Once upon a jade, p.1
Once Upon a Jade, page 1
Once Upon a Jade
By T.J. Blackley
Published by JMS Books LLC
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Copyright 2022 T.J. Blackley
ISBN 9781685501914
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
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All rights reserved.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
To Riki, in love and gratitude.
* * * *
Once Upon a Jade
By T.J. Blackley
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
Prologue
Friedrich’s stomach was trying very hard to be anxious, the note from the mayor still clutched in his hand, but try as it might, it just couldn’t manage it. The building he had been summoned to, Idyll’s town hall, was simply not intimidating enough. Not when Friedrich knew the man who had built it, every strut and nail, and not when half the people who worked inside frequented his place of employ.
True, he hadn’t voted for the man who had requested his presence at the town hall today, but that was hardly cause for nerves; Mayor Rafael gave the jades a wide berth, and was probably well-pleased not to have been voted for by the main thrust of them. Only Bian admitted to voting for Rafael, and as Bian had only done it for the joke—Rafael’s re-election being all but certain anyway—Friedrich didn’t hold it against him.
The mayoral elections were not exactly free and fair, anyway. It was the one blight on Idyll’s claim to its name.
The town hall was painted a modest pale green, a single story, but reaching from one end of the block to the other. Friedrich had just about resolved himself to go up to the door when it opened, revealing a trim woman with a ponytail so tight it made Friedrich’s head ache in sympathy.
The woman was Arielle, Mayor Rafael’s right hand. Despite the severity of her hairdo, her smile was warm as she looked at Friedrich. “You’re right on time,” she said, stepping back to let him in.
He was at least five minutes late, the echoes from the bells having long since died out, but she was as much a politician as her boss, he reflected.
Friedrich hadn’t had much cause to enter the town hall before, not being much of one for politics even aside from the mayor’s distaste for his profession, and he didn’t bother pretending not to be impressed. The jadehouse where he lived and worked was well-built and well-kept, but it saw a lot of traffic, and the traffic showed in the worn corners and the faded carpet. The town hall, on the other hand, looked as though barely a dozen people had ever walked through it in the whole of its existence, it was so sparklingly clean and polished.
Arielle led him through the long hallway to the left of the entrance, until they reached the door at the far end. She knocked, and upon hearing a rumbled, “Enter,” smiled at Friedrich and turned the knob, ushering him inside and closing the door behind him before his stomach could make another play at nerves.
The mayor was an imposing man, tall even as he stayed seated behind his sturdy oak slab of a desk, with a thick head of lustrous dark hair and a brow like a bookshelf. He smiled at Friedrich, though, a politician’s smile, and therefore reassuring. Friedrich nodded at him, and the mayor gestured to the chair on the other side of his desk.
Friedrich sat. “Your note said you wanted to see me, sir?” he said, and then remembered that the note was still clutched in his left hand, and surreptitiously tried to stuff it in his pocket without being noticed.
“I did,” the mayor said, nodding his stately head. “I had a quick word with Tomas at the town hall meeting last night, and he said you were the man to help me with our particular…problem.”
Friedrich only barely held back from raising an eyebrow. A problem that required a bawd’s help, and a jade’s service? “I’d be happy to do anything I can, sir,” he said, curious.
The mayor steepled his hands together on the desk. “You know the old house on the eastern edge of town?”
Friedrich nodded. “The haunted one.” Haunted was perhaps a bit of a stretch, there being no particular ghost stories about the house, but it was certainly spooky, run-down and given over to nature for as long as Friedrich had been alive. As children he and his friends had dared each other to run up and smack the wall on full moons, but none of them had ever been brave enough to peek through the windows.
“I’ll be blunt with you, Friedrich,” the mayor said. “That house has been on my mind for some time. It’s an eyesore, and it is taking up valuable property which could be used to house another family, or a building for some other purpose.” He paused, and Friedrich nodded again, even more curious as to why he, in particular, was needed. “I sent an investigator to assess it last week, with an eye toward tearing it down. From what he reported, it seems as though one of the original inhabitants is, in fact, still inside.” The mayor paused, whether for dramatic effect or discomfort Friedrich couldn’t tell.
“As a ghost or a corpse?” Friedrich prompted after a moment.
“As an incubus,” the mayor corrected, his lips thinning to a narrow line.
“Ah,” Friedrich said, relaxing. No wonder they’d called for him. “Do you know the cost?” All incubi had a price: a number of couplings before the curse was broken and they were returned to human form. There weren’t many incubi left these days, the practice of making them rather gone out of fashion, but the stories were very clear, and backed up by the historical record, at least as far as Friedrich had ever heard.
“One hundred,” the mayor said. “In as many days.”
