I planned to spend some hours fixing up the church, then go back and check on Dune before nightfall.
Father Gerson had some plaster in a supply closet along with all the tools I needed: a hammer and chisel, prybar, broom, bucket, and a trowel. There was even half a brick of blue paint, which would prove more than enough.
I started with the biggest. The wood beneath was bleached by the sun and worn smooth. I chiseled the edges clean and swept away any debris before slathering a thick layer of white goo over it. Once that was smooth, I started on the next one. I continued to patch holes when I heard a voice behind me. Coming from the side of the building was Father Gerson along with two boys. "Roederek," the friar spoke Herali with a thick Goloagi accent, "you and Walren clean up all the debris you can see. Caleb here has knocked out a bit, and there's more here," he pointed, "and over there as well."
He brought a wheelbarrow, and the two boys started tossing in pieces of broken wood, tar, and broken plaster. He then hammered at the hinges of the destroyed gate, clearing the remnant of broken pieces while I patched holes.
"What happened here?" I said.
Father Gerson continued hammering, rolling his Rs as he spoke. "Rioters."
"They set fire to Walren's bedroom!" Roederek complained as he tossed some debris into the wheelbarrow. He was a stocky Herali boy with a ponytail down his back.
I turned to the smaller one, a Saeni boy with yellow-green hair cut short. "You must have been scared."
The smaller boy looked at me without speaking.
"He don't talk," Roederek explained. "I wasn't scared; I coulda taken 'em."
I smiled. "Oh yeah? How many were there?"
Roederek shrugged. "I didn't get a look. Father Gerson made us hide in the cellar while him and Anyanna put out the fire."
"What were they rioting for?"
"Who knows?" the friar replied. "Caleb, do you mind helping me with this?"
I held the new gate in its place, adjacent to a rotted-out wooden fence overgrown with dried, dead vines while he aligned it to the hinges and hammered down the pegs. The wood squeaked as he swung it in and out.
"I'm sorry," I said, "but how can you be in this community, oblivious to the point where you don't know what the rioters were upset about? I don't say that to judge; I just don't understand how that can happen. These things don't just spark from nowhere; they build. Don't they?"
He let out a humpfh and straightened his rotund self out. "You won't get any answers from these people. The ones who'll talk to you don't know, and the ones who know are the ones responsible."
"That's not what I mean. I'd… I mean… if it were me, I'd be reaching out to the community. Regularly. When I came up here, everything was closed and locked up. I'd have the door open."
"They'll steal things," Roederek explained.
"Then they'll set foot in God's house. Besides, I didn't see anything irreplaceable in the front lobby. More to the point, opening up to the community gives you visibility into what's going on before things flare up, maybe even give you an opportunity to step in and work something out so the riot never happens. Maybe not, but I feel like that's worth a try. Were you able to shelter anyone from the violence?"
Roederek looked at Father Gerson, whose blubbery neck wobbled as he thought on the matter. "You can't let anybody in when it's like that. You won't be able to tell who's safe and who isn't."
I shrugged. "I guess. But if you're alive in the community, wouldn't you know who's safe and, more importantly, who needs safety?"
"I suppose," he nodded, then went back inside, taking the boys with him. I figured on giving the plaster an hour or two to dry before painting it, and then go back to check on Dune. In the meantime, I wanted to make sense of the mess in the courtyard.
Salvageable scraps of wood went into one pile, firewood in another. Most of the planks were torn apart, practically shredded. Plants were uprooted, bricks were smashed, and stones tossed about. A girl's voice came from behind me. "What's your name?"
She was about my age, maybe a year or two younger, average height and skinny with straight, dark green hair down to her shoulders.
"I'm Caleb. And you?" I stooped to pick up another plank of wood; it was dinged up, but with some sanding it would make a decent pole.
"Where are you from?" She was Herali, but spoke with a hint of a Goloagi accent.
I took a moment to rest. "Gath. I didn't get your name?"
"Anyanna. Where's Gath? I've never heard of it before."
"It's a few days north from here, in Osenia. What about you? Where are you from?"
"Why are you here?" she said.
"I'm supposed to go fight a war in Carthia."
"Oh. Do you like fighting wars?"
