Disclaimer: Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo is copyright Mahiro Maeda, GONZO / Media Factory, GDH, Geneon, and Funimation. No infringement or disrespect of owners of existing copyrights in Gankutsuou or its derivative works is intended by this non-profit, noncommercial amateur fan fiction.
Description: The Count talks. Albert listens, but Franz hears.
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The Hookah Monologues: Possibilities
by Silverr
(Can be considered to take place around the time of Episode 15,
before the Count and Albert take the "pleasure cruise")
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He knows that Albert thinks he came along for fun. That's fine; he'll be angry if he realizes that Franz considers himself a chaperone.
And it certainly seems to have been the right choice. The Count greets them at the ship's door in a brocade dressing gown, and once they have followed him into the circular lounge – with its fur-strewn seats and ostentatious, bubbling water-pipe – he urges them to change into lounging robes as well. Albert complies, of course; Franz does not. No matter how rare and luxurious the fabric, he has no wish to be comfortable around the Count.
"You've traveled so far," Albert says wonderingly, looking at the Count with that openly adoring expression that is so infuriating. "You must have seen so many strange things. Things that we can't even imagine."
I can imagine a lot more than you can, Franz thinks.
The Count is taking his time with the narguileh, first packing its bowl carefully with tobacco he takes from a humidor held by Ali, his strange mute servant, then placing four blue-green pellets on the shredded brown leaves. Finally he nods to indicate that he is ready for the pierced dish of coals to be placed atop the tobacco and hashish mixture. "It's not so different," he says.
"Really?" Albert says.
Franz sees the way Albert watches the Count's lips suck at the mouthpiece, pulling the fragrant smoke through the water to purify it. I know what he's thinking. He's imagining … Guiltily, Franz turns to look out the window.
"Every race I've encountered, has certain commonalities." The Count speaks between puffs of smoke. "They seek. They invent. They fear. They love. They hate. They desire. Sometimes these take alien forms, alien paths, but often it is surprisingly familiar." Satisfied with the draw, he offers Franz the pipe; at Franz's headshake of refusal, he offers it to Albert.
Hesitantly, Albert takes the pipe, puffs once, and then begins to cough.
With a smile, the Count takes the pipe back and draws deeply, the blue smoke snaking from his lips and nostrils.
"Give me an example." Albert stretches out onto his stomach, his hands clasped under his chin. The dressing gown is wound tight around his trunk and legs. "Tell me about one of the surprising ones."
"Well," the Count says, "There are the sacred eclipse rituals of Pi Supra XIV. I suppose that on Luna you would call them – orgies."
Albert gasps and repeats breathlessly, "Orgies?"
"There's nothing special about an orgy," Franz says dismissively. "It's just Carnival with less clothes."
"Do you think so?" the Count replies. "To me, Carnival celebrates the end of prohibitions and restrictions. Orgies celebrate – possibility."
"Possibility?"
"Imagine," the Count says, and his voice drops to the low, seductive register that Franz has come to dread. "You are in a vast cavern. All around you are glistening bodies, a field of unbound hair, of arms, legs, tentacles, breasts. Everywhere, wetly gaping, thick with blood, are mouths, cocks, labia, cloaca. Ripples of ceaseless movement: caressing, arcing, thrusting, entwining."
Albert's lips are parted; he is panting slightly. Franz wants to slap him.
"You are robed in sound," the Count continues, "with sighs and moans and the percussion of flesh slapping flesh, with sharp cries of ecstasy. The air is heavy with the smell of sweat, of sex, scents that beckon and enflame. In such a setting," he says, looking down at Albert's rapt face, "inhibitions fall away, because anything is possible, with anyone. Every ache is soothed, every void filled, every hunger sated."
The Count glances over at Franz then, and Franz hates himself because even now, even with those narrow, malicious eyes burning into him from behind a veil of smoke, he can't stop himself from imagining Albert's body trapped inside the tightly-wrapped brocade. He knows that his friend's ardor is not for him, will never be for him, and so he hates himself for wishing that the hashish-laced smoke hovering in the room would have opened the gates of possibility long enough for him to taste happiness. Just once.
"Or perhaps they are just opposite faces of the same coin," the Count says, "The end of prohibition is the end of inhibition, the heralding of infinite possibility." He holds out his hand. "Shall we explore the – possibilities – of the galaxy together, Albert?"
When a mesmerized Albert stands and takes the Count's hand, Franz jumps from his couch and runs out of the ship, taking great gulps of the docking bay's frigid air. His last sight of Albert, as the gangway of the Count's ship closes, is of his friend moving into the Count's embrace – and then the engines pulse and roar, and the sleek craft leaps into the infinite blackness, burning Franz's heart to ash.
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~ The end ~
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Written for Kink Bingo round 3, card 1, kink 1,1: orgy
AN: Sorry that this is a bit similar to Etheloisa, but I must follow the prompts where they lead!
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(04) 21 June 2010 ~