“There’s no oil,” Price said. “I didn’t think…”
“In my pocket,” Kendall said.
Price fished inside and withdrew a small bottle the size of perfume. Price smiled at him and stroked his hair. Kendall thrust up, too far gone for such pleasures, but he smiled too.
“All these clothes,” Price said. He dropped the bottle next to Kendall and slid his hands under Kendall’s coat. “They need to go.”
Kendall was only all too eager to obey. He raised his chest up just enough for Price to rip off his jacket, his cravat and shirt following, and then Kendall’s hands found Price’s clothes and did the same. Price leaned down and caught Kendall’s lips. Their hands rubbed each other, gripped each other, as if they needed to touch each other more than they needed their next breath. Their pelvises ground together.
My hand stroked faster, while the other held back my gasps, constricted by my own clothes. But I dared not divest them.
Kendall eventually gained enough sense, or his hands randomly had found the edge of Price’s breeches and tugged them down. Damn tight breeches, they always made things difficult. It didn’t help that Price kept grinding into Kendall. Kendall even growled. I hadn’t known he was capable of that.
Price lifted away, his hands leaving Kendall even as he whimpered, and undid the buttons of his own breeches. Kendall pulled them down for him. His mouth sought Price’s cock, but Price stopped him by holding his chin.
They stared into each other’s eyes. Kendall’s smile grew sloppy. Price undid the buttons of Kendall’s trousers and they giggled as they tried to tug them off. Fucking giggled.
I bit my hand. Fuck, fuck, fuck those two.
Price emptied the bottle of oil onto his hand, and then took his cock, sliding the oil on thickly.
Oh, now that was something I knew. A flat too absorbed in his own desire to probably stretch his bottom.
Price spread Kendall’s knees apart. My own hand slowed. Kendall was going to scream…
Price slid his fingers under Kendall’s balls and behind him. Kendall gasped, and I imagined that those fingers had found purchase.
It was slow, it was languid. I wanted nothing more than to shout at them to hurry up, for my cock ached something awful. The precum gave my cock some slip so I wouldn’t wake horribly chapped, but I needed… I needed…
“Oh, oh, bollocks,” Kendall said. “Bloody, fucking, bollocks.”
Price chuckled, but not the sort of demeaning chuckle that it should have been.
“Now,” Kendall said, squirming. “Please, now. I need you…”
He tried to shift downward, harder onto Price’s fingers. What nonsense was this? Kendall didn’t even need to feed. Why was he so eager to be penetrated? My cock answered with a spasm I found difficult to repress.
Price refused, continuing to probe Kendall further. I couldn’t see it, but it was almost as if I felt it, the muscles massaged until they gave way, just like I could feel their beasts of lust.
Nor were those beasts the usual sort I encountered, ramming themselves against their meat cages, eager to break the barrier and escape. It was almost as if they were reaching out to each other, eager to touch, eager to escape, but not the mindless fucking that I had always known.
Kendall couldn’t keep his buttocks still. He shoved his arse onto Price’s fingers. I felt Price enjoyed it too. Hell, even I enjoyed it, if my cock had anything to say on the matter.
Price swore, unable to withstand it any longer, and grabbed Kendall’s thighs.
Finally, finally, my cock told me, and I agreed.
Price opened Kendall’s legs and nudged his cock between his cheeks.
“Do it, do it,” Kendall moaned, as if the feel of his cock was enough to drive him mad.
Price pushed his hips forward and sank in.
Inch by fucking inch. I had heard the expression before, but flats didn’t use that on me — they slammed themselves in. Even Price had. And I would groan at the sudden intrusion, but my cock throbbed, and so did theirs. It had suited me just fine. But perhaps, judging by Kendall’s reaction, I was missing something.
Kendall squirmed and moaned under each inch, an expression of pain flashing over his face before it settled back to desire, his muscles seeming to accommodate the stretch and yearning for more.
If I had had a spare hand, I might have even tried it.
