It always took longer than it should to get there.
No, his thoughts contradicted. A bloody lie, his thoughts formed in truth. This particular path always took the same amount of time. He knew every step, even in the dark of the tunnel. Even amidst the subconscious distraction of his own mind his feet kept the pace and surety of a thief in the night.
This was the schedule once every sixty days, and he had to remain consistent.
He loathed his need, but there it was, a near companion for a man the likes of him. He loathed each and every whore, but there they were, a fixture for his need.
It was easier this way. Truly. Never the same one twice, that was the rule. Never should they speak or touch unless instructed, that was the rule. Never blonde or green-eyed, that was the rule. The latter, a rule learned by error; a harsh lesson for purveyor and whore alike. There could be no familiarity, lest his threadbare inner turmoil become pronounced and directed towards those who were convenient.
He could see the filthy light clawing its way under the door, the illumination itself reaching for him like a slattern.
He was close and his muscles began to atrophy, as they were apt to do... once every sixty days.
Inhaling deep through his nose, irritated by the toll already being exacted, he heaved the large wooden door open - and shut it just as angrily once inside.
The room was modest in size, but was maintained to a degree befitting Lord Lannister. The only furnishing, the centerpiece of the room, was a bed befitting a king. The linens it bore were impossibly white and when bathed in the glow of lamps and candles, helped to brighten the windowless chamber.
The cast of golden light also helped to define the supple naked flesh that waited for him within those fine linens.
His lip curled in disgust, but it did not stop his legs from carrying him closer; he assessed his purchase with a critical eye.
The whore was tiny, but perhaps it was the enormity of the bed that made her seem that way. Her expression was blank and she was propped up slightly on the bolsters.
The crisp linens lent to accentuate the fact that she was dark, like the Dornish, but her eyes were shaped in a way he had never seen before. Born somewhere of the free cities, to be sure, but it wasn't as if he were inclined to ask, let alone care.
It was easy to see she was young - the perk of teats, without any kind of heft, threatened his mind to hazard a guess - his vision moved on instead, taking with it interest and consideration.
"You have been instructed?" The question rung clipped and callous.
The whore nodded, as per his established directions, but kept his eye. His own gaze narrowed and his jaw flexed at the girl's confidence, it was dangerously intimate.
The whore seemed to know her mistake, knew her trade more like, and dropped her look to a place on the bed.
He sneered in the tone he carried previously, "Spread your legs and make yourself ready."
From his position at the foot of the bed he could see quite vividly the span of her thighs as she widened them, the deep brown of her skin, the straight black hair covering her mound, and the beautiful, horrible, contrast of silky pink flesh at her center.
His cock ached for it. He hated that it did.
In a slow methodical pattern, he removed his clothing piece after piece, in the same order he had done for years... once every sixty days.
He could see every bit of her exposed sex, and watched her dip two fingers to her opening then drag and swirl them over the bump of flesh at the top of her slit. Her eyes were open. Most whores clamped them shut, either in fear of his presence or in effort to find their own version of pleasure, but where this one did not look him directly in the eye she was still looking at him.
His ire at her presumption of intimacy was set to surface when he saw her lather pearling a coat over her fingertips. Normally preparation took effort, he knew. Whores were for the task of use, not the tedium of romance - some used grease, some used moisture from their tongue.
Not her. No, this whore, this girl, got what she needed from looking at him.
He clenched his jaw to stifle the pain of desire, then fisted his nails in the meat of his thigh to stifle the all but forgotten agony of feeling wanted.
His cock leaked in anticipation all the same, and his mind reeled at his pathetic attempt to control his lust - his debility.
When his shallow, jagged breathing finally deepened, he walked around to the side the of the bed. Each step and the whore mercifully kept her eyes focused at a point away from him as he went. He watched her, fingers still working her cunt - so vile, so titillating - and coerced his limbs to function as he crawled slowly to a station over top her willing body.
She was tiny.
As was his habit, once every sixty days, he held his breath as he made the journey. Only when he was positioned, only when his need had bested his guilt in the battle that proved his weakness as a man, would he tightly close his eyes and breathe deep the scent of the woman under him.
It was always the delicate allure he remembered, as per his established directions. The smell made his soul flutter and cast his mind into a sea of golds and crimsons and greens, drown him in the echo of the only laugh he had ever encouraged, and embraced him in the phantom wave of visceral tangle - of every place that lovers touched.
Eyes still closed, Tywin reached between them and rubbed the tip of his cock into her hot wet slit. He pushed until he caught and slid deep into her body. He pushed until it was just a grind of skin on skin, until his mind settled and he could see her.
His body swayed in a primal rhythm and his heart ached, brutal and unbidden, at what such actions used to mean in his life.
He fucked his way past the melancholy; though still rooted in mechanical need, there was no enjoyment. Not until he heard the damp friction of their connection and realized the girl was, again, still, finding her own gratification in his body, in his efforts.
His mind panicked - this was far too close to affection. But like anything built of compunction and addiction, this was something he, The Great gods-damned Lion, could scarcely oppose once in the midst of it. Every time he pulled his cock to the brink of exit, it was like her inner muscles chased him - trying to pull him back in.
The groan that fell from his tongue was something unburied from his past.
Pleasure.
He tried to hate it, hate her, but his body told him otherwise - he opted to hate himself instead.
His mind redirected to golden hair and a smile that always made his lungs forget they needed air, and it must have been that particular slip that caused his lips to find and press against the soft feminine shoulder beneath him. When his wife would smile at him, the green of her eyes would sharpen - the honed weapons that they were; the only armament he would willingly fall victim to.
He rolled his hips and smiled into the skin on which he rested his mouth.
She would wrap her legs high on his waist, and he would oblige her invitation into her depths. To be rewarded, always rewarded, with her song.
"Touch me," was his automated whisper. A throw away command.
The hands that curled around his shoulders were strong like he remembered, anchoring him, claiming him.
"Joanna..."
The name gagged out dry, like he was choking on smoke and sand. Hearing himself say the word made his tongue burn, but it was the mouth at his ear and the all-consuming sound of little gasps and moans that put to torch everything that was real.
He was on the edge, and his lioness was urging him to fall.
He let go and tilted into bright-hot sparks and cool-crashing waves. Gasping like a man losing his life, he spilled in long trembling strokes. This was the moment he lived for, once every sixty days; the moment when he saw her clearly, felt her warmth, tasted her perpetual sweetness, and heard her voice telling him she would always be his.
He held onto that moment for as long as he could.
It was never long enough.
And like the cruel gods that allowed her to survive just long enough to let him see her die, his mind shoved his unwilling awareness back into his unwanted actuality. An existence where, moments ago, he was shivering in warm solace; where he was now shivering in cold emptiness.
He remained static, bared his teeth at the torrent of hurt, and welcomed the cruel bitterness as it devoured him yet again.
There were times, in the beginning, when he felt apprehensive. There had been an innate fear that he would eventually be consumed completely by the void of grief. But that sort of folly was soon dismissed, much like everything else pertaining to emotion.
It was left behind because he knew, he bloody well knew, that eventually his body would need and his mind would pine, equal in their shame and necessity, and he would be granted the chance to see her again.
Love her again.
Be loved again.
Once every sixty days.