Disclaimer: Phedre and friends are the property of Jacqueline Carey; I'm just borrowing them for awhile.

Author's note: written for the kink_roulette square "public/unconventional settings."

The curtain had fallen on the second act of Naamah in Persis and I was quite alone in the lavish opera box Delaunay had rented for the evening. He had arranged this outing as a treat for the three of us, to see the famed Ginette nó Eglantine, known as the D'Angeline Nightingale, perform the title role. But halfway through the first act, Alcuin had pleaded illness and my lord Delaunay had returned home with him. Delaunay had insisted I stay for the remainder of the performance and ordered Messire Verreuil to watch over me in his absence. Not being one for the decadence of the finer arts, the Cassiline had elected to keep his vigil outside the box's damask-covered door. I could feel him sulking in displeasure from all the way out in the hall.

I twisted the embellished program in my hand and felt sour. Delaunay had outfit me splendidly in a new winter gown of heavy cream silk and gold brocade. It was slashed with sangoire satin at the sleeves and bodice and set off my pale complexion quite beautifully, I thought. Unfortunately, there was no one to see, and I was wary to mingle with the other patrons with only a dour Cassiline brother to escort me. Moreover, I was not entirely certain that Alcuin's stomach ailment was to be believed. A lump of mingled jealousy lodged in my heart, poisoning my mood.

A staccato knock at the door. "Lady Shahrizai is here to see you. Will you receive her?" my guard asked in tone of poorly masked disgust.

The thought that Melisande waited behind those doors set me to shaking with fear and pleasure. It was all I could do to mouth the words, "Yes, of course."

Melisande swept inside, favoring Joscelin with a satisfied smile he did not bother to return. She was clad entirely in the colors of her house, a gown of deepest black stitched with gold thread. While her dress was made of plush velvet and ermine, long gloves of soft leather reached above her elbows. Such a detail made me flush with desire, calling to mind the whip and cat and all the tools of the flagellery. She took my lace-covered hands in her leather ones and bestowed upon me a deceptively gentle kiss of greeting. "Well met, Phèdre."

"My lady Shahrizai." I attempted an elegant curtsey and failed, my joints having turned to water as they often did in the presence of Melisande. Thank Elua that the old Dowayne was not alive to witness it, for she would have surely died of shame to see a child of Cereus House comport herself so gracelessly.

Melisande's eyes sparkled with amusement at my discomfort, but she thankfully did not comment. Instead she said, "You poor creature, here all alone with no one but a grey-frocked Cassiline for company. I ran into Anafiel as he was leaving and he asked me to keep an eye on you."

I could not help but to laugh. "My lady, does a farmer send a fox to guard his chickens? Or a shepherd a wolf to watch his sheep? I do not think Lord Delaunay sent you to keep me company."

Melisande gave a shrug of her alabaster shoulders. "Believe what you wish, little anguisette." Her lips curled into a wicked smirk. "Dear Anafiel always did have a guilty conscience. Leaving you here so thoughtlessly while he is at home alone with your foster brother. Perhaps he wished you to have a bit of amusement of your own?"

I knew what she was insinuating. I had thought the same myself, but still it was cruel of her to say it aloud. "Alcuin is sick. Some prawns he ate."

"A fine tale. Do you believe it?"

I crossed my arms and did my best to look imposing. I was not at all successful. "Lady Shahrizai, is there something you wanted?"

Her dark eyebrows arched and she smiled back at me ever so patiently. Only I as one marked by Lord Kushiel could guess at what unfathomable cruelty lay behind such a smile. She took a step closer, forcing me to step back. "Only the pleasure of your company, Phèdre." Melisande drew nearer, and I moved away until my backside touched the walls of the small opera box. Her smile turned predatory. "Unless of course you wish me to leave…"

My throat grew thick and my tongue heavy. She was close enough now that I could smell her perfume, and the scent of which seemed to first fill my nostrils and then my mind with a pleasurable haze. She thickened the surrounding darkness, lulling whatever wits I had to sleep with her mere presence. Melisande, ah Elua, I feared her and yet I pined for her, body and soul. To say she was beautifully cruel and cruelly beautiful was the very least of it. "Stay," I whispered.

