In Which Cherry Pays a Compliment to Greek Statues

September 18, 1184

Cherry had not been expecting company--and if she had, it would have been someone she knew, or at least knew of. Or, failing that, someone who had tangible reason for calling on her. It would not have been someone random teenage boy she'd never met in her life, a boy whose name she only recognized because she'd once witnessed his father being thrown out of a tavern.

That said, she'd let Severin in and led him upstairs to the sitting room, then seated herself once he looked to be comfortable. She drew the line at food, though. If he expected food, he ought to have given her notice. Or at least found some opening to introduce himself in a public space before inviting himself to her house.

"I don't want to be rude, but isn't it a school day?"

He shrugged. "If I wanted a lecture about skipping, I would have dropped in on my mother."

"More of an ends fellow than a means one, I see." As she could have guessed, he didn't dignify that with more than a blink. "All right. What do you want?"

"I heard you're from Tagrien. Is that true?"

...what. Maybe she had mentioned Tagrien to Florian in the tavern. Didn't make his question any less of a shock. "Well, I was actually born in Rexus, but I did live in Tagrien for most of my life, yes."

"You weren't acquainted with Count Felron, were you?"

Oh, God. "What, you think all people from Tagrien know each other? I'll admit it's not exactly London, but you need to check your population figures before you assume things."

"So you didn't know him." Direct enough--she'd give him that. "Any chance you knew someone who did?"

"Naturally. It's not exactly London, after all." She winked; he didn't seem to appreciate it. "A friend of mine had a sister who was a maid at the castle."

"A servant. Interesting." Severin shuffled up against the arm of the bench and leaned over while Cherry did her best to maintain a polite distance. "They usually have the dirt on their masters, don't they?"

"They do. Alas, I don't think it was ever a big secret that Felron is an asshole." Hell, even his own mother had admitted it, or so Cherry had heard said. She recalled more than one rumor that said Felron might be passed over for Sir Garrett on that basis; pity it hadn't turned out to be true. "That other thing might be, though."

Her guest raised an eyebrow. He know doubt wanted her to say it, but she kind of wanted him to ask. He'd shown up uninvited, after all; there was no reason for him to stop taking initiative now. "What other thing?"

"Well... see, a lot of noblemen feel entitled to take their female servants to bed, and Felron has a habit of doing just that. My friend's poor sister had that misfortune more than once, and, well..." How to put it? As far as the world ought to have been concerned, she'd already said the worst of it. But some people had no priorities when it came to shame. "...apparently he's, er... not particularly well-endowed."

"Well-endowed?" Severin repeated, eyes wide and mouth twisting. Poor stupid kid.

Cherry sighed. "He has a tiny penis."

"I know what you meant!" And yet, his indignation wasted no time swapping itself for curiosity. "How small?"

"Small enough that there were rumors among the staff that his wife had to have her maidenhead surgically ruptured. Nothing anyone with any knowledge of the female anatomy would believe, but that seems to be more people than not." Though really... if a maidenhead covered everything, then why were such heavy periods possible? That stuff was more gunk than liquid sometimes. If a maidenhead wasn't fully permeable--which surely it wouldn't have been--then why didn't women go through their youths with only light bleeding and then lose years' worth of backlog after first penetration?

"Huh." Severin sunk back in his seat and looked to the ceiling. Fighting to get the image of a naked Felron out of his mind, no doubt. Lord knew how long that had taken Cherry when she'd first heard the size of the thing. "That's... got to be pretty small."

"Embarrassingly so."

"How embarrassing?"

Was there a scale of embarrassment where cocks were concerned? Cherry shrugged. "Well, not having one myself, you'd know better than I would. But based on what I know of men's egos and the length between Atasha's finger and thumb when she told me, I'd say there are some Greek statues out there who stand to be feeling pretty good about themselves if they ever wind up in Felron's bedroom."

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