Blonde curls fell over the crocheted yolk collar of an innocent pink nightgown and underneath it, the chest of Elizabeth Ethel Cordelia Midford heaved from discovering a most impossible scenario. She could never have imagined her fiancé in a more lewd, compromising, and deplorable position, much less with his butler.

Well, it was safe to say that I was no longer acting in the capacity of butler.

Ciel had started from half-sleep at the scream. It took not a moment for him to register from where it had come and who had issued it, but upon this realisation he laid over me in paralysed dread for a full three seconds. That was the time needed to ascertain the humiliating reality of his situation before making the feeble attempt to shield himself with a pillow that was leaning against the headboard.

As far as my now-eradicated sense of decorum was concerned, I crossed my arms over my empty chest, since the boy saw fit to extricate himself from my grasp, and I felt the only thing worth wearing in this situation was an amused smirk. Amidst everything that had transpired between him and me, my thoughts swirling about regarding this broken contract, and having to come to grips with the fact that I had far too much fondness for my food, I had failed to lock the door. I had failed to even register that a certain lady might have the inclination to roam the hall at an unseemly hour with less than wholesome intentions.

Ciel replied in the way he knew best for a panicked situation; He gave an order. "Get out!" It would have been stupid to say, "this isn't what it looks like," because I was sure that we were every bit as sordid as we looked, with hair messed, the scratches down my chest and my shoulders, the state of the bed, lips swollen from kissing, and Ciel's precious little backside that glowed that freshly-fucked pink. "A trick of the light" could not explain away this situation. Even so, if it was not the sight that could clue in someone with half a wit, it was the smell: cloying, musky, sweaty-sweet that drenches a room and makes its presence further known every time the bed linens rustle.

That command was enough to compel Elizabeth to finally use her words. "What in God's name is this?" I so wanted to laugh at that rhetorical question. "Ciel...! What—"

"I said get out!"

The implication of the Earl Ciel Phantomhive being caught in bed with a servant engaged in unspeakable lechery was a horror that appeared to bombard the young lady in waves. Her knuckles were white from gripping the door frame. Her other hand trembled before her eyes but between her fingers she peered as though in grotesque fascination. In her mind this could not be a reality but every second pounded the truth into her, each moment manifesting a tear, a wretched sob.

When it became too colossal of a scene to behold, she stumbled back, her wails punctuated with clumsy footfalls. There was a muffled bang, Elizabeth crashing into a wall for support. Paula's lilting concern could be heard, Elizabeth bemoaned something unintelligible in response and I knew that surely the servants downstairs heard the entire episode.

Ciel's anxiety was beginning to crest to the surface. "Christ... shit." He ran his palms over his face, fingers through his fringe, his shoulders slumped. He turned to my direction. "Sebastian... what the fuck?"

"Yes?"

"You could have locked the damned door!"

"You could have done that as easily as I."

"Why did you just...?" He stood from the bed. "You sat there, and did nothing! Fucking hell... stop looking at me like that!"

My amusement of the situation was waning, because he thought I was to blame, as though he was not an active participant in this turn of events. It was assumed that it was my responsibility to uphold his good reputation, to keep his secrets and to ensure Elizabeth especially would never discover his proclivities. It was one of my duties as butler, but obviously I was no longer under contract.

As far as I was concerned, I was not obligated to fulfil any role for him.

But as I watched him pace about, breathing heavy into his hands in some attempt to calm himself, the way his eyes darted about as they did when he was contemplating throwing something, I acknowledged that if catering to him was not an obligation, it was certainly a desire. Even as butler I extended myself beyond what was ever demanded of me, placed far more care into my role than what was necessary, and I enjoyed it. Doing things for him pleased me.

He was in need of some reassurance, and giving him that felt appropriate. "Come here, Ciel."

He stopped mid-step, alarmed by hearing his name spoken with such calm inflection. I sat on the edge of the bed, and as he stood between my legs his arms settled about my shoulders as though fitted to do so. Gazing into his eyes felt so foreign to me. His right eye was no longer a conduit of power for him, no longer a vinculum for me. An impenetrable fog seemed to hang in the milky blue of it, and I felt a little bereaved about this development. I did not need to read his thoughts to know of the comfort that holding me brought him.

