Third Lord Alvonso Haversby viewed the storefront from across the narrow street, consuming the advertisements that lounged on cushions and couches behind the window in what he felt was a surreptitious manner. His tongue moistened his lips as one hand absentmindedly tapped the slender notebook in his inside vest pocket, considering. He had the money, and he had the time—the first round of the tournament in the arena likely hadn’t even gotten underway yet, so it would be hours before he was expected back on the surface. His parents would be disappointed if they discovered he had been to such an establishment, but this was Foundation, the undercity. They couldn’t possibly learn what little indiscretions went on beneath the bright, sunlit streets of Strata above. Wiping his sweaty palms on the sides of his dress trousers, he took a small step into the street.
“This your first time in the undercity, m’lord?” a soft voice asked from behind him. Alvonso the Third spun around, surprised and embarrassed, looking for the person who’d spoken. Against the far side of the narrow alleyway between a closed bakery and a boarded up storefront, a shadow shifted: a woman’s form crossing one leg over the other as she leaned against the brick wall. He took a step backward, further into the lamplight of the street.
“No,” he lied, eyeing the woman. He’d heard plenty of stories of the thieves and criminals of Foundation, human filth who lurked in the shadows looking to prey on good, honest nobles like himself. From what little he could make out though, she didn’t appear all too filthy. “I- I come here often.”
A giggle came from the dark as she lifted herself effortlessly off the wall and stepped over to the near side of the alley. One of her legs peeked out into the light from the streetlamps as she leaned once more against the bricks. A calf-high black leather boot with a demure heel encased her slender leg. A barely translucent black stocking allowed for the smallest flash of skin before disappearing under the end of her skirt, which was made of some kind of dark mesh that fell just below her knee and clung to her skin, accenting the contours of her leg.
“I can see that.” The long fingers of her gloved hand drifted lazily down her thigh. “You look like a man who knows his way around.” She emphasized the word ‘man,’ lingering on the syllable in a way that inspired a stirring in the Third’s groin. He stepped back out of the street toward her.
“Who are you?” He cringed as his voice wavered with the pounding of his heart.
“The name’s Lily.” She rotated around the corner of the alleyway into the light, and Alvonso’s breath caught in his throat. Lily was stunning. A lace veil fell about her flowing dark hair, obscured the details of her features beyond the basics: a swooping lock of hair covering one of her dark eyes; the sharp line of a slender nose; her plump, red lips catching the light through the veil. She wore a dark burgundy corset with a high, fitted collar, and an oval opening beneath her collarbones, framing the milky smooth skin of her chest. Laced up the front, the corset left a thin slit at its middle, exposing an enticingly narrow glimpse all the way down her ample cleavage to just above her navel, where the laces finally managed to wrestle the seam closed. A violet sash was tied around her waist, resting along the wide curve of her hips below which the long, dark skirt clung. Her shoulders were covered by a midriff jacket, her arms bare beyond the half sleeves until the laced hem of the long, satin gloves that sheathed her hands and forearms.
“So what brings you down to Foundation, m’lord?” she continued.
“Oh, I, uh, like to get away sometimes… get some fresh air.” He glanced around them, his eyes falling on the stained building facades through the pervasive pallor of industrial haze that plagued the undercity. “Metaphorically.”
“I haven’t seen someone of your stature around for some time,” Lily said, once again lifting out of her leaning position without seeming to push off at all. He fumbled with his words as she walked toward him, her steps crossing each other ever so slightly as her hips swayed back and forth.
“What? Oh, I thought it was common for, uh, people from Strata to… be here…”
“Why, yes.” She traced her fingers along the edge of his lapels, and then across the small of his back as she circled around him. “Minor lordlings and such do show up around here from time to time, but someone so respectable as you… this is a rarity. What are you, a Second? A First, perhaps?”
“Oh—yes, of course,” he lied. Beautiful though she may be, he’d forgotten that Lily was, after all, a commoner. Noticing the differences between a First and a Third was second nature to a nobleman like himself, but undoubtedly beyond the cognitive skills of one who lived underground. He was painfully aware that his coat and tails were a whole season out of fashion, and that the inlay on his saber’s scabbard was bronze, and not gold. But he may well have been the finest dressed gentleman this young woman had ever met. The tension across his shoulders relaxed, and he waved a hand casually. “It’s just so… stuffy and fake up in Stratan high society, I occasionally enjoy a visit to Foundation to, ah, reconnect with real people. Humanity, you know.”
“I do.” Lily smiled behind her veil. “Well I’m glad I found you, m’lord—I was worried that you were going to enter that poor hovel across the street.” She inclined her head toward the brothel.