My lady looked at me through the dark soot of her lashes. She took my small hand in hers and raised it to her lips in a gallant kiss. She held it there, caught in her leather glove and increased the pressure until red dots of pain blossomed before my eyes and I gasped.

Melisande pressed closer against me, until my bosom met her décolletage. She pinned my wrist against the wall and slid a leg between my thighs. I whimpered in frustration; for our bodies were nearer than ever before, but still it was not enough. She rested her forehead against mine and said, "Oh Phèdre, how I've missed you. It seems an age since I contracted you as a gift for poor Baudoin."

It had not, in fact, been an age, but it was true; I had not seen her since the day she had given the testimony that had sealed her lover's fate. "I have missed you, too. But if you have need of my presence, my lady has only to draw up a contract with Lord Delaunay," I told her petulantly. How I hated the fact she had kept me waiting all this time, with me nearly two years as a Servant of Naamah.

"If only it were that simple," she said idly. Melisande wrapped her free arm around my waist and pulled me closer. "My bed has been cold every night since Baudoin died. I think of you when I lie there in the darkness…often." Ah and to think of her desiring me desiring her...it undid the very last of my resistance.

I had but one rational thought left and I wasted it on petty jealousy. "And were I to question the adepts of Valerian House, my lady, I expect I would hear a different tale."

Melisande's laughter peeled off the box's walls, light and musical. "Ah, well, encounters bought and paid for are quite different from those pleasures which are given freely, wouldn't you agree?"

I did. And so when she pressed her lips upon mine, I yielded to her in every way possible. Her kiss started out slow and precise, then deepened to something altogether wild. I lost all semblance of time and place, of dignity and modesty as I shamelessly ground myself against her thigh, frustrated to no end by the yards of muslin and velvet that kept me from finding the friction I so deeply desired. I gladly would have stayed lost in her embrace all evening, all week, all eternity.

But, Melisande, as usual, had other plans.

She broke our kiss abruptly and released her hold on me. I was dimly aware of the sound of stringed instruments tuning up far below us. Melisande turned away from me and draped herself over one of the box's gilt chairs. She patted the thick cushion of the seat next to her with her gloved hand. "Come, Phèdre, we wouldn't want to miss the show."

A strange, nervous feeling told me whatever she had in mind, it had little to do with Naamah in Persis. But I dutifully took my seat beside her all the same.

Melisande drew a large ebony and black lace fan from her reticule and presented it to me. "Hold this for me, won't you?" Not seeing what could possibly be the harm, other than that it did not suit my gown, I held it in my lap. "Unfold it. Yes, I think that will do perfectly," Melisande said.

"Lady Shahrizai, I do not understand…"

"Shh. It's very rude to talk during a performance."

I turned my eyes toward the stage where the curtain had risen upon the opera's penultimate act. Naamah sang a duet in a light and flirty recitative with her Persian maidservant before her night with the King. My heart seemed to mimic the quick tempo of the song; I, too, sat there in a state of nervous anticipation.

"I was not talking about the performance onstage, Phèdre," Melisande corrected. She draped a leather-clad hand across my shoulders and whispered in my ear, breath heavy with conspiracy, "Look around you." My eyes darted away from the players and toward my fellow patrons. Delaunay's box, angled as it was near the arch of the proscenium, had a better view of the audience than it did of the stage. Knowing him, he had chosen it intentionally. The royal box, of course, was easiest to spot, draped in the Courcel silver and blue. The Dauphine sat there, stiff and unsmiling, next to her ailing grandfather, the King.

Melisande's sapphire gaze followed mine. "Ah yes, Princess Ysandre and King Ganelon. Normally, the Duc de L'Envers would accompany them, but he seems to have fallen out of favor since the recent events in La Serenissima. You wouldn't know anything about that would you, my darling?" I pressed both my lips firmly together and did not breathe a word. "Very well." My lady's free hand strayed to the laces of my gown and swiftly picked apart the knots holding my bodice together.

"My lady, no!" I cried.