He whispered, "I don't have the right to blame you for this, do I?"

"I think that is a mature assessment."

"Sebastian... what am I going to do?"

"What do you want to do?"

"Curl up and die."

"That can be easily arranged." I knew he was not serious in that comment, but I nipped at his jaw all the same; It was further insinuation that eating him was only way I was willing to resolve this situation.

"Shut up." He poked my face. Perhaps he did not believe that I would do it. Or perhaps he was well aware of the situation. He felt most at ease in the arms of a monster.

And being a monster out of contract, I was no longer in a position to follow his orders. "Would you be opposed to a suggestion?" He shook his head, and I held to his naked sides. "No more lies from you. Go to her, as your true self. You crushed her perceptions of you, with no way to make sense of any of it."

"There is no way for me to salvage this."

"I do not believe so. I think it would be idiotic to believe you could. You may be impulsive, reckless even, but you are no idiot. Far from it." As I brought my lips to his chest, I could smell me in his skin. He seemed drenched with it, and that was rather lovely. "This is all most unfortunate, and I can do nothing for this predicament. No, I cannot shield you from what can potentially come of all this."

"I'm ruined."

"If you feel that is the only course available to you, then it very well may be the case. But I can give you this one certainty. I have no intention of leaving."

"Oh Sebastian..." He held me tighter, burying his face in my hair. "So long as you're with me... and I have you, ah, Sebastian, to have you..."

In a technical sense, he had been in possession of me for five years, but yet he spoke as if this new circumstance seemed to have some greater value to it. I could not say whether it did or not, but despite the broken contract one fundamental fact would not change. Ciel was still mine.

I continued to press my face into his shoulders, drinking in our scent. I whispered against his ear, "Go to her. She is weeping in her room, and Paula is not being the slightest bit of help."

He pulled away from me to grab an evening jacket out of the wardrobe, and then left in a flurry. It was safe to assume that the knowledge that I was not to abandon him was a source of strength for him. He did not need me to fix this situation, much like how he did not need me to set his appointments, or bathe him in the evenings. As any other obstacle in his life, he would meet it with the fearless resolve.

I revisited the bathroom with the purpose of dressing myself. My clothes laid on the floor in a sodden heap, right where I had left them, and I chuckled at how it felt like ages ago I would not have dreamt of handling my or the master's clothes in this manner. With a flick of my wrist trousers and shirt sleeves were as warm as if I had taken an iron to them and I had to remind myself that Ciel was no longer my master.

But if he was not my master, then what did that make him? I pondered this question as I straightened up the bathroom, mopping up the floor and setting aside Ciel's evening ensemble. I had the impression that if this was no longer a master and servant situation, and I did not consider him just a lowly human because I was undeniably fond of him beyond reason... the only logical conclusion was we were equal. Cleaning out the tub, collecting the wet towels and setting things in their proper places were a servant's tasks, but it just seemed a necessary way to conduct myself as I made my considerations. It felt familiar to me.

If I was no longer working in the capacity of a butler, I sure as hell was free to do as I pleased. So I decided after the trousers, the shirt and my shoes that I was dressed enough to prevent appalled reactions, because nudity has a tendency to do that to people. As I looked in the mirror there were still small bite marks at the base of my neck. A tie would have covered them, but I could not be bothered.

Even if Ciel had only been in Elizabeth's room for a short time, their conversation had escalated in volume. Of course it was in need of some facilitation and all the yelling was indeed worrying the servants. They were already suspicious of my lack of appearance I was sure, having woken up to find that past one o' clock I was nowhere to be found, when typically if I was needed I would have been in my own bedroom.

Leaving the bathroom and walking down to the other end of the hallway, I spotted Paula leaning on the wall outside, arms crossed. As she heard my approach she jerked her head in my direction and her knowing was written over her face. Her lip curled in disgust and she pushed from the wall to march down the stairs. She was like so many other things I could not bother myself with.

