Chapter 1966: Kind Lady
Nessa was still smiling when the armoured man closed the bathing room’s door behind her. She looked down at her empty hands, remembering how readily the kind woman had taken the towels.
"She had her hands full."
Such an ordinary explanation, delivered while that terrifying man teased the woman about doing Nessa’s work.
Nessa pressed her hands against her apron. Carrying towels was her job. A guest noticing that she had too many was apparently enough to make her grateful for the rest of the afternoon.
Those people certainly had no reason to concern themselves with a servant. The weapons alone looked more expensive than everything Nessa owned, and the armed women had walked through the inn completely at ease, fearing nobody inside it.
The woman could have pointed at a shelf and waited. Instead, she helped, thanked her, then laughed when her man caught her at it.
’I hope they stay a while.’
She returned downstairs with a lighter step and stopped at the counter for the next room key.
"The family has everything for the bath," she told the innkeeper. "Shall I ask the kitchen about their lunch?"
"I’ll see to it. Could you take the waiting couple upstairs? Their room is ready."
Nessa accepted the key, then hesitated.
"Are they all... his wives? The women upstairs?"
"Why does it matter?"
Her eyes widened. "Oh, nothing! Thank you."
She turned away before the innkeeper could ask more.
But inwardly, her mind was in chaos.
All of them? How did that even work? Surely somebody would want him to herself sometimes. Perhaps they agreed beforehand, and each wife got an evening with him.
’Tonight is yours, tomorrow is mine...’
There had been a great many women.
Would each wife have to wait more than a week before he returned to her bed? What if she wanted him sooner? Did the others simply sleep beside them while one woman had her turn, or did they watch?
Her traitorous imagination supplied several naked women reclining around that enormous bathing room while their husband chose one.
Nessa almost missed a step.
’Maybe two at once...?’
One could sit astride him while another kissed him. Or she might kneel between her sister-wife’s thighs and keep her happy while she waited. Then nobody would be neglected, provided the husband could remain hard long enough to satisfy them all.
Could any man do that?
’Impossible.’
Her cheeks burned. She was arranging strangers around a man’s virility she had never seen in the middle of her shift, with his towels barely out of her hands.
They did look happy together, though. Even when he teased the woman, she laughed at him so comfortably. However they shared their nights, Nessa rather liked imagining that everyone got enough of him.
"Have you finished standing there?"
The chestnut-haired woman in the waiting room was staring at her.
Nessa hurried over, clasping the key before her apron.
"Your room is ready, my lady. May I show you upstairs?"
"At last. Did you have to grow the linen first?"
"I’m sorry for the wait."
"You ought to be. Andre, grab my things."
Her husband rose with her cloak over one arm. He bent for the travelling trunks while she passed Nessa, leaving the maid to hurry ahead and lead them up.
Behind them, a handle creaked under Andre’s grip.
"Careful," his partner snapped. "If you break that, you’re replacing it."
"Of course, darling."
Nessa reached back toward the smaller case.
"May I help with that, sir?"
"You can help by opening the door," the woman answered for him. "Do try to concentrate on one task. You’re clearly struggling already."
"Yes, my lady."
The rebuke stung. Especially after helping the nice lady and her family mere minutes ago.
Yet Nessa kept her gaze on the stairs, unwilling to give the woman an expression she could complain about too.
At the upper landing, she turned into the corridor containing the family’s bathing room. She unlocked the guest chamber beside it and stepped aside for the couple.
The woman went straight to the bed. She pinched the fresh sheet between her fingers while Andre manoeuvred the luggage through the doorway.
"These are clean?"
"Yes, my lady. They’ve just been changed."
"I can see they’ve been changed. I asked whether they’re clean."
"They are, my lady."
Andre entered behind them with a battered round shield strapped over his coat, a trunk in either hand, and a long staff case tucked beneath one arm.
"Marielle, the room is fine."
"Did I ask you?"
He lowered the trunks beside the wardrobe. Marielle pointed toward the wall opposite the bed.
"The luggage goes over there. Put my staff beside the bed."
Andre rested her staff beside the bed, then lifted the trunks again.
"We should check in at the Guild before it closes," he suggested.
"I’ll take a nap first. We’re both nearing level one hundred, and Sarthal supposedly has more contracts than adventurers capable of taking them. A few hours will not cost us our fortune."
"We don’t have a fortune yet."
"That’s why we’re here, Andre."
That explained the shield and staff. They were newcomers chasing Sarthal’s abundance of dangerous work, hoping to cross level one hundred and become rich while doing it.
Nessa went to the window and loosened the curtain ties. When she glanced back, Marielle was sitting on the mattress with one foot extended toward Andre.
He set the trunk down and knelt to unfasten her shoe.
"The other one first. That ankle aches."
"Sorry, darling."
Nessa drew the curtains together, leaving a narrow strip of afternoon light by the frame.
"All the way," Marielle said. "Honestly, must I explain everything?"
"Of course."
Nessa overlapped the cloth until the gap disappeared. She wanted very badly to leave, but Marielle pointed impatiently at her cloak, now draped across a chair.
"Would you like me to hang your cloak, my lady?"
"Unless you intend to stand there admiring it. Your hands are clean, I hope?"
Nessa swallowed her humiliation.
"Yes, my lady."
She lifted the cloak carefully by its shoulders. Across the room, Andre was unpacking a second pair of shoes, his own dusty coat still buttoned to his throat.
Marielle finally stretched out on the bed. Her chestnut curls spread over the fresh pillow, and she released a satisfied sigh as her head sank into it.
