The Oldest Profession [Anton]

[Vanessa Quill]

Meadow found him endearing in his own way. He was not the first to have gotten cold feet, but he was the first she had met whose demeanor actually improved after admitting as much. It made her curious about him, but not enough to truly pry. She would never be so bold, that was simply not how whores conducted themselves. They were paid for their discretion almost as much as they were paid for their bodies, almost. Luckily, 'Konrad' was volunteering so much information on his own.

“Oh yes, especially someone like you that she's taken a shine to.” Again she alluded to Vanessa's feelings, but again they were easily explained by the farce Vanessa and Anton had put on when they had first entered the brothel. “But we're not going to disappoint her. After all, it's my reputation on the line, too!”

And so she set to work practically upending the room while Anton made a mess of his clothes. She fussed with the blankets on the bed, pulling some off entirely and leaving them in a heap. A pillow was thrown with force against the wall. The small chair in front of her desk was toppled with care to ensure it didn't actually sustain damage. It was a flurry of sound from all around Anton, and it only ceased when he stepped forward with his own idea. “Oh, that'll be perfect! She'll be back, I'm sure of it.”

It was true, and Vanessa came trudging down the stairs some time later, well heard before she made it back to the main level. Hearing her cue, Meadow was back in front of Anton. “Three... two... one,” Meadow counted down under her breath, finding a clear joy in the almost juvenile act of fooling Vanessa.

Then, Meadow moaned. She bit her lip at first, the sounds coming out in a carefully constructed stage whisper that only played at being quiet. They were breathy and hot, and after only a few of these introductory notes did Meadow throw her head back and flood the room with purely performative pleasure. She gasped out his name, disjointed by moans. She pleaded for more between gasps for breath, and even put her weight down on a corner of the bed so it squeaked in time with her performance.

Outside, Vanessa's footsteps stopped before the door, the woman clearly in awe.

[Anton]

Anton did his best to assist Meadow in mussing up the room after he was done with himself, the lordling enjoying the deception as much as she was. In truth, Vanessa had given him the gift of indulging himself, just not in the manner she had assumed she was. A lifetime spent with sickness on the one hand and the strictures of propriety upon the other meant that he had never experienced the simple joy of making a mess, and it was all he could do to suppress his laughter at the sensation. His smile would have to suffice to show his outward glee, and it was the broadest he had worn in years.

That smile vanished into slack jawed shock when Meadow began to moan, Anton taken by surprise by her execution upon his own idea. Despite the obvious fakeness of the act, despite him knowing that it was an act, his face flushing red hot at the embarrassment of hearing something that he should not. Her perfume coupled with her performative moans, deepening the blind man's ensorcellement. He forced himself to remain still and silent as he struggled to remember himself and the truth of the matter, that this was all a trick meant to fool Vanessa.

Focusing his thoughts upon the pirate turned bodyguard eventually cut through the fog of lascivious sensation that was washing over him. The fact that she had literally been stopped in her tracks by Meadow was like an anchor, allowing him to turn his thoughts away from the vortex of need and desire.Joining his companion at the bed, Anton began to press down in time with her, doing his best to smile in her direction before drawing in a breath. The cry of "Meadow" that followed was enough to leave the sickly lordling gasping for air, almost as if he actually had been rocking the bed.

[Vanessa Quill]

Anton's reaction to her performance only spurred Meadow's efforts onward. She found it surprising that even this could leave his cheeks burning, but Meadow viewed it instead as a starry-eyed innocence, and that had its own appeal. It was such a rarity in her line of work that it made this performance feel more real than an evening spent with any number of smooth-talking Johns.

Her huffs and cries of devoted pleasure grew more intense by the moment, words beginning before trailing off into wordless gasps. The began a dozen different praises, but each of them died away until she was left gasping only his name in time with the rocking of the bed. Halfway through, she placed her palm over her mouth and cried out his name while muffled. She did the same with a pillow, pulling it away every few seconds so that she could sing his name unbidden once more.

It only ended when Anton moaned her name, Meadow's cry joined the lordling's own and she held the desperate note as she feigned reaching her peak. After a few long seconds, Meadow then fell backwards onto the bed loudly, and stopped its creaking. She forced herself to breathe in ragged, hard breaths that could be heard through the door, and doing so did leave her face flushed as well before long.

