The house lights dim, and Belle feels a familiar flutter of excitement beneath her breastbone: the play is beginning.
Her students perch beside her on the curved, wooden bench, fidgeting with their programs and huddling together beneath thick, wool blankets for heat. Most were wise and heeded her advice to dress warmly. The young ladies who chose fashion over bulky-coated practicality have all found arms to burrow beneath.
Belle's most promising pupil, a young Dubliner studying at King's College on scholarship, has requested permission to go and join the throng of theatregoers standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the yard, just below the stage. She can make out his eager, lanky silhouette in the evening gloom, illuminated by dozens of candles flickering within glass hurricane lanterns. Above, the November sky is cloudy and dark.
Iago and Roderigo, dressed in striking black leather, stride out onto the floorboards, and a hush falls over the audience.
The meticulously restored Globe Theatre is open to the elements, and while the two gentlemen loudly proclaim their mutual dislike of Othello into the chill night air, their breath swirls around their pale, stormy faces.
The actors aren't playing this opening scene for laughs as so many have done before them. Rather, their cruel scheming seems to send a deeper chill throughout the silent, huddled audience. When Iago tosses out his famous line about doomed Desdemona and her loathsome Moor "making the beast with two backs," nary a face cracks a smile.
The crowd—Shakespeare aficionados willing to brave an open-air dress rehearsal before the company goes on tour—is well aware that the lovers' pleasure will be short-lived.
Belle glances to her left.
Her purse rests upon the empty bench, saving a seat for Nosty.
She drinks in the candles illuminating the gallery and stage, the stark, brutal scenery, the actors' polished voices, and the endearingly intent faces of her students, thinking: "I wish he were here to see it."
She feels the phantom weight of Nosty's arm around her shoulder and summons up a memory of the heat that radiates from his slight, wiry frame. The hardness went out of his honey-brown eyes during the past week, but the hunger hasn't, and the wariness still remains. In bed, in his sleep, he groans and grips her hard enough to bruise.
Sighing, feeling oddly homesick and chilled to the bone, Belle settles in to watch the show.
His considerate bird left him a fare card for the Tube on the dining room table, and Nosty finds himself strangely relieved it wasn't cash.
It's fucking radge, seeing as she's done naught but waste her wages clothing and feeding him since day one, but—a fare card feels better somehow than a tenner laid out for him on the tabletop. Makes him feel a little less like a piece of street meat.
Not that he plans on riding the fucking train.
Nosty needs to walk tonight. Walking helps to clear the cobwebs from his skull and gives him time to school his face and work a little spring back into his step.
The memory of Belle's gentle voice is still buzzing in his ears, making them burn despite the cold.
"I love you, Nosty," she'd whispered, calm as you please, the words rolling off her sweet tongue like it was nothing—like it came natural to her to love no-count fuck-ups. Like she didn't realize he'd never heard anything like it before in his entire bankrupt-as-fuck life.
Nosty anxiously fingers the blade he stole from Belle's kitchen drawer and finds himself thinking, "Loves me—but for how fucking long?"
How long until his bird finds herself some other, better lost cause? And—most importantly—how will he keep his spine straight and saunter off into the fucking sunset when that day inevitably arrives?
Even these swirling, fretful thoughts of Belle soften his face somewhat, so Nosty locks his beautiful bird away in a far corner of his mind and focuses his energy on the tedious job ahead: retaining his status as Head Fucker in Charge.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and nowhere is this postulate more true than amidst the fucking dregs of London society. Power and fear rule these streets, which is to say, Nosty rules these streets—with brains, bravado, and a fair amount of brawling—but stepping out for a little mental health vacation means that someone else has likely stepped in. Robbo or fucking Marley, probably. Which means a lad will be taking a beating tonight, and it sure as fuck won't be him.
Nosty didn't get his wee swallow tat for fucking ornithological reasons.
