Chapter 6. A wenching we will go

After the whipping, Jona was wonderful, insisting on applying salve to my back even after my wounds were healing quickly.  His ankle seemed to be getting better as well, and our mornings on deck resumed, although after the whipping, there seemed to be more of  an audience whenever I was around.

After passing through the Pillars, the ship stopped again, this time at what seemed to me to be a great city, although I later learned that Port Carl was relatively small port town.

This time I went with Kevin and the boys for the evening for an evening of eating, drinking, and observing what they called “the fine art of wenching.” The first two were fun and the last was both amusing and sad.

The tavern we went to was far different from my father’s simple family run and oriented establishment.  The place was enormous and offered all sorts of different foods and spirits and there was a large stage where a Bard could perform for the entire tavern, but on this particular night the entertainment consisted entirely of serving girls, dancers, and others, who didn't even pretend to serve any function other than selling sexual favors to the patrons, who, with the exception of myself, were all male.

Some of the women were pretty, some plain, and they came in lots of different sizes and shapes.  But they all shared a love of coin and a willingness to flatter, flirt, caress and spread their legs or open their mouths to satisfy that love.  I’d never seen so many women, or men, for that matter, in one place, and watching my companions “pursue” these women was really amusing.  Flashing a coin was all it took to get attention, but after a while, it was clear that there was some sport to the whole process, if you included competing with other patrons for the attentions of particular girls at the same time. Other than that, the art seemed pretty pathetic.

Oddly, despite having no coin of my own nor much in the way of interest in what the tavern sluts were selling, I seemed to be quite popular.  I'm sure some of it was posing for the men, but some of the attention, or at least curiosity seemed genuine.  I let one girl perch herself on my thigh for awhile and confirm for herself that my breasts were real, but when she took it on herself to search for man parts, I gently picked her up and gave her to someone who had what she was looking for.

In later years, I learned to enjoy these things differently, but that night, I was content to watch and hold purses for my little friends when they took the girls into the back rooms.

We got back to the ship late that night, and I carried some of my companions, supported others and herded even more through the streets.  While I was probably in no shape to, say, ride a horse (which I had no clue how to do at the time anyway), I was in far better shape than the rest of my companions and gave a really big grin to Jona  and almost dropped the man I was carrying when he came out on deck.  

Jona didn't look entirely happy with me and I really wasn't in the mood to be lectured, so I finished helping everyone aboard and went to bed.