Author's Note: Rococo AU, originally written in May 2017. Inspired by Jean-Honoré Fragonard's painting, The Swing, and this Tumblr post about its history: [tumblr user wizzard890]/post/117138441757/so-i-was-going-to-write-a-post-talking

There were no stalls, no market sellers, in the narrow alleyways. Above him, ladies called down to gentlemen passing on the path. Paris was always two characters. The day was filled with money and worship, church bells ringing as buyers bustled and sellers negotiated. The night, the air grew thicker with the smoke of braziers. Kylo adjusted his collar as the carriage came to a stop. Sat on the steps, standing in the doorway of the pleasure house, leaning over the edge of the house's balcony, women not already with men or ladies greeted him with curious looks and a smile or two.

"I was called here to speak with one of your – visitors," Kylo said, with a curl of his lip. The woman he spoke to, stood alone in the house's doorway, glanced at the piece of paper in his hand. Taking it from him, scanning the words, she scoffed.

"We get a million of your types as visitors, sir. I wouldn't look down on us. We're all traders."

Kylo ignored her. "Where are they?"

"Eagerly awaiting you, sir. It's my understanding you've a skill they're in need of." On his silence, she grinned. She offered out the letter, their promise of a commission, towards him. She pointed. "In the furthest room, down that corridor."

Snatching the paper from her fingers, clutching it tight to his palm, Kylo walked down the length of the corridor. Gossamer curtains were doors to debauchery, acted out in hues of pinks and reds by gentlemen who called their ladies "mistress". Dropping his gaze, he pressed on through the stench of sickly-scented perfume.

The door at the end of the corridor was unlike the other rooms, in that it was in actuality a door, dark oak with a key in its lock. Clearing his throat, Kylo raised his hand and knocked once, twice when he received no immediate reply.

"Who is it?" asked a female voice, English in its accent.

"Monsieur Ren," Kylo said, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"In," said a male voice. Behind Kylo, there sounded a fleshy thump, followed by a high pleasured cry. Scrabbling at the key, Kylo unlocked the door and slipped inside the room, slamming the door behind him.

He froze at what he saw.

Droplets of sweat ran down the back of a young pale female. Underneath her lay her lover, a dark-skinned male. His hands were around her hips, holding her in place, with his eyes lidded in slow approaching pleasure as she slowly rocked against his body. Her hands were on his shoulders, pinning him down among the bed's silken pillows. It was clear the female was in charge, and from the way of her lengthened breaths, and her subtle arching back, it was ever more clear that she did not wish it to end at any moment soon.

Kylo turned his attentions to the room, looking anywhere but the bed. The low orange light of the room came from a roaring fire. Windows were thrown open, the curtains flapping in the wind. Clothes, a mixture of female and male, spilt from a trunk. Trinkets scattered the mantelpiece.

"Oh, Vicomte!" The female's cry was not one of pleasure, but one of note, as she, now looking at Ren, told the male of his presence. "Your artist."

The male's eyes fluttered open. The Vicomte, as he was titled, was handsome, his smile warm as he directed it towards Kylo.

"You must be wondering why I asked you here? Sit," he added, one of his hands lazily tracing up to caress the female's breasts. Kylo licked his lips, his mouth dry as he shrugged off his coat, leaving him in nothing but his shirt and breeches.

Other artists lived like the king lived in Versailles, obedient to the whims of self-indulgent clients who knew next to nothing about composition, colour, light and shade. Those clients were more than generous to empty their pockets to those sycophants, the ones who moved the paintbrush as their employer willed it. Yet that generosity dried up when told the truth: that their projects were simply vanity, true art unachievable. The one thing Kylo had was that he was honest, and whoever it was, marquis or comte, he wasn't prepared to sacrifice art for coin.

This was the reason for why his shirt was five seasons out of date, his coat his only heirloom and his boots hard-worn leather, instead of the silks worn by other artists. Kylo sat by the heat of the fire, before the bed.

They looked, the two, like a painting in themselves, tangled up in the lurid pink of the bed's sheets, the red canopy hanging above them. The female looked over her shoulder at Kylo as her hands drew down the Vicomte's chest. There was a strange curiosity in her eyes. In the dark, they would look the inkiest shade of black, but the fire reflected in her eyes, flickering over their true colour: an earthy deep brown ochre.