Inch by inch, Price moved until he gasped and leaned over Kendall, inserted to the hilt. “Are you all right?” Price asked. He shifted his weight off one arm so he could caress Kendall’s face, but Kendall moaned since the shift also meant Price had moved inside of him.
My hand still, I waited with bated breath. Price chuckled again, a manful chuckle I had heard gentlemen use when speaking, or not speaking, about sex. Price withdrew just as slowly as Kendall moaned, and then sank back in just as slowly.
“I’m going to die,” Kendall said.
“No, you’re not,” Price said. “You’re safe.”
“Not if you keep that dawdling pace.”
Price chuckled again, and this time moved faster. My hand followed his pace. Faster, faster, as Kendall adjusted, and Kendall moaned, squirmed under him, and then gasped as Price hit the sweet spot inside of him. I nearly gasped too, feeling the shock go up my spine.
Faster, faster. Kendall’s moans were my own moans. I gritted my teeth. My hand moved faster and faster to match Price. I felt it. I felt Kendall getting so close, and it was even better and more torturous than when I felt it in a client.
Or was that me? Did I have lust inside of me, able to be spent and gobbled up?
“I’m — I’m—” Kendall managed to say before he shuddered throughout his whole body.
My body shuddered too, and I exploded. The warmest, sweetest sensation filled my belly. My hips thrust into my hand as if that could prolong it. As if that could make it even better — if such a thing was possible. My body was desperate. Or at least, that’s what it felt like. I would have screamed, if not for my clenched jaw and hand over my mouth.
I heard Price shout too, but he didn’t call Kendall a whore, like he had called me.
I leaned my head back against the wall, my eyes closed. My hand felt sticky, and I had probably left a mess against the curtain. I almost chuckled, but my other hand was still there, and a good thing too, for if I were to go mad, I didn’t want witnesses.
Nor did I want anyone else to observe the drops gliding down my cheeks. If no one else saw them, they didn’t exist.
Price fell heavily onto his side, then flesh hitting flesh until they were entangled in each other. “I really do love you.”
“I… I guess… Mother Dover is always amenable to you…”
Price pulled away as if Kendall had just thrown a torch at him. Kendall reacted as if Price had bitten him, or perhaps as if Price had turned into a snake.
Damn it, Price! If he had ruined it, after all of this… My wet hand twitched, sending white droplets against the curtain.
“I’ll go,” Kendall said. He tumbled from the bed and stretched out his arms, seeking his clothes. His hands came too close to the curtain for comfort. I really did not want him to discover me in this state. “You won’t have to see me, I swear… I’ll — I’ll go back to the street—”
“No!” Price snapped. He came around the bed and grabbed Kendall’s shoulders. “No, I didn’t mean that. It’s just… I can’t stand the thought of paying you, like it’s some dreadful duty you must perform… I mean, it isn’t, is it?”
“No,” Kendall said. “But Mother Dover — she won’t just—”
Then, in a night when I had thought my universe had already expanded beyond any possible imagining, Price said the last thing in the world that I would have expected.
“I have a house — an empty house,” Price said. “Come live with me. I can tell my girl that you’re a friend from the country, or — or a new servant or — or anything you wish to be, really.”
“I couldn’t do th
at, sir!”
“Of course you can,” Price said. “You give me… you give me a reason to live. Come with me. I have more rooms and more money than I know what to do with. I want nothing more than this.”
“But…” Kendall was caving. As he should.
“I won’t force you,” Price said. “But if you would like to…”
Kendall breathed in. “I would,” he said, and half laughed, half sobbed. “I would love nothing more.”
Price laughed, and I never thought I would ever hear such a laugh. It sounded like pure happiness to me. Price and Kendall helped each other to collapse back onto the bed.
I had to wait until they slumbered. This was… this couldn’t have really happened. Things like this didn’t happen.
I leaned back against the wall, wishing I could curl up in a ball in a corner with a fresh bottle.
Chapter Eight
Byrne was sitting up at his table when I arrived. His fingers clenched around his tea cup, as if my presence made him tense.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Byrne asked. “It’s barely breakfast.”
