Chapter 23

Boudoir Conversation

ell,’ René said, looking down at him and offering his hand, ‘shall we continue our conversation?’

Aix had no idea why his brain decided now was when it was going to dredge up that the phrase, said by a vampire, about the precursor to a homosexual relationship, was something from the Vampire Chronicles. He didn’t exactly laugh, but his face… did an expression, and René raised a brow, one side of his mouth tugging into a smile, and Aix realised as he walked away down the turn in the hallway that led to his room,

‘You said that on purpose,’ Aix said, grinning at him and finally giggling as he followed. ‘You—silly bastard.’ He felt a swell of something that felt good in his chest; he didn’t know what to call it, just labelled it ‘Bonding’ and focussed on trying to catch up while still laughing, failing, and stopping. ‘Come push me, Domine!’

And René was there, and leaning down to kiss Aix’s temple with a soft click and press of his lips, which were warm, and Aix knew he made them warm on purpose, just for that kiss.

‘Always, chou-chou.’

Aix’s breath caught. René called Cameron ‘chou-chou’, and never Aix, and Aix had assumed it was because ‘chou-chou’ was Reserved For Submissives. ‘Did… you… you only call Cammie that,’ Aix said, his voice going all small and soft and pet-like, using Cameron’s nickname that Aix had only ever observed in use when he was on his knees at René’s feet. In reply, René’s long fingers buried into Aix’s hair, sensually carding through the curls, long nails gently trailing along Aix’s scalp and sending cascading tingles down his whole body.

‘Mm,’ René said, hearing the realisation, and pushed him gently into René’s bedroom. It was gratifying, that Aix noticed these things; René was very accustomed to the usual sort of person who did not bother, did not listen. Monoglots were very dull people, René found; all French sounded the same to them, they didn’t listen, which really sucked the fun out of using it for specific phrases. Aix, however, understood René’s purposeful choices, and—René hoped—the way he used French to also add additional layers of gender support. French was much more elegant and capable of that, than English and her mere pronouns. Every word in French had a gender variance, and that could be used for great kindness with transgender people, and René did so, as often as he could. However, being a whore (and he wore the title with pride), he also had gotten into the habit of delineating endearments that were only for certain people, who had certain roles in his life, who were granted certain intimacy. ‘I only call my boys that.’

René’s bedroom was private now, with a lock on the door and his new bed built into the corner, the cabinet made of carved mahogany lined in pest-repelling cedar, with patterns of roses and acanthus flourishes carved inside and out, the sides that closed the bed into a box having hidden hinges, able to be unlocked and opened up for making the bed.¹ Otherwise, however, they locked securely, and only René knew how to unlock them.

A separate door was set into the open side of the bed, for regular access. It locked too, but was only locked when René was asleep. This meant he could not have food next to him when he woke (a preference for most vampires) unless it slept with him; but it was worth the slight discomfort. And he knew Aix loved everything about his bed that was safe and locked; and René was an ideal sleeping partner for Aix, who did not like to be too hot, but wanted to be under a pile of blankets, and moved so much but paradoxically also woke up at the slightest movement from the bed.

Aix loved René’s room. It was a dark and decadent but French Rococo style all in dark red woods and deep violets and black velvet, that had been modified over the continuous years of use to be more kink in motif, with a well-oiled sex swing of black leather and brass hanging from its own medallion in the ceiling, which was deep blue and violet and muralled with the night sky and a very 18^th century painting of a nebula. Every inch of wall was covered in beautiful black plasterwork, or paintings of beautiful men (of all sizes!) in sensual pleasure in intricate frames, or artefacts and treasures. It was a dragon’s hoard that a museum would probably kill for, but it wasn’t dusty relics that didn’t work and weren’t functional—everything, no matter how old, was in use, from the carved and delicately painted escritoire in one corner, full of secret drawers and compartments, to the armoire by the bed that held all of René’s toybox—all of it—the doors having their panels painted with the most beautiful, properly sensual and attractive depictions of Eros and Pan that Aix had ever seen.

There was a pair of large false windows that stretched floor to ceiling, one on either side of the large fireplace, with heavy curtains of black velvet that shimmered when the light caught the scattering of actual diamonds and sapphires sewn on like stars; but the window-lights were dark, just now, in favour of the sconces that glowed with the same bioluminescence that lit the Averays’, and the BUR—except René’s lights were a peachy pink, not mushroom green. Aix wondered what it was, and whether he could get some for himself in that pink—it was the very same pink as the lightbulbs he’d grown up with, that weren’t made anymore. They weren’t obviously pink; indeed, the pink colour barely noticeable, simply giving off a sense that the light was ‘warm’ and ‘flattering’—unless you were sensitive to colour, or knew what you were looking at.

