The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [85]
Monique was so overjoyed to find someone willing to take her on despite her being a woman that she did not even realize what she was hired for until the next day, when she was sober and enlisted. If anyone asked she was supposed to tell them she was an unfortunately feminine-looking man, but usually the willow-cutter’s daughter simply responded by pistol-whipping the offending party in the mouth, and that seemed to get the job done well enough. She recognized better than most the limited capabilities of her preferred weapon and, courtesy of von Stein, received dispensation to occasionally act in a more traditional mercenary capacity while still carrying her guns, instead of always being left behind with the rest of the often ineffectual gunners.
“In the fuckin shitstorm’s where the blood gets hottest,” she concluded, “which is ’ow me and Manuel got so fuckin close— boy kin stick’em like a born butcher.”
“You’re amazing!” said Awa at last. “You overcame your cruel master and lived to tell the tale!”
“He weren’t such the motherfucker,” said Monique. “I felt a bit bad, for a time, seein’s he was nigh sixty when I laid’em out, an’ lay’em out I fuckin did. Some men ’alf ’is age don’t recover from a beatin like that, teeth everywhere, an’ he did teach me what I know, or knew. Don’t wager I could cast a turd out my ass after these years without a smithy.”
“I’m sure you could!”
“Well, maybe I could cast that,” admitted Monique. “But what’s your yarn, little sister? How’d a nun come ta drink with the damned, eh?”
“That’s a story for a colder night,” Awa said nervously. “I just, I don’t—”
“No worries, no hurries,” said Monique. “I’ll hear it when ya tell it, an’ not a day fore then.”
“Thank you,” said Awa, her severity giving Monique pause.
“Well, we waited down the stars, so ta bed then?”
The next morning Awa found herself more than a little infatuated with Monique, but the woman was far cooler than she had previously been with Awa, and positively glacial compared to the previous night. Still, the hurt of Monique’s standoffishness was slight compared to the pain Omorose had caused her, and Awa attributed her friend’s demeanor to not wanting Manuel to pick up on the shift in their relationship. Awa focused instead on the sharp green pines and sharper gray stones girding the road, the pale blue sky and paler wisps of cloud wreathing the peaks as they rode into the Alps—being once again enclosed by mountains was a comfort to the necromancer.
The second time they fucked all three had been drinking by the fire, and they snuck off when Manuel became viciously sick, throwing up and moaning like a gluttonous hound that had eaten too much of a stolen roast. This encounter was just as disappointing as the first time had been fulfilling, with Monique bringing along one of her pistols and insisting Awa rub the barrel against herself while the mercenary watched, masturbating, and only when the heavy, cold bronze became too abrasive and Awa stopped did Monique consent to giving her partner the laziest of attentions with her tongue. Awa’s orgasm was little more pleasurable than those she gave herself, which were also less embarrassing than rubbing a weapon over her most delicate parts as her paramour drunkenly gave her instructions and pleasured herself rather than having Awa assist.
The next morning Manuel noticed the change in Awa and Monique’s interactions even through his pounding headache, although it was another day, and a miserable day it was, before he guessed at what had happened. When he did, he remained as silent as the two women had become, neither giving him much opportunity to talk to one or the other alone, and so they came down from the wildflower-speckled meadows of the high country where marmots whistled among the overgrown boulder fields