Swallowing against the dryness of his mouth, Kylo sat and hurried to open his satchel, near now to tearing at the seams. He fetched from it his sketchbook and a fresh stick of charcoal. He carefully flicked past pages and pages of old sketches, rough unformed images, memories of cancelled commissions from either insulted or impatient commissioners, unable to wait more than six months for a painting. Not a single one had become a fully-formed painting, transferred from paper to canvas.

"What are you doing?" asked the female, still looking at him curiously, though her brow now sunken into a frown.

"Drawing. As I was brought here to do," Kylo added. The female smiled, though the look in her eyes remained unchanged.

"You don't know yet what it is you're here to draw," said she. The muscles of her lower back flexed as she changed pace, changed position, leaning back with her arms propping her up. Her hips swirled atop the Vicomte's lap. The Vicomte groaned.

"I've a commission for you. I want you to paint her," the Vicomte drew his hands in reverent caresses over her body as he spoke. His eyes grew lidded as his lady slowed down the pace, brought to the brink and snatched away from it at the last moment. Kylo shifted uncomfortably in his seat, a flush creeping up his chest, begun low in his gut.

Then, the Vicomte moved. He held his lady at her neck, urging her to nestle her lips against his collarbone as he whispered in her ear. The lady hummed, arching her back at his words. She dropped a kiss to his temple, Kylo saw, before suddenly shifting off his lap, turning and crawling to the foot of the bed. Now her eyes fully faced Kylo, her body on all fours, her backside raised for the Vicomte. Crawling to her, the Vicomte held her hips once more and sheathed himself inside her. The lady hitched, arched and moaned, pressing back against her lover. Still, it was she who controlled the pace, the Vicomte listening to her moans and pants as he slowly moved inside of her.

"Oh—"

"She has to seated on a swing, being pushed," continued the Vicomte, lifting his head, smiling at Kylo as if they were meeting on the street as old friends.

The lady groaned. "More," she pleaded. The Vicomte increased his pace only a little, and the lady whined, the sensations clearly enough and yet never nearly enough.

"You can paint it how you like," said the Vicomte, "but I've one condition. I'll be there too, in a position where I can see her legs as she swings."

Kylo's charcoal paused over the sketchbook. He glanced downwards. Curved lines of the canopy, drawn in black, led down to the beginnings of pillows, two figures. His mouth was dry still.

"This – is what you want me to draw?"

"Finn," sighed the lady. Kylo blinked as she raised herself up onto her elbows. The Vicomte, at the mention of his name, kissed her shoulder and touched her between her thighs, still thrusting against her. Again she stared at him, studied him, her head tilted as she grinned. "I think your artist's thirsty."

"I'm not anyone's artist," Kylo retorted, his voice scratching against his throat. Some artists were content to be pets, working only for their patron, suffocated by portrait upon portrait, the only difference coming in the girth of their generous patron. It was another reason why he wore leather and cotton instead of silk and satin.

"No, no, obviously not," said the female. She smiled up at him. "Could you kneel?"

She spoke sweetly, with a hidden firmness that Kylo knew he could not disobey.

"I am not those gentlemen," he spat the word as he knelt at the foot of the bed, sinking down to her eye line, "outside."

She pressed the palm of one hand into the bedsheets. Curved the other against his jawline.

"I can see that," she said, her voice losing its sweetness. "Could you kiss me?"

He was arching into her, kissing her before he could say no. As he kissed her, as her hand sunk into his curls and he stroked the length of her back, felt the warmth of the Vicomte's hands on her hips underneath his fingertips, and a flush of warmth shot to his groin, he regretted he considered ever rejecting her. Why this was happening too, he did not care to think of. These two, the Vicomte and his lady, lived, and he was sick of not living, his mind void of ideas, filled only by a blank space.

So he kissed her, and he nibbled at her bottom lip, pressing deeper, memorising her taste, her scent, her sounds.

"Name," he gasped, his sentences broken as the blank space broke, filling with possibilities of colour. As Finn and Rey—"Rey," she'd gasped against his mouth, with a gentle laugh, "and you shall call him Finn,"—switched positions again, Finn rolling onto his back and Rey climbing atop of him, rocking once more against his body, Kylo rid himself of his remaining clothing and joined them.

Kylo settled behind Rey, pressing a hand between her shoulder blades. Gently, he pushed her forward. Underneath her, Finn laughed.

"Anyone would think you have done this before, Ren."

