Chapter 3: Lessons in the Lowlight
The tavern’s noise was a living thing, a wall of sound that pressed in from all sides. Fern’s heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic counter-rhythm to the stomping of boots and the drone of off-key singing. The ale in her untouched mug smelled sour. All she could smell was him—the stranger on the bench beside her, all sweat and leather and something animal beneath.
Frieren sat across the scarred wooden table, looking utterly serene as she sipped from a clay cup of dark wine. Her silver hair seemed to drink the lantern light. She gave Fern a small, deliberate nod.
The man, a broad-shouldered caravan guard with a ruddy beard and callused hands, was deep in a boastful story about a spectral wolf in the northern passes. His thigh was a solid, warm line pressed against Fern’s under the table. She felt faint.
“Now,” Frieren murmured, her voice slicing cleanly through the ambient roar to reach only Fern’s ears. “His attention is on his tale. His body is unguarded. Slide your hand down.”
Fern’s fingers were cold. She clenched them in her lap, sticky with anticipation. The memory of the bathhouse—the taste, the surrender—flooded her. This was different. This was a crowded room. This was a stranger.
“Do it,” Frieren whispered, and there was no room for debate.
Swallowing a mouthful of air that tasted of smoke, Fern let her right hand drift from her lap. The space under the table was a dark, close cavern. Her knuckles brushed the rough-spun wool of the man’s trousers. He didn’t flinch, too engrossed in his own voice. She inched lower, her pulse screaming in her ears. Then her fingertips brushed against the firm, unexpected ridge of his erection, straining against the confines of his clothes.
She jerked her hand back as if burned.
The man paused his story, glancing at her. “You alright, miss?”
“She’s fine,” Frieren answered smoothly, her smile a flash of moonstone. “The tales of the north make her nervous. Please, continue. The wolf with eyes of frost…”
As the man grunted and turned back, Frieren’s gaze locked onto Fern’s. Again.
Trembling, Fern returned her hand. This time, she didn’t retreat. She let her palm rest fully over the hard length. It was hot, even through the fabric. It twitched.
A sharp, quiet gasp escaped her.
“Good,” Frieren’s voice was a thread of silk in the dark. “Feel its shape. Now, find the fastenings.”
Fern’s fingers fumbled with the leather ties and wooden buttons of his trousers. Each brush against the swollen flesh beneath made her own breath hitch. The man’s story began to falter. He shifted on the bench. “Uh…”
“The wolf,” Frieren prompted, her voice hypnotic. “What did it do next?”
As he grumbled back into the narrative, Fern finally undid the last button. She hesitated, the reality of what she was about to hold looming.
“Take it out,” Frieren commanded, soft and final.
Fern closed her eyes and slipped her hand inside. Her fingers wrapped around naked, heated skin. He was thick, rigid, the vein along the underside throbbing against her palm. A drop of sticky moisture already beaded at the tip. She squeezed, instinctively.
The man’s story cut off with a choked sound. His hand slammed down on the table, making the mugs jump. His eyes, wide and confused, darted between the two women.
“Feel how it twitches,” Frieren said, leaning forward conspiratorially, as if commenting on the weather. Her eyes never left Fern’s face. “Just below the head. That’s a nerve cluster. Squeeze there. Men are simple creatures, but their bodies betray delicious truths.”
Fern, operating on a mix of terror and a deep, curious hunger, obeyed. She shifted her grip, her thumb pressing into the sensitive spot beneath the swollen crown.
A low, ragged groan tore from the man’s throat. His head fell back, his bravado utterly shattered. His hips bucked upward, pushing his cock deeper into her fist. “Gods below…”
“See?” Frieren said, a cruel, beautiful smile on her lips. “He’s already gone. His mind is empty. All that’s left is the animal. Now move your hand. Up. Then down. Don’t be gentle. He doesn’t deserve gentle.”
Fern began to stroke him, her movements clumsy at first. The skin was surprisingly soft, sliding over the iron-hard core beneath. Pre-come slicked her path, making the glide easier, obscenely wet. The sound of it, a faint, sticky rasp, was deafening to her despite the tavern’s roar.
“Faster,” Frieren instructed, sipping her wine. “Use your whole hand. Twist your wrist on the upstroke. Imagine you’re milking the venom from a snake.”
The vulgar instruction sparked something in Fern. A focus. This was a lesson. An anatomy of need. She tightened her grip, pumping him in a ruthless, rhythmic motion, twisting as she reached the head.
The man was panting now, sweat beading on his forehead. He muttered incoherent curses, prayers, her name—or some name. His hand groped for her knee under the table, but Frieren’s foot shot out, pressing down on his wrist, pinning it to the bench leg. He was trapped, utterly at their mercy.
“He’s close,” Frieren observed dispassionately. “You can feel it, can’t you? The tensing of the root. The way his balls draw up. He’s going to spill. Where do you want him to spill, Fern?”