There were lots of places to sit—chaise lounges, a settee, a tête-à-tête… all of them upholstered in a deep blue-coloured version of the not-leather Aix had also seen in the train cars, their carved mahogany frames shining with gold tracing. The floor was sprung and made of hard-wearing wood, like all the floors down here, and covered in plush dark cut carpet (probably the most modern thing in the room). There were radiators all through the building, particularly underground; but this room had a fireplace with a beautiful brass screen mounted like a gate at the firebox opening, with a brass fender bench padded with black not-leather. There was no fire in it now—it was only June. The presence of brass where one expected iron kept sticking out to Aix as being conspicuously friendly to the fae; it felt passively hospitable, in the same way seamless integration of ramps or the presence of benches and railings did.

Aix had been quiet, just thinking on what René had said, the… not casual exactly, but the deliberate? No, the… well, it felt sudden on Aix’s end, but there was no way something like that wouldn’t feel sudden. Any change like that would have felt sudden to Aix, it wasn’t like he had the ability to notice any kind of ‘signs’ or ‘signals’ before something was announced.

René had called him ‘chou-chou’.

Aix parked the chair by his favourite of the chaises, and moved to it, slipping off his pointy monkstrap shoes, battered from years of wear, and getting out of his skirt, which was a little too snug to be comfortable for long periods, but it was his only skirt.

God, he needed clothes. Shopping for clothes had been something he’d been avoiding or just unable to do for many years. It was particularly bad now because just after getting housed three years ago, he’d gone into quarantine and hadn’t needed clothes, particularly since he’d been living in a desert. He’d spent what money he had on things like appliances and bedding and small tools to make everyday life prettier and easier, and clothes had been low priority because why bother getting dressed when he wasn’t leaving the house at all?

Also, Aix thought, with some smugness, why would he go about wearing clothes when he looked so good naked? The top surgery scar was a little wonky, but it was clear as a shout: ‘I’m not cis. I’m not female. I don’t care about looking “normal”.’

René had called him ‘chou-chou’.

He pulled off his slightly ragged oversized hoodie, the one that had the two villains he knew almost nothing about but that he and Velquin, his best friend, had written scads about, the screenprinting cracked all to hell, the cuffs of the sleeves stretched out. It was the perfect length for a sort of short dress, for not really touching his skin while he was wearing it, but it was worn out and the shop had stopped carrying them in this size, and that was frustrating because he’d gotten attached…. He tossed it in his wheelchair, along with the skirt, and tuned back into the present, all the contemplating of the beauty of René’s room, his need for clothing and the politics of sizing and bodies happening in the span of the few seconds it took to get in the room and undressed.

René had called him ‘chou-chou’.

He’d been calling René ‘Domine’ off and on for a couple of days by now, ever since the date the night before, so it did make sense that René would feel it was perhaps going to be welcome, and Aix even appreciated that he took his time—the Dom should, because submissives were usually a little overenthusiastic to give respect, but a Dom that was over-eager was not really a dom at all. Doms were supposed to embody control and patience.

‘René,’ he asked, looking up. ‘I’d like to do something a little more than we have been, tonight. I don’t know what. And I don’t know how to take a small step toward sex without just jumping into the deep end—which I don’t want to do, yet—but. I’d like to do some submitting and obeying.’

René had only taken off his coat and tie, and was in shirtsleeves, the corset-style lacing up the back of his waistcoat visible, and highlighting his very nipped-in waist, his trousers cut to accentuate his very pretty hips. He sat down beside Aix, all attention, but not trapping Aix in his gaze.

‘You are rattled, and want Domine to calm you down?’

Aix nodded, and René pulled him close slowly, wrapping him in a protective embrace.

‘I have not been able to stop thinking of filling you like a little hot water bottle,’ René said, not sure if that was the right way to approach the kink, but feeling better when Aix giggled and the scent of his arousal warmed the cool air.

‘Mmm, it is a bit cold, down here…’ Aix said, in a small voice René had heard slip through more than a few times. He’d never remarked on it, because Aix was so obviously not ready to allow himself to set down his learned diction, but René was fond of the way Aix spoke to Pippin, the particular and unique dialect of Small Speech. ‘And that might calm me down, if I were sufficiently um, sealed.’

René nuzzled him. ‘I will have to get the right equipment, then. But I can fill you with silicone, though perhaps that is too much for you, right now?’

‘No, no, plugs and passive fullness are very low key, very… safe,’ Aix said, nestling closer. ‘You get it.’

‘I do,’ René said, kissing his temple.

‘Cock-warming, also.’

René raised his brows, leaning back to look down at Aix. ‘Cock-warming? Really?’

‘Well, um… last night, and this morning when I woke up, and… you… you didn’t. Do anything. You even pushed me away. It—it helped me feel safe, like you weren’t focussed on that. And like, your job makes me feel like you’re a lot safer to relax around, because you can’t have hang-ups that would harm other people if you’re a whore, so.’

‘Mm, but I did not know you liked cock-warming, chou-chou.’

‘Oh!’ Aix said, and laughed at his overthinking. ‘Oh, right. Why would you? Sorry, yes. Yes,’ he said, quieter, leaning his face in René’s shoulder, pleased when René started petting his hair.

‘And what do you like about it, chou-chou?’