For a time, I stood outside the door, their squabbling loud enough to discern through the thick oak.

"But... Ciel! He's... he's a man, a servant!" Elizabeth sputtered. "How is this...?" She was even having difficulty even making sense of the whole situation, even if she had encountered us plain as day.

"Am I supposed to have a sound explanation for you?"

"That's just it, Ciel! Do you not understand what I'm trying to say? What you are doing defies explanation! I knew something was amiss when you asked me to tend to Joanne, but I kept quiet because there was no harm in it, but this is different!"

"Keep him out of this Lizzie! And you have no right to place your judgements on him!"

"And why shouldn't I? I've seen the way he looks at you. And now that I know better, I say you encourage it! And then how he was being sweet on that man, Jacobsen, was his name? No one gave it a second thought, but you knew, I knew! Ciel, are you really out to ruin yourself?"

"Have you ever considered that I am already ruined?" There was the sound of a stool falling on its side. "I have been ruined since before I returned to reclaim my family's name, my honour, my birth right. You know the life I live, and the things I've seen. Perhaps I need someone who can take me as I am and force me to forget about it all for a little while."

"And why can't I be that one, Ciel?" Elizabeth wailed. "I came to your room because..."

She was too embarrassed to even speak it, so Ciel said it for her. "Because you were hoping I would take you into my bed. Admit it." She cried with pitiful, choking sobs, but under it I heard Ciel whisper, "You wanted me... to fuck you."

"Good Lord Ciel how can you even-"

He hollered, "Admit it! Let's be done with lies and secrets! That's what all of this is, right? We're just laying it all out there, all this sordid truth." I could imagine how he must have been flailing his arms at this point, how he would get so animated when he was at his wit's end. "This is me, Lizzie, as I am. I lied to you because I never wanted to hurt you this way, because I knew that you would be happy if you could remain ignorant to just how horrible I am.

"And the truth is, even if Sebastian was not with me, if you had come to my room and I was alone, I still would not have taken you to my bed. I can't even think of you in that capacity. Do you know that I have tried? I have tried to force myself to think of you with that sort of fondness, because I thought I could change it, and I can't. Forgive my shortcomings, but it doesn't work, and the harder I try I just bring more distress upon myself. So I gave up."

There was a moment of sniffling, and Elizabeth whimpered, "Giving up doesn't sound like something Ciel Phantomhive would do."

"I know a lost cause when I see it. Trying to change what I am is a lost cause. But I can act well enough, and if it's any consolation I tried my hardest to put on a good face for you."

"So who are you really?"

"You already know. I am the sort that would rather lie with his servant than lie with his fiancée."

Of course he would want to make me a topic of conversation... in the worst way possible.

"It still... just doesn't make sense! Did he put you up to this? Is he the one to blame for skewing your sense of decency?"

A moment of silence followed. Ciel said with a pondering tone, "Perhaps a little. But I like to think I already had the inclination."

"If he seduced you into all this, he would force you to believe that you are the perverse one and I can't believe that is who you really are! Did he threaten you in some way?"

"What? No!"

"Has he been promising you something? What has he done to convince you to do... such things with him?"

"Wait a minute, so now you think I'm the victim here? That he is using me?"

"Yes! That has to be it!"

"No! That's not it at all!"

"He wants prestige or something, right?"

"You really don't know what you're talking about, Lizzie."

"Oh I've seen it, what do you think is tearing apart my family right now? That woman who has convinced Ed to elope-"

"We don't know the whole story between them! You can't just make assertions about—"

These two were absolutely out of control. I opened the door and leaned against the frame in a most unprofessional manner. "I feel this discussion is in need of a little moderation."

Elizabeth was sitting at her bench in front of the vanity, while Ciel stood across the way, his sitting stool on its side in front of the bed. The lady's face was puffy from tears that seemed to have no end. Ciel was without his eye patch, and even if his fringe obscured his face to some extent, there was no way to hide that clouded eye.