Fern looked at the man’s contorted face, at the sheer, mindless desperation. She looked at Frieren’s cool, assessing gaze. A strange power settled in her stomach, hot and solid.
“On himself,” Fern heard herself say, her voice unfamiliar. “Let him make a mess of his own clothes.”
Frieren’s smile was genuine, approving. “A fine choice. A reminder of his own fragility. Now, bring him off.”
With a final, brutal squeeze and a frantic pace, Fern did. The man’s body locked, a strangled cry bursting from him that was lost in the tavern’s din. Hot, thick jets pulsed over her fist, striping the dark wool of his own trousers and the rough bench beneath him. He shook through it, a puppet severed from its strings.
When it was over, he slumped forward, head in his hands, breathing ragged. Fern slowly withdrew her hand, slick and glistening in the shadowed space. She felt numb, charged, utterly detached.
Frieren placed a few coins on the table, enough for the wine and the ale and the silence. She stood, graceful as ever. “Come, apprentice.”
They walked out, leaving the man dazed and soiled in his corner. The cool night air hit Fern’s face like a slap. She stared at her hand, then wiped it slowly on her skirt.
“He will remember that moment on his deathbed,” Frieren said, starting down the muddy street toward their inn. “Not the spectral wolf. Not his boasts. The moment a stranger’s hand stole his will and gave him a shameful, perfect release. That is the memory that will linger.”
Fern walked beside her, the tavern’s heat still clinging to her skin. “It felt… transactional.”
“All power is,” Frieren replied. “You gave him a lesson in his own base nature. You took his control. A fair exchange.” She glanced at Fern. “You didn’t enjoy it?”
Fern thought. The fear, the disgust, the thrill, the absolute authority. “I enjoyed the lesson. Not the man.”
“Good.” Frieren looped her arm through Fern’s. “That is the most important distinction. The act is just mechanics. The understanding—the why of a twitch, a gasp, a shudder—that is the magic. That is what lasts centuries.”
They walked in silence for a block, the sounds of revelry fading behind them.
“The demoness in the mosaic,” Fern said quietly. “She died from feeling too much. That man… he looked like he died a little, just then.”
“A small death,” Frieren agreed, her voice floating in the dark. “They all are. The trick is to administer them, not suffer them. Remember that.”
Remember that.” The words still hung in the cool air between them when Frieren’s step faltered. Her head tilted, a predator catching a scent. “Ah.”
Fern followed her gaze. A man was emerging from a well-lit provisioning shop, checking a parchment list. He was older than the guard, dressed in finer, travel-stained wool, a merchant by the look of the sample case at his feet. His face was lined, but his eyes were sharp, calculating as he counted coins in his palm.
“Watch the hands,” Frieren murmured, her tone shifting from mentor to hunter. “See how he handles the silver? Precise. Careful. He believes he controls his world through ledger books.” A smile touched her lips, devoid of warmth. “Let’s disprove that.”
Before Fern could process it, Frieren had glided forward. Her ethereal beauty seemed to warp the smoky air around her, becoming a tangible force. “Pardon the intrusion,” she said, her voice now a melody of warmth and slight helplessness. “But my companion and I are newly arrived. We heard there was a decent bathhouse, not the public trough by the stables. Could you point the way?”
The merchant looked up, his shrewd eyes widening. They travelled the impossible length of Frieren’s silver hair, the pale curve of her neck, the suggestion of form beneath her robes. His careful posture softened. “I… yes. The Gleaming Pool. Two streets east, but it’s pricey for travelers.” His voice was a reedy tenor.
“A recommendation from a man of obvious taste is worth the price,” Frieren said, taking a half-step closer. The scent of jasmine that seemed to seep from her skin cut through the alley’s stench of wet stone and waste. “You have the look of one who knows quality.”
He preened, shoulders squaring. “I deal in silks and spices from the southern archipelagos.”
“Of course you do.” Frieren’s laugh was a low, thrilling sound. She reached out, not for his arm, but for his hand. Her fingers, cool and slender, closed over his work-roughened knuckles. “Such interesting calluses. From handling rare fabrics, or steering a wagon through bandit country?”
The touch electrified him. Fern saw his throat work. “A bit of both,” he managed.
“I admire practical men.” Frieren applied the faintest pressure, pulling him gently from the pool of shop light toward the mouth of a narrow alley. It was a void of darkness, a slit between two timbered buildings. “Would you show me? The quick way? This main street is so… exposed.”
He resisted for a heartbeat, the practical merchant warring with the dazzled man. The man won. “It’s just a cut-through,” he said, letting her lead him, his sample case forgotten by the shop door. “Mind your step, it’s uneven.”