‘When I was fourteen, the first time I had a cock in me, it was when I went to see my boyfriend and wake him up, and I sat on top of him and put his cock inside me and just… sank down. And everything was different.’ Aix said, and paused, giving that thought the space it needed. ‘We both just sat there, sort of stunned. I felt like a puzzle that had been completed. But I never wanted it to move. I just. Wanted to be full, like that. To have all the spaces filled up.’

This was mild, as ‘unusual’ went, but to have that first sexual experience be even slightly unusual, to have that one feeling that set the tone for everything that came after: To be a completed puzzle, to have all his spaces filled up…. It was refreshing to René, but Aix clearly had determined he was freakish, perhaps not unreasonably given what René knew of people’s attitudes about Aix’s main body of kinks; René wanted to coax him into being comfortable with it, with his creativity. Aix was a wildly creative sexual being, and René could not countenance how anyone would not find that utterly entrancing. It had, however, been a very long time since René had been human, and quite a few centuries of existing and experiencing tended to make one seek out the strange and unusual, those with tastes that might seem alarming or extreme—to the living.

Inflation was Aix’s chiefest of pleasures—and a kink René had never met, in person or otherwise. There was much of it in the archives of erotic art Cameron had shown him when Cameron had finally opened up to him, years ago; but merely looking at the art did not illustrate why people liked it, which was why René was so pleased to have finally run into someone that did, and could elucidate; still, Aix’s pornography—the kind that he wrote, for he didn’t collect any written by others, not really—was much, much different than anything René had encountered before. Aix had said, ‘that’s most people’s first comment, yeah’, with the resigned tone of someone who had given up on ever finding someone he didn’t have to first explain himself to.

However, René knew, he had then made himself stand out from that crowd, because he understood from personal experience—grokked, in the useful modern parlance—the fact that being overfull felt safe, more than anything else. It was about feeling safe from a demon that did not haunt as many as it once had, but had (and still did) haunt Aix:

Hunger.

Not merely the hunger of one who could afford to eat and was prevented by fear (Aix had a name for this one, shared with the former Hunter of Baltimore), not merely the hunger of one who did not know when they would have their next meal, not merely the hunger of a body that rejected the only food available, not merely the fear of eating from the act of it being painful—not merely any of these things, but all of them, all at once, all the time. To have a fantasy focussed not on eating itself, but on having eaten, became central to his daydreams… why should he fantasise about tastes and textures and swallowing, when he had never known pleasure from these things? Yet to dream about the safety of satiety, without having to suffer getting there, well….

René had known want. He had lived and grown up in a time when it was common for everyone to daydream of feasts alongside their dreams of fucking—the concept of feasting, dancing, music and sex was not called ‘making merry’ for no reason. René had, therefore, been making no secret of how he wanted to feed Aix until Aix was well enough to be bitten, satisfying both of their hungers. Aix had not objected to this, not at all. It was an undercurrent of fetishistic pleasure, in fact.

‘Mm, to be held warm and safe in Domine’s lap, in the closest of embraces, oui? To know he is paying attention to you, yet to not have to entertain him. Ah, but you could even be in my lap and sleeping, and you would still know you were on my mind, and satisfying me. And I would not have to leave your company, not even if I wished you to rest, or some other boring matter needed my attention.’ He chuckled. ‘I have made schedules and shopping lists with a boy on my lap, my cock inside his pretty ass.’ He stroked through Aix’s hair, and thought on how to mention the intriguing detail of Aix’s body. ‘But you have a special pocket just for me, don’t you?’ he said, carefully nonchalant.

‘I do,’ Aix said, tucking his bare feet up and under him, nestling closer and putting his arms around René, sinking down a little toward his lap. René took this as a good sign, and shifted on the chaise, settling his back against the corner made by the back of the chaise and its scrolling arm, and put one leg up, the other flung wide enough to make room for a boy, foot still on the floor. Aix waited for him to settle, and then draped along the length of the chaise and settled with his head on René’s belly. He was pleasingly heavy in a soft way, like Jasper; but Aix was alive and therefore warm enough to be soothing.

‘I never realised those things…’ Aix said thoughtfully, ‘but you’re right, there is an element of knowing I don’t have to perform and yet I know I’m being the sort of core kind of… um, well, of worth… full.’ He frowned, wrinkling his nose. ‘I know it’s entirely a bad thing that I only relax and think I’m not about to be attacked when I’m actively touching the other person’s genitals. I’m aware.’

‘And you learned this from some part of your life, and it was true and remains true in much of the world,’ René pointed out. ‘It is a naïf who merely says that is not a good thing. But we have both seen too much of the world to believe it is not true, chéri.’

‘Ah, there’s the French cynicism,’ Aix teased, and René laughed. ‘I was wondering where it was hiding.’

‘I hope I used neutral enough language to describe you?’

‘Oh, yes, that was very pretty, René. Much better than “bonus hole” or “slit”, definitely.’ He took off his glasses to nuzzle at René a bit, to show his appreciation. ‘Am I your first transboy?’ he asked.

‘Oui, you are.’

‘Mmmm, that’s very pleasing.’