"Excuse you, servant, but there is nothing of value you can contribute to this discussion," Elizabeth spat.

"Now now, let us not get hostile." She had a certain proclivity for hot-headedness, especially now that she was convinced I was to blame for Ciel's debauchery. "If you are going to accuse me of leading Ciel astray, I think it is only fair that I should speak for myself."

"Sebastian... I don't think you can help this situation."

I ignored Ciel's comment and continued. "You see, Elizabeth..." she appeared as a bird ruffling her feathers at my lack of formality, "for the sake of brevity, let me just say... it was only until some months ago when I came to the understanding that my employer was entertaining some... interesting thoughts regarding me. I can assure you, I did not place those thoughts in his head."

Ciel buried his face in his hands as Elizabeth interjected, "You should have had the decency to not entertain them!" She stood from her seat. "If Ciel is incapable of controlling his own indecency, why couldn't you have been the honourable one in the situation and urged him to control it? It sounds like you encouraged it!"

"Oh I did encourage it, possibly beyond what he would have otherwise taken it. But what good are decency and honour to me?"

"Because the decency of his servants reflects upon him!"

"They do, but I do think it is worth noting that as of tonight, I am no longer employed."

It was my candid attitude that was sending her into a fury. "Then why are you still here? Ciel, if he is no longer your butler, if his employment is terminated, then dismiss him! Pay him off so he will never speak ill of you, do what it takes to keep him silent, and let us wash our hands of this scandal!"

Ciel shook his head. "It's not that simple, Lizzie. You still don't get it."

"What is there to understand? This man is a rake, a libertine!" She looked ready to throttle me, which I would not have put it past her to try, but we both knew she did not have a shot in Hell in causing me any real damage.

"Well, yes... but I suppose I am in equal measure."

"Ciel you don't have to think that way! We can get you help, you're just confused—"

"Lizzie, what did I just finish telling you?!" the boy yelled. "There is no hope in changing me! Stop deluding yourself!"

"Ciel, shouting at her is not necessary." I wagged my finger.

"Your assistance is not necessary!"

"Now now, everyone here is far too distressed for my liking." I walked into the room and crouched before the boy, stroking his cheek. For a moment he seemed to want to lean into the touch but he sheepishly peered at Elizabeth and then jerked his face from the contact.

"I didn't give you permission to enter my quarters!" Elizabeth pointed to the exit, her flexed arm trembling in fury.

"I do not require your permission, because I will do as I please."

"Ciel, how can you tolerate this simpleton's behaviour? How can you tolerate him even touching you like that?!" I did not like the manner in which she then pointed at me, as if I were some loathsome thing. Perhaps I was, but I certainly did not consider myself that way.

He stared at his fiancée, and even that blank right eye still carried some severity to it. "I want him to touch me." He leaned into my shoulder, slipping an arm behind my back. "I want him to be a 'libertine,' as you so refer to him. I want to lose myself in how he makes me feel. And he is the one I will invite to my bed."

She shook her head, as if to deny the truth that was slamming into her as she wrapped her arms about herself. "Ciel... why?"

"Because he is my lover."

Blinking in slight surprise, I could not say I found the title distasteful. It was strange to be considered in this way, but I did not want to reject it either.

For the first time, I could detect a resolved sorrow on the girl's face. She could not understand why her fiancé would want to fancy a man as he should fancy a woman, or his desire to engage in what she considered a sin, but she did understand love. She knew how it felt to give one's heart to someone else.

"I just wish... I could be that for you..." she squeaked, mopping up the tears that continued to run down her face. She realised that she would never have what she truly wanted from Ciel, because he had already given it to me.

"I wish... no, I once wanted to be that person for you. I tried so hard... oh please stop crying." Ciel pulled from my touch to stand in front of the lady, taking her hands in his. "And that is why I'm sorry. I never wanted to cause you to feel this way. You never deserved any of this pain. It was selfish of me to keep everything from you, to lead you falsely. I understand that now. You deserve better, someone who is going to give you exactly what you need, and more than you could ever desire. And try as I might, I cannot be that person."

