Chapter 6

Every third week on Saturday, John’s group had militia training. Normally that would have included rifle practice, but there had been some problems restocking the town’s ammunition stockpile recently, so they couldn’t afford to waste any on training. Instead, in addition to the usual drills, Captain Mosshill had brought in a pig carcass for knife practice. Each boy was given twelve stabs with each hand, to experience the feeling of driving a knife through flesh and bone. John was glad he got to go early - the pig was looking pretty sorry by halfway through the class. He hoped that the next group, next Saturday, would get a new pig.

Most of the day was spent barefoot and shirtless sparring and doing spear drills with the other boys. At 14, John was the youngest in his group; the other boys’ height and reach put him at a disadvantage, but he held his own.

A group of pre-teen girls were sitting on a nearby fence as usual, watching and whispering among themselves. Eddy was there, too. Having been castrated before puberty, malbred boys weren’t capable of building and retaining muscle like ordinary boys, and they frequently exhibited other frailties. Captain Mosshill saw no sense in wasting resources training them. That didn’t make much sense to John: one of the other groups included two girls: sisters whose mother insisted on their training. Eddy probably wasn’t much weaker than them. And anyway, even a child could use a rifle effectively.

Alice, well-known helper for the Council, scurried up and spoke to the Captain. He turned to John: “John - you’re done. Councilwoman Melanie would like to speak to you.”

A wave of ooh’s resonated among the audience. Eddy gave John a hopeful thumbs-up while John dressed.

John walked with Alice to the town square. All the while he was puzzling over what Miss Melanie could want with him. It couldn’t be to meet a circuit girl - not this early in the day. Plus there hadn’t been any news of a visiting delegation. Alice didn’t say anything, but she occasionally looked at him with the uncanny expression that pre-teen girls share with cats. He wondered how much longer Alice would be helping her mother with Council business. In a year she would be a teenager. Young girls and old women in Appa were usually quite cordial toward foreign circuit girls, but the teen girls often conspired about them with venomed tongues. John couldn’t remember if Brigitte, Miss Melanie’s older daughter, had run errands for her before her own step into womanhood.

Miss Melanie was talking to a young woman John had never seen before; her appearance confused him further. She was a teenager, probably - definitely several years older than him. Her hair was light and just long enough to be held in a ponytail. She was wearing pants, not a dress, but a strange sort of pants that ended halfway down her calves. The pants hugged her hips and legs like they were carefully tailored just for her. Her shoes were also nice, but equally unsuited to any sort of work John could envision, which he had thought was the only reason a woman wouldn’t wear a dress. The strap of her satchel cut between her breasts, highlighting their modest size but exceptional shape.

“John,” Miss Melanie said warmly. “This is Katrina. I wanted her to meet you.”

“Hi!” The stranger said. “Nice to meet you!” She extended her hand for him to shake.

“Um, hi,” John answered, eventually shaking her hand. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. He was supposed to be wearing nice clothes. There were supposed to be other guys she was meeting at the same time. And where was her chaperone?

“John just came from militia training,” Miss Melanie said. “I understand he’s becoming quite the marksman.”

“Cool,” Katrina said politely.

Miss Melanie went on: “Katrina is an apprentice engineer. She’s travelling with her mentor while they make purchase arrangements in a number of towns, and she’s decided to make a circuit out of it. This is her first stop.”

“You must be really smart,” he told her, trying to resist the urge to look away.

“Kinda,” she said. “Mostly I’m just really good at math.” She paced from foot to foot for a moment. “So, um, do you want to do it?”

“Yeah! I do!” John answered. He began working out the logistics in his head. “My house is like two and a half miles away. Some of the little ones will be napping, but I think...”

Miss Melanie cut him off: “Katrina can’t stay very long. There should be room at the inn. Tell Walt that I’ll be by to pay for your room this afternoon.”

John and Katrina began their walk to the inn. After some steps, Katrina took hold of John’s hand for the rest of the walk.

“So you’ve never done this before?” John asked.

“No,” she answered. “You?”

John shook his head.

“Well, gotta start somewhere!” She proclaimed.

Alone in the room at the inn, Katrina seemed to consider John for the first time. She touched his face, and then his shoulder. His shirt was in sorry shape, having been torn and mended a number of times. She must have noticed, but she didn’t say anything about it.

“So I guess we kiss now?” Katrina suggested.

John agreed, so he stepped closer and applied his lips to hers. She was a little bit taller than him, but their faces fit together well. She moved her hands to the sides of his head, her palms on the close-clipped sides and her fingertips lost in the slightly longer top.

At first he couldn’t figure out what to do with his own hands. He wrapped his arms around her and touched her back - that seemed safe, but it didn’t seem enough. He also tried her sides and her hips. Somehow, with her mouth - or maybe her whole body - she told him it was okay. She wanted him to touch her. The pressure of her kiss and her hands on his head encouraged him. With bolstered confidence, he moved his hands to her ass. Girls’ butts had always looked so soft, but hers was firm. It wasn’t hard and gross, but it wasn’t fatty like he’d imagined. She had strong muscles there, with only a thin coating of springy skin. She cooed a soft “mmm” of approval.

Abruptly, she stepped out of the kiss and took his shirt from him. Again, she touched him. His chest was mostly hairless and certainly smooth, but with respectable musculature under the surface. Her fingers found a discolored spot on his ribs where another boy had delivered a particularly solid blow earlier that day with a blunted practice spear. Her fingers were delicate, seemingly without any callouses at all.

Katrina then unbuttoned his pants and pulled them down. His underwear, too. His dick was ready, solid, and already dripping pre-come from the tip. It throbbed when she touched it.

She got down on her knees, holding his cock in one hand from the underside. “Like this, right?” She asked. Without waiting for an answer, she fixed her lips on his crown and began stroking his shaft in her fist. Her tongue danced around his tip aimlessly.