‘Is it?’

‘It’s worse to be the second one.’

‘Ah. I will not ask why you assume anyone has only ever met two, of course. I know. I have met a few, but never had any. They were never my sort of boy, before you. Always very butch, very rough. Not at all the sort of boy I take to bed.’

‘The sort of boy that says I’m being trans wrong, and I can’t expect to be taken seriously, blah blah blah, “I’m femmephobic and a misogynist, but you can’t call me on it because that makes me dysphoric, wehhh,”’ Aix said, dismissal and mockery hiding real anger and pain. ‘You know something funny? My ex—also trans—chose to be literally the most stereotypically pretentious asshole of a guy, it’s fucking hilarious. He chose that. He had to work real hard. He could have been any kind of guy he wanted, and he chose that kind of guy! Meanwhile, I saw Vincent Price, and Maestro Forte, and every fop-coded villain with a delicious voice in animation, and went, “him. I want to be like him. I want to be sexy and pretty and powerful. I want to be in charge of the story”.’

‘A much better aspiration of masculinity,’ René said, ‘though I am biased, being one of those sorts of men.’

‘Mm, is why I like you,’ Aix said, flirtatiously, and René gave what he always thought of as his theatrical laugh—it was low, and perfectly villainous, and crafted to be quite wickedly seductive.

‘Ooooh, Mr Charbonneau,’ Aix purred, shivery and pleased, as René’s hands stroked along his naked back.

‘Mm, yes, mon sorcier?’ René said, used to the meandering, june-bug nature of Aix’s conversational style. ‘Qu’est-ce que tu désires, chou-chou?’

Aix went quiet, thighs pressing together—René adored that he expressed arousal in such an old, traditional sort of way. ‘I… I want to obey you. Simple things, to build a rapport and trust. “Kneel”, “sit”, “open”, little things. Not… not really training? But not… not training.’

‘Kiss me, mon sorcier,’ René said, and Aix wrapped arms around his chest and squeezed, before shifting and carefully moving up to kiss him. They hadn’t kissed, before, and René was surprised at how slowly Aix went to it, soft and seemingly fascinated by the softness of René’s lips, savouring the act of kissing with a sort of all-consuming focus. He did not pull away, did not merely chain a series of single kisses together, but worshipped René’s mouth with his own, with no hesitance, and no guile, and nothing in his mind but the kiss, and the feeling of the kiss, and the taste of the kiss, and it was intoxicating, and René gladly lost himself in it for long, long moments.

Aix didn’t even break for air, because he breathed through the kiss, and they were there a long time, René resting his hands on Aix’s soft hips—

And then, the inevitable—

Aix cut his tongue on one of René’s fangs, and froze, slowly pulling his tongue back in his mouth, pulling away, sitting back on the sofa, and finally, once safely away from any chance of accidental collisions of limbs or faces, put his hands to his bleeding mouth, and reacted.

‘Ow ow ow ow fuck—!’

‘Shh,’ René said, ‘come now, chou-chou, let me help, I can heal it.’

Contrary to causing further confusion, Aix looked at him, swallowed. ‘You can? Magically?’

René nodded, ‘Come here, please,’ he asked, and knew this was a test of faith in his control, trust that he valued Aix’s life. Every vampire was prepared, at some point or other, to see their lovers’ eyes fill with terror, to see their bodies tense in fear like spooked rabbits.

Every human, at some point, no matter how long they’d been with you, thought, but what if he does lose control? He could kill me. And it was heart-breaking every time; but you either became understanding of your power and the fear it could engender, or you became consumed by self-loathing. René had done his time in Self-Loathing, he had grown tired of it—as many of his friends in the coven of blood-drinking had.

Aix did hesitate, but did not look at him, and so it was better. He swallowed again—René could tell he was bleeding a lot—and said, ‘Okay, yeah, because if this doesn’t stop I’m gonna pass out.’

René didn’t say he wasn’t bleeding that much, because there were other things—horror, illness—that might be causing that risk of swooning. He sat up, and leaned forward. ‘I have to lick it.’

Aix nodded. ‘Healing salival gland?’

‘You are very astute, you know, it’s very frightening,’ René said with a fond smile, cupping Aix’s face gently. ‘Open.’

Aix did, instantly, and René said, ‘Good boy,’ before kissing him, open-mouthed and very, very gentle, retrieving some of the healing liquid from the gland beneath his tongue before dipping his tongue into Aix’s mouth and licking the cut. The bleeding stopped immediately, and Aix just started kissing him again, without pause, which gave René the opportunity to enjoy the small taste of his blood—well, if it had been enjoyable.

It wasn’t.

It was slightly ill, and so there had been no temptation. René liked well-fed boys, and despite Aix’s plush hips and arms, he was not well-fed, not yet; and perhaps there was something about it that may never make it palatable. But you couldn’t tell someone that, it was rude; even if René hoped it would stay true, because it would keep Aix safe from anthrophagic monsters like himself.² Of course, there was the selfish part of him that wanted to bite, to drink, to mark Aix as his; but René had learnt it was far, far worse to love someone delicious.