Vanessa, still stunned, and her own emotions stirring in her chest, merely looked at the door with wide eyes and a dumbfounded expression that stretched into a self-satisfied grin. She raised her hand and brought the bottom of her first down against the door in a single loud knock.

“I knew you had it in you, lad! She'll be walking funny for days,” she barked through the door with a loud laugh. Any other complex emotions she might have felt for Anton burned away in this moment, leaving only the knowledge that she had been right to bring him here.

Beside Anton, Meadow was in a rare state for a woman of her profession, she was struggling to keep her composure, shoulders shaking and a hand over her mouth as she tried not to laugh at how well their plan had worked.

[Anton]

Where Meadow was amused by Vanessa's reaction to their deception, Anton was relieved beyond measure. The pirate being so thoroughly fooled knocked him out of the tantalizing haze of sound and scent he had fallen into, the sheer absurdity of the situation freeing him from its grip. He collapsed as breathless as if they had just finished with another, the sound of him falling atop the bed finishing their performance.

Staring back at the door as if afraid the pirate would enter and reveal the entire ruse, the lordling took some moments to catch his breath before finally replying. "No need for flattery, Vanessa," was the best he could manage, the words coming far less clear than they ought as his lungs struggled to recover. It was after addressing Vanessa however that he finally realized just where he fell, the lordling laying almost directly next to Meadow on the small bed, though their bodies were still more distant than was the norm of client and employee inside of a whorehouse.

Before there was much time for embarrassment or shame to register in his mind however, the sound of her stifled laughter slipped its way in just as effectively as her faux moans had before. He was at last reminded of how genuinely funny the situation was, both the fact that they had gotten away with it and thinking of Vanessa's inevitable assumptions. He hadn't walked into the building with any particular idea on how to handle his bodyguard's plans for his introduction to manhood, but no matter how he thought about it he had been successful beyond his wildest imagining. His own shoulders began to shake as he joined Meadow, swiftly bringing a hand over his own mouth to prevent it from betraying him in case the pirate was still outside of the door.

Eventually, however, he calmed, and the lordling flashed his companion one of his rare winsome smiles. "I didn't think she'd fall for it that hard," he whispered in a conspiratorial tone, the scion now considering Meadow to be his partner in crime, even if he wasn't in a rush to tell her the full truth. "I'll make sure to insist on you next time she gets it into her head that I visit."

[Vanessa Quill]

Together the two laughed on the bed, Meadow bringing her lips to a tight line and tried to regain her composure. Each time her giggling died down, she looked to Anton and was again reminded of the sheer absurdity of what she was doing for this blushing young man. His laughter re-ignited her own, and she could only quiet herself once he had done so first. She turned on her side to face him when he spoke, and she too kept her voice low so that their ruse would not be uncovered. "I know, right? She knocked! Who hears two people screwing and knocks?" Meadow whispered back with good natured mockery. "Oh, and please do. I'm sure you can guess that I say this a lot, but this was the most fun I've had working in years. Truly." Meadow meant it too, and that genuine sweetness carried through her voice even now.

Vanessa moved away from the room a few seconds later, but based on the chatter in the sitting room, it appeared that she was not shy about sharing Anton's exploits with the rest of the workers.

A short time later, Meadow sat upright. "Oh!" Meadow said quickly, and crossed over to her desk to grab her perfume. "Here. This will really sell it. She's going to have so many questions, so be sure to play coy." She did not ask before she gave him a spritz of her floral perfume on either side of his collarbone. This was yet another weave in the story they told. It was as important as his messy clothes, her flushed face, and his full purse to immersing Vanessa in the lie they wanted her to believe. The fact that her perfume had sent his head swimming minutes before was lost on her. Instead she was focused on the little lies he told. Like how he called his captain by her first name now instead of as Captain Quill. Had he unlearned his manners so quickly, or was their relationship deeper than he let on? Such a curious man, and Meadow thought Vanessa was lucky to have him.

"So, how do you want to end this? Should I walk out bow-legged and stumbling, or would you prefer to emerge from the room confidently as though you've done nothing extraordinary at all? I'm also open to suggestions!" She spoke at a normal volume now after hearing Vanessa some distance away.

