Evony tapped in the pin code before reaching forward and unlocking the door. The modern technology ended there.
Lauren squinted, her nose twitching at the smell of dust. From above, the light's flickered, whining before coming on, to reveal the hell hole that was certainly not the Dark Fae Archives. At least the Archives had order! Cataloguing. And a really helpful brownie who knew where everything was. This...this was a large, ballroom size area, (one of the many below Evony's apartment block), lined with shelves and tables and clustered pieces of junk in assorted places. It was a place where objects became forgotten.
Evony was amused by her fishlike impression. "You looks like I brought you to one of the Hell dimensions."
"Who-who organized this?"
Evony blinked at her. "This is where I keep some of the less mobile parts of my collection. I'm sure there's something in here that will help with whatever it is."
"The plague," Lauren said. "That's killing your people."
Evony rolled her eyes. "Yes. That inconvenience. Clearly originated from something in here." She sighed, tilting her head. Whatever was on her mind, she didn't share it with Lauren. "Well, take a look around, Doctor Lewis. The records should all be kept in order." Evony turned to face her. "However, do be careful not to touch anything else. Some of these things are locked up for good reason."
"Why..." she paused, waiting for Evony's hand to flick permissibly, "Why aren't the dangerous artifacts kept locked up in the Dark Fae Vault?"
Evony laughed. "That's cute." She paused, her expression hardening when Lauren didn't respond. "Oh. You're serious. Well, I suppose you are new around here." Lauren looked up at the ceiling, refusing to react. Evony almost looked disappointed. "It's far too easy for some fae to break into the archives. Certain higher-ups can just walk in if they want. Here at least, only a few people are aware of its contents. Fewer could work out my system."
"There is no system."
"Exactly," she beamed proudly. "I knew I hired you for something."
Lauren wasn't convinced. "Why am I privy to this?"
"Oh honey." Evony laughed at her. Lauren had barely proved herself as anything more than a diligent employee, as if she would be shown Evony's more valuable collection. "Well," the Morrigan spoke after a thought. "You'll only have access to a small section. I can't have you wandering too far around my private collection. You might hurt yourself!"
"I'm touched by your concern." Lauren stepped forward, glancing over the crowded tables and shelves. It wasn't organized in any order she could see. At best it was a clutter of clay-based materials in one section, a crowd of paper in another, some random junk to the side. The groups went on. The part of her who'd been in the military twitched, desperately wanting to sit down and catalogue everything so it would at least look tidy.
Noticing that Evony hadn't responded immediately, she turned to see the Morrigan pouting, playing the offended party. Lauren gave her a look, not buying it. "Well, enjoy yourself. Try not to get your panties too wet, doctor. I can't have you slacking off when there's lives to save."
Lauren gaped, stuttering for a response.
"Lock up when you leave. Oh," she paused, turning to smirk at her. "And if you need anything else, don't be afraid to contact me."
Lauren at least managed a short, "Thank you, Morrigan."
Evony chuckled at the formal title, turning to walk away. "I don't know what you expect to find down here."
"Hopefully more than I found in the Archives."
She did. In fact, she found the answer surprisingly quickly and called the lab with the details needed. After that, she was informed that they could take it from there, leaving Lauren alone in Evony's vault.
She could leave. Turn away, pretend that curiosity wasn't making her heart race. But that wouldn't be fun. Looking around, she scanned the area for anything of worth, something she could potentially hold insight into the Morrigan.
It took one scan of the room and trotting around before Lauren found a rather dull looking chest. It'd been hidden underneath a pile of objects, pushed away in the corner and left to rust as if it was of little interest. However, if Lauren were the Morrigan, that's where she'd put something important.
It only took about half an hour of swearing, cursing Kenzi's name and teaching skills, before she resulted to hammering her fist on the lock to relieve frustration. Finally, she got it undone. Clicking it open, she pushed up the lid to reveal...books.
Well, she wasn't disappointed, it had to be valuable information if it was hidden away like this. She pulled a few out, looking over them. There were printed books, then hand-bound books and, beneath that, in a protected, smaller chest, were scrolls. The information could be varied, however, there was a certain ordered feeling to it.
Judging by how the books had been stacked, Lauren figured it was likely that the bottom left hand corner featured the oldest scroll and therefor, probably the first piece of information.
Pulling all the books out, followed then by all the scrolls, she placed them in order around her, so that later, she could stack them back into the chest neatly. In hope that she could successfully hide the evidence that she'd even been there. Lauren unraveled the first scroll.
Latin, she realized at first. Then read the words sexual peak. Lauren proceeded to re-read the sentence, becoming aware that she'd somehow stumbled across Evony's super secret erotica collection. Or perhaps treasured collection. Rather strange place to keep it.
Unless they held weird aphrodisiac properties. Lauren paused, waited. Nope, nothing new. She looked down at the scroll again, attempting to translate what had been written. Admittedly, her latin was a bit rusty.