"Surely you do not wish to give the signale?" she asked me, smirking.

I frowned. If Melisande Shahrizai desired to hear my signale, she would have to contract an assignation like a respectable person. She most certainly would not hear it in this opera box. "You know I do not," I replied.

"Well and so, Phèdre." Her leather gloves widened the top of my bodice, exposing my chemise. She continued with her narration; "Down there below us, is one of your patrons, Solaine Belfours, if I am not mistaken. Sharing a box with Percy de Somerville. A interesting development."

I sniffed. There was little love lost between myself and the Marquise.

"You do not care for Solaine? Let me guess, she makes you play at being her chambermaid." Melisande's hand drew the left shoulder of my chemise down. I swallowed.

"It is a breach of etiquette for Naamah's servants to discuss one patron with another."

Melisande's eyes sparkled with private laughter. "It is always the same with Solaine. The Marquise burns with Kushiel's fire well enough, but fairly unimaginatively." With a flourish, she pulled aside the last scrap of my chemise exposing my breasts to the cool air. I felt my nipples harden and the whole of my chest and neck flush rose-pink. Were it not for her black lace fan, I would have been exposed before half the peerage of Terre d'Ange.

Surely, no one would ever accuse Melisande Shahrizai of lacking imagination.

Melisande's hands gently cupped my naked breasts, rolling the nipples between thumb and forefinger. "As lovely as ripening peaches," she said, and I moaned, pleasure coiling between my thighs. "As sweet, too, I would wager." I could feel her hot breath against my neck, oh and how I longed for her to bend lower and take my tender peaks between her teeth.

But this desire Melisande did not oblige. She gave each of my nipples a frightfully sharp tweak and removed her hands to rustle around in her reticule. "I have just the accessory for you." A length of sapphires and diamonds sparkled in her gloved hands, and at the tips, ah Elua, metal clamps with teeth as sharp as any anguisette could ever wish for. My lady gave one final gentle caress to each nipple with her thumbs, before letting the clamps bite down hard. A haze of red washed over me and I fanned myself faster.

Melisande's gave the jeweled chain a firm tug. "You look exquisite, Phèdre," she told me, giving the syllables of my name the honeyed caress I always longed to hear. Then suddenly her hand seized my right arm in a vise-like grip. "Perhaps we should share such a beautiful sight with the rest of the audience."

I struggled against her with all my might, with every ounce of strength I had. "No, my lady! You can't!"

Her hand increased its pressure and I was caught between the pleasure I found in her pain and the embarrassment of being seen naked before the most important citizens of the realm, including the royal family. "You don't like being exposed, do you? A most intriguing detail," she said in a mercilessly calm tone.

Her grip tightened and my muscles trembled as I fought against her. "Stop!"

Melisande smiled indulgently and released my arm. I knew then I had been a fool to fall for her threat. For whatever depravity she may have gotten up to in the dungeons of Valerian House, Melisande Shahrizai was never aught but the soul of propriety before the royal court. I took a few deep calming breaths in a futile attempt to regain my wits. Across the opera house, I spied what must have been the Shahrizai family box- a party of nobles clad in black and gold, with eyes like twilight and hair of rippling jet. They were all dreadfully beautiful, but they paled in comparison to the woman next to me as spring does to summer. One of them…Marmion, I think…caught my eye and winked mischievously. He turned to his sister Persia and whispered in her ear and she favored me with a saucy arch of her brows. That they might have guessed what their kinswoman was about with me aroused me all the more. I colored.

Melisande shifted closer to me until we were nearly sharing the same seat. I could feel the weight of her hips brush up against mine, even through the bulk of our gowns it filled me with a most delicious heat. "You will need to be quieter, Phèdre, unless you want yonder Cassiline to come running to your rescue, is that understood?" I nodded. I did not know what my lady intended, but I was too far gone to refuse her. Her left hand reached between us and inched my heavy skirts up, layer by layer. Yards of gown and petticoat pooled in my lap and I was thankful the lip of the box rose high enough to obscure me below the waist. Melisande's hand rested on my silken covered knee and her touch seared me to the core. She began to pinch and scratch at the tender flesh of my thighs, hard enough to leave bruises, I was certain of it.