[Anton]

"You know, I really do believe that," Anton said with a smile after his own laughter had finally died down. "Are you really all that surprised Vanessa knocked though? It's the kind of thing she'd do after all," he said confidently. He didn't actually know if she would, but it certainly seemed like her and if he was wrong it would at least work as a joke. Try as he might to remain calm and composed now that the two of them had 'finished', another bark of laughter nonetheless erupted from him when he heard Vanessa regaling the others with his supposed exploits. It was a bizarre mix of both guilt and pride, being praised for something that he knew very much did not happen but that she was so certain of but the absurdity made it so that he could only laugh.

"Oh, of course, best to be as sly as possible about it," Anton agreed, the lordling relaxed and enjoying himself as he recovered from the imaginary romp. And then Meadow sprayed her perfume at him without a single thought about how he might be effected, because of course she had no reason to think he would be. His aether scarred brain had been warped by long usage of his rune, and without that there was no the subtle scent she carried with her would effect him to the extent that it had. Immediately he slumped against Meadow without any concern for his usual sense of propriety, but he did at least make some effort at not appearing a cad, resting his head against her shoulder instead of her chest.

"Perhaps just... a little bit longer before we head back out?" he murmured, voice hazy with half understood desire. "I need to wipe this smile off of my face if I want to come across as the valiant conqueror she's telling everyone I am," he lied weakly, more out of a desire to give her an excuse than out of any possible chance that it would actually be believed.

[Vanessa Quill]

Outside, Vanessa was already spinning yarns about 'Konrad'. She added colorful details that she could not have known but certainly suspected. The truth mattered little when in service to a good story. Some of the other prostitutes listened truly intently, while others feigned interest in pursuit of Vanessa's attention. She gave it to them of course, but she spoke almost entirely about the boy. She was proud of him, odd as it was, and it came through in her voice. Even if the words were muffled through the door, Vanessa's tone carried through into Anton and Meadow's room.

The display made Meadow smile as she listened to Vanessa go on and on about him. "Maybe you're right about that. I suppose we should both be thankful that she did not try the door!" The mental image of Vanessa feverishly trying to enter the locked private room made another wave of laughter wash over Meadow.

The jokes at Vanessa's expense were then cut short by Anton suddenly slumping against her. This left Meadow on the backfoot for the first time since they had met as she tried to measure what level of closeness he wished from her. She settled for bringing one arm around his back and laying her other hand atop his palm.

She had known he was small, and his complexion had given him away as frail, but had the performance really taken so much out of him? That was where her mind had gone, the perfume forgotten. "Of course." Meadow replied. She wanted to ask after his wellbeing, but that would have been presumptuous of her. Men, even ones like Konrad, did not need their health questioned by a whore. And so she settled for gently rubbing his back. There was no romantic tint to it now, instead Meadow merely doing what little she could to try and soothe him.

At his lie, Meadow continued playing along "Well, you are valiant." she told him. "You swaggered through those doors as though nothing were bothering you." That was a lie, though only a small one. She had noticed something amiss the second she had pressed herself against him to an absolutely deadpan reaction. "Take all the time you need. if anything it will make your exit even more impressive."

[Anton]

Well, I don't know if she'd go that far. Yet, at least," Anton murmured as an absentminded and delayed response to the ribbing at Vanessa. The yet seemed to cheer him up some from his lethargy, giving him something to focus his thoughts on. The thought of her stumbling in on him was absurd on its face, and he was convinced she wouldn't even bother unless she had some plan by which to further embarrass him. That was clearly the only reason she'd be interested, at least as far as her charge was concerned.

No matter what Meadow thought or intended, the perennially ill man did not react in the slightest to her touch, neither pulling away nor melting further against her. Instead, he simply took his time to to gather his wits and recover his breath. The woman's perfume continued to wash over him, Anton doing his best to let it pass through him as he became acclimated to the scent and the cross-wired sensations his mind associated with it. Slowly but surely his breathing steadied and calmed, the slumming noble grateful that the discrete knew not to ask questions. He had no good answer that wouldn't entail lying to her, and for some reason he did not wish to do that. Not to her, at least.

Eventually he stood once more, studiously tidying himself up just enough to make it believable that he had gotten redressed but not so much to ruin the effect. "One does not show weakness in front of the indomitable Captain Quill," he deadpanned back to Meadow, the smile on his face betraying how much he had enjoyed their time together - albeit in a different fashion than most men enjoyed themselves with Meadow. "I hope that I'll see you again soon," he said, truthfully, while approaching the door, freezing just as he was about to leave. "You should join me, actually. You deserve to see the look on her face," he decided, not giving her time to object before opening the door back to the hallway with a dramatic flourish.

