by Diana Castle
“I will consider it.”
That was probably all Séverin was going to get out of the Comte. But it was better than nothing. “Very well. I will stay for supper.”
“Excellent. I’ll have my servants prepare your favorite dishes. And Philoméne will dine with us. I think you will find the conversation quite interesting,”
Séverin frowned. What could a whore possibly have to say that would be of interest to him? “What do you mean?”
The Comte smiled. “My whore is the Marquis de Sade’s daughter.”
* * * * *
Séverin turned as a woman entered the dining room. She wore a light green gown brocaded in gold and silver. Her hair was a deep auburn and had been arranged so that a few tendrils fell along her slender neck. An elaborate necklace made of diamonds, emeralds and rubies lay just above her breasts, which were heavy and rounded.
She was not a great beauty by any means, and he’d certainly seen more attractive women at the Comte’s chateau, but there was something in the woman’s large green-gold eyes that drew in him. Not sadness or fear or despair but a quiet and terrible knowledge. As if she had looked upon the worst life had to offer and had chosen either to disregard it or to embrace it.
The Comte, who had been standing in front of the fireplace, strode over to her. “Ah, my dear. You look lovely. That color suits you. Come, I want you to meet someone.”
He took her by the hand and led her over to Séverin as if she were a duchess instead of a common whore.
“Séverin, I would like you to meet Philoméne de Sade.”
Séverin stared coldly at the woman. If the Comte expected him to treat his latest putain as if she were a lady of quality, he was going to be sorely disappointed.
“Come, come, my boy. It’s not like you to be rude.”
Séverin released a heavy breath. It was probably best to humor the Comte if he hoped to convince the older man to leave France. He executed a short, quick bow.
The woman only stared silently at him, her eyes seeming to look through him at some vista only she could see.
“This handsome young man is the only son of my late, good friend. May I present the Vicomte d’Ermenonville.”
“A pleasure to meet you, my lord.”
Her voice was low and deep for a woman’s and the sensual sound of it made his cock twitch beneath his breeches. He frowned, perturbed by his reaction. He’d never been with a whore. He was not a virgin, by no means, but he found the whole concept of prostitution repugnant.
“Come, let us dine.” the Comte said smiling.
* * * * *
He had not lied. The Comte had indeed ordered his servants to prepare all of Séverin’s favorite dishes. It had been some time since he’d had a decent meal. He patted his lips with his napkin and lowered it to his lap.
“It is not that I dispute you,” the Comte said, gold goblet in hand as he waited for a servant to refill it, “but recent events surely must have deprived you of your grave error regarding the true nature of man.”
Séverin looked over at Philoméne. She had been silent all during dinner. He studied her face, wondering if he could see any signs of her supposed parentage. He had never met the Marquis de Sade in person, and the descriptions of him that he had read in the newspapers were of no use.
Feeling his gaze on her, Philoméne lifted her gold-green eyes from her plate and looked across the table at him.
His breath quickened and a heavy feeling settled in his stomach then moved down to his groin.
“Did you hear me, Séverin?”
He quickly turned his attention back to the Comte . “What we are experiencing is merely an aberration,” he said.
The Comte arched a brow. "An aberration? You call the slaughter that is going on at the Place de Revolution an aberration?”
“There is always some instability with the transfer of power. History has proven this.”
“So you still believe that reason and logic will win out over insanity and murder?”
Séverin glanced again at Philoméne. Her gaze was once more on her plate. But he noted that she only pushed her half-eaten food around with her gold fork.
He looked back at the Comte. “Yes, I do believe that. I must believe it. Or we are all lost.”
“Lost.” The Comte slowly nodded. “Yes, we are all indeed lost.”
“It is not too late,” Séverin said, his voice low and urgent. “You can still leave France. You can still save yourself.”
The Comte drank from his goblet then lowered it to the table. “Why did you come here, Séverin? Surely if it is discovered that you warned me, you yourself will then be subject to arrest. You have friends in the new regime. Why risk all that for me?”