“It’s ten in the morning,” I said. Well, I suppose, most of my colleagues would be waking now or later, having worked long into the night, but the rest of my class would have been up at dawn. “Are you waiting on someone?”
“Undressed?” Byrne asked.
“Oh good, then, you can entertain me today.” I dropped the leather book on his plate of eggs and took my seat across from him, hands folded in my lap. He only kept two chairs there, as no one else was eager to visit.
Byrne took a deep steadying breath, either due to a pain in his abdomen or because he hadn’t expected me to return for days yet. “Damon…”
“Read it,” I said.
“Are you sure you wish me to read your work in progress?” Byrne asked.
“It’s finished,” I said. “I spent all night… well, a good deal of the early morning finishing it. Go on.”
Byrne’s fingers trembled over the cover. “Did you ask the questions?”
“Of course not,” I said. “I thought you wished me to be a journalist, so I made everything up.”
A chuckle escaped him. “Journalists do not make up things.”
I waved my hand. “All gossip and their misguided positions. Did you read Colt and his latest position on the state of morality? Do not blame us, I say. Blame the upper classes who pay us and lead by example.”
“They editorialise a bit,” Byrne said, “but that’s not the purpose of this exercise.”
“Isn’t it?” I asked. “Go on, read it. I wrote more than a page this time.”
“Along the same lines as last time?” Byrne looked slightly nauseated, as if he couldn’t stomach it.
“Well, that’s nice,” I said. “If you didn’t want to read it, you shouldn’t have asked me to write it.”
“I wanted you to apply yourself,” Byrne said. “Not flit through a dozen words and think yourself clever.”
My upper lip rose. “I’m always clever, as you will find out by reading.”
Byrne scowled down at the book.
“Never fear,” I said. I leaned forward to whisper to him, “I even capitalised every noun I could think of. It’s completely nonsensical that way.”
This time, Byrne did laugh until he wheezed. I rose a little, in case he started to choke, but he waved me off and picked up the book, wiping off the egg.
“’There once was a man from Yorkshire who seemed very proper. He properly married a lady of appropriate stature, he properly gained employment at the Bank of England, he properly bred said wife and sired proper children, and then he properly buried them all when they properly died before their time,’” Byrne said.
“You’re not reading the capitalisations,” I complained. “I worked very hard on that.”
Byrne have me a weak smile. “I’m sure you did. More than on the assignment.”
“Oh, just keep reading,” I said.
“’And then, very properly, all that he wanted, like most proper men, was a warm young man to stick it into.’” Byrne looked up at me. I nodded, urging him to continue. “’Not just any boy, but a very specific boy, who is sweet and kind and utterly obsessed with him. Mainly the latter, dear reader.’ Oh, very nice. You could be a novelist.”
“Yes, I’m sure that many a man would wish to read this,” I said. “I know at least one.”
“Although, a good novel includes a good match,” Byrne said. “Romance.”
“Does it?” I asked. “Vanity Fair doesn’t. Although really, I suppose marrying the ugly ambassador was the good match.”
“Perhaps you should try again,” Byrne said.
“Perhaps you should finish reading,” I said.
What was Byrne’s hesitation? The man would never show that kind of weakness, and not toward a piece of scribbling by a half-literate molly. Byrne hadn’t even reached the good bit yet. Perhaps I should have provided less of an introduction.
“’So when this man stumbled across a handsome young lad in the gutter, thinking himself kind, he fed the young lad brandy from his own hand and cared for his wounds. The young lad, being too much like a lady’s lap dog without the lady, would follow him anywhere for more pets and more food. So the man led him to his favourite molly house, where he attended upon weekly, although not on Sundays. That turned out into a good arrangement, and so the man visited him weekly until the boy said something unthinkable. Impossible. Completely, stark raving mad.’ Really, Damon—”
“Just keep reading,” I said.
Byrne sighed. “’The young lad, thinking that the man must hate him for saying such a thing, ran from him, even though that was exactly the thing the man wanted to hear. The man longed to return the words to him, but the lad didn’t know it.’ And what, pray tell, were the words?”