He doesn't bother skulking and scoping the scene once he gets to Waterloo; there's always a lookout. He's made sure of it. Instead, Nosty saunters up to a campfire and lifts a lit fag off of a meek looking bloke in a dirty, torn jumper.
"Well, at least you choobs didn't burn the fucking place down without me," he says, exhaling smoke and looking around, bouncing on the soles of his feet. Nosty's eyes glitter as he takes in the sorry lot of 'em.
"Oi, Nosty!" voices slur in greeting. "Shite, it's Nosty! Get 'im a drink, will ya?" Amidst the shouted hullos and drunken laughter, a bloke pulls up a wooden crate so Nosty can sit and watch the flames. Someone passes him a half empty bottle.
"Have yourself a nice little holiday, then?"
Marley is standing over him, looking strung out and nettled. Looking like he wants to fucking tango.
"Yeah, nice," Nosty agrees, flicking his fag end into the dirt and taking out his blade real casual, studying it in the firelight. He makes a little show of ignoring the other man, who's standing close enough to be a fucking nuisance. Wanker fucking smells.
Marley's eyes narrow, and nearby voices fall silent. "You ain't been mindin' the shop, Nosty. Jimmy and Sean say they saw you in the Underground a week ago with some bird. Said the two of you looked real cozy."
Marley bends low, but speaks loud enough for the gathering audience: "I hear you've changed the fucking scene, Nosty. Found yourself a posh little backer. Just like you found yourself a fucking backer in the pen."
Nosty laughs a breathy, frosty laugh at this jab, holding very still. His stolen knife gleams in his palm, and he's aware of his field of vision narrowing, of the adrenaline that floods his veins like ice water.
He licks his lips.
Fucker talking about his stint in Feltham. Everyone fucking knows not to talk to Nosty about Feltham. Fucker wants to tango.
Baring his sharp teeth, Nosty abruptly launches himself off of the milk crate, grabbing for Marley's thick neck. He knocks the smelly bastard down in the dirt with a yell, but fucker's a full head taller, and Marley manages to get a knee into his gut and a fist into his face before Nosty can bring the blade up to his chin.
They thrash about on the ground, grunting, cussing, and breathing hard. Nosty manages to stay on top, but Marley's hand is tight around his throat, pinching his windpipe.
"I hear…this is what you fucking like…Nosty son," Marley grits out, "You tell your posh hen…about being a fuck toy in the pen?" Marley swings wildly with his free hand, splitting Nosty's lip and connecting with his nose.
With a wild snarl, Nosty cracks the fucker's head twice on the hard, uneven ground, and Marley bites his own tongue so deeply that there's blood all down his chin and cheeks—but he hasn't given up the ghost yet.
"You smell like…fucking fruity soap," Marley chokes out, "how long did you have to…lap her posh little cunt…to get that fucking bracelet? What makes you so fucking special, eh?"
No one—fucking no one—speaks of Belle that way.
Nosty snarls and yanks the blade up against Marley's jugular, wheezing, feeling like he's going to boak. His long hair falls forward, casting shadows, and he can't see the other bloke's spattered face clearly, just hears the angry gasping and feels the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
The handle of the knife—Belle's knife—has a wee etching that arrests his attention. Dainty scroll work on polished wood. His heavy bracelet rests against the elegant, etched handle, gleaming in the firelight.
Nosty doesn't want to turn Belle's pretty paring knife into a fucking murder weapon. He doesn't want this baheid's gore on her dead brother's bracelet. He sure as fuck doesn't want visits from her every other Tuesday through a scratched plexiglass window, waiting for the day she doesn't come at all.
He doesn't want to be under a fucking bridge, struggling in the dirt like a fucking animal. He wants his warm nest-bed. He wants his bird.
With a hiss, Nosty lifts the blade to Marley's sweating temple and makes him fucking howl, dragging it down across his cheek, all the way to his bleeding lips. Carves him up real good.
"Anyone else want to ask about my fucking holiday?" he growls at the gathered crowd, then cracks Marley's head one last time against the dirt, knocking him unconscious.