Séverin blinked in surprise. “Because you are my friend. My mentor. You are the closest thing I have to a father.” His throat tightened. “I do believe that the madness and killing will stop. Storms do not last forever. But that does not mean one shouldn’t take shelter from them.”
Philoméne made a sound. Séverin looked over at her. She was glaring at him. “You are very naïve.”
Séverin started at her words, just as the blood rushed to his groin at the melodious timbre of her husky voice. It reminded him of silk moving across moist, heated flesh.
“What do you mean?” He tried not to bristle at her accusation even as a part of him wondered if, perhaps, she was right.
“The storms you speak of are not an aberration,” she said. “And they are not momentary. Do you know what men are like who possess power? They are wolves and the rest of us are only sheep upon which to feed.”
Séverin frowned. “Forgive me, Citoyenne. Although I suspect that under the Comte’s tutelage,” and he laid a particular ironic emphasis on the word, “you have been exposed to some of his views but you do not know of what you speak.”
The Comte softly chuckled. He picked up his napkin and meticulously wiped his lips. “Ah, but that is where you are wrong, Séverin. If anyone can tell you about the true nature of man, it is Philoméne.”
“What do you mean?”
The Comte looked over at her and smiled. “Tell him, my dear.”
Philoméne turned her green-gold eyes on Séverin. “My mother was a prostitute. Her name was Maraiannette Laugier.”
She said the name as if it was supposed to mean something. Séverin looked over at the Comte .
“You were only a lad at the time. Philoméne’s mother was one of four prostitutes that the Marquis de Sade, along with his manservant, Latour, was accused of poisoning. They gave the women Spanish fly. It is an aphrodisiac,” he added at Séverin’s puzzled expression. “De Sade and Latour were sentenced to death in absentia for sodomy and for the aforementioned poisoning. What is not known is that Maraiannette, Philoméne’s mother, realized she was pregnant soon after the episode.”
Séverin looked over at Philoméne. “But your mother was a whore. How could she be certain de Sade was the father? And not Latour? Or some other man?”
Philoméne shrugged. The necklace about her neck coruscated as it caught the candlelight. “There were many men, yes. But sometimes a woman knows.” A delicate blush colored her cheeks. “Or so I have been told.”
“And she never confronted de Sade?”
Philoméne laughed and the Comte chuckled. Now it was Séverin’s turn to blush. “What is so funny?”
“Oh, Séverin, what will I do without you? I don’t know whether to be charmed or saddened.”
“My mother died when I was eleven,” Philoméne said. “She died with only me there to comfort her. That is when she told me about de Sade. I had never heard of him. I only knew that I was losing my mother and that I would be alone.”
“I am sorry for your loss,” Séverin said. And he truly was. He too had lost his mother at a young age.
“Édouard is right,” Philoméne said, using the Comte’s Christian name in a blatant and, Séverin suspected, deliberate breach of decorum. But the Comte did not seem to care. He stared in
dulgently at her as if he were gazing on some prize possession.
“I meant what I said,” she went on. “You are dangerously naïve, my lord, and I fear you will not survive among the wolves who now rule France.”
The Comte smiled at Séverin. “She can be very blunt, my dear Philoméne. But that is why, out of all the women I have fucked in my life, including my dear, departed wife, she is the one I will cherish the most.”
Philoméne blushed, but her eyes remained locked on Séverin.
“Would you like Philoméne to show you the true nature of man?”
Séverin drew his eyes away from her and over to the Comte. His heart began to pound in his chest. “What do you mean?”
The Comte only smiled, but his eyes were those of a predator avidly stalking its prey.
Séverin licked his lips as they had suddenly become dry. He glanced between the Comte and Philoméne. The room felt warm and he longed for a breath of cold, fresh air.
He nodded.
The Comte rose from his chair, as did Philoméne. Séverin hesitated for a moment then he also stood. The Comte held his arm out to Philoméne. She took it, and he grandly escorted her out of the dining room as if she were the Comtesse d’Anglure and not his whore.
