Demesne Patron EX SS 39 – Commitment and Debauchery

Set before chapter 417

"So, how's married life, Riz?" Mekari said as they worked on stripping the branches off the tree they were working on. "Still having fun?"

"Married life?" Riz said, bemused as she used her voro to hack at the branch she was working in, the heavy work blade slowly but surely chipping at the wood. "I'm fairly sure I'm not married, Mekari. The Great Binder hasn't done any marriages since last winter."

"Well, this is the longest you've stayed with a man," Brabli said as she stripped off the smaller branches from the limbs they'd already cut off so that they could be bundled together into kindling using raw ropeweed ropes that some of the children still made. It wore away after a couple of weeks, but it was easier to make than proper rope. "We all thought he was going to be another one of the boys you had in every village. You'd have fun with him, then after a few weeks you'd get bored and find someone else to ring your bell because he wasn't as good at it anymore. When you didn't have a man you headed straight to a bellhouse to pay for a man when we had leave."

"So did you," Riz shot back.

"Yes, but not every day."

… all right, that was fair, but still! What she'd spent her beads on was none of their business!

Navia looked up from bundling together kindling. "Joking aside, is this serious then?"

Riz considered the question for a moment as she continued hacking at the branch she was cutting off, and everyone went back to work too. After all, they were talking while they worked, not working while they talked.  They were part of the group doing logging work today, so they needed to properly prepare the logs before they were dragged over to the sawmill. It wasn't all that hard, and freed up the experienced sawyers to work on preparing the timber at the mill.

Eventually, she said, "Well… I definitely haven't thought about leaving him…" In Riz's previous experiences, men tended to start getting lazy after the first week or two, and stopped putting any effort in ringing her bell in favor of their own music. With Rian, however… well, she'd found no reason to be unsatisfied, even if she had to wait until after he was done with Umu. And even outside of that, he always made time to listen to her as she just talked about the day…

Well, he'd used to, but that wasn't his fault.  Ever since she'd started getting her bell rung with Mikon, she'd been more willing to take up her woman's offers to listen to her in his place, and she'd been taking her up on it. The weaver was more aggressively touchy than he was, always stroking Riz's hair or running fingertips over her arm, or gently massaging her chest… which she'd learned was a completely different from getting groped. Much more pleasant, for one thing.

For a guilty moment, Riz wondered if she was actually neglecting Rian. Although they still slept together at night—well, most nights, sometimes the day had just been so long no amount of night music outweighed the appeal of going to sleep—if she thought of the past few nights, Mikon's parts were far more memorable. Her time with him had still felt good—felt wonderful, he made her toes curl and her voice rise—but it was all... no longer as memorable. Was it because he was with her after she'd been with Mikon, who… well, Riz was still learning how to be with a woman, and each new lesson was came as a surprise. But leaving him? No, the thought had never even crossed her mind. Certainly she'd often wanted Mikon and Umu to leave, but that feeling had been lessening as the months had passed as she'd gotten used to their presence, and what was left had halved quite recently.

"Huh. I never thought I'd see you making a stupid face like that," Sintelerra said.

"I'm not making a stupid face," Riz protested, even though she probably was.

"No, that's definitely a stupid feelings face," Brabli said.

"Oh, get colored. At least I have a man."

"Yes, you do," Mekari said with a smirk. "Not as good as a woman, but that means more of them for me. Who would have thought that Dirty Riz would be the first to catch feelings.  And for a civie."

"A lord civie," Riz said as she twisted her voro to break off the strip of bark that the branch she'd been hacking at was now dangling from. She picked up the now-removed branch and dragged it one side to get it out of her way, then moved over to another branch. Raising her voro, she started hacking again. "And given what he does for the Great Binder, you can't say he doesn't work for a living."

There was a round of nods at that. Dealing with the Great Binder for everyone, and dealing with everyone for the Great Binder was definitely work, and that wasn't counting the other things he found to do to be helpful.

"So, are you going boring on us?" Vadpoli said. "Going to settle down and become a mother, take up weaving or whatever it is civie women do?"

Riz snorted, because rolling her eyes would have meant looking away from what she was working on. "Be serious. If I did that, one of you would have to talk to the Great Binder when you're escorting her around."

"Still, you're the first one of us to become an honest woman," Sintelerra said. "Congratulations, I guess?"

"Yeah, congratulations on getting boring," Navia said. "Dirty Riz is gone. Who's Mekari going to the bellhouses with now?"

"I don't think the Great Binder is going to allow a bellhouse here any time soon," Riz said. "At least, not until she can tax them."

"Oh, how terrible.  I'll have to find women who'll be willing to ring my bell for free," Mekari said with exaggerated woe. A part of Riz noted that she wasn't as good as Rian at doing that. "Well, almost honest. She still needs to get married and finally kick out those two civies so they'll stop trying to steal her man."