There was no way to know, and René could only pamper and feed his witch, make sure he felt safe, and see what happened.

Eventually, René pulled away from the kiss, ‘Good boy,’ he said, ‘I could get drunk on your kisses, chéri.’

‘I’m glad you kiss the same way,’ Aix said, ‘I like how I kiss, and nobody else seems to do it my way. They’re always so rushed, like they just want it to be over as soon as possible.’

‘The grand advantage to an immortal lover,’ René said, ‘but come, it is late, dawn is soon.’

‘Yeah,’ Aix said, suddenly feeling the tiredness, realising he’d stopped being able to focus because of it. But that wasn’t unusual—he focussed on one thing, and if people were around, people were that thing. ‘Can I… can I undress you? Please, Domine.’

René was surprised. ‘If you like, chou-chou, if you like.’

‘If you can’t enjoy the sensual pleasure of your own clothes, your boyfriend’s are fine,’ Aix said with a giggle, pleased when René joined the laughter, starting by gently taking off one of René’s shoes, setting it neatly just under the chaise, and getting down on the floor to take off his other shoe. They were custom, they had to be, because Aix had never seen a shoe like this outside of a museum, and never in use. You could reproduce historical clothes with fabric and thread and things that were still available, and end up with something mostly exactly the same; but shoes were another matter, and shoes, unfortunately, were the historical item of fashion that Aix always wanted the most—probably because pretty shoes had never and would never come in his size—and he envied René’s shoes, envied everyone’s shoes. Especially now, when it wasn’t a matter of money—the stress injury to his feet had permanently disfigured one, and he held little hope of ever having the pretty shoes he’d dreamed about when he was young.

‘Where did you get these?’ Aix asked, he supposed because he was masochistic.

‘There is truth to the stories of the folk making wonderful shoes,’ René said, not knowing how to offer—last time he had even made overture, it had done harm. ‘There is a shoemaker in Venice. If you do not mind his kink—George does—he is the best in the world.’

‘I have that kink,’ Aix said, ‘but not the money,’ he said, sighing. He still wasn’t really sure about the money question, here. He couldn’t take money for being a witch, but at the same time, he didn’t want to be a landlord or anything gross like that, so he had no real idea how he was supposed to have an income. In NYC he had a lot of little gig offers, and living in NYC part-time would mean he could still do those, he supposed… he really loved the idea of teaching people to read, sharing with them his love of English and stories and reading. He wasn’t going to give that up, that was the most important job on the list Virginia had made for him.

Wait.

Trolls.

Trolls liked shoes, Virginia had said when they’d been talking about it. ‘They’ll bitch about your shoes, it’s just a thing, they have a thing about it. I don’t know if it’s a fetish? I’ve never been able to figure that out. But it’s a Thing.’ At the time, Aix had just noted it and not thought to ask if trolls made shoes.

René shifted to sit up on the chaise, and put Aix between his legs. Aix was able to stand on his knees (usually a painful prospect, but the carpet was very soft, as was the floor beneath) and unbutton René’s waistcoat, stroking over the blue-on-blue pattern on the jacquard fabric, pleased at the soft tingling when René started to play with his hair again, caress his skin. It was nice to be around someone that had the same love of just enjoying the feel of things, running one’s hands over things that had nice textures. And René’s long nails on his scalp was just giving Aix a steady buzz of pleasure that didn’t stop.

‘Good boy,’ René murmured, knowing that the English was important, for this particular ritual phrase. ‘So gentle.’

Aix wasn’t a fop, René realised.

Aix had a kink for clothes, for fabrics, for beauty of this kind. Did he know? Did he simply think all fops and dandies and fashionistas were so mesmerised by clothing, so loving and tender with every garment? What a lovely world that was, but it wasn’t the truth—it wasn’t about the clothes, for most, it was about the status, and the cost, and the fashion.

But René, like many pirates, liked fine things for the sensual pleasure of touching them, and came from a life that was not accustomed to fine things, and so appreciated fine things.

‘Ohhh,’ Aix sighed, as he opened the waistcoat. ‘it’s lined in silk, oh my god…’ He pushed it gently off René’s shoulders, and carefully touched the shining blue of the satin, and gasped dramatically. ‘Is this hand-woven,’ his voice dropped to a whisper like one handling a reliquary of a saint. ‘oh my god René is this hand-woven satin silk dyed with real indigo.’

It was René’s absolute pleasure to say, with a little bow of his head. ‘It is.’

And he swore Aix came on the spot. It was of course, difficult for René to tell, with a boy that didn’t ejaculate easily, and Aix was silent, not a moaner in any situation.

‘My shirt is hand-woven linen,’ René said, ‘dyed with indigo and I think walnut, to make it black.’

‘There’s blackwork on the placket René,’ Aix pressed his face into René’s chest with a whimper. ‘Oh my god. Oh my god I’m gonna plotz.’

‘Are you not already?’ René asked, hiding a smile in his eyes, ‘I should like to know what you call a plotz, if this is not it.’