Séverin followed them into the corridor and over to the stairs. Their steps echoed in the chateau as they ascended to the upper floor. Séverin had no idea where the servants had gone to, but he assumed they were somewhere about.
They entered the Comte’s bedroom. Séverin had never been inside it. His eyes widened when he saw the contraption near the bed. Judging from the way it was constructed, it allowed the Comte to shackle a person to it.
Séverin’s throat tightened as, disturbingly, did his groin.
Philoméne walked over to the bed. She stopped and waited. Without a word, the Comte began to deftly remove her clothes.
Séverin’s breath hitched in his throat. He was about to protest, to say he had changed his mind, but he was unable or, perhaps, unwilling to speak.
Lust coiled through his body as he watched the Comte disrobe Philoméne. Among the nobility, it was the servants who undressed their masters and mistresses, but the Comte apparently knew exactly what he was about.
Once Philoméne was naked, the Comte gently grasped her face and kissed her forehead as if he were bestowing a benediction on her. Then he stepped away from her.
Her body was lean, her hips narrow, the breasts rounded with large, dark nipples. Her thighs were also well-rounded and the cleft between them devoid of hair.
Séverin tried to swallow in a thickening throat, his eyes unable to look away from Philoméne’s hairless cunt. No doubt some depravity of the Comte. Séverin found himself imagining what that shaven flesh would feel like under his fingers.
His mouth.
He looked into her face. Her eyes regarded him with what could only be described as pity.
She walked over to the contraption and Séverin watched, his heart pounding, as the Comte restrained her into it.
He finally found his voice. “Sir, what is…why are you...?”
“Philoméne is right, Séverin. You are very naïve and you will not survive what has come.” The Comte looked over at him as he took off his blue silk coat. “Therefore, tonight, I will give you my final lesson.”
He picked up a whip from where it lay on the bed and dragged the handle up and around Philoméne’s breasts. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, he moved the whip over the top of her smooth thighs and across her cunt.
Séverin’s throat burned as he watched. Forcing his gaze away from the black whip against her pale fleshe, he looked into her face. In her expression he saw what he was beginning to feel inside.
Anticipation.
Hunger.
Without warning, the Comte laid on her back with the whip, the straps lashing against her skin. Philoméne twisted in her restraints, but she did not cry out. She only looked over at Séverin, her green-gold eyes gazing deeply into his.
His instinct was to rush to the Comte and make him stop. But he did not stir. And even as he inwardly condemned and denounced what he saw, his breath quickened and the blood rushed thickly to his cock.
He took a step towards her and the Comte. Then another. And another. Soon he was only a hairsbreadth away from them. He stared into Philoméne’s face; at the moisture in her eyes, the quivers of pain along her lips.
No, she was no beauty. Her features were out of proportion. The mouth too wide, the eyes too narrow. But as the Comte’s lash flayed against her back, the steady beat of it in horrible synchronization to the pounding of his heart, she was the only woman who existed in Séverin’s world.
He placed his hands on her lips. She drew in a hard, sharp gasp, the first sound she had made since the Comte had started whipping her. She was only a whore, and even if it was true that she was the Marquis de Sade’s daughter—which Séverin very much doubted—she was the bastard child of a whore. As for de Sade, he was currently imprisoned at Picpus Hospice, a prison hospital and, just weeks ago, had narrowly missed being executed.
Séverin slid his hands around her hips to her buttocks. She was a whore. She’d given herself to the Comte for money. To let him indulge these perverted needs of his on her body. If what she said was true, that men were only wolves, then she had willingly given herself up as prey.
The sound of the whip against her flesh was like the hissing sound of sweat falling into a fire. Séverin glanced at the Comte. His wig was askew, his nostrils thinly flaring, his arm steadily swinging.
Séverin looked back at Philoméne. Her mouth parted and he saw her teeth between her moist, pink lips. She was panting heavily, her warm breath beating against his cheek.