Her eyes remained fixed on the stage, the very epitome of disinterested nonchalance. "The Trevalion box is dark, of course. Half of its scions executed, the other half languishing in exile. A pity to see it empty."

Had I been able to process a coherent thought, I might have noticed that Melisande sounded more aroused than saddened by the fall of House Trevalion. Instead I moaned, "Please, my lady.,."

"Yes?"

"Your gloves..aah…please take them off. I need it harder…sharper…"

Melisande's eyes glowed incandescent as she withdrew her hand from beneath my skirts. She proceeded to remove her glove with agonizing slowness, teasing me into a frenzy. When, at last I spied the edges of her lacquered fingernails, I nearly wept in relief. She placed her hand between my thighs for a second time and dug into their tender flesh hard. Sharp nails raked up and down my legs, rending my new stockings to shreds. I did not know how I would explain ripped stockings to Lord Delaunay, but in that moment I did not care, did not think of anything save Melisande. Her hands inched higher and higher until they teased that scrap of silk covering Naamah's pearl and I bit my lip to keep from crying out. My underclothes were already damp and I was fairly certain my juices had soaked through to the seat cushions. Melisande slipped her hand beneath this last barrier and finding me dripping wet, pronounced, "Oh, Phèdre, you are a treasure."

She slid one long finger and then another…and another with ease, until only the rounded pad of her thumb remained to stroke Naamah's pearl. Her caresses which only moments ago had been so sharp now tormented me with their tenderness. I tugged at the jeweled chain between my breasts, struggling to find the pain I craved. I pleaded helplessly, "My lady, more, please..."

Melisande gave a slight shake of her head and continued to minister to me with excruciating softness. "Patience, Phèdre. Not yet."

I tore at my chains and yet it was futile. My anguisette nature, keyed as it was to obedience, would not let me find release as long as Melisande willed me not to. In my service to Naamah, I had learned many ways to yield- and this was a lesson given by a master. I let Melisande's will bend mine, relaxing into her too-gentle touches. I found pleasure in the intoxicating thrill of her presence, in the sound of Ginette nó Eglantine's crystalline voice echoing through the opera house. We had reached the final scene of the third act of the opera I had all but forgotten since Melisande's arrival, in which Naamah sings an aria to the King on their night of passion. The singer's voice started out soft and low, the merest rumble. Soon the Nightingale added swoops and trills, the tempo of the song growing faster, the notes rising ever higher. The composer had clearly meant to imitate the slow burn of a woman's climb to pleasure. Between my thighs, I felt it, too, as Melisande increased the intensity of her strokes in time with the music.

Ginette nó Eglantine's voice soared to dizzying heights and I felt my sex begin to shake and quiver. Melisande leaned over and gave the simplest of commands; "Phèdre, sing."

As the singer let forth an ear-splitting note that rattled the grand chandelier, I could not help but to cry aloud myself as I came to a climax that was so pleasurable it was almost painful. The red haze of Kushiel's Dart blocked out my vision as waves of bliss shook my entire body. When my senses at last returned, I heard the sound of thunderous applause resonating throughout the opera house. The crowd was on their feet, including the King and Dauphine. Ginette nó Eglantine bowed graciously on the stage below, basking in the glow of her admirers. Melisande turned to me, stroking a wayward curl, and said, "Brava, Phèdre."

She withdrew her hand from my sex, wiping it clean with her gold-edge handkerchief, fastidiously replacing her leather glove. My lady then unclipped the clamps and I mourned the loss of them. As tenderly as if she were wrapping a gift, Melisande replaced my chemise and laced up my bodice, erasing all evidence of our encounter. I was awed by the intimacy of these gestures, yet at the same time they saddened me, for I knew our brief interlude was over.

Without being asked, I closed the lace fan and handed it to her. She, in turn, dropped the clamps with their sparking jeweled chain into my empty palm. "These were to have been a gift for a favorite adept of mine at Valerian House, but I think it only fitting you have them instead. Kushiel knows you have given me more pleasure this evening than he ever has." She smiled deviously and added, "I hope when you wear them, you will think of me."