"Lead the way, my lady," he said with a smile at his own joke. He wasn't lying about wanting Meadow to see Vanessa when he reentered the lounge, but there was also the practical matter of him getting back there. The brothel was still new to him, and he didn't risk using Semblance here. Not yet.

[Vanessa Quill]

Meadow did the same with her dress, wrinkling and bunching it at the ends, and letting the fabric hang down off of one of her shoulders. She made herself look less put together than Anton, to sell the illusion that he had gotten the better of her, and not the other way around. She even took the time to intentionally smudge and smear her makeup, though not so much that she would have needed to redo it entirely. "I hope to see you again too, Konrad." she agreed, just as truthfully. She did perk up when he insisted she come along, and she stepped right up to his side. "I would be delighted." She told him, and brought her arm around his waist.

She kept herself pressed to his side when they left the room, and Meadow gave a grand performance of a woman run ragged. She wobbled and stumbled, and made it appear as though she was using Anton to keep herself upright while she took him back to the main sitting room. For this display, she was not shy about getting close to the young man again. She knew he would understand why she was pressed so tightly up against him and clutched his sleeves desperately.

Vanessa's silence was all the confirmation that she had been utterly stunned. He jaw hung open, and her eyes flitted between the pair in utter disbelief. Meadow let go of Anton when he was standing before his bodyguard, and Meadow dropped like a stone into a chair, slumping down into it while giving her best hungry eyes to Anton before she looked to Vanessa. "He... Nessa I've never had a man like him." She said, and brought a hand to her heart.

"So I damn well heard!" Came Vanessa's reply. His bodyguard had taken the lies hook, line, and sinker. Her eyes darted between them, eyes first wide with surprise, then searching both Meadow and Anton for any more information. Meadow did not provide any, cultivating the coyness she had instructed Anton to utilize as well. "How much do I owe ya for my lad nearly breaking your back?"

"Not a copper." Meadow said blissfully, her half lidded eyes longingly drinking in the young man before her in a grand performance.

"Not a-" She looked to Anton with open astonishment and admiration. "Not a copper." She finished bewilderedly while she regarded him. Rising from her chair, Vanessa took Anton by the arm and stepped in line beside him. Now so near to him, Vanessa's oakmoss and sandalwood perfume mingled with the floral aroma that still clung to Anton. She led him out with his arm in hers. Once the two had stepped out of the door and back into the crisp Ash air, Vanessa spoke again.

"Just what did you do to her, lad? Got a magic cock I don't know about?"

[Anton]

Anton strode forward with a confident gait, putting on a performance for an audience of one. If his steps were slow or uncertain about where or when to turn, well, that could be excused to the others by the fact that Meadow was practically draped on top of him. Vanessa of course knew the truth, and he hoped that didn't detract any from the confident guise he was trying to project towards her. As the pair walked in front of the stunned captain, he once more did not react to the woman's body pressed against his own, entirely unconerned at her touch that most would consider to be aloof posturing.

When his bodyguard stared at him in shock and astonishment, it was easy enough for him to maintain his unconcerned air. After all, it wasn't as if he could see the look on her face. The former captain's perfume helped as well, the scent invigorating him with a confidence and bravado that he associated with Vanessa instead of the cloying intoxication of Meadow.He seemed relaxed, pleased with himself, and happy. And if she made incorrect assumptions as to why he felt those things, well, that was her mistake and Meadow's lie, nothing to do with him. He knew better than to bother resisting when she dragged him out of the brothel, a casual smile on his lips as he practically glided across the floor until he was at last brought into the cool night air.

"Why, Captain, whatever do you mean? I simply informed Meadow of my desires and she was more than happy to fulfill them," he said innocently, not entirely lying. That was, more or less, what had happened after all. He knew that she would interpret the vague and coy statement in the exact wrong way, but that was the whole point of the fun after all. "Think of it this way Vanessa, I've saved you a bundle for the bars. Speaking of, shouldn't we be headed to one? As I recall, they are customary for your birthday to get..." he trailed off, and when he spoke again it was in his closest approximation of her voice, "So fucking plastered you couldn't recognize your own mother."

And with that, the pair made their way back upon the streets of the Knob, Vanessa intent on showing her young ward all that the city had to offer. Its beauty and ugly both needed to be experienced, and the sheltered lordling was primed to receive a crash course on how the City of Brass truly worked.