This was his small bit of compassion, his acknowledgement that the truth was hurtful. But he was giving her the choice to break the engagement. She squeezed his hands and just cried harder.

"But there is no one else, Ciel. I don't want anyone else, I want you!"

"What, so you wish to pretend? You want to live a lie? Knowing that I just can't love you the way you need me to?" Her knees gave out from her as she bent back into her vanity seat, pulling Ciel's hands to her chest, as if the pain of his words, even gently spoken, were a knife twisting into her heart. "Why are you fighting so hard for this? When I'm... just not good for you?"

This was more than the pain of rejection. I smelled her terrific loss, a deeper grief that wailed of some ghastly ultimatum that was building in her mind, the constituent misfortunes of her life that she would never give voice to. She carried these burdens in private strength that were held together by hope, a substance now eroding like a foundation built of sand on the tumultuous shore.

"Ciel." I walked to the doorway. "Come now. There is no more to discuss."

"But I can't just—"

"Yes, just let her be. I will send up Paula." As we stood in the hallway, I whispered against the curve of his ear, "I will return to your bed shortly." My grasp on his upper arm was possessive, and the conflicting emotions of unease and desire battled within his gaze.

I walked downstairs and found Paula sitting in the kitchen with Mey-Rin. They sat on stools, huddled over their counter and speaking in whispers. The maid stood at my arrival, but Paula stayed seated, her shoulders tensing all the more. It did not take any skill of uncanny perception to know the two women had been talking, and Mey-Rin was up to speed on what precisely transpired upstairs. She was attempting to appear disgusted by what she had been told, but the pair of us both knew from previous history that she could not muster the decency to think it all abhorrent.

"Paula, your lady needs you." She made a great show of pushing off the stool as it scraped over the floor and stomping out the kitchen. Mey-Rin stared at her boots with a sort of awkward discomfort. I assumed she had put on her boots as soon as she heard the scream, thinking she would be called to action.

"Mey-Rin, do you plan on going somewhere?"

"Do you?"

"I plan on going back upstairs, if that is what you mean."

"No... 's just... you're not a butler any more, are you?" She looked up, leaning against the counter. It appeared the ladies had made tea as part of their conversation and Mey-Rin took her cup to sip.

"I am not." I sat at the stool where Paula had sat before, and Mey-Rin saw fit to follow suit in her own seat. "I suspect the lady's maid informed you of the situation. Should you see fit to leave—"

"Mr. Sebastian, we're not leaving." What caught me off guard first was how she addressed me, and second how she sounded absolute in her decision. "What the master does in his own privacy is his business, it is. These things won't change my loyalty, and this is my home, you understand?"

"What of the other servants?"

"We're all family, ya see, we can't just up and leave the young master, where would he be without us? Especially now that you're not employed, you fool, to get yourself caught, you know better." She smirked in that knowing way. "I was under the impression you'd take off, yes you would."

"I will not leave him."

"Yes, well, Paula is hoping that she will wake up to find you left in the night, she seems rather sore about all this, she does. Like you slighted her just as much as you slighted Lady Elizabeth."

If Paula had some sort of fondness for me, to whatever capacity, she must have kept it well hidden, even from herself. I had known that she had some admiration for me, but it never manifested as any type of affection. If she ever wished for that, I would not have given it the slightest interest. That was likely what irritated her the most.

"Mey-Rin," I twisted around on the seat to face her directly. "I suggest— because I do not suppose an order means much of anything coming from me, that you and the others return to the manor in the morning. Let this debacle pass. Ciel will not be alone—"

"When did you start referring to the young master so informally?"

"It is not necessary since we no longer have a professional arrangement."

"It hasn't been professional for a while, to be sure."

"Do watch yourself."

"Pardon." She buried her nose in her teacup. Every time she drank from it her glasses would fog. "But you do suppose this is all rather irregular?"

"More than you know." I stood and walked to the exit. "Consider my suggestion. He will need the manor to receive him after all this is over."