"Fucking radge waster," Nosty mutters, then stands on his unsteady legs, glares at his drunken audience, turns on the heel of his boot, and stalks the fuck off.
He's filthy and bleeding and cold, and he wants his Belle.
Othello thunders, "Down strumpet!" and stalks around the edge of the disheveled bed.
Desdemona cowers in the middle, clutching the sheets, her eyes wide and glassy. "Kill me tomorrow!," she pleads, "Let me live tonight!"
Many in the audience have already begun to weep, such is the strength of this performance.
During the fourth act, the gentleman playing Othello struck Desdemona across the cheek, the blow connecting harder than what was likely intended. Hearing that loud crack, the audience gasped, and the actress cried out.
She uses that fear now, her wet eyes darting around the stage to the exits, to the windows, to the foot of the bed, but there is nowhere to go.
Othello moves closer, weeping and sneering by turns.
"It is too late," he gasps, and then follows the famous death scene, Desdemona's face entrapped beneath the pillow—but, oh, how she fights him! Clawing at his cheeks, kicking at his stomach. They won't be able to keep this up while they tour. After one or two such performances, they'll be scratched and bruised beyond recognition.
While Desdemona's attendant screams out for help, Belle imagines she hears an echoing voice calling out her name, but then the sound is gone, carried away on the wind, and she feels tears pricking the backs of her eyes. Othello is abusing his lady, even in death.
"Sir, if you'll just wait right here…"
The fuckers won't let him into their posh theatre. He's tracked dirt on their fine carpet and his lip is split open and swollen, and he's not wanted in a lobby where everything is plush and swank and spotless.
A security guard has his fingertips on Nosty's heaving chest, which Nosty angrily knocks aside.
He stumbles back, yelling for Belle.
He isn't thinking particularly clearly.
But then he notices the prissy little gent behind the desk who's picking up a phone. Must be the coppers he's calling.
Nosty leaves off his hollering and stumbles back out the revolving glass door—back into the baltic night air.
He needs his bird. He feels like he's being torn in fucking two, and it's only her arms that can hold him together.
It's a little after midnight when Belle unlocks her front door and steps inside. The room is quiet and dark, and her heart sinks—but then she catches sight of Nosty's black boots, scuffed and dirty, chucked onto the wood floor.
He's hunched on the couch, staring at one of her family photographs, seemingly lost in thought. His leather jacket is slumped on the floor.
"Nosty," she says, breaking his trance, and he rises with a great, shuddering breath, laying the picture aside.
He crosses the room slowly, taking jerky, faltering steps, and won't meet her eyes when he stands before her.
"Sweetheart," she whispers, her voice breaking on the word, and then he steps closer, wanting to be held and touched, and the moonlight illuminates his spoiled, bloodied face.
Belle draws in a sharp breath.
"Oh no!" she gasps. "Oh sweetheart, what happened?" Her fingertips carefully investigate his split lip and bruised cheeks, brushing away flecks of dried blood. "How badly are you hurt?" She feels beneath his t-shirt, strokes his shaking arms, sweeps her eyes over him, looking for more blood.
Nosty presses close, hiding his face against the top of her shoulder, wanting Belle to stroke his hair. He's still her sweetheart. She doesn't ask "What have you done?" but rather, "What's been done to you?" She wants to know how badly her baby is hurt. He's filthy and trembling and damaged, and he's still her sweetheart.
With an agonized little moan, he pushes Belle back against the dining room table and drops to his knees.
Nosty's gut still hurts from where that bastard struck him in the stomach, and his knees are scratched all to hell from the scuffle in the dirt, but he barely feels it. Instead, he feels Belle—still wearing her tweed jacket and her shiny, posh pumps—warm and soft and perfect and his.
She's trying to drag him back up to his feet by the elbows. She's telling him she's so happy he came back.
He stays on his knees, fervently kissing her belly through the black theatre dress, lifting the skirt and tugging down her delicate, cream knickers.