Then she made another sound, a soft moan that could have been one of pain. Or pleasure.
He looked over at the Comte. He had lowered the whip, apparently to catch his breath. He smiled at Séverin. “So, my dear boy, have you grasped yet the meaning of my lesson?”
Sweat had gathered at the base of Séverin’s neck. It trickled down his back, dampening his shirt. He felt light-headed as if he were not getting enough air. “Release her. You’ve proven your point.”
“No.”
Séverin looked back at Philoméne. “I do not want him to release me,” she said. She leaned forward as far as the restraints about her legs and arms would allow her. The hard tips of her nipples brushed against the silver buttons on his coat. “And you do not want him to.”
A small smile curled about her lips and a calculating expression fell across her face. He’d seen that expression before whenever he’d reason to cross the Pont-Neuf. He’d seen it on the faces of the prostitutes who swarmed the bridge as they called out to him and offered him their syphilis-riddled bodies.
He’d never had any interest in whores.
He tightened his hands about Philoméne hips and, as he continued to stare down at her, the cunning look fell away from her face and she suddenly looked as innocent and as unworldly as a nun.
Séverin lowered his head and kissed her, crushing his lips against her teeth, forcing his tongue between her lips.
She moaned beneath his mouth, her lips moist from the intensity of his kiss.
He broke their kiss and buried his face in her sweat-filmed neck. He knew what the Comte was about. He knew what he and Philoméne wanted him to accept about himself, about the Revolution, about the world. That he, who had imagined himself the most rational of men, was nothing more than a wild beast, devoid of reason, living only to eat, fuck and kill.
He swallowed in a thickening throat, struggled to take hold of himself, even as the scent of her sweat and the warmth of her flesh against his skin threatened to overwhelm him.
“Suck her tits.”
Séverin lifted his head and looked over Philoméne’s shoulder at the Comte. His face was smooth and impassive; his eyes dark and cold. Séverin almost did not recognize him.
“What?”
“You want to, don’t
you? She wants you to. Don’t you, my dear?”
She did not answer at first. Then Séverin felt her press her lips against his ear. He shivered at the touch of her cool lips against his skin.
“Do it,” she whispered. “Shed your naiveté.”
He pulled back and looked down at her. She looked up at him, her eyes telling him nothing. Giving him nothing. His gaze moved down to her naked breasts. They were pale and heavy for someone with such a small body, the dark peaks tight and distended. Moisture pooled in his mouth.
He placed his hands beneath her breasts, lifting them, pulping them. He explored with his fingers every curve and swell. He cupped them on his moist palms then lowered his head to kiss and nibble the flushed, rounded flesh. Her skin was warm beneath his mouth and he was aware of how alive she was, how human.
As he slid his mouth down her breast to suck on her nipple, lust began to pulse madly through his veins. He lifted her right breast and drew it deep into his mouth. Then, slowly, he released it until all he felt was her nipple on his tongue. He licked the tender tip lightly, deftly.
Philoméne moaned, shuddering in the restraints about her arms and legs. The Comte went back to lashing her back, the sound of the whip on her flesh like the slapping of naked body against naked body.
Séverin used his lips and teeth to torment both her breasts. There was a wild roaring in his mind, like a maelstrom, stripping away all his reason, his judgment, his intellect. He was aware of nothing but the sound of the whip against Philoméne’s flesh, the taste of her skin in his mouth and the soft, urgent cries she made.
He’d never been with a whore so he didn’t know if her reaction was only part of her act, but he’d never had a woman respond so fully to his touch. And the fact that she was responding even as the Comte was whipping her was even more arousing to Séverin.
“Fuck her.”
Séverin lifted his head and looked over at the Comte.
He had lowered the whip. “Do it. Now. Fuck her.” Again, that inhuman look on his face; blank, pitiless, empty of mercy.
Séverin shook his head. “No, I won’t. I...I can’t.”
“Why not? She is only a whore. And she is de Sade’s daughter.”