Something struck the adjoining wall hard enough to rattle the headboard.
"Ah...!"
Nessa froze with the cloak halfway onto its hook.
Marielle opened one eye.
"...Andre."
He remained bent over the open trunk.
"Yes, darling?"
"What is that?"
Another impact shook the wall, followed by a woman’s breathless cry.
Marielle lifted her head from the pillow. "Is someone killing that woman?"
"No, darling."
"Then what are they doing?"
Andre’s hands stopped among her folded clothes. He looked at the wall, then at Nessa, evidently hoping an employee might answer for him.
Nessa studied the cloak with sudden fascination.
"They’re having sex," he finally said.
Marielle stared at him.
"Sex?"
"The thing I asked if we could try on our honeymoon."
She listened to another muffled cry, considered it, then dismissed the matter with one hand.
"It sounds exhausting. Massage my shoulders instead."
Andre closed his eyes.
Nessa politely pretended not to witness the death of his remaining dignity.
"Of course, darling."
He sat beside Marielle and began working his fingers into her shoulders while Nessa returned her attention to the cloak.
Wet skin slapped against wet skin on the other side, slow and heavy at first, before settling into a relentless rhythm.
*Pap. Pap. Pap. Pap.*
"Baby..."
Nessa recognized the gentle voice and the pet name.
The sweet lady who had helped her with the towels was being pounded against the other side of the wall.
Her first theory had been correct after all. Today must belong to the kind woman, and the others were probably bathing while the couple enjoyed a few moments alone.
𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮
"Harder. I wanna hear this bitch scream~" another woman demanded from beside her. "Conduct your husbandly duties properly."
"On it."
The blows against the wall accelerated.
"Ah! Ahh!"
Nessa’s mouth fell open.
There were at least two wives involved.
"That’s it, baby," the kind woman gasped. "Don’t you dare stop..."
"Why would I ever stop?"
The man sounded remarkably calm for someone driving his wife into the wall hard enough to disturb the neighbouring furniture.
A third woman moaned, long and shameless, before her voice broke into a startled yelp.
"Your hand! Hie~! That’s cheating!"
Laughter mixed with the moans. Water surged over the rim of the bath and splashed across the floor next door.
Nessa’s tidy little schedule died an extremely noisy death.
One wife was being fucked. Another was close enough to encourage him, and a third had apparently found one of his hands. That still left his mouth and his other hand entirely unaccounted for.
Perhaps the women did not take turns at all.
Perhaps they climbed onto him together, pressing their naked bodies around his while he moved between them. One on his member, one sitting on his face, another kneeling at his side with her lips wrapped around his fingers as she waited for him to fill her next.
Nessa’s thighs pressed together beneath her skirt, her face going tomato red.
’Oh, Goddess help me...’
Marielle pushed herself upright, knocking Andre’s hands away from her shoulders.
"Who is in that room?"
"I cannot reveal such information..."
Another smack struck the wall.
"Fuck! Again~!"
"It’s that deranged procession from before, isn’t it."
Nessa hung the cloak and smoothed it with trembling care. Her face burned, made worse by having to discuss the neighbours’ sex life while the kind woman loudly begged her husband to keep fucking her.
The wives had devised a much more efficient arrangement than the one she had imagined downstairs.
And considerably sluttier.
Andre resumed unpacking. He took a folded nightdress from the trunk and approached the bed.
"Perhaps you’d be more comfortable in this?"
"Perhaps I’d be more comfortable in an inn!"
He stopped with the garment held out between them.
"We are in an inn, darling."
Nessa pressed her lips together, horrified at the laugh trying to escape her.
Marielle’s head turned toward her husband.
"A respectable inn, Andre."
"Yes. Of course."
He placed the nightdress at the foot of the bed. His partner rolled onto her side, pulled the spare pillow over her exposed ear, then pointed at the wardrobe.
"Finish putting those away. Quietly."
The demand became rather pointless when a woman shrieked through the adjoining wall.
"KYAA~!"
*Pap. Pap. Pap. Pap.*
"She’s cumming! Don’t slow down!"
Nessa crouched to collect the discarded shoes. She had no reason to listen. None whatsoever.
She still moved rather slowly toward the wardrobe.
The kind woman’s cry climbed until it broke, followed by a heavy splash as her husband apparently lowered her into the bath. The other wives laughed around her while someone panted close to the wall.
Nessa waited for the sounds to settle.
"My turn!" the shameless wife announced.
There was a brief scuffle next door.
"You already stole his fingers!"
"Those don’t count! I want his cock!"
Nessa nearly dropped both shoes.
"This is intolerable," Marielle snapped.
"I can speak to the innkeeper, my lady."
"So she can explain that they’re married too?"
"No, my lady. I meant about the noise."
"Then why are you still here?"
Nessa set the shoes beside the wardrobe and hurried toward the exit. Her hand had just reached the latch when a deep, wet thrust landed next door.
*Pap!*
"AHN~!"
Marielle threw her pillow across the bed.
"ENOUGH!"
Andre dropped a slipper into the trunk.
"I’ll do it myself. You useless rabble cannot be trusted with anything."
His partner looked from him to the wall, where another woman was enthusiastically praising the size of her husband’s member.
"You’ve done very well until now. Don’t give up! Fight!"
"Filthy peasants!" Marielle pushed her feet into the shoes Nessa had put away and shoved past the maid into the corridor, leaving Andre holding the other slipper.
"Haaah..." The man released the most tired of exhales.