Aix giggled, squeezing him in a grateful hug. As much as he liked to make people laugh, it meant a lot when someone tried to make him laugh. Mirroring was definitely a language he understood.

‘Aix, chéri, please let me buy you a wardrobe,’ René said, when Aix pulled away, René catching his face gently in his hands. ‘Please, seeing the pleasure it gives you is payment enough.’

Aix eyes filled with tears. ‘Even one piece of this outfit is thousands of dollars, René…’

‘And you are worth it, your pleasure is worth that, bijou,’ René said firmly. ‘Never doubt it. I would board the fiercest of the Trading Company’s ships to get you silk enough to wear every day, and ask nothing in return but to be allowed to see you like this, so happy.’

‘I like that grand larceny and murder are your first thought,’ Aix said, trying to waylay the tears, kind of glad René wasn’t letting him hide them or ignore them. He’d started to notice a bad habit had developed without him realising, the classic one of making jokes whenever he was having emotions or feeling vulnerable. He just didn’t know how to be sincere anymore; the world had kind of trained him that he’d be punished for it, that his sincerity was too much, was uncomfortable, because his life was full of experiences that made others uncomfortable to hear about.

René chuckled, but it was warm and low and came with a kiss. ‘Tesoro, if you were on my ship, my apprentice, we would all adore bringing you offerings of fine things, just to see you enjoy them.’ It was the first he’d shown off another language, but it was a word that just suited Aix right down to the ground. Most of René’s boys ended up with an endearment all their own, just for them.

‘Ah yes, the good Doctor.’ There was more than a soupçon of flirtation in Aix’s tone.

‘Mm,’ René said, knowing about Aix’s medical fetish—all of his early pieces of erotica showed not only a medical kink, but specifically a Victorian one. There was no interest in modern medicine, and that had intrigued René, though he hadn’t wanted to ask about it, yet.

‘How did you come by that profession?’ Aix asked, as he lovingly, carefully unbuttoned René’s shirt collar; it was attached, but René still preferred his shirts to not open down the front. It was needless waste, in his opinion (and his tailor agreed. Vociferously).

‘My family made soap,’ René said simply.

‘Ahh, so you were working class,’ Aix said, with that strange approval immortals had been confronted with in the past few decades. The French ones handled it better than most, though that depended much on what side they’d been on during the Revolution. Being that he’d been an indentured whore paying an impossible and growing debt to his Master by then, René had been on the side of the guillotine.

‘Oui, though we were never hungry.’

‘Poverty has never been as poor as it is now,’ Aix said, lingering on the black pearl buttons, which were carved like tiny roses, each one. ‘Go on, though—I admit, I’m surprised there was a connection between soap and medicine back then.’

‘Ah, things were not so bad as historians say,’ René said. ‘Everyone has known about washing being a good thing. Why would soap be such an industry otherwise? And you know well the Islamic ways. Many people in Grasse did lively business with Islamic traders—where else would we get such absolutes as only they can grow and extract?’

‘Mm, Jasmine, and sandalwood, and musk, and vanilla—but didn’t France colonise a bunch of places to get all that without having to trade with them?’

‘Oui, later; but it was never as good as the things coming through Lebanon, nor as close. And the Spaniards and pirates ruled the western Mediterranean, when I was growing up. That is how I became a pirate, in fact. I went to the docks and wanted to travel with the ship, and pick out the extracts myself, and see a little of the world.’

‘Ahh, and your ship got captured,’ Aix said, leaning back and getting off his knees, as René pulled the shirt over his head, baring his torso. He was scarred across his back from the lash of a cat, and his bloodless white torso was covered in dark curls over his chest, down his belly, over his arms and absolutely everywhere below his collarbones. He was the sort of man that current society demanded follow a truly draconic regimen of hair removal to be ‘acceptable’ to the mainstream, and the fact that he didn’t but for beardlessness was… Aix was hungry to touch, to feel the satin curls and maybe some of that body-pride, some of that insouciance, would rub off on him. Aix had always been made to feel shame about how hirsute he was, and all his hair had started appearing at the tender age of eight, which was doubly mortifying for someone who was supposed to have been a girl. Having René think he was pretty, and the profession René was in… it spoke loudly.

René was not unaware of this; women patrons often threw themselves at him; but he knew they imagined something very different, beneath his fine suits.³ These days, René merely acted as master of ceremonies and gracious host—he only ever did strip-tease for the festival celebrating male beauty and sexuality, and only then for invite-only male audiences, which were always shocked that the pretty, femmy, foppish Frenchman who owned Nepenthé was a bear.

Well, with his slender frame, René had heard ‘otter’ used more often. He’d been changed at a lean and only slightly padded thirty, and vampires did not have the ability to consume fat, and so did not put it by. It was one of the reasons they grew, almost universally, to appreciate it so much in their mortal companions.⁴ He admired Aix’s very Italian hips and softened limbs, as much as the naked, raw ache in the gaze Aix had turned on him now. René could almost see those pretty hands trembling with the need to touch him.