“I think you know,” I said. “But this is the point where I come in to save them.”
“Save them?” Byrne said, chuckling. He was regaining the colour in his face. “My, how heroic.”
“I thought so,” I said. “Although neither thanked me.”
“Ungrateful wretches,” Byrne said. “But really, what did he say?”
“Well, I can’t say them,” I said. “Didn’t I write how they were unthinkable, impossible, completely stark raving mad?”
Byrne shook his head again, although more in amusement this time. Oh yes, I think he gleaned what those words were. “’So the two came to a very unhappy impasse. Like most of life, really, but unhappier.’ Really, Damon. You grasped the whole point of all this?”
“Which point?” I asked. “You don’t even know of whom I speak.”
“The point of — oh, never mind. ’Until a very annoying man made an arrangement with his own clever molly. The clever molly was forced to converse with the man, discovered the whole affair and was pressed into helping the man — even at the expense out of his own pocket.’ Which expense?”
“Hiring a room for the night,” I said. “I had to trick them into meeting, didn’t I. Oh, and the loss of the great coat you gave me.”
“Trick?”
Oh sure, ignore the coat. Until I replaced it, I was likely to die of cold. “Well, the beautiful young lad knew that I knew and knew where the man lived,” I said. “So I had to make arrangements. Cost me a shilling for the night, by the way, so I hope you’re enjoying it.”
“I am, actually,” Byrne said. “Well, unless the reason you’re so gleeful now is… well, I should keep reading, shan’t I? ‘The clever molly trapped them in a tavern room, where they were forced to speak and the man finally had the chance to return those impossible words. The young lad, not being as dim as everyone thought he was, wouldn’t believe him until the man did another impossible act.’ Now there’s an impossible act?”
“Of course,” I said. “I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Your own eyes?” Byrne asked.
“Well, in trapping them, I managed to trap myself as well, a
lthough they never knew that I was there,” I said.
“That was a bit sloppy,” he said.
“Yes, but you did want a naughty story, didn’t you?”
“That wasn’t the… entire point,” Byrne said. “But may I presume for a moment?”
“You may,” I said, although I didn’t know why he needed my permission. I supposed it was just one of those things that gentlemen said.
“I believe that you discovered that this man possessed affection for this lad, and this lad returned it,” Byrne said. “Affection, even love. And you didn’t dispute it.”
“I did,” I said. “I told the man that the lad must have lied for extra coin.” Well, almost.
Byrne’s jaw dropped. He ignored the name. “You can be so cruel.”
“He was cruel first,” I said.
“How so?” Byrne asked. I shrugged my shoulder. “I’m sure that whatever you said struck harder.”
“And then I gave him his love,” I said, “so we’re even. No, I think the man even owes me.” Especially for the coat.
“His love?” Byrne asked. “Isn’t he just out to get his cock rubbed?”
“Except I seem to have stumbled onto the one bloke — I mean, the one man who actually seems to care who rubs it,” I said. “I offered my body to him without charge and he turned me down because he thought I didn’t like him. I didn’t, but that was beside the point.”
“Yes, the point,” Byrne said. “Hmm, perhaps this other lad is just prettier than you are.”
I scoffed. Pretty had nothing to do with it. “I saw them,” I leaned forward, “make love.”
“Make love? You mean, frig?”
“No, I mean it,” I said. “He did the impossible!”
“And what is this impossible act, hmm?”
Oh, Byrne was enjoying this. It was better than reading shoddy books by half-literate, half pretentious authors. I smirked at him. “Would you like me to demonstrate?”
“Oh, then it must be too impossible for words,” Byrne said. “Yes, go ahead and demonstrate.”
I hadn’t touched him in this way for at least six weeks now, before his skin became so yellow and his side cramped so hard he needed opium to ease it. He had offered it to me once, and I had taken it, thinking he meant it as an aphrodisiac and that he’d tip me better. Opium was no aphrodisiac, and regardless, Byrne hadn’t the mind to use my full abilities.
Damon Snow and the Nocturnal Lessons Page 7