Kylo sank bank, covering Finn's hands as he held Rey's hips. He kissed her right cheek, smiling against the warm skin.

"Who's to say I haven't? This is France." Kylo chuckled and pressed his mouth to Rey's beautifully tight little hole, his tongue flicking against it. Rey gasped, and he felt her shudder against his tongue. Pleased, he set to her in earnest, kissing and licking until she was keening, sobbing, begging for his cock.

Kneeling over them both, he smoothed his hands over her shoulders, letting her feel his hard cock against her backside. She rocked harder against Finn, chanting sweet pleas for them both to fill her up, make her whole.

"Please," she whispered, sinking her head back against his shoulder, "please."

Kylo pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her neck, biting down and briefly licking where his teeth had been. She jumped, moaning as Finn's hands reached up to touch her breasts.

"That's just not fair," she whined, wriggling in Kylo's arms. He held her steady.

"You asked for this, love," Finn reminded her.

Rey scoffed. "You did too."

"I see I'm going to struggle to get the truth out of both of you," Kylo said, with amusement. He nibbled at Rey's ear, letting her feel his hot breath on her skin. "Anyway, I'm not going to take you from behind while Finn fucks you. I'm going to watch. And when you're finished, it's my turn to come inside your cunt. Understand me, Rey?"

She nodded her affirmation. Kylo clambered off them both, lying on his side. A glance to Finn and a nod to them both had the lovers increasing their pace, clumsily kissing, Finn's fingers entering Rey's hair and touching her cunt as he thrust up into her. Kylo touched his own cock as he watched them hurry towards their climaxes, spreading the leaking pre-cum over the shaft of his cock, languorous in the face of ecstasy. Rey's eyes closed with a shudder as her climax rapidly approached. Her sighs became high pitching moans, her back arched and her fingers scrabbled at Finn's short hair. Finn, for his part, caught Kylo's eye, saw his hand moving up and down the length of his cock and he gave one final thrust up into Rey before he brought her to his chest, kissing her temple and murmuring sweet nothings into her ear.

Kylo reached out and grasped her wrist. Rey lifted her head to meet his eye.

"My turn," he growled. He pulled her off Finn's lap and set her at the head of the bed, among the pillows. Spreading her legs, exposing her before himself, he studied her as she had studied him.

"Let down your hair," he commanded. He looked back at Finn. "Sit behind her."

"Who knew artists could be so bossy?" Rey murmured, though she smiled as Finn joined them, sliding in behind her. Kylo grinned to himself as he bent his head, and slid his tongue against her slit.

"Oh," Rey sighed happily. From the corner of his eye, he saw her hands intertwine with Finn's. He licked her again, the same movement, and her whole body jolted at the deeper contact.

Soon, Kylo was fucking her with his tongue, she was grinding against him, her and Finn's hands in his hair, guiding him deeper, showing him just how she liked to be touched. The room of the pleasure house melted away like water against a glass, raindrops chasing and chasing until they came together, forming into another picture. Shades of vibrant green, a forest, no, a garden, with a grey stone cherub witnessing a secret. A swing, standing alone in the middle of the garden, swaying in the breeze.

In the pleasure house, she approached her second orgasm of the night, as he tongue-fucked her. In the garden, a shade of peach pink was her dress, volumnious skirts, her dark hair tucked underneath a shepherdess hat, frills at the edges of her sleeves. She sat and sighed softly to herself. Behind her, was Finn now, caught in the dappled shade of the overhanging tree. He held her at her stomach, kissed her neck, made her moan before he stepped back. He gave the first push.

In the pleasure house, Kylo clambered over Rey's body, and she lay lower in Finn's lap. She hooked her ankles against Kylo's lower back, drawing him closer. In the garden, he wandered, half-stumbled onto a scene he already knew. He lay in the grass as, in the pleasure house, he sank into the warm, wet, waiting cunt of the lady Rey.

In the garden, she was pushed higher. Higher, higher. He reached out for her, tried to touch what he saw behind the skirts that flap in the wind, moving as she arched. Her shoe flew off at this moment, as she laughed, and in the pleasure house, she said his and Finn's names over and over again, and finally, thanked him for his time.

"I've a condition," Kylo said, panting with his forehead pressed to Rey's shoulder.

"What's that?" Rey asked drowsily, kissing his temple. Her and Finn's hands traced through his hair, over his shoulders.

"In the painting… another man must be present."

"A wonderful idea," said Finn.