Beds, right? Look, in my life, an actual bed usually came with a dick attached. Not always the same dick. Gods no. Variety is the spice. But yeah—if I'm horizontal on something soft with a pillow involved, odds are I'm either getting paid or getting played. Or both. If not? Then it's hammocks, bedrolls, or—best one yet—under the stairs of a piss-reeking alley in Seebulba, next to a dead cat and a very much alive rat with boundary issues.
So no, beds don't scream "rest" to me. Beds scream "brothel." Or "harem." Or "upstairs room in some fleabitten inn where the sheets smell like regret and old soup." You know—luxury.
Get me on a soft mattress between silk sheets and oh baby, you're not getting alleyway Saya. No. You're getting deluxe, temple-blessed, velvet-draped Saya. I mean it. The kind of performance that gets you haunting the memory for decades. Premium service. Five-star sluttiness. Gutter-born finesse with high-thread-count enthusiasm.
Now don't get me wrong—I've done my fair share against the back wall of some tavern, one leg up on a barrel, mud in my hair, someone else's name in my mouth. Filthy and fun. Sloppy good time. Gods bless it.
But Saya in velvet? In satin? Draped over plush pillows like a debauched oracle? That's what I call green slutwork. The kind of romp that should come with a surcharge and a warning from your priest. You'll thank me in the morning. You'll write poetry. You'll cry into your wife's shoulder because it'll never be the same again.
And then, if you're lucky, I might still be there. Stealing your coin pouch and your last fig. Kisses!
***
He was gawking. Just lying there, staring like his brain had stalled somewhere between my tits and my lies. Poor man. Probably never had a thief in his bed before. Definitely not one eating his figs.
"Are you really," he asked, voice trembling with equal parts disbelief and post-coital hope, "a fallen princess of Delvida?"
I licked fig juice from my thumb and gave him the saddest, sassiest grin I could muster.
"Woe is me," I sighed dramatically, reclining like a tragic tapestry, one knee up, one tit half-covered in stolen sheet. "Dark is my fate, kind mister. Reduced to peddling my divine nectar in roadside inns, my crown pawned for a bowl of lentils and a one-eyed goat."
He blinked.
"Once," I went on, swirling the fig stem like a scepter, "I was destined to rule the alabaster spires of proud Delvida. Bathed in rosewater. Draped in silks. Attended by eunuchs with very soft hands."
"You had eunuchs?" he asked.
"Dozens," I lied, tossing a fig at his chest. "Now look at me. Groped by a spice trader with garlic breath and a coin pouch light enough to float."
He turned a bit red. "You said you liked the garlic…"
I leaned in, bit his lower lip just enough to sting. "Oh, I like a lot of things. Doesn't make them true, sweetheart."
Then I flopped back and stretched like a smug cat. "But hey, last night? That was royal treatment. Be grateful. Princess Saya doesn't climb aboard just anyone."
He looked overwhelmed.
Good.
Truth? I hooked him because he was already paying for the room. That's it. Nothing grand, no seduction scheme, no long con. He was drunk, alone, and mildly attractive in that pudgy, soft-palmed, never-seen-a-sword sort of way. And me? I didn't feel like curling up outside next to a grouchy lizard and a pile of rocks, listening to him mumble in his sleep about gout and gold taxation.
The inn had real mattresses. Linen sheets. Pillows, gods help me. And nuts. Free crunchy nuts.
So I slinked up to his table, gave him the eyes, and said something breathy and devastating about being cold and lonely and recently betrayed by a duke. Men love betrayal. Gets them all puffed up with savior fantasies. Told him I had nowhere to go. Technically true. Except, you know, the terrifying pile of scales napping behind the chicken coop.
By the time I'd dropped a hint about Delvida and sighed like a tragic poem, he was tripping over his own belt to get the key.
And here we are. Morning after. Peach in my mouth. Lies in his ears. Room paid in full. No cold toes. No dragon whining about campfire etiquette. I call that a win.
I bit into another peach —ripe, sticky, practically melting—and let the juice dribble just a little before licking it off my lip, slow enough to make him forget his name.
"Maybe," I purred, nudging his thigh with my toe, "you could go fetch me a mug of coffee. Strong. Bitter. Like my worldview."
He blinked, still a little dazzled.
"And while you're at it," I added, stretching just enough for the sheet to slide halfway down my hip, "maybe some bread? Eggs? That cheese you mentioned in your sleep? You bring a proper breakfast, and who knows… maybe I'll show you another round of princess gratitude."
He was already halfway to the edge of the bed when I sweetened the deal.
"Oh," I called, voice sugar and poison, "and kind sir… don't forget."
I smiled wide and bright, like a sunrise about to rob you blind.
"Twenty coppers. That's what we agreed last night. For the fallen princess."
He froze. Blinked again. Nodded like a man caught in a beautiful storm.
Good boy.