From her seat across the kitchen she stared at me with a sort of incomprehension, for in her mind she was encountering something incredulous but imagination was too unwilling to make that leap to impossibility. "You always wear your gloves, but now you're not." My left hand was on the door frame, and I registered that was the focus of her attention. "Something's changed about you, it has. Can't put my finger on it."

"Goodnight, Mey-Rin."

While I could sense the soul that occupied the master bedroom of the town house, it felt as about as dim to me as the heat of a candle flame. Ciel's presence used to be as a bonfire, where to stand before it was scalding, encompassing, and it could shine as a beacon to me for miles. My perceptions were aided by the tie that the contract held between us and without it my world was silent. In order for me to reassure myself that he was present and complete he had to be within my presence, to see with my own eyes his lithe form huddled under the bed linens, holding tightly to the pillow.

He had put out the lights in the room, but he knew that it was me who had entered in the dark. I disrobed and he welcomed me under the comforter. Burying myself in him was essential to affirming that no aspect of him was diminished, his soul complete, and indeed I was still in possession of him. It was a different sort of possession because as he lay under me with his arms pulling at me and his lips on my neck once more, it became apparent that all these gestures indicated his desire to give of himself. He was not as prey under me, but rather as one willing to feed my own unspeakable hunger with carnal debauchery. Ciel would take me into his bed every night, wrap his legs about me and allow me to bring him to hard, crushing climax. It could be done with no word or thought, no command necessary.

As his back arched as a sign of coming to the edge I caught his moans in my open mouth, his body and his heat and for one painful moment I could feel his nerves sparking and the whole of him clear and full and beautifully present. If it was certain his body had the capacity to reach that climax over and over ad infinitum I would do so to experience such a brilliance that had given this entire charade some meaning and purpose.

Instead I allowed him to settle and his consciousness dim, and he caressed my arms, tiny whispers convincing me to lay my head on the pillow as well. He fell asleep to demon's lips that would not stop pricking his shoulders and this made me consider him more remarkable. I began to wonder if the contract had ceased because it was too much of a limitation, that it no longer served us because we were bound by something much wider in scope. Oh if the legions of Hell could see me now, I wondered. I could be scolded and beaten into the darkest, coldest corner of the Abyss for this laughable fancy. Should I be foolish enough to believe I might be entitled to some moment of this strange bliss?

Our connection no longer required some infernal covenant, but instead touches, embraces and vulgar coupling. There would be no need for commands, for we wished to act for each other's benefit. Unrelenting hunger would become an ache to suffer every conscious moment, but I could let Ciel's pulse against my chest lull me into sleep so I would not have to give it thought for a time. He had called us lovers and I concluded this was fitting.

I woke a few short hours later to find myself a touch unravelled, for the black essence of me slinked about to grip around Ciel like another pair of arms, or rather a dozen thorny tendrils. His breathing had remained even, as if this terrifying condition was his preferred sleeping position. While I had no conscious intention to suck the life from him, resting meant my guise could slip and to pull such malignity into myself once more felt a considerable effort. This was a touch concerning so I arose, my bed partner none the wiser about my absence and headed to the bathroom.

I had no reason to turn the gaslight to see my reflection in the mirror, for there I saw in the dark something that was not entirely true to demonic form but certainly not human either. My skin, even if it never maintained a blemish was supposed to function like human skin, with pores, an ability to sweat, to respond to external stimulus. Instead it was as smooth as marble. My nails had always kept their dark pigmentation but they no longer felt like human nails. Instead they gleamed as glass and were just as sharp, with the black of them extending over the tips of my fingers.

My eyes looked sunken but shone an otherworldly red, and I tried to blink them back to that more approachable sepia tone they were supposed to be. I spent several minutes trying to push these demonic manifestations back into myself. It was not meant to be so laborious. But of course the mask I had held with relative ease was beginning to crumble, because I no longer had a contract to keep it in place. Instead I would have to be conscious about keeping the mask intact, which would be a constant gathering and regathering of the material that comprised me.

I was forced to conclude that I would not be able to keep it together indefinitely. I could not fight the surge of my true nature.