That made me laugh. "You know, I've never done it before. What about you? Are you originally from Ulum?"
She looked me over, not once bringing her eyes to meet mine. "The city?"
"Yes, the city."
"Father says the city is a cesspool of debauchery."
I laughed. "I wouldn't know about that. I only just arrived this morning."
I was trying to make sense of this girl when the friar's voice called out from the hallway beside the rear building. "Anyanna, would you mind helping the children set the table?"
She bowed her head low and floated past him without another word in my direction. He smiled as she passed, then turned to me. "I hope she wasn't a bother to you."
"Not a bother at all; she seems friendly."
"Well that's good. She could use more of that." He took a good drag from a wooden mug in his hand before disappearing down the hallway.
I'd spent another half hour sorting through a pile of rubble and managed to piece together what it had looked like before. There had been a trellis above the courtyard that offered a good amount of shade over a series of large, hexagonal stone planters. I'd cleared the remnants of the trellis and got some sunlight to the planters beneath when that girl appeared again. "Your bath is ready."
I chuckled. "My bath?"
"You need to wash up before dinner."
"I can't stay; I was just trying to help. I need to get back."
"Come this way," she commanded.
There was still maybe an hour or two before dusk, and I was rather sweaty, so I followed her to the other side of the courtyard through the door to the rear hallway. She slid open a door on the left, and we entered a small room with a stone floor that recessed towards a metal drain in the center. In one corner was a large, wooden tub with iron braces that gave off a good head of steam and rosemary oil. The room was dark but for a small, open window near the ceiling that let in a gust of cold air, and three candles atop a wrought-iron stand in the opposite corner.
"Go ahead," she said to me. She'd closed the door behind her leaving us alone together and stood before me with a rough rag in one hand and a bar of dark brown soap in the other.
"Uh… Thank you, this is beautiful."
"Do you bathe with your clothes on?"
"No?"
"Take your clothes off." She gazed at me through emerald-green eyes that betrayed not a hint that anything was amiss.
"Well… you're… standing right there."
She looked around, then shuffled her feet closer to one corner. "Is this better?"
"Well, I… uh…"
Some clothes from my pack were folded neatly in a wooden stand beneath a shelf with ceramic jars. "Did you go through my things?"
At that, she put down the rag and soap and stepped towards me. I had on a brown, padded-leather jacket; she reached up to take hold of the front flap and worked it over my shoulders.
"Um…"
She tugged, jerking my jacket down from my arms and folded it neatly over one arm before setting it down in the corner beside the door.
"OK, well…"
She came back to me without a word and reached for the topmost button of my shirt.
"It's alright, I can do that…"
As I brought my hands in close to hers, she swatted them away and began to work on the next button.
"I can unbutton my own shirt."
She pulled the bottom of the shirt from beneath my belt and undid the next button.
Then the next one.
A shiver ran over my skin, and my heartbeat quickened. "It's alright. I've got it from here, thanks."
But when I stepped back, she stepped forward, taking hold of the lapel and pulled the sleeves down my arms.
And there I stood with the cold air from the window brushing over my skin. I hesitated to name what had just happened. She'd taken my shirt off. She'd insisted on being the one to do it. And I allowed it. Why did I allow it? I shouldn't have allowed it. Why didn't I stop her?
Anyanna folded my shirt over itself and tossed it into a pile over my jacket. Then she reached for my belt.
I stepped back again.
She stepped forward again.
I stepped back until I'd bumped into the wall. "Anyanna, this is lovely, thank you so much, but really, I… I can manage from here. Thank you."
She took hold of my belt and started working at the buckle.
I reached in to take it from her, and she slapped my hands away. Hard. My hands stung from where she'd swatted me. I stood petrified while she pulled my belt from me and tossed it over my shirt.
"I… I really don't think this is a good idea."
Without a word, she dug her fingers into my trousers and slid them down.
I froze. I couldn't find a word to say, I couldn't figure out what to do. This girl I'd only just met pulled my pants down, knelt before my exposed manhood, and untied my boots before yanking them off and tossing everything into the same pile.
Anyanna had a pronounced under bite and round eyes through which she wouldn't look at my face but rather stared at my flaccid cock and grinned slightly. "Get in the bath. Now."