Friedrich did raise his eyebrows at that. “Tomas says you’re his…worker…with the highest, shall we say, stamina,” Rafael said, a hint of prudishness entering his tone. “You’ll be handsomely rewarded if you can pull it off.”
“How handsomely?” Friedrich asked, his mind whirring. He was good at his trade, and he’d gone marathons before, but one hundred rounds with a spirit literally made for sex…It would be challenging, to say the least, and Friedrich loved a challenge.
“Fifty thousand gold,” the mayor said with a straight face, peering at Friedrich over his fingers.
Friedrich blinked, taken aback despite himself. That was retirement money, if he was careful. The mayor must really want this spirit gone. “I’m in,” he said, not bothering to pretend to deliberate. For fifty thousand gold, he’d fuck for a lot longer than three months and change.
“Glad to hear it,” Rafael said, lowering his hands in a burst of motion. “You’ll of course be supplied with food deliveries every few days, on the town’s budget. Is there anything in particular you’ll require?”
“Quick protein, primarily,” Friedrich said, thinking hard. “Nuts, meat. I assume there’s no working stove or oven?” The mayor shook his head. “Then anything I can cook over a camp stove. Other than that, I’m easy.” He flashed an innocent smile at the mayor, who did an admirable job hiding his grimace.
“When can you be ready?” the man asked, recovering himself without missing a beat. “Naturally, you understand that we want this settled as quickly as possible.”
“Naturally,” Friedrich echoed, wondering who that we stood for. “Give me an hour to pack some things, and I can be at the haunted house this afternoon. I don’t suppose I’ll need many clothes,” he mused, just to be irritating, and hid a grin when the man grimaced again.
Tomas insisted on driving him out to the haunted house, even though it was only two miles out of town. The process of fetching the horses from the town stable, hitching them up to his rickety wagon, and convincing them to go took longer than the walk would have, but Tomas was a stubborn old horse himself when he wanted to be, and Friedrich rather thought he should conserve his energy for the task ahead.
Two hours after his meeting with the mayor, Friedrich slid off of Tomas’ wagon in front of the run-down house. The bawd caught him by the arm as he found his feet and slung his pack over his shoulder, packed with a few changes of clothes and enough food and water to see him through until the first delivery. “Be careful, Friedrich,” Tomas said when Friedrich turned to him.
“I can handle this, boss,” Friedrich said pat
“I know,” Tomas said. “I wouldn’t have suggested you if I thought you weren’t up for it. But that thing in there is literally tireless. You’re not. Don’t let it exhaust you. Pace yourself. Hydrate.”
Friedrich smiled and reached up to pat Tomas’ weathered cheek. “I know how to take care of myself,” he promised. “Now let me go in there and do my job.”
Tomas gazed into his eyes for a moment longer, then, apparently satisfied, released him. “Go on,” he said, nodding up the path. “I’ll drive off when you’re inside.”
Friedrich turned and faced the house. Looked at as an adult and not a child high on ghost stories and too much sugar, it just looked like a house, albeit a gloomy and run-down one. The path was overgrown with weeds, some of them forcing the cobblestones out of joint, and Friedrich had to be careful as he picked his way toward the front door.
Once he reached it, he turned back for a final wave at Tomas, who raised a hand in reply and hefted the reins. Then Friedrich reached out, turned the knob, and stepped inside.
The first thing that struck him was the smell, which was, surprisingly, not as bad as he had expected. A little mildew, a little mold, but nowhere near as overpowering as it should have been. A quick survey of the windows in the front room showed two broken, one on either side of the house—enough for a cross-breeze, which seemed to have kept things fresh enough.
The floor seemed sturdy under his feet, so he took another step inside, and when the boards didn’t crumble under his weight he kept going. It was dim in the entryway, and he directed his feet over to one of the undamaged windows, which was covered with a heavy drape. Dust billowed in a massive arc as he tugged it aside, visible in the sudden cut of sunlight that sliced into the gloom.
Friedrich turned and surveyed the room in the new light. His primary impression was, again, one of dust, dust piled on surprisingly well-preserved furniture and dust dancing through the air and dust on the floorboards. The furniture was at least a hundred years out of date, and likely older—Friedrich was no scholar of the history of interior design. He was a jade, and here to do a job, so when his glance around the room showed no signs of life or spirit, he opened his mouth and called out, “Hello?”
::In here…::
The words were in his mind, not his ears, which was a startling, slightly disconcerting experience. Nonetheless, the voice had a direction, and Friedrich followed it to a set of worn stairs. He tested the first one, found it sure and steady, and made his way up all eighteen others to a well-lit landing—no curtains on this floor, it seemed.
::In here…:: echoed the voice in his mind again, sounding slightly more urgent this time.