But since the scrolls were kept here in Evony's vault, it was probably that they were from Rome, during Julius Caesar's reign and held important information of the time. Eagerly, Lauren's eyes ran across the papyrus, reading about a roman slave woman giving oral to Julius Caesar's third wife, Calpurnia in the caldarium, as all the while, onlookers watched.
It was written in explicit detail.
Licking her lips, Lauren felt her breathing slow as the roman slave sucked at what she assumed was Calpurnia's clit.
Translation was difficult, there were certain words she was unfamiliar with. Over the course of a few scrolls, she began to learn new words from the context of the erotica.
She devoured the first five scrolls, all of which revolved around seducing Calpurnia. Seducing her with other slaves. Men. Women. With Julius Caesar himself and wow. Lauren didn't swallow, didn't move. She felt her heart race, eyes darting across the scrolls to devour every sentence, eager to skip to the end but also determined to read individual, singular words to successfully take in the story on the page.
Not only was the erotica rich with possible facts and rich information surrounding both Roman life and Gaius Julius Caesar himself, but…
And Lauren wouldn't say it out loud.
It was really sexual. Hot. The kind of porn she didn't think she'd be into but, oh good lord she couldn't stop.
Lauren took as much as she could carry. Then hid the chest back, just in case anyone came across it. She'd already spent over an hour reading them, unaware of the passing time. She had to take it home for closer study. For research. To make sure it was authentic and if it was...to then study the information.
That was all. Of course.
However, when she made it back to her apartment the scrolls were dumped on the table until they scattered, rolling across the white surface.
She had every intention of reading them, but first she needed a shower. Dust coated her fingers, her body dirty from digging around the Vault and who knew what she'd gotten on her self.
She pulled off her shirt, her bra, aware of both the ache between her legs and the sensitivity of her breasts as she removed her upper layer of clothes.
Reaching to her pants, she popped the silver button, aware of the red marks in her skin easing at the cool air before she tore the fly open, stripping the denim from her legs.
Underwear was next, the damp cotton dropped before she climbed into the shower, forehead pressed against the tiles.
The water had washed over her head, cascading as she relaxed, but it didn't ease the stiffness in her limbs, a muted tension held like an unsprung coil. She rolled onto her heels, head tilting back as she lifting her hands to the spray. She watched water cup between them, then drop to her feet as she spread her fingers apart. Her nipples ached, her sex ached. And in her belly, something pooled warmly in anticipation.
Her fingers weren't clean enough, not yet. She reached for the soap, lathering her hands before washing the suds off her fingers. Then she turned, back pressing against the tiled wall, eyes closing. She could stop now, at any moment really. But the soft sounds of Calpurnia gasping for words, her breasts rising and falling as she shuddered, filled her mind.
One hand laid beside her, against the wall, the other she lifted and pressed over her abdomen, fingers sprawled out. She could imagine the slave's hand sliding over her hips, raking nails up her waist. She could almost feel the woman's calloused hands, rough on her ribs, the fingers coming to curl over her breast and squeeze with her nipple caught between a thumb and forefinger.
Lauren squeezed her hand tighter, tugging at the areola.
It'd been a while since she'd given into self-service. However, Bo and her were at odds in a relationship; sex, though on the mind, not possible with everything that was happening between them. No, that wasn't true. It was possible, just not right. They needed a conversation, but it was far easier to avoid it and allow emotions to build up within them both until one or the other finally snapped.
It wasn't right, and it probably wasn't easier, though it certainly felt better than the alternative.
Lauren sighed. She didn't want to think about Bo. Though often, did the succubus star in her fantasies, Lauren presently preferred the ease of something fresh, something uncomplicated for this climax, and the unnamed slave woman who focused her whole attention on Calpurnia's pleasure was a welcome change to the pang Lauren felt when she thought of Bo.
Lifting her fingers from the wall, she pressed the hand between her legs, parting through dark pubic curls. She was wet already, wetter than expected. She could, if she desired, rub herself some kind of relief, allow her thoughts to lull and peak in the mental rundown of tomorrow's duties.
But it wouldn't be enough. Arching, she squeezed her breast again, hearing the slave's voice, in latin no-less, tell her to keep still as Lauren imagined she'd told Calpurnia.
In the scrolls, if Calpurnia moved her hips, the slave would stop.
Lauren swallowed, eyes opening to see the bathroom ceiling before she closed them again. She was going to keep this fantasy, it wasn't difficult with the white noise of the shower spray to imagine standing in the caldarium.
The hand on her breast slid down, settling over her hip before brushing over her pubic bone. A long, soft touch, exploring the small shrapnel scars on her skin, before moving across to her thigh and down. Her leg moved, parting from the other before she dragged her nails back up.
