So. I slept with John Marcone.

Yeah.

In my defence, we were under the influence of faerie roofies at the time.

We'd been... I guess since we've now had sex, I should call it 'dating', for a while now. Ever since that mess with the Creepy Doll. I wonder if he thought of it as dating. I hadn't. I'd thought it was just two frenemies taking some time out. We needed space to be ourselves without the pressures and responsibilities weighing us down.

It was supposed to be... I don't know what it was supposed to be. Safe? Fun? Something, anyway.

And then this.

I should have known better.


Summer had a revel on the first of May. Marcone came to me for advice, sorry, John came to me for advice. I have more experience than Gard does in this sort of thing. I'd been invited too, and I told him he'd be okay. That it wasn't a big deal.

"Just don't make any deals, and don't eat or drink anything they offer you."

Piece of cake, right?

Yeah. Right.

It was a ball, with both Summer, Winter and the Wyldfae equally represented. Even the King of the Wyldfae, Jareth, had shown up. I guess it was kind of a big deal. I'd been invited because of Lea and because Mab still wanted to make me her knight. Although, Titania wasn't exactly happy about my presence. John had been invited because they were all impressed with his business acumen. I heard Maeve and her mother talking to Titania and they were wondering if there was faery blood in John's family. Yeah, they thought his bargaining was that good.

He'd bought Gard as his plus one, which was probably a good idea. I hadn't brought anyone.

We avoided each other, except for brief nods and greetings.

The revel was being held in a clearing in an ancient pine forest, in the middle of the Never Never, and I had to admit, it was beautiful. There was faerie dust drifting down from above, giving everything a surreal and beautiful glow.

I could feel it on my skin.

I glanced across and saw Marcone standing with my Godmother. At first glance they seemed to just be talking cordially, and then Marcone turned slightly and I saw his face.

He was shimmering with a thick layer of dust, his face was flushed and his pupils were blown. His hair was ruffled as though someone had been running their fingers through it. I started to make my way across to him, trying to figure out what was going on, what was wrong with him.

As I got closer, I realised what was wrong with this picture. Gard wasn't glued to his side.

I stopped and looked around, taking my eyes off John for the first time in nearly five minutes.

It was probably a good thing I did.

Everyone around me was...

Well, everyone around me was...

They were fucking.

Not to put too fine a point on it.

In a split second all the blood in my body pooled to my groin. My skin felt extra sensitive and everything felt heightened.

I saw Lilly and Fix totally naked, thrusting against each other with abandon and desperation.

I saw Gard being eaten out by the Erlking, while his cock was sucked by a dark haired male faery.

I saw Kincaid (I hadn't even known he'd been invited) fisting his dick while he stared, dark eyed at me.

It disturbed me that I didn't find it disturbing.

I turned trying to find John again. He was being caressed by Lea, his tie gone, shirt open and half un-tucked. She kissed his cheek and it became a brand on his skin. I heard him whimper though I was still several yards away and I was almost overwhelmed by the sounds of passion around me.

I may have growled slightly.

The next thing I knew, I was right there, beside them, and I was pulling him away from her.

"Mine!"

"Oh, really? Godson, you never fail to surprise me!"

I expected her to put up more of a fight, but she just sighed and rubbed a hand between her legs. One of her hounds came over and began licking at her breasts.

Which was just... wrong and disturbing and in no way arousing at all.


I made a quick and rough circle cutting me and John off from the rest of them.

"Mister Dresden?" He was being so polite as he leaned against me, panting, and almost definitely feeling my raging hard on. "What precisely is happening?"

"Faerie Orgy."

"Ah. Yes, I'd noticed. I was hoping that you could be a little more... enlightening."

I thought for a moment. This had never happened at any other faery revel I'd been at. The dust lay thick upon everything, more heavy on John than on me. And that's when the metaphorical light bulb came on above my head.

I had a vivid flashback to Bianca's party, years ago. Almost a decade ago in point of fact.

She'd spiked the drinks with Vampire Venom. A narcotic drool the Red's secrete. It was all a Machiavellian ploy on her part to get me to break hospitality, but the excuse was that it was harmless fun. That the guests were just indulging in a little harmless recreational drug use.

"The dust. It's an aphrodisiac. Probably lowers inhibitions and so on." I said all this with my face nuzzled into the side of Marcone's neck.