Friedrich turned left, following the words, and found himself in the doorway of a spacious bedroom, the bed in the center as dusty as the furniture downstairs. The day’s light streamed in from a window at the head of the bed, illuminating a rickety dresser and wardrobe. There was an armchair in the corner and a trunk at the base of the bed, but the wallpaper had faded to near-invisibility over the years.
Friedrich took two steps into the room and felt something press against his back, something warm and half-solid. Two unseen arms wrapped around his chest, and he felt a puff of barely-there breath against his neck.
::Are you the man they sent to pay my price?:: that voice in his mind purred. There was still urgency in it, but less, now that the spirit had Friedrich in its arms, and more sultriness and hunger.
“I am,” Friedrich said. His voice, to his pleasure, was steady, and he found himself remarkably unafraid—this was just another seduction, after all, a normal negotiation before an assignation. There was nothing to fear from sex, even with someone he couldn’t quite see. “One hundred days, right?”
::One hundred gifts in one hundred days,:: the spirit confirmed in a low, hungry rumble. ::It’s been so long…::
The arms around his torso tightened, and Friedrich felt a hard press against his ass that was comfortingly familiar, after all his years in the trade. “Gifts, huh?” he murmured, lifting his hands and settling them experimentally where he felt the spectral arms encircling his torso. He felt a warm resistance there, and stroked it with his fingertips. The voice purred in his mind in response. “Never heard it called that before.”
::I’m so hungry,:: the incubus mewled into his head, almost whining. ::I need your gift…::
“I’m here to give it,” Friedrich said. He shifted his ass slightly back to press into that ghostly erection, his own cock stirring in triumph when the specter moaned.
::Consent.:: The word was clear in his mind, but somehow Friedrich could feel it in another puff of heated breath against the side of his throat.
“Oh, I consent,” he murmured. “Do you?”
The spirit chuckled. ::If I didn’t, you’d know,:: it murmured.
The arms under his hands shifted, the invisible hands at the ends of them moving to Friedrich’s shirt buttons. Friedrich could almost see them fumbling in the spirit’s need, and he started to help, unbuttoning from the bottom up. They met in the middle, and the incubus spread the shirt wide and caressed Friedrich’s chest and abdomen. He felt hot, wet kisses on his neck and let out a moan, his cock plumping fuller in his trousers.
He fumbled for a moment but found one of the incubus’ hands and tugged it down to his crotch, cupping it over his growing erection. The incubus squeezed it and purred wordlessly, high-pitched and desperate, and then suddenly put its hands to Friedrich’s shoulders and flung him around.
He was being kissed in the next instant, his mouth plundered by an unseen, demanding tongue. He moaned again and returned it, his hands flailing out until they could find and rest on the spirit’s back. The incubus was quivering with need as it devoured him; Friedrich slid one hand up until he could stroke its neck soothingly.
He heard another whine in his head and the incubus’ mouth ripped away from its own. He felt the ghost slither to its feet, dragging its body along his bare torso, and then without further preamble it ripped the flies of his trousers open. His cock was almost fully hard by now, and before he could feel the chill of the room on his heated flesh it was encased in that hot, urgent mouth.
“Fuck,” Friedrich bit out, instinctively spreading his feet further apart to steady himself. He rested one hand on the specter’s unseen head and felt hair there, long and thick between his fingers. He pushed his fingers through it as the incubus sucked him, harder and wetter than any human mouth he’d ever experienced—and he’d experienced plenty.
His hips started to thrust, helped along by the incubus’ ghostly hands on his ass and hip. It wasn’t long before he felt himself rocketing toward his pinnacle, and he forced out, “I’m close,” through gritted teeth.
The cock in its mouth apparently didn’t affect its ability to talk into Friedrich’s mind. It let out a long moan. ::Please,:: it begged, ::I need your gift, I need it, I need to be filled…::
“Here it comes,” Friedrich said, nervous laughter filling his chest as his orgasm began to crest. The incubus gave him one final, hard suck and he peaked, his fingers tugging on the spirit’s hair involuntarily as his cock pulsed into its mouth. He could see his spend spilling from his tip, until it vanished down the specter’s throat as the incubus swallowed hungrily around him, its mental whine growing in pitch and intensity until Friedrich was done, at which point he heard a hard, harsh, relieved breath and the mouth released him.
The incubus’ hands slipped away from his hips, as though the spirit had collapsed to the ground in front of him in ecstasy. “Fuck,” Friedrich said again, letting the laughter in his chest down. “One down.”
Ninety-nine to go.
Chapter 1
Exactly ninety-nine days after walking into the haunted house on the edge of town, Friedrich woke on his side to burning, wet kisses drizzling themselves onto his neck and down across his shoulders. “Mmm, morning,” he mumbled, batting a hand behind him at the incubus now licking a stripe up behind his ear. “Three minutes.”
::Please, please, so close, I can almost taste it, I need it…::
