For optimal reading pleasure, this chapter is best paired with Tartini's "Devil's Trill" Sonata in D Minor. Go look it up on YouTube.
"Where is it?"
My lips curled from his clipped tone. "The violin? In my possession."
He clenched his teeth in an attempt to contain his irritation. Shaking, he barked. "I'll be in the music room. Bring it to me immediately."
"Yes, my lord." How dare I take something that is not mine? I acted out of line, but was that not one of the tactics in this game in which we dared to dally? Perhaps it was not the violin that caused his anger, but rather my inclination to keep secrets.
I retrieved the violin from the bottom drawer of the armoire, tucked under linens, as if I had someone other than myself from which to conceal it. The clicking of my heels penetrated the silence of the halls as I hurried to the music room. The warmth of lit lanterns barely diffused the grey atmosphere of the parlor. Imposing furniture cast shadows too deep as the storm pelted against the window. Ciel's new violin lay in its case on the table, untouched. Upon my arrival, he stood from his Tudor chair as though he was welcoming my performance.
"Give it here." I obliged the young master, and as he grasped the instrument in his left hand he immediately sensed a fundamental change in its composition.
"What is this?" He looked at me with confusion and disbelief. "You've ruined it! What kind of sick joke is this, Sebastian?"
I tenderly plucked the violin from his shaking hand and placed it underneath my chin to my right. Raising the bow, I proclaimed, "Do you remember what I said of such an instrument?"
"Something about how you would prefer to play left-handed? So you would go behind my back to merely indulge this peculiar notion?"
I raised the bow from the table in my left hand waved it with a flourish. My contract seal tingled, for I was eager to direct a very nefarious concert. "Yes, but it is so much more than an indulgence for me. It is also an opportunity for you. You remember I said to you that you have never heard me truly play." The young master eyed that bow suspiciously.
He folded his arms. "I also remember you saying how the whole instrument had to be reconfigured, a mirror image, as it were."
"Indeed. Not only was the instrument restrung, but pegs were also reversed. I had to alter the bridge so the strings could be laid properly. Even the instruments innards had to be flipped to compensate for the proper acoustics. Lastly," I caressed my chin into the body, "he now prefers I lie upon him on this side."
"So it's supposed to play differently now?"
"My young master, in theory it should sound like a normal violin. The difference is in the musician. The bow is the active, projective force when playing the violin. For most good gentlemen, dominance resides on the right. Now, if one were to utilize the projective act on the left…" I slid the bow across the strings, and a note wept from the beautiful creation. "Does it affect the tone, feeling, essence of the music? I suppose one could say my virtuosity is borne of my sinister nature." I fingered a trill and so many notes spilled over themselves, pooling around me.
Ciel's eye widened in disbelief, having never seen a sight as strange – as if a mirrored image was misplaced in solid reality where it was never meant to exist. He felt it best to sit back down in that intolerably stiff chair.
Minor chords wound from my fingers on the neck. The bow caressed across him as smoothly as silk cords, cajoling him to submit his secrets. I swayed to this weeping, all the while, paying attention to the boy as he gazed in awe. As I seized on a jarring chord, he responded with a jerk. Again, sonorous notes tied in and wound tension around passages that gripped the heart in suspense and unease. I eased a gentle, final note that rippled the air. The stillness that followed was just as jarring and Ciel grasped at the arm rest of his chair.
"Sebastian... how is it that I never knew...? I've listened to you for years. You've instructed me and..."
"You have only ever heard me play 'properly,' young master. It is rather stiff and restrained in comparison to this, do you not agree?" He simply nodded.
"What were you playing?"
"Oh, I am not finished. But I am surprised you are not familiar with this composition, my little lord. Well, it was only the introduction. Perhaps you would like me to continue?"
Despite a nonchalant wave of approval, a cerulean eye carried a heavy certainty. "Indulge me."
Immediately, the bow dashed lightly my fingers danced. A jerky rhythm took ahold of me and I felt myself falling into this bizarrely chipper cadence but underneath its surface resided an impish quality. Recognition dawned on the young master's face. "Surely, not. This is."
"Yes?" I inquired, continuing my frenetic pace.
"This is Tartini."
"Very good, young master." I delved into the manic melody harder, the notes more urgent, and the scales escalated in raucousness.
"Did he not sell his soul for this very composition?"
"There have been rumors of such, but only rumors." The violin squealed at this speed, and while limber fingers could maintain the pace, my thoughts began to whirl with this jarring melody. The energy of the music was palpable as it rushed up my arm, the seal burning with enthusiasm. "But such a composition is challenging for even the most skilled violinist. That is, unless they were given aid by some outside influence."
The melody ebbed once more, and the morose chords pooled about us. Ciel rose from his chair, timidly moving towards me. I pressed on, wanting to take him into this abyss, knowing I was the only one who could.