Fern followed, a silent shadow. Her own heart was calm, a stark contrast to the frantic drumming in the tavern. This was Frieren’s performance, and she was here to observe the technique.
The alley swallowed them. The sounds of the street muted to echoes. The air grew cold and damp, smelling of rot and stale urine. Frieren didn’t stop midway. She led the merchant deeper, to where the darkness was nearly absolute, only a sliver of grey sky overhead.
“Here is fine,” Frieren said, releasing his hand. Her voice had shed its warm pretense, becoming flat, instructional. “Fern, come here.”
Fern stepped closer, her eyes adjusting. The merchant blinked, confused, his arousal a visible bulge in his trousers now that Frieren’s attention was off him. “Ladies, I don’t think—”
“You’re not required to think,” Frieren interrupted. She turned to Fern. “The mouth is a more complex tool than the hand. It requires surrender from both parties. He must surrender his control. You must surrender your gag reflex, your comfort, your very breath. It is the most intimate form of domination. You will disappear his world.”
The merchant made a faint, strangled noise.
“Unlace him,” Frieren commanded.
Fern moved. Her fingers were steady now, practiced from the tavern. She found his laces and untied them, pushing his trousers and smallclothes down over his hips. His cock sprang free, fully erect, thick and veined. It looked different in the filthy alley light, more brutal.
“On your knees,” Frieren said to Fern.
Fern knelt on the cold, wet cobbles. The stone bit into her skin through her dress. The merchant’s cock was at her eye level. It smelled of salt and musk.
“Look at it,” Frieren said, standing beside them like a surgeon. “Not as a thing attached to a man. See it as an object. A tool for your education. Its purpose is to fill a hole. Any hole. Your task is to take it into the deepest one you possess.”
Fern leaned forward. She opened her mouth, tentatively touching her tongue to the tip. It was warm, the skin like velvet over steel.
“Wider,” Frieren snapped. “You’re not tasting a confection. You’re swallowing a weapon. Take the head in. Now.”
Fern complied, letting the spongy head past her lips. Her jaw ached immediately.
“More. Use your hand as a guide. Make a fist around the base. Your mouth will take what it can, your hand will take the rest. Move them together.”
Fern gagged as she pushed forward, taking another inch. Tears sprang to her eyes. The merchant gasped, his hands fluttering at his sides as if he didn’t know where to put them.
“Don’t stop.” Frieren’s voice was pitiless. “The gag reflex is a wall. Break through it. Force your throat open. Imagine you are a sheath. Now.”
Choking, saliva flooding her mouth, Fern forced herself deeper. The thick crown pressed against the back of her throat. She strained, her body rebelling, and then there was a horrific, yielding click inside her. The head popped into her esophagus. The sensation was grotesque, a total invasion. She could feel every ridge and vein as a distinct violation inside her neck.
“There,” Frieren said, a note of satisfaction in her voice. “You are now a vessel. Now move. In and out. Let your throat milk him. Breathe through your nose when you can. Your tears are irrelevant.”
Fern began to move, a slow, ghastly slide. The sounds were obscene—wet, choking gulps, the merchant’s sharp, whimpering breaths. Her nose was filled with the scent of him. Her world narrowed to the violent stretch of her jaws, the relentless pressure in her throat, the guiding grip of her own hand on his sweat-slicked shaft.
“Faster,” Frieren said. “He’s close. You can feel his pulse thrumming inside your neck, can’t you? That is the rhythm of his impending emptiness. His ledger books mean nothing now. His spices, his silks—gone. All he is, is the need to spill his seed down your fucking throat.”
The merchant cried out, a raw, broken sound that echoed off the alley walls. His hands finally moved, grabbing fistfuls of Fern’s purple hair, not guiding, just clutching as if he were falling. His hips jerked in shallow, frantic thrusts, fucking her face in earnest.
“Take it,” Frieren commanded, her final lesson. “Swallow every drop. It’s the only currency that matters here.”
The first jet hit the back of Fern’s throat, hot and bitter. She gagged violently, but forced her throat to work, swallowing convulsively as pulse after pulse flooded her. It was a salty, viscous tide. She swallowed until he was spent, until his grip on her hair went slack and he sagged against the alley wall, sobbing for air.
Fern pulled off, strings of saliva and semen connecting her lips to his limp flesh. She spat onto the cobbles, vomiting a little, her body shuddering. Her throat was a raw, torn furnace.
Frieren looked down at the ruined merchant, then at Fern heaving on her knees. “Remember the feeling,” she said, her voice once again calm, conversational. “The exact moment your body opened against its will. That is the feeling you can inspire in others. That is the power.” She turned and began walking back toward the alley’s entrance. “We’re done here.”
Fern wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, pushed herself to her feet on trembling legs, and followed the retreating silhouette of her master, leaving the merchant slumped in his own shadows, his sample case of silks and spices still waiting, untouched, by the shop door.