I imagined myself wearing them many, many times and doing just that. "Thank you, my lady." I ventured a jest, "Perhaps as soon as I return home."

Melisande laughed and it was a beautiful sound. "I see you have inherited your foster father's gift for amusing me- a rare talent if ever there was one." She took one last searching look at the audience and said, "How pleasant to see all the players assembled."

"And you and I, my lady? Are we players, too?" I asked, and not only because Delaunay would have wanted me to.

I do believe my question caught her the slightest bit off guard. Her sparkling eyes narrowed, pinning me in their sapphire blue depths and what she thought I could not have said. "Kushiel's scion and Kushiel's Dart, need there be any more to it than that?" She paused then asked in a light and teasing tone, "Why, Phèdre, who would you have us be? Patron and courtesan? Lovers?"

The way she named the deepest desires of my heart and then tossed them aside so casually stung harder than any physical blow any patron had ever dealt me. Tears sprang to my eyes and try as I might, I could not hold them back. I turned away from her and said, "Is that idea so distasteful to you, my lady?"

In a trice, I felt the softness of Melisande's leather glove stroking my cheek right below my blood-pricked eye. "No, Phèdre. The thought is more tempting than you know," she told me in all seriousness. Ah, Melisande, more than any other patron, she loved the cruelties of the heart as well as those of the body. I do believe she had made me cry on purpose, just to have the pleasure of drying my tears.

"Why then have you not contracted an assignation with me?" I asked, a streak of defiance creeping in to my voice.

"I will. Soon. Before the year is out, I should think."

"Is that a promise?"

My lady smiled at me, and it was like the sun emerging from the clouds. "You may consider it so." She grasped my shoulders and planted a kiss upon my lips so sweet it left me staggering.

Before she took her leave, Melisande added, "And to you, Phèdre, I will always keep my promises. Good night."

What transpired in the opera's final act, I could not have said for all the gold in the royal treasury. The players upon the stage could not compete with my daydreams of the assignation Melisande had promised me.

Joscelin and I returned home to find Alcuin in bed and Lord Delaunay awake in his library, poring over some obscure text or another. My lord looked up from his work and said, "Ah, Phèdre. You will be pleased to know that the doctor expects Alcuin to make a full recovery. It was indeed the prawns- some people can't stomach them. Did you enjoy the rest of the opera?"

"Oh yes, it was most enthralling," I gushed.

My lord's face took on a puzzled expression. "Really? Most people find the second half a bit tedious."

My Cassiline shadow suddenly took it upon himself to speak. He said primly, "Melisande Shahrizai paid a call upon Phèdre in your absence, Lord Delaunay." Ah Elua, I am not a woman given to violence, but in that moment, my temper flared and I was seriously tempted to slap Joscelin Verreuil.

Lord Delaunay's sharp grey eyes flicked from my bodice to my hair to at last my wrist. A knot tied by a hand other than my own, a wayward curl out of place, and the barest tinge of a bruise peeking out from beneath the lace of my glove- these were the clues Melisande Shahrizai had left behind and Delaunay read them expertly. He shook his head and I braced myself for a strong rebuke. Instead he merely returned to his books and said, "Well, I am sure Melisande was splendid company. She usually is."

"You are not angry with me, my lord?" I ventured cautiously.

Delaunay sighed and set down his quill. "Melisande is a friend of long standing. I know for a fact that she finds opera terribly dull, and only attends for two reasons. For one, she finds it an ideal spot to watch the shifting allegiances of the court. An opinion I share as well."

I nodded. "She told me as much. And the other?"

Lord Delaunay opened his mouth as if to speak, but seemed at a rare loss for words. A blush suddenly made its way up from his snowy cravat into his cheeks. "To tryst with her lovers publicly in the boxes of the opera house." He coughed politely. "So you see, Phèdre, it would be rather hypocritical of me to be angry with you."

An assignation with Melisande and the extraordinary sight of Lord Delaunay blushing- yes, it had been an enchanting evening indeed.