"I... can't stop shaking. Sebastian, what do you do to me?" His voice rattled with uncertainty. His eye glistened and I watched his control flicker away as though tugged apart by so many strings. My black-tipped fingers danced upon the neck, and their influence compelled Ciel to respond as if they skimmed over his own flesh. In his eye I saw the acceptance of a very grim truth that he so desperately wished to deny. The song I played was of him: heavy, mournful, and removed from grace.
I felt the weight of the melody lift and I trembled as I flew into a flurry of erratic scales once more. I watched my young master respond with hitched breath. A force of heated timbres, sinister and intense, coupled with passages of mournful weeping teetering on the edge of instability. Ciel clutched at himself, being swept through his own polarizing conflict.
On the verge of breaking, the aching in his heart worked itself over his features. As the young earl was apt to do, he charged headlong, past the fear and timidity aside – I felt his soft hand caress my cheek.
Oh, how the contact drew me into this corrupt cadence even further. My fingers jerked over the neck, my bow thrusting harder, singing obscenities that pained the ears and could tear a heart from the chest. Such a reaction further encouraged his need to reach for me, to touch the source of all his conflict, as well as the salvation from it. I felt his hands tugging at the buttons of my jacket, but I refused to stop. As he reached the buttons of my shirt I realized he's never seen my bare chest. Fingers crawled over my flesh, and the song became a torrent of maddening arpeggios, with chords that rung of an otherworldly nature. I gulped at the air, as I drove harder still, and the boy moved to grasp me from behind. I felt his ragged breath on my neck, his body pinned against my back, clutching and clawing. I felt the tug at the waist band and the immediate loosening as the buttons were unfastened. His fingers danced bare over my hips and the music swelled with an untold agony, airing the harsh secrets we never dare display. Those perfect hands of Ciel took ahold of me, desperately erect, and it was at that point that I came undone.
My vulnerability was displayed before him, and nothing could have compelled me to cease. Let him see me undignified, wretched and wanting, I thought. I was swollen, and his grasping drove my violin to moan, scream, notes hyperventilating erratically. One last painful pitch ripped from my being and Ciel's nails dug into me, as though fearful I would dissipate into the ether along with this damning sonata.
My arms went limp, and I set the most precious implement of music on the table, for it had performed its work successfully. The boy continued his stroking: maddeningly slow yet blissfully deliberate. Nervous, ragged breaths resounded where once the haunting melody had occupied the twilight space. I would not dare to move, for fear my master would be discouraged in giving me this pleasure. Could it be that I was overwhelmed by his blatant want? Never had he been so forward. My devious plan was far more effective than even I could anticipate, and now I found myself... uncharacteristically startled by these developments. Not only that, I was startled by this aching, the sheer force of my desire for my young master, which made me that much more aware of my ever-present emptiness.
His hands were so soft. I stared at a blank spot on the wall, not daring to look down at how his fingers slipped over the head, tracing across the underside of my organ, following a pattern of grasping, tugging, and then gentle stroking. All of this sensation caused me to tighten, trembling from the pressure. I was the servant, and here I was being serviced.
"Sebastian..." my young master whispered. "I want to kiss you."
I wasted no time. I spun around, grasping the boy's face in my shaking hands, and his wanting lips parted, receiving mine with a moan. In his eagerness he unbuttoned my waist coat, while I loosened my tie. The buttons of my shirt came undone and I had a fleeting thought that Ciel had never seen me in such an exposed, indecent state. When I felt his fingers graze my abdomen, I decided the issue was not worth any thought. Lips puckered around a nipple, and I grasped at his hair, undoing the silk strands of his eye patch that was cast aside to reveal an iris shimmering. He deftly unbuttoned his own top.
Ciel murmured, "I want to feel you." Never had the boy made such a request. It was neither demand nor order; it was genuine desire. This realization inflamed me with even greater want. "Ah… this, I can't stop-"
"Do you want to, my young lord?" I whispered.
He pressed hard against me, his voice trembling from the contact, flesh on flesh. "I think this goes far beyond simple desire... hah..." he placed a wet kiss on my chest, and I felt the graze of his teeth, the heat of his tongue. "What is this cruel need you have instilled in me?"
My teeth grazed his neck and he yelped. I grasped at his rump and sighed into his ear. "Perhaps you now have some understanding of the burden I have carried with me these long years, young master." I felt his tongue trace my collar bone and he struggled with the buttons on his trousers. "You are entitled to know these secrets so long as you have the courage to seek them." His erect cock slipped free. "And I know my little master cannot resist continuing to play with fire." Our erections met, and a quick graze against the other emboldened our urgency further.
He pulled at me, led by my loose shirt, beckoning me to the bench. As he lay over the cushions, the fabric from his shirt parted further, shorts slinking further down his bottom. He pulled me onto him, his hips bucking to meet mine. Bodies collided, hip to hip. Clothes hung from us most undignified, wrinkled and pushed aside, but we cared little, for all our untamed urgency.