Belle's silk stockings stop at her upper thighs, exposing pale, plump flesh, and he's panting, reaching out to grip the table, ready to come from just the feel of his kilt brushing over his swollen cock.
"Nosty," Belle says, covering his hands with her own, trying to pull him to stand, "Sweetheart, I need to take care of your face."
He shakes his head, breathing hard, and lifts his hands from the table to grip Belle's hips. His lips travel lower, pressing kisses through the fabric to her navel, her abdomen, and then to the soft mound he wants to suck and lick and fucking worship.
Nosty has never used his mouth on a woman before.
He's pressing wet kisses through the soft cotton, and Marley's taunts are knocking around in his brain. How many minted, experienced fuckers have had their tongues in Belle's sweet muff? How many leisurely evenings has she spent in the leather backseats of swank cars with blokes who had all the time in the world?
How the fuck does he do this?
How does he erase the fucking Uni boys and the trust fund fucks and make Belle think only ever of him?
It's true that Nosty's never lacked for courage. He ignores the gentle hands that are plucking at his shoulders, ducks his head beneath her pretty dress, and rests his forehead against her dark curls, breathing deeply.
"Oh Belle…"
Nosty lifts his chin, kissing her curls softly, reverently.
She's so fucking perfect. It feels so fucking good to be down here between her parted thighs. She smells warm and rich and coppery.
Nosty savors the way his bird sighs when he cautiously darts out his tongue, touching it to the top of her slit, gently parting her outer lips.
Belle tastes like nothing he's ever experienced before.
The lads like to joke about this. They call it foul, but Belle tastes extraordinary. A metallic sweetness mixed with something richer, deeper, and utterly unique. Nosty feels a bit drunk from just this one little taste, and moans while licking his way deeper, dragging his hot tongue over her delicate, inner folds, causing Belle to jerk beneath his hands and catch her breath.
She still wants to drag him up to stand, so he must be doing something wrong. Belle isn't out of her mind, just breathing heavy and gripping his shoulders.
It must be because he's a fucking novice.
He fucks fast and furious in alleys, not slow and exploratory in swank cars and posh flats.
Fuck. Belle already knows a dozen different ways to make him fucking come, and he can't even give her proper head.
Nosty breathes her in deeply, licking rougher and quicker, gripping and kneading the backs of her thighs like Belle did for him. He tries to get his tongue all the way up inside her, and she groans a little at that, but—she isn't rocking forward the way he needed to when she had him backed up against this table.
She isn't even gripping his head, just grasping his shoulder and the edge of the table, and her eyes are wide open and so fucking warm, looking down at him.
"Nosty—baby…"
He redoubles his efforts, kissing and licking her soft inner thighs, wetting her properly with his mouth, lapping, lapping, frantically lapping, his tongue going a bit numb with it.
"Doesn't it…hurt your lips? Oh!—I need to lie down," Belle says, her voice raw. "Please, I need to lie down, sweetheart…"
He growls, not knowing if she's trying to save his pride and move him along to something else, but stands anyway, his cock bobbing out of his red kilt, rigid to the point of pain just from the smell and taste of her.
Belle tenderly kisses his wet, bloodied lips, and he allows himself to be led to the back bedroom.
Nosty stripped the soiled sheets from the bed before he left, and they are piled upon the floor near the doorway.
"I didn't know where to put 'em," he mumbles, and Belle smiles, thanks him sweetly, leads him over to the bare mattress.
He pauses at the foot of the bed because, well fuck, he doesn't know how to do this properly either, now does he? Doesn't know how to be with a woman when there's all the time in the world? When it's something other than a fast gobble in the alley or a lonely wank beneath his tarp?
Shite. Belle will realize just who she yoked herself to right quick.
But his bird is tugging him forward, settling herself back on the mattress, kicking off her knickers, and smiling at him like he didn't just fucking fail to bring her off.
"Come here, sweetheart," she says, and the words go straight to his swollen cock.
