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Characters: Mal, Polly
Disclaimer: The author makes no
claim to owning the rights of anything to do with Terry Pratchett or Discworld.
Ravishing
Another inn, another run-down room with mildew growing on the paper-thin walls. They'd eaten dinner in the bar, below. Polly had eaten sausages and potatoes with a mug of beer, which she'd said had been better than she'd expected. Mal, of course, had drank her coffee. "What do you eat?" Polly'd asked, between bites of sausage. "You can't survive on just coffee, I'm sure of it." Mal had looked at her. "I eat blood," she'd said, simply. "I can't digest solids, and there's not a whole lot of nourishment in consomme, even for a human. So. Blood. Cow, pig, horse, rabbit even duck or pigeon. Whatever's available. Not human, of course. But otherwise, anything will do." "Wow." Polly had said, taking a deep sip from her beer. "Did you need any? I mean, they're bound to have a butcher shop or something in this town...?" "I'm okay. I've been drinking from the horses." "What? When?" "In the stables. I never take more than a little. People'd notice, otherwise, plus I'd get kicked in the ribs, which is not a pleasant experience, let me tell you." Polly had considered this for a while, and had accepted another mug of beer from the serving girl who tried to flirt with her. Polly wasn't really trying to pass for male any more, but people saw the uniform — with proper trousers, now, and not the stupid skirts — and just assumed she was a rather pretty young man. And she was, Mal had to admit, a rather pretty... man. Not that she'd ever been fooled, but she couldn't blame the girl for trying. Polly wasn't flirting back, though. So the girl soon wandered off to try her luck elsewhere. She and Polly had finished their dinner, and had gone upstairs, two soldier boys trailing after each other to their small, shared room. Which, Mal thought, smiling, would probably ensure that the serving woman wouldn't bother flirting with Polly anymore. Upstairs, they'd opened the shutters for a little while, trying to air the room out. But that just let the rain into the room, making the damp that much worse. So they'd lit the candle, and closed the shutters again, and sat down in the gloom. That was when the noises started. They leaked through the thin walls from the room next door, sighs and gasps which, as Polly and Mal stared at each other in horror, turned quickly to the rather cliched moans and cries associated with pleasure and easy virtue. "Great," Mal muttered. "Now what..." Maybe it was the beer. It must have been the beer. It could have been that Polly was a closet exhibitionist who'd been waiting all her life for a chance like this, but Mal thought it unlikely. She was going to assume it was the beer. Polly was grinning, sitting cross-legged on the bed with her back to the wall, putting a finger to her lips. "Wha—?" She flung herself against the wall, hitting it with a resounding thump. "Oh, God!" She gasped, loudly. "Yes! Right there!" She moaned, putting her hand theatrically to her chest, panting audibly. "Yes, yes! Oh, you're so good! Do it to me, now! Now!" She continued in this vein for some time, knocking her shoulders against the wood, her face radiating a mixture of annoyance and completely wicked mischief, but her voice proclaiming nothing but the most vocal of pleasures. "...Oh! Oh! Oh!" She finished, once the noise from the other room had stopped. "Oh, Mal!" Though she laughed under her breath afterwards, she had, for just a moment, fixed Maladict with a liquid-eyed look that had nearly melted the vampires boots. She hadn't expected that, Mal thought, later in the night. Polly was sleeping next to her in the narrow bed, her body pressed against Mal's, if only because there was no alternative. Not that Mal was complaining. Not that it was helping much. "Oh, Mal!" The whole of it played over and over in her head, but those last words, uttered breathlessly, seemingly sated and yet still desirous, burned like a brand in her mind. Listening to Polly... talk like that... the words alone had been bad enough. They'd made her want to touch herself... Or, more specifically, they'd made her want to touch Polly. To tear off the regimental shirt and the hard-won trousers and cover her with kisses, to make love over every exquisite inch of her lithe and lovely body. To have Polly touch her, to brush her fingers lightly over her aching breasts. To feel Polly's capable hands glide over her own taut abdomen, and slip between her quivering thighs, to coax those same sounds from Mal's own hoarse and hungry throat... "Oh, Mal!" She tried to keep her breathing under control. She could feel Polly's soft, rhythmic breathing against her throat. It had to be the throat. The shoulder or the ear or the even elbow would have been distracting enough, even without the visions spinning through Mal's head, but this just made it so much worse... and yet, she had to admit, it also made it so, so much better... In her sleep, Polly curled closer to Maladict, her arm drifting around Mal's waist. Mal closed her eyes, shuddering deliciously under a touch that she knew, she knew, was completely and utterly innocent. And she couldn't afford to think of it as anything else. There had been times, back in their first squad, six months ago, when Polly had done things like this. Slipped an arm companionably around Mal's shoulders, or met her eyes, smiling, across the camp fire when no-one else was looking, and Mal had entertained thoughts that she'd known were way out of line... "Oh, Mal!" But the look she'd seen in Polly's eyes — she had seen it, she was sure — when she'd gasped Mal's name, had made her wonder. Had she done it to make Mal laugh, to bring her that much further in on the joke? Or had there been another reason...? No, she told herself firmly. Don't go there. You're already too close to 'there' as it is. Just... let it go. Let her go... In the dark, she rolled away from Polly, onto her side and felt Polly adjust her body to fit the curve of Mal's own. She felt Polly snuggle against her, making little contented noises in her sleep. A faint spark of hope flared in Mal's heart. She let herself slip Polly's hand into her own, felt Polly's heart beating gently against her back. In the warmth and safety of Polly's embrace, Mal let herself drift off to sleep. |