Since I knew she was a bit further along than most others, I felt okay to add. "Let's just say part of them is not for unprepared minds."

"I must wonder why you have such advanced knowledge of the Dimensional Truth," Esther said, then lowered her head while shaking it. "Ignore that, if you mind the question. It is not my place nor my right to coax your life's story from you."

I was in agreement; this was the silent bargain we had struck. Not that I was happy with it. As a matter of fact, I was more than a bit bothered. Necessity dictated it as the smart policy, however, and so I kept my mouth shut and simply let the topic die. The silence that ensued was reason enough to clear out our secrets one day. It shouldn't be today though.

I guided our steps in random directions. As the man and the person who had asked her out, I saw it as my obligation to make the call where we went. That my arm was still wrapped around her waist also put me in the leading position in a physical sense. A big problem: I had no idea where to go.

As I was considering whether or not I could interrupt our momentum for long enough to check the map on my Ashod, I saw light in a building down the street. Interested, and hoping for the best, I guided us there. Whatever the location was, it was free of the steady buzz of students. At the very least, that gave me reason to hope it wasn't a bar. That much was quickly confirmed.

Through the large window before us, we could look into the sizable sports store. Boxing gloves, protein powder, weights, workout clothes and other such things hung from the walls. More interesting, however, was the ring I could see in the middle of the customer's area. It was square, about half a metre elevated from the remaining floor and had the usual rope barriers along its sides. A usage fee was hanging behind the window.

"Want to go for a spar?" I offered and Esther glanced at the price. It was easily affordable and fed nicely into the competitions we often had going on. 'It won't last us the evening, but It'll be a start,' I thought. A simple nod from her was all that I needed to pull the door.

I didn't question why a shop like this would be open at this hour. Could have been a seasonal thing, to accommodate new students looking to get physically fit to attract more interest. Perhaps the shop was always open around the clock. Maybe, just maybe, it was a today-only thing, because the owner wanted to provide a place where drunk and angry people could have fights to his amusement. To some degree, I could sympathize with that idea.

We were provided some basic boxing gloves and offered to change clothes in some cabins used for test wearing normally. The latter was completely unnecessary, since we didn't have spare clothes and, even if we did, we would have changed afterwards. Esther and I were both in the habit of wearing clothes that were easy to move in.

"Could I convince you to at least take your bra off?" I joked, while we strapped on the padded gloves. While our Astral Bodies would prevent any real harm, there was no good reason to make a basic spar any more painful than it needed to be.

Esther looked down on her sizable chest for a moment, then to me with one of her elegant, black eyebrows raised. "I fail to understand why I would disadvantage myself," she stated. "You are the superior boxer. Making my centre of gravity less consistent will only serve to further that gap." What an interesting way to say that her big breasts would sway all over the place.

"It wouldn't be to your disadvantage," I promised with the grin of an honest pervert. "The jiggle of your magnificent breasts will distract me, greatly slowing my movements." My reward for this was a soft jab to the shoulder, along with an equally dismissive and amused shaking of her head. "Perhaps you should humour me, as a reward for my victories?" I suggested. Past interactions had shown that I could 'bully' her into doing what I wanted, if I went about it with equal parts charisma and insistence.

Did it make me a bit of a cunt to exploit the fact that I could manipulate her? To a degree, probably. I, however, was also aware that I couldn't push her to do anything she actually disliked. In a way, it was my responsibility, as the first man that had managed to keep her attention, to help her find her comfort zone by testing her limits. At the same time, it was in my interest to have our limits overlap as much as possible. That was part of being compatible as partners.

"Giving you such a motivation is firmly to my disadvantage," Esther denied and firmly tugged the wrist-strap into a comfortable tightness. "Let us commence. While your talk doesn't tire me, I would prefer to underline it with action."

"Fine, fine," I sighed, having not gotten what I wanted in this exchange.

Just as we were about to enter the ring, I heard the entrance bell. If it hadn't been the natural inclination of every person to inspect changes in the environment, the immediate and clear darkening of Esther's impression would have caused me to turn anyway. Before the closing door stood, wearing a black cropped top and yoga pants, Karona.

The grey-skinned succubus was showing off everything she had. The top was more than just a little cropped, basically closer to a large bra than a shirt, creating a squeezed cleavage and leaving most of her chest and all of her midriff exposed. There was no unnecessary fat anywhere on her hourglass-shaped body. The muscles in her midriff, defined but not overly pronounced, shifted with every step. I could see a bare hint of her ribcage. Didn't sound particularly sexy when put like that, I knew some guys preferred their women with more meat, but for me it showcased her fitness and health. The top she had worn during combat class had been more 'decent'. I appreciated the new insights.

"Ah, I caught you after all," Karona grinned when she was in range. "Fancy that."

"Fancy," Esther crossed her arms and stood tall. A more upright and less offensive posture than I had expected. "An inappropriate description."

"Look, I usually enjoy your presence," I added, trying, as always, to balance my current interest in Esther with future chances with Karona, "but I do have to ask: how are you here right now?"

"Ah, you know," the succubus' tail waved in a mischievous way. "I was out and about with some new friends and that party turned into a bit of a bust." In no subtle way, she moved her shoulders to accentuate her cleavage while saying that word. "So, I decided to check out the place I referred you to. Had a drink with Hannibal, really nice guy, and his Jack, found out you left already, decided to wander around a bit and just happened to find you in a stroke of luck."

I had been with the shark man for several hours and didn't get a clue that the woman who had been with us the entire time had been his Jack. Anomalia member, yes, sure, obvious enough, but specific position? Regardless of that, had I been decisive in where to go, Karona would probably not have found us.