Aye, she can tell him where to go and for how long.
Maybe he can be her good boy, and then she'll tell him what to do and how to do it, and he can fucking obliterate the fuckers that came before him.
Because…he fucking belongs to her now, yeah? He'll be her good boy, Belle's baby, her pet. Oh yes, if she'll just go on touching him like he's worth something. If she'll just keep holding him close while she brings him off.
"Come here," Belle repeats, opening her arms, and when Nosty crawls to her she reaches out and unfastens his kilt.
"Take everything off, sweetheart," she croons, he voice so gentle, and he rushes to comply, yanking up his shirt, tugging at his socks. Nosty feels a flair of pride when her eyes are drawn to his thick, arched cock, wet at the tip and beyond ready for her.
"Oh baby," she says, her voice low and wanting, and Nosty moans and drapes his naked body over her, kissing Belle's lovely, white neck. Her hands reach downwards immediately, grasping his tight arse, making him grunt. She kneads and massages his cheeks until his hips begin to rock forward and back, and he's torn his lips from her neck, seeking out her mouth.
Belle rolls him onto his back, and Nosty breathes through his open mouth, half mad with the need to be hers. Mad for her to show him how.
Belle lifts her black theatre dress up over her head, and only her stockings and lace bra remain now. She looks tousled and flushed and so fucking glorious.
Nosty reaches for her, groaning, but she flips about, straddling his waist so that her plump little bottom is in his face, and he can see her lovely, wet folds.
Belle straightens out, kissing along his stomach until her breath is warming his twitching, eager cock, and her beautiful, fragrant, slick little cunt is right up in his face. Panting, Nosty lifts his head and begins to lick, desperate to give her pleasure, desperate to feel Belle's lips on his cock.
She gives him sweet, flickering kisses and hot licks along the length of him, teasing him, forcing him to lift his hips even though her slight weight has him pinned to the mattress.
"Relax, sweetheart," she murmurs against his stiff cock. "Oh baby, like this," and she licks him slowly, deliberately, her tongue traveling all the way down to his sack, and Nosty realizes she means to show him how.
He mimics her hot, steady strokes, using the flat of his tongue on the highest part of her and the wet tip once he reaches her slick entrance, repeating this over and over, just as she does, driving him slowly mad with her steady rhythm.
"That's it, oh…!" she gasps, when the flat of his tongue presses hard against a wee nub at her opening, and Belle presses her own tongue to the head of his cock, first lapping, then offering him a gentle, insistent suckle that has him moaning between her legs,
"Good, Nosty, oh, God, I need to…" she doesn't finish saying what she needs to because her lips are easing over him, and he's struggling to thrust deeper just as she struggles for a faster rhythm against his mouth.
"Please Belle," he moans, "please…ah! Please help me…"
"Yes, just, oh yes…" she whimpers, her hips rocking down hard against him, her tongue swirling around the head of his cock—so he swirls his own tongue around the wee nub she's got pressed against his mouth until her breath comes in little, gasping sobs: "Oh please, oh please…"
He pushes her legs further apart, groaning.
She begins to shake and keen then, spread wide, clutching him, and he feels the moment her body seizes up, the spasms that overtake her, the ways she calls out for him. His bird. His beautiful Belle.
He's wild from it, the way she gasped his name, choking on it, her lips instantly returning to his cock to suckle and lick, and then his own body begins to shudder and jerk, and he's got his face buried in her wet curls, panting.
"Felt so good…" he says, reaching down to take her hand.
"I want you to feel good," she murmurs, sounding sleepy. With a great effort, as if her limbs are made of something much heavier than bone and flesh, Belle turns around and climbs up his ruined chest. She kisses his collar bone and shuts her eyes.
"How does this end, Belle?" Nosty asks, his voice very quiet. He's got his hand buried in her soft hair.
"It doesn't," she promises.
The moonlight glints off of his silver bracelet, and Nosty stays awake long after his bird has drifted off into sleep.