I looked around the room as if someone else was there to tell me what I was supposed to do in this situation.
Then she spanked my arse. Hard. "Let's go."
I obeyed, but things suddenly got weirder. It started out as a tingle in my loins, but by the time I dipped one foot into the hot water, my shaft was throbbing with tense excitement. With both feet in, I was fully erect. I sat down quickly to hide it, not acclimating my skin to the scorching bath.
She started by tugging my head back to get my hair underwater, only to jerk me back up and run her fingers along my scalp. Behind me, she scrubbed in the soap and worked her fingers through, pulling locks to fall over the edge of the tub.
Sarina.
At the time when I was sent off to Kyoen, things were moving with her. I didn't know where they were moving to and I certainly had no idea what that even meant, but they were moving. Then, when I came back, things had moved on. She never said it explicitly, but I always knew it was because of how I'd conducted myself with the girls in Kyoen.
Anyanna was a pretty-enough girl. Lithe of figure, she had on a simple white cotton dress that fell to her plain feet. Her face was lean as the rest of her, and her eyes had a veiled defiance deep within. Yet she refused to look at my face. Moreover, if I wanted any chance to salvage things with Sarina, I couldn't let anything happen with her. Not that I knew whatever was happening; I was naked and she was bathing me. Perhaps she didn't mean anything else about it. Perhaps I was making something out of nothing, and she was merely being nice.
I tried to relax.
She dug her fingernails into my scalp and scratched through mountains of soap suds. Then I felt the tug of a brush being pulled through.
"Not so many tangles," she said. "You've been brushing."
I laughed at that. "I try."
"Rinse."
I leaned back in the water while Anyanna pulled out all of my hair, working it back and forth to get all the soap out. After a while I felt her hand beneath my neck, pulling me back up. She knelt beside the tub—taut nipples from her otherwise flat chest poked through her thin cotton. She held the rag and soap together, scrubbing back and forth to get up a good lather.
"Your face now."
I reached for the rag, but she moved faster and plastered the thing all over my face. Then she scrubbed everywhere. My forehead, my nose, beneath my eyebrow, my cheeks, I could only hold my breath until she was finished.
"Stand up."
I wasn't sure how thorough she'd planned to be, and my erection had yet to fully abate. "I can bathe myself, it's fine."
"I said, stand up."
"Anyanna, look, we just met. I don't think this is appropriate…"
She pinched my ear. "Get up!"
Her sharp fingernails in my ear dragged me to stand, but I made sure to turn my back. It hurt. I brought my hand up to where she'd pinched me.
She stroked the area gently with her other hand on my hip. "Aww. You're OK."
I was stuck. I could have fought her; I was a foot taller and probably twice her weight. A man getting rough with a girl—how would that go? I didn't like being spanked, shoved, and tugged around by my ear, but my dick seemed to have a different opinion.
There had to be a boundary somewhere.
She tossed my hair over one shoulder to expose my skin. Starting with the back of my neck, she scrubbed across my shoulders one at a time, down my spine, running circles over me with the rough rag while her other hand, slippery with soap, slid gently after.
The sensation of her fingers gliding gently over my skin, up and down, left and right, following every muscle from my shoulders, across my butt, and down my legs exalted the excitement in my loins. Then she found a bump on my back and scrubbed it down.
So she wasn't being indulgent or anything; she was being thorough. It was different, but I could accept it. I could pass the message down to my member, which was about as swollen as ever. This is not what it looks like.
"Turn around."
I was petrified. My member might as well have been solid rock, sticking out and promising to betray what had welled up into sinful desire. Over a bath.
"Come on, turn around. Nothing I haven't seen already." She cupped one hand over my bum and pushed, pulling at my hip on the other side.
So I faced her. My arms at my sides, and my cock pointing the way forward, Anyanna gazed at it and smirked. Then she knelt to dip the rag in the water and bumped her hand into it on the way back up. The sudden shock of pleasure rippled all over my body and sent my heart racing. She glanced at it once more while rubbing soap into the rag, and resumed scrubbing my arms.
She never looked into my eyes. Not once. She studied my arms, my chest, my shoulder, looked at my cock again, my stomach, and back to my shoulders, but never once met my eyes.
