AN: Hey, all! It's Masked Man 2 again, here to regale you with Chapter 3. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I only wish I owned the genius that was Shakespeare. If I did, I think I'd have set Iago and Lady Macbeth up on a blind date long ago. XD

She kept her gaze upon the man in fixation triumphant, taking from the patent discomfiture twisting his visage some perverse, deeply resonant pleasure which coiled taut and warm within her gut, and brought a faint hint of a leering smile, cloyingly, sickeningly sweet as envenom'd wine, to her lips. O, but he was undone, poor sap, sorely undone, and by naught save her unwitting charms! She had but cast upon him a single frosted glance (yet God only knew what glamors lay dormant within her eyes, for certainly they had some power to move men to their mistress's will), and the strange, nearly hypnotic hold in which he had held her anachronistically enthralled had shattered, never to be erected again. No longer did he seem to stare through her with that abstracted, appetant detachment; now, he looked as determinedly at her as she did him, with a ghostly pallor about his thin lips, a concupiscent gleam to his direful pale eye, and a fevered hunger shadowing darkly the sharp hollows and angles of his face. And O, how she reveled in the sight. How gaily her heart did sing, to see it all; how raucously her lubricious soul did laugh! Such savory sport lay herein!

'Twas a most riveting sensation, to be thus enraptured with a man with whom she had ne'er exchanged word: riveting, and equally, singularly peculiar. Still, though there surely was something shameful to be had in discourse so salacious- be it silent or not-, she could not bring herself to feel even a twinge of guilt. To be sure, she did her husband wrong in engaging in such unseemly sport...but then, when now did Macbeth incite within her passion and glee of such exquisite caliber? In faith, though she had married him as much for his physical prowess as for his status (it was not that she loved him not; she did, in her way, but neither had she any qualms in admitting to herself the...inferiority...of his mind, as it opposed to her own), he was away at war so frequently of late that she, made nearly delirious with boredom at being consigned to mind a fief that all but tended itself, would fain have done her duty, as it were, with one of the fishermen for want of novel diversion...though for a game more conducive to maintaining her acuity of mind she would have to seek elsewhere.

Well, could that not be here? Perhaps his untemper'd appetite struck him dumb now, but there was a wit to be found in the man opposite; of that she was certain. And even if that thought proved false, there was some latent attractiveness to his distant company yet, some magnetic quality that surpassed greatly aught to which she had grown accustomed. Having missed all that had transpired within the conference heretofore in lieu of pursuing this vein of contemplation, she could at least ascertain this much.

THERE is a man, she decided, rising alongside her husband as the Moorish general touched the back of her hand to his thick umber lips in gracious farewell, of whom I could grow most...fond. Hypocritical, forsooth- for she could feel, as the thought passed her mind, how her cool fingers grow warm as Macbeth enveloped them in his own, bluff affection radiating from even so little a touch-, but true nonetheless, and as she extended her free hand toward the Moor's young lieutenant and allowed him to press three of his fingers (which he had sensuously kissed just prior) to hers, she could not keep the faint, but wicked smile from her lips.

Once the customary leave-takings were through, she would seek him out. There would be time enough to reprise that which had been discussed with her husband later, but now...O, but she would seek the observer out. She would beg from him discourse, work upon him her insidious allures...and therein would lie her sport, her puckish, wicked sport, which she imagined she would enjoy immensely.

X X X

He had yet to stray from his place by the door, any semblance of concentration broken beyond repair as vituperations furious and unsolicited pounded through his head. What, pray, what had possessed him so, that he should succumb so quickly to the damn'd harlot's dubious charms? Fore God, but he had expected in seducing her with naught but a glance some measure of ease- 'twas not meant to be th' other way round! Confound it all. He was a fool, a right bloody fool...but yet...O, me, what dread counterfeit's this...he found that he did not quite mind. God only knew he reveled in the chase, the challenge of the hunt, and well...he could call the minx what spiteful terms he bloody well wished, but he could not deny that the novelty of being bested at his own game was more than a bit intriguing.

O, and now she was watching him again. Predatory, appraising, inflammatory...a world of cool judgement and lascivious fire flickered like minnows through her glassy eyes, and he felt the step of his stone-slow heart quicken almost painfully at the sight. A smile danced o'er her thin lips like a brilliant scarlet snake, laced with sweet, deadly poison, as close to that which coursed through his words and veins as aught he had e'er seen...and that thrilled him, to be frank; it truly did. At last, at long last, he had come across another with whom he might see eye to eye; in faith, the vile ambition powering this woman's heart seemed to seep from the very pores of her skin, twisting into him like thousands of dipped daggers small and drawing him, irrevocably, to her. But he would not resist, no, for he was not yet bereft of his own powers of persuasion. He could sway her to him yet...and whether she came willingly or not, the arrangement would surely benefit both.

Oh, Lady Macbeth, you rotten scoundrel, you...oh, damn'd harlot, sorry. That explains why poor Iago's all hot and bothered and more than a little out of character, I suppose. XD Okay, one: That might have been the most salacious piece of writing I've ever penned in my life. DAMN. That was hot. Two: For some strange reason, my ability to write in Shakespearean diction goes all to Hell when I try to write for Iago...I don't know why. All I know is that I feel as though I sound inordinately British. Please tell me if I do; that's just weird. :/

See you next time, for Chapter 4, which will be written by StrongButGentle!