He nodded. “I’ll see you there.”
And that was it. We had a date.
He left me at my room, and went back to his own. I slipped into my room and leaned with my back against the door for a long moment, waiting for my heart to settle. When it did, I stripped off my practice clothes and left them in the laundry hamper. Then I slipped on a bathrobe and headed to the first floor and a bath.
The upstairs hall was deserted, but as I came out of the stairwell, I saw the prince, in his own robe, heading for the bathing room. He was well ahead of me and there would be no chance of us running into each other if I stayed back. Also, there were separate bathing rooms for men and women. I reached the short hall, off the main hall, which had a door on either side at the end, leading to the two rooms and…
…the door to the men’s baths was just a little open. The latch hadn’t fully caught after the prince had gone in.
Auwei laughed.Naughty girl.
What? Why?
I know what you’re thinking. You want to take a peek in there, don’t you?
And the truth was, I’d been about to do just that, so I couldn’t really deny it.Well, then, I’m glad you’re on board, I’ll just take a quick look. I probably won’t see anything anyway.
I put my eye to the narrow crack between door and frame… just in time to see the prince’s robe fall away.
There were four baths to a room. The stone of the foundation had been carved out to make the sunken baths quite large, easily big enough for two people to lounge comfortably. There was even a seat within the bath, the stone rounded and smooth to make it comfortable on one’s skin. There were no showers here at Hedgewild, but the baths were maintained through some strange mechanism such that pulling a cord got hot water added to one of the baths. And once you were done, a separate cord would drain the water away.
At this particular angle, peering through the crack, I was only able to see one of the baths, but that had been the one the prince had chosen. He pulled the cord, then waited. The room began to grow warm as the hot water poured into the bath. The prince leaned against a wall, sighed and… his penis twitched to life, rising slightly.
Oh!I flinched back from the crack and quickly took a look around.
No one there.
I debated leaving then. I should have left then, giving the man some privacy, but I’d been just a little too curious about him. My heart was pounding and I was sure he’d be able to hear it from where he was. I’d only wanted to see him unclothed I hadn’t meant to see…that. Apparently, he was thinking of something arousing. And now… so was I.
I dared to look back and found him stroking himself, eyes still closed, a soft, slow caress of his length. I watched, fascinated. His hand moved over his shaft, twisting and sliding along like he was his own lover, even stopping to squeeze the tip a moment, which caused a shuddering breath from him. Yet he remained hard and kept up his work, protracting his pleasure until finally the bell rang signaling the bath was full. He stepped in then, descending the steps into the hot waters, gasping a little. After that, I could see little but his head above the water. I sighed and turned away.
And there was Amber, leaning against the wall behind me, with a smirk on her face. Her bathrobe wasn’t of the heavy, soft material like mine, but sheer and silken. She’d clearly caught me peeking and shook her head before silently going into the lady’s bath room.
I had been warm and flushed before, but got super-heated with embarrassment as I stood there for a moment, then followed her in.
She disrobed as her bath filled.
“Wish to share?” she asked. She wasn’t making any comment about my indiscretion.
Not really, but it would save water. I nodded, though I waited to disrobe until the bath was ready. I slipped in quickly as Amber sat on the cold stone rim and dangled her legs in the hot waters.
“I’m sure he’d welcome you, if you asked him,” she said softly. “There are ways to bar these doors. It wouldn’t be the first time a man and woman have shared a bath before.”
Yup, there it was. Luckily now, with hot waters upon me, I had a reason to be as flushed-hot as I must be.
I couldn’t rightly deny anything so I just sighed. “I… don’t know what I want with him yet. We’re going to meet after supper to, ahh, kiss.” That sounded so innocent yet so wrong at the same time.
“Just kiss?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Do you want more? You may want to figure that out before you go tonight. If you don’t want more, tell him first. Otherwise, it can be hard to stop things later, if you become… swayed.”
That was good advice. The trouble was, I didn’t know what I wanted with Alvere. Or rather, I did know, but couldn’t allow it. I wanted to fully explore my feelings for the prince, but wouldn’t do that until I’d spoken to Silence first.
It occurred to me, Amber might be a font of information on this.
“How does one keep… several lovers?” I asked a bit tentatively.