‘Chou-chou, you needn’t wait,’ he coaxed, and rather than launching himself in a frenzy, Aix leaned forward very slowly, starting to unbutton René’s trousers. ‘It’s all right, tesoro,’ René murmured in his gentlest tones, stroking that pretty face with the backs of his fingers. ‘Go as slowly as you like, chéri, you know how patient Domine is, non?’

Aix nodded, leaning into the caress and biting his lip. He couldn’t really appreciate the fabric, at this point, now that a cock had come into the equation. But he wasn’t going to look away this time, or ignore it. He had slept beside René all yesterday, and nothing bad had happened at all, he reminded himself. Nothing had happened, good or bad or anything. Nothing. They’d cuddled and there was sleeping and not even kisses or anything, René had listened and he was being careful and—and Aix didn’t want to be this scared.

René switched entirely to French, after a while, and kept gently petting his head, his face, his shoulders and neck. It helped, and so did the scent being soft and clean and (of course) complex, and the touch of the thick curls around his cock being satiny and obviously lovingly oiled and conditioned. Aix chose to keep going, chose to push himself, but even though he was impatient and hated being scared, he new he couldn’t push too much or too fast. He tried to think about the colours of things, the textures, the smells, the simple things like that, rather than any implications or social things.

René’s trousers were very modern in that they fit closely all the way around, not just in the front, and were pieced in the more modern way, that did not crease oddly. He didn’t wear underwear, and this close, Aix could see that his trousers were made asymmetrically, and he dressed to the left (Aix wondered if it had to do with handedness—he’d not seen René write yet, so he had no idea what hand he used). Like most Christians older than the 20^th century, René had a foreskin, and a very generous one; Aix’s Hellenic sensibility found this to make his cock even more… ‘polite’ was the only word that came to mind, though it wasn’t exactly the meaning Aix wanted. Less aggressive, perhaps. Covering the glans really did make a difference.

It was ‘sleeping’ now,⁵ vampires could control that, and Aix leaned forward to kiss the velvety skin. A cock with a foreskin was something he’d never had access to, and René’s was very beautiful, particularly so bloodless. Red was a very aggressive colour, so a vampire’s instinctive conservation of their blood by not having it in extremities actually helped a lot, helped remind Aix this wasn’t a human, this was a monster that had very, very good crypsis.

‘Il est tres joli,’ Aix said, trying out his now-shaky French. It had been more than a decade since he’d been around anyone who spoke it, and those years had been spent shamed for being anything better than his ex husband, who was not nearly so worldly as he pretended, and nowhere near Aix in that regard. So, Aix had… forgotten it. He hoped ‘joli’ was the right adjective, it was one of the few he still remembered.

‘Ah,’ René said, pleased as always whenever he heard Aix speak French again, ‘Merci. Il vous-aime.’

‘Oh surely I’m not a vous, René,’ Aix said, quirking his brow and giving that lopsided, wry expression as he looked up at René’s face.

‘You are,’ René said. ‘You have remarked on how refreshing my formality is.’

‘My face is like an inch from your cock and you’re talking about formality?’

‘I have,’ René said, with faux-airiness, tossing his dark hair and splaying a hand on his chest, ‘a deep sense of professionalism, mon sorcier.’

Aix tried valiantly not to laugh, but was smiling. ‘…I’m glad he likes me,’ he said, softly, and gave the cock another kiss, before pressing his face into the curls over René’s mons and enjoying the satin wool of them, breathing a deep lungful of scent—Aix was very scent oriented, something which he and wolves bonded over—and sighing, letting René’s petting soothe the last of the tension away.

René was used to this from his boy-cats, but had not expected it from Aix. He had tried to not really expect anything from Aix, and yet he found himself still surprised by how old Aix’s behaviour was, compared to his era. René tended to cultivate his food, feeding from his boy-cats mostly, as they could tolerate more drain; but sometimes a mortal was a nice change of pace, and René liked to keep abreast of changing sexual tastes rather directly. After the seventies, only a very specific kind of mortal would be interested in him, and René was unpleasantly introduced to what it felt like to be seen as ugly, for the first time in his long existence. He was already familiar with being fetishised, but being fetishised for his body rather than his nationality and accent was a whole new layer of unpleasant. Still, bears were mostly excellent, it was simply that René didn’t often feel like bear for luncheon. Usually, he was happy to see them fawn over Jasper, and sit in his little corner booth draped over with Cameron, and Michel, and his other boys, and seem ‘taken’.

But Aix’s attention reminded him what he’d given up, and how nice it was to have the attention of a delicately pretty boy.

‘You smell nice,’ Aix said, muffled, his breath warming René.

‘Mm, shall I name the scents for you, chéri?’

‘Can I guess them first?’

‘Mais oui, cher petit.’

‘You use olive oil—that’s not part of the perfume, but with how soft your curls are there’s some kind of conditioning regimen happening, and when I say I am so into that.’ He inhaled the scent again, ‘…I think there’s vanilla?’

‘Correct.’

