He pulled out his cock and fell next to Nikto. Nikto sat up leaning with his back against the bed. He was silent.

Orel raised his head.

"Nik, I'm a total shit. I couldn't bring you any pleasure at all. You didn't even feel anything."

"Well, I did feel something."

Orel laughed. "It's not what I meant."

"All right, I'm joking," Nikto said. "But you want too much from me, don't you think so?"

"I think I didn't fuck so horribly since I was a boy!" Orel said. "I disgraced myself before you. I was about to come when you just touched my cock to check if I had a hard-on."

"But you screamed really expressively: 'Don't touch me! Don't touch me!'"

"I'm a fool but I just don't know how to treat you, you're so different from anyone else."

"I'm different for others but not for you."

"You'll be surely laughing when recalling this night," Orel said in distress.

"No," Nikto shook his head. "I don't feel like laughing at all. Arel, I need to tell you something. It is very serious."

Orel looked at him in fear.

"What? What do you need to say? Are you leaving?"

"No, forget that!" Nikto paused, then looked at Orel. He seemed distressed. Orel paled.

"Oh gods! Tell me now, don't look so horribly!"

"I knocked out your eye," Nikto said.

"What?!"

"I knocked out your eye," Nikto repeated and looked at Orel again waiting for his reaction.

Orel started at him for a while, not understanding. Then he got it.

"No," he shook his head. "No!"

"I didn't want to. I hit you precisely to hurt you very much but it had to be safe. I don't know why… Oh shit! The ring! It was because of the ring! Your ring you put onto my finger! I wasn't used to it. I didn't even notice it then."

Orel grabbed his face.

"Nik, do you want to say that you knocked out my eye with the ring?"

"Yes. At first I thought I was mistaken, you'd be all right, but now I see you won't. Maybe you shouldn't have strained and come… It got worse."

Orel touched his swollen eye carefully.

"Are you absolutely sure?"

Nikto just nodded.

"But I don't feel anything."

"Do you want to feel?"

"No-o, no! Anything but that!"

Nikto kept silent.

"He made a hole in my eye with the 'royal' ring, oh gods," Orel whispered sitting on the floor and rocking from side to side. "What shall I do now? My eye will leak out and even if it doesn't, it'll stop seeing. I don't want to be a cripple! I don't want to be single-eyed! Ooh…"

Suddenly he froze and looked at Nikto with hope.

"Help me! Heal me like you healed Asa! You can!"

"I'll try," Nikto raised his eyes. "But I have to go to the Unclean District for medicines."

"I believe you," Orel said. "I believe you and trust you and…" He moved towards Nikto and hugged him. "I don't blame you. It's my own fault."

"It'll be all right, I promise you," Nikto said.

Chapter 2

Friends

"He's here!" Lis shouted to his friends looking into Nikto's room. Orel sat up in bed forgetting about the bandage and at once understood what a stupid thing it was to do. He quickly buried his face into the pillows screaming: "Get out!"

But it was too late; Lis suspected something and rushed to him.

"Arel, what happened to your face? What happened?"

Orel sat up again slowly and looked at Lis angrily with his only eye.

"Nothing."

Tol, Squint-Eye and Enriki stood in the doorway and watched him in fear.

"Ooh shit." Orel turned away.

"Orel, what happened to your face and where is Nikto? How many times can I ask?" Lis asked again.

Orel shook his head trying to toss his hair away from his face and winced with pain.

"Shi-i-it!" He grabbed his bandaged eye. Then he looked at Lis. "I knocked myself down while drunk and Nik went to the Lower City to bring some medicines for me."