Lauren gasped, accidentally curling the fingers between her legs. Squeezing her eyes shut to hold onto the fantasy, Lauren rolled her head back, daring just one finger to stroke down the length of her sex. Just a tease, something slow in promise from the woman.
Slave in title, maybe. But Lauren could read the measured control in the words, a domineering force undoing the Caesar's wife with such precision. Lauren trembled at the thought of being beneath such a devoted control.
In reality, she would have been underneath the woman's hands until she couldn't coherently think, let alone speak, but Lauren didn't like the idea of using up any more water than she already had in the extended shower session. She slid one finger in, then another, her arousal prominent, she slid onto her tip toes, trembling as her body tensed.
Her other hand grazed over skin, across to her clit. Her forefinger pressed down, rubbing in circles as she pushed her body into the tiles, head slamming back. Tension squeezed in her chest, her eyes closing tighter as she bowed her head over. Come on, come on.
Latin spoken by a woman who may have appeared remarkably similar to Bo in her fantasy, stroked circles, sliding in and out of her. She rode her own fingers, thinking, forcing the image of the smirking slave staring up at her, until the ability to hold imagine fantasy shook. Her heart raced, sex clenching around her own fingers, the tension in all her limbs tightening until she was forcing her fingers to move, to keep moving and- Oh god.
She slammed flat against the wall, eyes flown open as her knees buckled and she slid out herself.
Legs shaking, threatening to give out, Lauren gasped. She felt her body, especially between her legs, still shuddering in residue from the climax. Sliding down the shower, she sat still, the water's spray raining over her face as she tilted up to it.
Right now, she could feel the chemical reaction from an orgasm wash through her mind. Her muscles relaxed, body lulled beneath the shower spray.
She almost didn't desire to continue the scroll, content already from the fantasy that the idea of dragging herself back to such a state seemed almost cruel when she was so at peace.
However, curiosity dragged her to her feet, forcing her to shut off the water. Then made her climb out, rub a towel over her skin and dress in clean clothes, before then grabbing a pair cotton gloves from her desk drawer.
The scrolls were right where she left them, though their order unknown. With a sigh directed at her own clumsiness, she picked them up, glancing through the first line of each. She had the ones she'd read sorted within a few minutes, the rest were a mystery.
She went by gut instinct, picking one at random, reading the first few lines and realizing that that couldn't be the right one since it was set after the Ides of March. Picking another at random, she read the first few lines and forced herself to stop. Still not the right one, but she looked forward to coming back to Nero.
When she finally found the right scroll, or at least close enough to it, Lauren settled onto her lounge, curling up at the end to unravel the papyrus.
The sex part, admittedly, was what grasped her attention, but the details she gathered of Roman life was what kept her reading. To get into the mind of a roman woman, a slave no less, was fascinating. It had to be written by someone of the time, a piece of erotica that was shared around the nobles of the time.
Lauren wondered if it'd been written by one of Evony's feeds. A young roman lover who wrote with his or her dark muse's influence. It was a thought that entered her mind briefly before she became swallowed up by the story as the character was released from slavery. The free-woman's attention then moved away from Calpurnia and onto Julius Caesar. Lauren wondered if that had been the woman's plan from the beginning or if she simply moved with the opportunity.
Lauren's eyes rapidly read the page. Though she was beginning to find the lack of a name for the woman increasingly annoying. She assumed it was so that the reader of such a piece could easily become the protagonist when they read. As it was written from the slave's point of view in first person, it was easy to fall into. However the lack of name was jarring.
Reading the sentence: 'my name of his lips, an attempt to seduce my attention away from the pavilion,' was quite romantic, however, not knowing the name made the fantasy lackluster. Though the more she read, the more Lauren found other increasingly annoying tidbits. Like the sudden jump in time without explanation.
At first, she wondered if she'd left important scrolls behind, but then it became obvious that the author had just moved their attention elsewhere. The erotica of the free-woman, eventually a noble and constant lover of important (or just powerful, attractive) men and women of roman history, was clearly written as some elaborate ego-fiction.
Not that Lauren was complaining. She found the versions of characters both vivid and interesting, especially when roman kinky sex was involved describing sex in a way that Lauren twice almost called Bo, and almost stopped to get herself off, if both things didn't involve needing to stop reading and put down the scrolls.
When morning came, Lauren had finished the scrolls in her possession and had passed out, asleep on the lounge. The last scroll detailing sex in some grass field, the dress of an unknown beautiful, dark farm girl being used beneath the protagonist against the irritating grass as she was teased with honey.
The dress was surely ruined by the end and the protagonist ended up taking her by the river while they waited for the "washed" clothes to dry.
Come waking, Lauren was more aroused than she'd been the previous night, as dreams of the free woman filled her with unsatisfying, and wholly arousing sexual encounters. Fumbling for her phone, she made a call to the medical lab. The cure was working, they'd call her if they needed her but there was really nothing she could do except over see everything.
Then she called Bo.