‘It’s very soft shapes, not typical for modern masculine scents, I think? I like that,’ he added, wanting to make sure René understood that part.

‘You are right about the softness of the notes; my favoured scent was masculine once; but you are right, it is not the bitter cacophony of fear and insecurity considered so strong and masculine these days.’

Aix laughed against his skin. ‘Trufax,’ he said, and tried to pick apart the scent some more, ‘Whatever else, there’s… the white version of it, I think. White musk? White um, I know there’s other stuff…’

René smiled. ‘ “White” merely means it is synthetic rather than natural; and no, I do not use synthetic notes.’ He wondered if Aix would object to René still using the parts of animals, but Aix only hummed and said,

‘Ahh, but there is musk, and it’s from… what, a beaver?’

‘A deer, yes. Musk is one of the best base notes.’

‘And… sandalwood?’

‘Yes, one of my favourites; I wear it well. My father always said it meant I was destined for luxury.’

‘Ambergris isn’t in here, is it?’

‘Non, unfortunately it sours on me, and one does not use ambergris and musk, merely one or the other; but I have access, if you would like to know what it smells like. The merrows make their fortune selling it to us.’

‘Oooh, very cool. Have always wanted to know. Am I missing anything?’

‘Non, chéri! You did very well, those are the only base notes, and the base notes are all that is left, at this time of night. Good boy,’ René said, and Aix made a tiny squeal in his throat, leaning back as René shifted, pushing down the waistband of his trousers so Aix could pull them off the rest of the way, revealing the shapely curves of his legs, which were shorn, trimmed short in a gradient on his upper thighs and tapering to bare—but there was a reason:

He was wearing stockings, and they were impossibly fine, black knitted silk, clocked and brilliantined with what Aix knew were real gems.

Aix carefully put his face against René’s calf, whimpering softly. ‘Daddy why are you so luxe.’

‘Because I am a decadent, hedonistic, libertine fop, chou-chou,’ René said, then added, with a touch more dominance. ‘And tomorrow, when you wake up, you are going to let Domine dress you in fine things.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Aix said, quietly and with effort—but it was not reluctance to obey, or resentment—René knew what those sounded like. It was self-loathing, so acute and so well-worn that Aix probably didn’t realise how deep and poisonous it was.

René was going to fix that, he thought, as he watched Aix roll down his stockings carefully, kissing the exposed and sensitive skin. René could never stand having any hair on his legs, particularly because he’d grown up with stockings, and he had always enjoyed how sensitive they were, shorn bare like this. It took work, and a lot of it, but the sensual pleasure of stockings on bare skin was worth it—particularly since he had gained access to gossamer silk, which was so much finer and more stretchy than silkworm silk. Fae really did have the best textiles.

Yesterday, they had slept with René fully clothed—he had pyjamas of comfortable silk, and did not mind changing into them for Aix’s sake; but it was a courtesy, rather than a preference. René, like Aix, preferred sleeping naked. René followed Aix to the bed, opening the door.

‘You go first,’ Aix said, ‘I get nervy when there’s someone silhouetted in a doorway and I’m in bed.’

Another awful detail suggested from that nightmarish past, but René knew this particular one very well; he kissed Aix’s cheek and went first, as requested, settling down and watched as Aix more carefully crawled inside and shut the self-latching door behind himself, leaving them in complete darkness—and quiet, as the walls and ceiling of the box were sound-proofed. It was not too big a bed, but comfortable enough for two people much larger than they, and Aix carefully crawled over René, wanting to have him between Aix and the door. He’d done this the day before, so René was prepared for it.

‘I love how quiet it is in here, I don’t need earplugs,’ Aix said, happy. It had been a little nerve-wracking to sleep without them the first time, but Aix had practised off and on with that, and even though he was still nervous about soft noises, there hadn’t been any down here—they were too far underground and René slept literally like the dead. Despite being a nervous sleeper, to the point of needing earplugs, Aix slept better and less fearfully without them.

‘Mm,’ René said, leaning over to kiss him gently. ‘I like having someone to sleep with.’

Ah yes, the fact that Aix was apparently the only person René had ever met that didn’t freak the fuck out at sleeping next to someone that wasn’t breathing. But that was ideal, to Aix—to have someone soft and human-shaped to sleep with, that didn’t do anything like move or snore or talk in their sleep. Vampires weren’t the stiff kind of corpsy, they were the limp kind. And René warmed up over the course of their sleep, helping Aix’s body not to overheat (which it tended to do when he slept, these days—very new, very frustrating). The mutualism pleased Aix very much, and he nestled down, trying to figure out how to fit against René comfortably, ending up on his side as the little spoon, René closely against him, one arm very carefully over Aix’s chest, under his arms.

René knew there was a chance of waking up differently—Aix moved a great deal, but always gently and never tangling in the blankets, lifting them up and moving beneath them even when half-asleep, before letting them settle back down. It was a very interesting talent, apparently one that ran in the family.

‘Sleep well, chou-chou,’ René said softly into the dark.

‘Bon’uit,’ Aix murmured.

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