She leaned in close to reach up and scrub the top of my shoulders, and my throbbing member stabbed her body. I should have pulled away. I didn't.
She didn't pull away. It felt like she pushed herself against me harder, forcing my shaft to one side while she splayed her soapy fingers all over my chest. Then she pinched my nipple.
Hard.
I flinched from the shock of it, and her fingers slipped away from my skin. She smiled and let out a light giggle before reaching down for the soap, only to bump her hand against my solid member once more on her way back up. She began to scrub across my stomach, tracing every muscle with her fingers, reaching behind me to pull me in close and press in hard with the rag, not missing one piece of me. She kept that up, cupping one hand firmly over my arse and began scrubbing around my hips, running the rag in circles and inching closer and closer to my increasing excitement.
I was starting to wonder if this wasn't a platonic bath after all.
Then she grabbed it. With her bare hand, she wrapped her fingers over my shaft, and held it while she reached down to wet the rag some more.
Oh, the intensity! A fluttery tickle pulsed all over me with the sensation of her fingers around my shaft squeezing tight. My body betrayed me. I needed to stop this, but I wanted more.
She scrubbed.
All around the base and in my pubic hair, she lifted it up and scrubbed beneath. All along the shaft top and bottom while holding onto the tip with her free hand. Then, as with everywhere else, she followed the rag with her soapy fingers, wrapped all around, and slid them down along my shaft, squeezing tight, slipping along a fresh lather of soap.
I felt like I was about to explode. She pulled her fingers back up, then pushed down once more. I shouldn't have allowed it.
Then she moved on. She crouched low, scrubbing between my legs, around my hips, my knees. She kept staring at my cock, inches from her face and hard as I'd ever been.
"Lift your foot."
I obeyed, and she scrubbed hard at my heel, between my toes, all over. Then the other.
"You keep your nails trimmed. Good job."
I sat down to rinse, and she stood and stepped back. I was at a loss for words, for actions, for anything. I didn't know what to think about what was happening, let alone what to do next.
"Come out so we can dry you off."
I wanted our eyes to meet. I wanted to see this girl, but I couldn't. She wouldn't let me. I watched her eyes as they passed over my chest, over my stomach, looked over my cock, traversed my legs, came back to my cock, settled on my shoulders, my arms, then back to my cock again. She looked everywhere but my face, and I didn't know how I felt about that.
"Let's go!" She held out a light brown towel of woven cotton for me.
I stepped out of the tub with water trailing down all over my body and allowed her to wrap me up. I felt her hands behind the towel wipe me all along my shoulders, down my back, across the front, her fingers once again wrapped around my swollen, solid member, and squeezed the towel against my skin, working her fingers around and under my balls, to rub everything dry.
"Turn around."
I did.
"Kneel down."
I did.
She worked her fingers through the towel through my hair, tugging so hard at the locks that my head jerked back. Then came that unmistakable scent of olive oil while she massaged my scalp and brushed it through lock by lock.
"Stand up."
I stood naked with cold air brushing across my skin. She then poured out more oil and rubbed it all over me. The sensation of her smooth fingers gliding over my shoulders, my back, all across the curve of my bum as she massaged the oil into my body was divine.
Then she turned me around again.
This time, she started with my cock. With a generous pool of oil in her palm, she took hold of me and began stroking, twisting her wrist, pushing her fingers deep into my hips only to pull back again, squeezing tight over my crown, then thrust them back down again. With that motion, she lingered, stroking hard, then soft, slow, then fast, then oiling up her fingers for another round.
It felt amazing, but I couldn't get thoughts of Sarina out of my mind. I shouldn't have allowed things to get this far to begin with, but I had to stop it somewhere.
"Anyanna, we can't… do this. I can't do this. Please." My words asked her to stop, but my body did not. Rather, I stood still and did nothing as she continued stroking, back and forth until the oil was absorbed into our skin once more. Then she oiled up the rest of my body, my chest, my shoulders, my arms, my stomach, my legs, and passed her fingers along my shaft once more.
She smiled wide as if to near a laugh, then wiped her fingers in the towel.
"You're all clean now. Get dressed for dinner."
With that, she took up my dirty clothes and left, sliding the door closed behind her.