Um… get away from me you freaks? Tor didn't say that, not wanting to be insulting, so he shrugged and paraphrased.
“Probably something shocked and frightened? I mean, who wouldn't? That's a weird thing to say to a woman at random, and they'd be within their rights to call the guard and have us both beaten. We'd have to let them too, because we'd deserve it.” Tor nodded at her confidently. After all, who did something like that?
Karina didn't wait, stopping a pretty woman walking along with another female, who wasn't as good looking, but smiled at them as she stood slightly behind the first woman, which made her face seem kind and friendly. Both were dressed in clean clothes that looked well used, but didn't have an air of lower class to them, so merchants maybe? They both looked to be about thirty or so, but well kept, even so. Tor nearly fainted when she actually said the words to the first woman, asking exactly what she'd said a few seconds before. The woman looked at him hard then Karina. Then she surprised him, because instead of calling for guards, or even telling them to get lost… she smiled.
“How much?”
Without hesitation Karina said a gold. The woman countered with five silvers, since she wanted to save a little money for the celebration, the woman behind her offered three silvers if he'd do them both. Four if he'd use his mouth, she liked that better than regular sex anyway, she let them know. Karina clarified that to oral sex and not kissing, which seemed to be an important point to her. They agreed and money changed hands quickly. Too quickly.
He hadn't been able to do more than stammer a bit during the negotiation. Everyone had kind of just ignored him too. Like he was incidental to the process. A good being sold. No one asked the opinion of a hand pie did they?
It made Tor feel a little sad for the pastries in Debbie’s shop.
The whole thing left him feeling shocked and speechless. It was a trap, one built for him personally, and so well that he couldn't get out of it. Refusing them now that they'd paid would be worse than calling them ugly, and even saying it was a joke would probably hurt their feelings. They weren't ugly or even women he wouldn't have liked to spend time with in general, but there were two of them and… he wasn't a whore. Was he? Apparently Karina thought differently and had just sold him as one.
Talk about rude.
Tor found himself led by the Princess to an alley just as she'd said. In the end he serviced both of them twice, once each with his mouth, one with his hand the other his manhood. It was embarrassing at first, but he let go of that and tried to focus on using all he'd learned and practiced to make sure they had fun. No matter what, they'd paid a lot for him, so giving them less than the best he could manage would be unconscionable, right? Both women handed him a coin, an extra silver each, as they left, and gave him a groping hug, but when one, the prettier of the two, tried to kiss him, Karina intervened physically, an arm across the woman’s upper chest, and gave her a stern look.
“No kissing. That's extra.” It was almost comical. After all that kissing was an issue? It was absurd.
So much so he nearly cried.
Tor felt used as they walked away. Not by the women, who'd paid a fair price, more than fair he thought, not really knowing normal rates, but by Karina. She turned to him though and kissed him, the taste of the women still on his lips, in his mouth. If she minded, it didn't show, instead she hugged him tightly and whispered in his ear huskily.
“So… yes, Tor, they want you. No games, no set up. We could do that again and double the price if we went to the nice district and probably get ten golds if I hit up some of the dowagers that have come for the week. A full gold for an hour’s work… A good girl whore would be out here for half the festival to make that, unless she offered really kinky things. Before her pimp took most of it. They didn't know you were the Wizard Tor either, or a noble at all. Just some good looking, and as it turned out, talented boy whore. Do you really not know what you look like or something? You're always so down on yourself. It seems phony you know, you always pretending your ugly or a troll or whatever.”
Oh. That.
“Yeah… Burks, Count Lairdgren, well he explained that, it's part of my pattern. He said I was really good looking, but basically I can't see it in myself. I don't, even when I thought he looked good when he de-aged himself. His real appearance is basically like this, I guess, exactly really, same age and all. Taller obviously, by about five inches. It's that Ancient thing. Your parents told you?” She might have forgotten, it wasn't like it would have mattered to her at the time, right?
It turned out that finding out a friend of yours won't age, and might live for thousands of years or more wasn't something you just let go of and didn't think about. She shrugged and offered to buy him something with the money he'd earned. After her eighty percent of course.
“Wait, pimps take that much? Why? Protection… but it isn't that dangerous is it? Do they have to fight every third man or something?”
Karina didn't really know herself. It was the tradition though. As it was she kind of felt she might have gotten taken on the price for him. Talented boy whores were hard to find. Especially famous ones. She'd make a killing, she informed him wickedly.
“So, you really, honestly, don't know what you look like? It… explains so much. Like why what Maria Ward and Cousin Patricia said about you hurt, even when everyone else probably just wrote it off for the most part. They were angry and said obviously untrue things. Like when a girl claims a man has a small penis or isn't good in bed, even if their huge and wonderful at it? You're a stupid and ugly boy? Hardly. Anyone looking at you knows it isn't true instantly. Maria probably didn't even think about the words she was saying and just let loose with the worst things she could think of. The rest, well, not everyone is tall, but it's hardly a crime, or even unattractive, even to noble women. A lot of noble women actually prefer their men to be smaller than they are, it's a power thing you see. They can feel dominant that way. You like having sex with men? Well they probably hoped so. I'd kind of like to see that myself… maybe later? You like children? No one that's even stood in the same room with you would think that, not if it was longer than ten minutes at least. No one would ever have thought what they said was true hardly at all. What Lilli said about me, now a lot of that was true. I'm not that pretty, and no, it's not like you where I just don't see it. Cute? Sure, I clean up well and all that, in a three hundred gold dress with full make-up, but I'm not Varley. She's gorgeous, knows it too. But a lot of people probably didn't think those words would hurt you at all Tor. A regular boy maybe, or if you were really ugly or stupid, but you?
“But if you can't see it, that might make sense. Do you think your stupid too then?”
“About average?” Even having been told otherwise it was still his answer.
That got a nod, but not an agreement. As they walked she went silent and finally kissed him again. She didn't say anything else at all, so eventually they went back to the palace and she traded places with Rolph who patted him on the back gently, not triggering the shield at all.
“Alright Tor? You look confused and baffled. More so than normal I mean. Anything I can help with?”
He didn't talk until they were well away from the palace outside the wall and part way to his house. Then he told his friend everything that had happened. Everything.
Rolph seamed… impressed really, which Tor didn't get at all.