Navia shook her head. "I can't believe you're putting up with the two of them sleeping with him. When Mevt asked if we could have a turn with your man in Dorna village after you were done, you—"

"I was there, Nav, I remember," Riz said.

"I'm just saying, I don't understand why you're still letting those two civies stay in your house."

Riz shrugged as she hacked at the new branch. "They keep the house clean and do the laundry. Rian doesn't have the time, and I don't want to do it."

"Wow," Raradina said as she collected the branches they'd already trimmed clean. "That's a new level of lazy, letting two other women sleep with your man just so you don't have to pick up after yourself."

"Maybe she's sleeping with them too," Vadpoli suggested with a laugh. "After all these years, she's finally decided to give getting her bell rung by a woman another chance."

Everyone else laughed as Riz calmly kept hacking at the branch she was working on again. She worked intently as the laughter died down, ignoring the way everyone else was looking at her.

This was all very important work, after all.

"Riz?" Navia said.

"Yes?" Riz said, not looking up from her work. She didn't want to lose a foot because of a self-inflicted accident, after all.

"""…"""

"You're… not sleeping with the civies too, are you?"

"Their names are Umu and Mikon. You're not the Great Binder, you can remember names."

"""…"""

"Oh, Great Binder, she is sleeping with them too!" Sintelerra exclaimed.

"No, she can't be…" Vadpoli said hesitantly. "She doesn't like women like that, and she's always talked about how terrible that one time she tried it was…"

"I'm right here, I can hear you all talking," Riz said so flatly she felt a strong urge to make herself scarce so that the Great Binder wouldn't notice her.

"Maybe Mikon seduced her? When I pass by the Um from the bath when she's taking a shift, I sometimes see Riz with her head on the woman's lap—" Brabli said thoughtfully.

"Can we please stop talking about the people I'm sleeping with and get back to work?" Riz said since glaring at everyone didn't seem to be working and using her voro was probably too much—

"Riz… are you sleeping with the two civies?" Mekari asked.

She hefted her voro, briefly fantasizing about giving them a few good whacks. They had the Great Bi—er, the smaller Great Binder to heal people, they'd be able to recover…

Well, there wasn't really any reason to hide this from them… except for the inevitable prickling they'd give her, but what was a little occasional urge to maim each other between friends? She rolled her eyes and repressed the urge to sigh. "If it will get you to stop and get back to work, then yes, I'm sleeping with Mikon."

They all stared at her.

"Nice," Brabli said with a grin, putting fist to heart in a salute.

"So she can develop good taste," Mekari said, smirking.

"She hasn't changed at all," Navia said with a fond sigh. "Still Dirty Riz, breaking men's hearts."

"Poor Rian," Raradina sighed.

Huh. That… hadn't been as bad as she'd thought it would be.

"Pretty bold of you, living in a man's house while cheating on him," Sintelerra said.  "When you were in the militia, you at least had the decency to tell him it was over before moving on to the next man… or woman, in this case."

Riz frowned. "What do you mean? I'm not cheating on Rian."

They all stared at her again. "How are you not cheating on Rian?" Navia said.

"He's sleeping with Mikon too, remember. If anything, he's not cheating on me anymore since we're both sleeping with her, so now we're even." Really, the reasoning held up if you thought about it.

There was a moment's silence, broken only by the wind and the distant sounds of the other nearby logging groups working on their own trees.

"So… you're sleeping with both of them now?" Brabli said.

"I just said that."

"Just making sure. Are you?"

"Yes, Brab. Stop making me repeat myself."

"But you made that stupid face…"

"I did not. There was no stupid face."

"So… Rian's still your man?"

"Yes."

"And Mikon is… I guess your woman now?"

"I'm going to ignore you now and get back to cutting off these branches." Riz's voro rose and fell as it started cutting through the wood again.

There was a brief pause.

"Is she actually becoming an honest woman without letting go of her debaucherous ways?" Sintelerra said thoughtfully.

"Only if she marries them," Raradina pointed out. "The Great Binder probably wouldn't allow that… right?"

She could feel them all staring at her. Riz, for her part, suddenly recalled how Mikon had once mentioned that there wasn't actually any limit on how many people you could marry, according to the Great Binder…

"Riz?" Vadpoli said.

"I'm working, can't hear you!" Riz said, not looking up.

"Wow. She is getting boring if she's not going to brag."

"Is she really boring if she has a man and a woman, though…?"

The sound of voros chopping wood and trimming branches started to rise again as everyone got back to work—

"Tah, Riz…"

Riz sighed. "What Mekari?"

"Could you ask Mikon for me if any of her cousins are into women?"

"… fine."

"Thanks!"