Story for the Day: A Flourishing Attachment

I'm maybe, sort of, perhaps writing a book about Ladrei, Nidello and Arkastino. Maybe.

A Flourishing Attachment

                It was one day when the throes of their daily lessons and imprisonment in the professed learning institution were about to begin that Ladrei had decided he would rather learn about the business of pleasure houses than sit in a room being told what to think. Surely arithmetic and language had their due importance, but he believed there should be more immediate and significant lessons to learn in a harem full of bright young women than there were in being made to stare at a board and book for the chief of the day. He read well, his writing was exemplary, his ability to discern and decipher were developed beyond that of his peers, and he felt unequal to festering among those whose understanding was far less than his. He had learnt and now he had only wished to learn more. It was a fair assumption to make on his part that he had surpassed what lessons in a room could tender. He must go out and sample the finer delights of the world to find their evils, and he would do so with his two friend so that may find their enlightenment between a pair of sinuous thighs just as he might do himself.

                He went therefore to their rooms to make the invitation but Arkastino and Nidello had already gone. Perhaps he had just missed them and they were already on their way toward the classroom. He hastened to save them from a day’s banality and leapt through the halls, making certain to guard himself from being seen by any of the wandering teachers. A few students had observed him moving hastily about the hallways but it would not signify: they were too dull and insipid to grasp his arch schemes. He felt only equal to Arkastino and Nidello and he was full of thought of liberating them when he came to the door of their class to find them absent. He peeked around the doorpost to see if they were sitting in the back rows, but the chairs they were used to occupy were empty.

                The teacher called out for everyone to quiet, the books were taken up, the lesson was written out on the board, and Ladrei was gone. He would not stay to be lectured. He would only use the shroud of commencing classes to find his friends and enjoy his day with them. He searched the school grounds, his head full of the various places they would visit. The items they would eat, the women they would see, the dancing they would remark, the music they would hear: it was all wonder and fancy to him, what they would say, what they would do and how they would act, but all his aspirations for a pleasant day of self-learning, however, were halted when he discovered the hideaway of his two friends.

                In the yard situated on the far side of the entrance to the school, there was a tree of great consequence shielding a corner of the enclosure. In the concealed corner were Arkastino and Nidello, Arkastino screen by the immensity of the tree and Nidello shielded by the magnitude of his friend.

                Ladrei had only seen the bend of a familiar elbow and the fingers of a recognizable distinction to recommend that both of his friends were standing together in the corner of the yard. He became animated when he saw them and rushed to meet them but was stopped when he observed a very strange sight: Arkastino was standing with his back to the tree and Nidello was gathered up in his arms. It seemed to Ladrei as thought they were sharing osculations with one another- no, they were osculating, Arkastino holding up Nidello’s chin and pressing his mouth against him. Tongues were involved, somewhat awkwardly, hands were employed, and Ladrei soon became certain that they were locked in an affectionate kiss.

                This was a new sight to him. He had always known Nidello to be sensible of Arkastino’s habits and Arkastino to be softhearted despite his menacing size, but he had never suspected that they haboured sentiments for one another yet here was confirmation of a budding attachment. He did not find it odd that they were expressing their unbidden sensibilities in such a manner but that they should be doing so on one another was the peculiarity. He did not know what to feel, standing near the tree and watching them grope and taste one another, whether to feel betrayed by being excluded from the secret or to feel pained that they should have kept their affection for one another from him. Perhaps they felt he would have been envious that they chose one another and not him, but he would certainly not be disconcerted over such a decision. He did have no developed preference for one sex over the other, but he should be exuberant that the two people he adored most would wish to be together. Now that he had seen them, however, he must confess his knowledge of their attachment. He hoped that when he should reveal his perception to them they would not part and claim this exhibition was only their expression of curiosity. His wishes on this account, however, were soon founded.

                A hand slipped beneath Arkastino’s waist sash and began tormenting him. He pressed his hips forward to display his delight of having himself fondled. He grabbed Nidello’s hair and pulled back, sucking the length of his neck. Their actions heightened to a sensual aggressiveness: Nidello’s mouth trailed Arkastino’s torso and his head was pushed further down to explore that which he was touching. He grazed his teeth against Arkastino’s incomparable size but stopped when he suddenly noted Ladrei standing in the near distance. He was watching them. They were discovered. Any desires they had of confidentiality were done, and they must now make the most mortifying excuse to their mutual friend. Each of them started, each of them straightened, they adjusted their garments, cleared their throats and hung their heads, ashamed not of their conduct but that Ladrei should have discovered their attachment in such an indirect and impersonal manner.

                Ladrei marked their humiliation and could not be upset with them. He apprehended their remorsefulness and would not seek to make them feel worse than they already felt. The flushed features and discomfited stances conveyed how much they had longed to tell him and be with one another, yet they had succeeded in the only the latter while forgetting to mention the former. Their penitence was enough for him, and Ladrei smiled in their direction.  

                “So,” he began.

                Arkastino and Nidello looked at Ladrei and then at one another, each expecting the other to explain first.  

                “We didn’t know how to tell you,” Nidello pleaded.

                Ladrei folded his arms and shrugged. “How does one tell someone something like this?”

                They glanced at one another in first dread and the bemusement. They wondered at how he could not be angry, or rather he was livid and merely masking it well.

                “We weren’t even certain if this was what we wanted,” Arkastino added.

                Ladrei studied the lasting amorous looks they afforded one another. “You seem certain now,” he said with positive decision.

                They shared a variety of chary and hopeful glances, passing them back and forth between one another with scrupulous attention. Ladrei saw the beginnings of a hand beckoning to grab another and his two friends remarked him with equal awareness, wanting to comfort one another by touch yet apprehensive to do so before him. Their small fingers interlocked, the connection was made, and both of them were able to speak.

                “You’re really not angry?” Nidello cautiously asked.

                Ladrei smirked and raise a brow. “I might be disappointed that neither of you consulted me for advise as to how to approach one another, or that you didn’t even consider that I might want to join you, but I’m not angry.”

                They fleered at Ladrei’s archness and gave one another looks of disbelief. For it to be true that their union would be so readily accepted by the one they feared telling the most was a pleasant relief, and they stepped forward hand in hand to present themselves in a formal style.

                “We apologize, Ladrei,” Nidello said. “Next time we decide to hide under the tree, we promise to ask if you’re interested.”

                “I’m always interested,” Ladrei professed. “Whether I’m interested in watching or participating is the real question.”

                They scoffed at his liberality, giving him playful pounds of their fists against his arm, and they nodded toward one another in agreement to consider the matter resolved. Another subject, however, was yet unanswered.

                “Why are you out of lessons, Ladrei?” Arkastino asked.

                Ladrei grinned and with sparkling eyes said, “I was interested in watching.”

                “But you didn’t know we were here.”

                “I came to see if you wanted to visit Margano’s.”

                “The pleasure house?” Nidello said in confusion.

                “I thought I could learn something by watching. Now that I have, I’m no longer interested.”

                Nidello pressed his arm against Ladrei’s and simpered to himself.

                The three walked out of the yard and toward the center of the capital, Ladrei enjoying his strut with his hands in his pockets and his two friends walking arm in arm with an amorous and crawling gait. They were certain that if they searched for something of greater interest to them than Margano’s they could find it, such as a meal at Vondeva’s or a small run at one of the guilds, but there was so much renewed inquisitiveness between them, Ladrei being filled with happy interest and his friends enjoying all the newness of burgeoning affection, that they decided a walk around the fountain in one another’s accommodating company was enough to excite them at present.