Ciel gasped from the contact, heated erection rubbing against my own, and our touches urgent and overwrought with passion. My desperation was fierce, palpable, and surely to see me so exposed overwhelmed him. Grinding into him I let out a sigh, and in that moment Ciel understood that he had my full, complete, unwavering attention. His fingers traced along my back, underneath my open shirt, the neck tie long forgotten.
"Sebastian... you are so warm..." he nipped at my chin, wanting to hide the blush of his face while I continued to grind against his hot organ. Hips quivered and rocked, his back arching exquisitely.
I implored, "Please, young master, do not cease with your indulgences."
I caressed a cheek and he collected my fingers in his own. "Your hands... having done unspeakable things... and yet I sometimes I frighten myself with how much I crave them." His eyes were ablaze as his tongue traced over my knuckles, lips ending at the seal... and I felt as though it were being burned into me all over again. I was aghast with how sensitive one's hands could be. Taking a digit in his mouth, I could feel a shock that spun itself down to the core, and I bucked in response. His breath hitched at this unexpected pressure, and we were both growing slick against each other, urging us to rock faster, grind harder.
The young master was breathing more erratically, each thrust producing a quivering moan. I felt his sweet breath on my face and kissed fervently. The manner in which he grasped my shoulders was pleading, desperate. He felt so fragile underneath me, and yet he would press back fearlessly.
"How can I... want you so much? How is it that such a desire feels so... necessary?" His thrusts felt almost frustrated, as if finding a release could not come soon enough. Fingers slid down my neck, through my hair. "What sorcery have you worked upon me, Sebastian?"
I felt the pleasure was mounting, fluid collecting between us, urging me faster. My arms wrapped around his thin torso, holding him down as my hips gyrated in a circle... over, and over, a pulse he could not move away from. I whispered in his ear, "You know my secret, how I cannot resist you, your smell, your taste, the sounds you make... and the truth of it is... no one has ever desired you more genuinely than I have. No one ever will, because no one can know you as completely as I."
The truth of it all was written as shame on his face which he tried to shield behind a trembling hand. "No." I pulled it away and kissed his palm. "Look at me." My hair curtained around him, a fortress enough. "Do not hide your face, your precious face." My hips pulsed harder, circling erratically. His body tensed, trying so hard to push the inevitable away. "Come for me, young master." I was barely audible.
Despite how forcefully I clung to him, he bucked under me. Sweat collected on his brow. I saw the rose in his cheeks, his lips swollen red. I watched his features tense further and further, until the pressure spun itself loose and he crashed into his orgasm. I held his face, staring into those wide eyes filled with horror to be so exposed to me. Regardless, he clung to me as he rocked through his pleasure.
He had not simply climaxed from the stimulation; it was because of me. And here I was, privileged enough to see a sight so gorgeous as my young master's face blooming with unbearable pleasure. It was too much.
His seed collected between us, and hungrily I thrust against this slickness between us. I pushed between his thighs, desperate for closeness, desperate for my own release.
"Please, young master, let me have this." I felt the friction of this thighs rubbing over me, and I took this as a sign of approval. He buried his face in my chest as I kept thrusting, rocking him violently in the process. I allowed myself to finally acknowledge my own bitter truth: I could don the mask of a servant so well that I had forgotten my own nature. Ciel was a damn fool to allow such intimacy, and I was a damn fool to succumb to it. In that moment, I had never been so acutely aware of my starved condition.
For a brief moment, the mask had fallen, and my pleasure peaked, fingers twisting in the boy's hair. A feral grunt caused him to tremble under me, and all I could think was, "This is mine. Mine, all mine." Hot seed poured and it did nothing to quell that emptiness. I felt more of a husk because of it. The swell of sensation overwhelmed me, and yet I felt so coldly bereft.
As I descended from my orgasm, I never felt so weak. My breath rattled. Despite not needing to breathe, why was I so shaken?
When I looked into his face, coming off my orgasm, a solitary tear perched on his right eye. I kissed it away, tasting conflict and sorrow and wondered how none of that bitter flavor manifested on his face. Such a tender gesture compelled him to wrap his arms around my waist, easing me down. My elbows propped me up above him, casting his face in deep shadow. A minute passed, each of us breathless as we stared unbelieving of what just transpired. Finally, he said simply, "What is this? What are we doing?"
His question brought me to my senses. We were in such a state of disarray. For once, I had lost track of the time. I realized the sun was quite low. Bard was in the kitchen by himself. I had no idea where the other servants were, much less whether they had remained on task without my supervision.
I bolted upright and lunged for my discarded waistcoat, pulling out a handkerchief to clean off the young master. We were a deplorable mess. Why was I still shaking?
I noticed a crack in the door, and I distinctly recalled shutting it when I had first entered the room.