“Oh? No, of course not…”
“Their girls are pretty enough, I suppose, if you want a vacant little strumpet who’ll do as you say. But that’s not what you want, is it.” She stepped in close and leaned her head back to look up into his eyes. He struggled to meet her gaze, keenly aware of the pale skin framed by the oval window of her corset. Her hands slid beneath his waistcoat, fingernails leaving matching trails of goosebumps on his flesh as they moved up his shirt and then spiraled lazily around his nipples. “That’s not what you need.” She craned upward on her tiptoes to place her lips next to his ear and whispered, “A man like you needs a woman.” The tip of her tongue flicked lightly against his earlobe through the veil, and then she sank back onto her heels, carelessly flipping open the top button of his trousers as she withdrew her hands from under his vest. Stepping away from him toward the entrance to the alleyway, she paused and looked over her shoulder from behind the satin sheen. “Well, are you coming?”
All thought of the girls behind the window gone from his mind and replaced by the swaying hips of this smoldering vixen, Alvonso tugged his waistcoat straight, absentmindedly adjusted the short saber on his hip and, glancing up and down the street, followed the woman into the alleyway.
Though dark compared to the street, the Third found there was ample light in the alley once his eyes had the chance to adjust. The curves of Lily’s hips, molded perfectly by the tight skirt, held him mesmerized. Halfway down the alley she stopped and turned around.
“What?” she said with a smile.
Alvonso felt his timidity returning. “I’ve never met a woman who moves like you do.”
“Oh, I see. Would you prefer this?” Taking her skirt between her forefingers and thumbs she lifted it slightly outward from her thighs, the mysterious fabric stretching easily without wrinkling or tightening elsewhere. Raising up onto the balls of her feet, she held her head high and took a couple of small, delicate steps toward him then dropped into a perfect curtsy, a dead-ringer for the girls at the Society dance parties of Strata overhead.
“No, no! I like it much better the other way.”
She transitioned seamlessly back into sultry, reaching up to brush her velvet fingertips across his cheek before slowly sinking down to her knees. “You’re going to like it better still in a moment or two.”
She deftly undid the buttons of his trousers and pulled them open to extract him. The silkiness of her glove against his skin had him harder than he could recall having ever been before. He felt the heat of her breath, and when her veil slid lightly against him, he nearly lost it. Suddenly she stood up, her hand remaining in place lightly wrapped around his shaft as she pouted her lips at him.
“You’re not planning on being cheap with me now, are you? A girl’s got to survive, and I can’t have you just running off without providing for me.”
“I can pay!” Alvonso cried out.
“Pay first,” she said, and gave a slow stroke that left him perilously on edge. “You’re so strong, if I tried to run, you could just catch me and have me anyway.”
“Of course, here, how much—” he reached into his vest and froze. “What—my notebook! Where’d it—it was just here…”
Letting go of him, she stepped back with a hurt look in her eyes. “You scoundrel! You were trying to take advantage of me and then run away, weren’t you?”
“No, I swear—I had it right here, it must have fallen out!” He took a step toward her, arms outstretched. “Please, I can find it, don’t—” He froze in place at the sudden feeling of something cold and hard pressing against his own hardness, still standing at attention between them. Glancing down, he recognized the glint of steel. Lily’s one unobscured eye held a feral glint to it that rapidly drained the blood from his erection.
“It’s a dangerous world down here,” she said in a voice devoid of all trace of sultriness, “and if you haven’t got any money, then we’re playing a very different game—one that you’ve just lost.” She leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “Better luck next time, boys,” and then delivered a solid flick that left Alvonso dry-heaving, crouched against the wall for support.
Safely out of sight in the maze of Foundation’s alleyways, Lily pulled the notebook out of her waistline and checked inside. Seventy-odd marks in silver and bronze, and the citizenship papers for one Alvonso Haversby, Third of his Name. The papers would only score her a few more silver notes from a leverager: House Haversby wasn’t all that prominent, and getting robbed in the undercity was hardly cause for blackmail without proof that Alvonso had been out whoring. Still, every little bit of information about the activities of nobles was a valuable commodity to a political enemy somewhere, and she wouldn’t turn her nose up at silver. She slipped the notes and papers into a hidden pocket in her sash and tossed the notebook down a sewer grate for the canal to deal with. She sighed, letting herself slouch against the wall in the dark. First job of the tournament, and barely a hundred marks to show for it. What a stingy Third—hopefully her next clients would be more generous.
Artwork by K. T. Lazarus
The Literary Diversions of K.T. Lazarus 
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