"Ah." He frowned and wrapped an arm around my waist, pressing us closer together. "To what purpose? Is it some sort of trap?"

"I don't know." I frowned and tried to think. It wasn't easy. Especially with Marcone nipping at my collar bone like that. "I..."

Mr Godmother let out a moan from outside my circle and I glanced up to see her watching Maeve and Jenny Greenteeth while her hounds licked her.

"Lea!" I said. "What's happening? Is it a trap?"

"Child," she gasped. Not sure if it was from shock at my suggestion or in pleasure. "It's the First of May!"

"The First of May?"

"We always begin to mate beneath the sky on this day!"

"Excuse me?" Marcone asked.

She rolled her eyes as though it pained her, and it probably did, but she repeated herself in more coarse language.

"Outdoor fucking starts today." The vulgarity sounded wrong coming from her mouth.

"So is it a trap?"

"It is not. We abide by hospitality." I opened my mouth, but hesitated as she smiled, speaking before I could. "Ask a third time, child. I shall not hold it against you. This is, after all, a revel."

"Is it a trap?"

"Thrice you ask and done. It is not a trap. It is an excuse to put aside all differences and debts and just..." She sighed and rolled her hips. "Enjoy."

"Is Ms Gard in any danger?" Marcone asked, and I smiled, impressed that he was capable of such rational thought.

"She's fine. She's having the time of her life."

I darted a glance across and saw that the Erlking was still having his way with her. She wasn't objecting.

I ran my hands under Marcone's shirt, feeling the sculpted flesh of his torso. He pressed back against me.

"Mr Dresden... Harry?"

And that's what I'd been waiting for.

"John. John. John!"

And that was it. We were desperate for each other.


I remember the rest of the revel in disconnected snippets.

Lying on my back, looking up at the pine trees while John took me in his mouth.

Sucking a bruise onto his collar bone, his hip, his inner thigh.

Licking and biting at John's nipples, while his hands grasped in my hair.

John kissing his way down my body, taking his time to explore and find all the places that make me gasp.

John pressing a finger into me as I hastily whispered an incantation for lube (unnecessary as it turned out, the dust, when mixed with saliva became a perfect lubricant as I later found out).

I remember the Erlking coming to stand at the edge of my circle. I remember him asking to join us for a dance, as he put it. I remember John telling him in no uncertain terms that I was his and asking him to fuck off.

At some point, Kincaid was there, fucking into Gard in long hard strokes, but his eyes were fixed on mine.

I remember having John's cock in my mouth and loving it.

I don't know how long we screwed each other. It felt like hours. It felt like no time at all.


Then, the sun rose.

Sun rise is a big deal. It degrades spells, and three sunrises in a row are enough to destroy pretty much any enchantment. The faerie dust dissolved like a Black Court vampire in the day light.

With it, the enchantment faded, and inhibitions returned.

Most of the faeries vanished off to where ever they came from. The mortal guests opened Ways or had Ways opened for them back to the mortal realm.

Gard came and stood at the end of the circle. She looked relaxed and loose limbed, like a cat that had gotten the cream, but she couldn't meet John's eyes.

"Ms Gard, are you alright?"

"I am fine." She smiled, toothily. "And you?"

"I am well also. Mr Dresden was kind enough to extend hospitality to me."

I wondered if that was a dig, and gathered my clothes, dressing quickly, refusing to look back at John.

When I did look back at him, he was fully dressed, looking slightly rumpled, but respectable.

"Well..."

"Thank you, Mr Dresden. If you could take your circle down, I'll be on my way."

"What?" That's the second time he's called me Mr Dresden. "Oh. Right."

I took down the circle and he went off with Gard. I swallowed the lump in my throat, reminded myself that I didn't like Marcone, that I didn't like men, had never been with a man, and that this wasn't making love, this was fucking under the influence, and tore open my own Way home.


It didn't occur to me until I got home that I could have torn a Way out at any time.

But that would have insulted my faerie hosts, wouldn't it? I didn't have any choice, did I?

It was about an hour after that that I realised that it had basically been date rape. We'd been dosed with faerie roofies. Maybe that's why he was so cold, why he called me Mr Dresden. Something hard and cold blossomed in my stomach and I felt sick.

That night I dreamt about Marcone fucking me and biting my neck as he came. When I woke up, my sheets and stomach were damp and sticky with come.