In brisk strides I hurried to one of the guest baths, rarely used and some distance from any of the servants quarters, even further from my master's rooms. The gas lamps turned low, I drew a scalding bath, hot enough to burn a normal man. The steam clouded the wash room, fogging the mirrors so I did not have to look upon my own reflection.
I eased myself in the blistering tub, muscles easing despite searing skin. I was red, blazing within and my head eased with the sweltering heat in the air. I had not given myself such luxury in quite some time.
I considered the events of the day. My encounter with Mey-Rin would be a complication. There was a small part of me that was concerned of the possibility of Ciel discovering our dalliance on this night. Why would that be such a worry, I pondered. I bedded Mey-Rin because it was the easiest course of action to protect his own reputation. I now had leverage over the maid, a reason for her to keep her silence. It made all logical sense to me, so why did I have this creeping suspicion that I had made some egregious error?
It was best the master did not discover these facts, and I concluded it best that he remain in the dark about all of it. He did not need to know he was sighted with me in the music room, in such a lewd position. He did not need to know how Mey-Rin felt about it, or what measure I took to ensure her silence. It would only cause further strain on the boy who had enough matters with which to concern himself.
Perhaps... perhaps it would upset him to know I had no qualms with bedding whoever I pleased. Sex is power, I was resolved in this fact. It was a potent means to obtaining control over another, and I delighted in how I could gain such control over my master through these means. I also delighted in soft limbs, his quivering form, his scent, the way his temples would break out into sweat from my heated touch. I craved him calling to me, the begging... and would he be furious if he knew I would give my attention to another, regardless of the circumstance?
The boy was possessive, no doubt, wanting control over what he claimed as his. As per the contract, I was property, and he had laid conditions that limited my freedoms. Still, it was foolish for any human to believe they could have complete control over a demon. Ciel, for all his cunning and willfulness, was still rather naive.
Was he naive enough to believe that he could possess me in some deeper way? Humans have strange ideas on how they emotionally possess each other. I will never understand this, never in all my years have I been able to make sense of the phenomenon… how humans will take possession of each other without thought. Such a course appears weak, and yet, why does such co-dependence lead to a resolve within each other, an unshakeable... dare I say, strength? I can never understand such a paradox.
Would the master want such of me? For what purpose? The steam was clearing in the bathroom, and I could glimpse my reflection in the bottom of the mirror, yet fog still floated about the ceiling. This form was attractive, desirable. I had pondered if the master was attracted to this form because it was simply in his nature to be so. It was a personal condition, to desire a male in a way that he was always meant to desire his fiancée. This truth was easy to understand, but why was I developing this suspicion that he was grasping for more?
I could not deny that I was completely adverse to the entire prospect. I did not want to consider these things. I cringed, even when the water was still quite warm, the very idea set as heavy as a block of ice in my chest.
I lifted myself from my bath, having spent enough late hours pondering these complications. Sitting and thinking had only caused me further anger, and I resolved that I would resist speaking to Ciel on any matter at all. I was his butler, his servant. I had no qualms against fulfilling any order, and the simplicity of this arrangement had to be maintained. I would not push for anything further, for the boy would continue to crave me without my advances; of this I was certain. On the other hand, what expectations would he begin to place upon me?
Sunday was a quiet respite before the full schedule that awaited Ciel the following week. It was that Monday morning when the Earl Phantomhive made correspondence with factories in London, Le Havre, Hamburg, Gdansk, Dublin, Ioannina, Modena and Philadelphia. Easter was to come early that year, the twenty-ninth March, and with it being the 16th, factories were in final production for the holiday. The boy had to request inventory reports, subsidize production and distribution expenses, see that merchandise made its way to countless licensed shops, as well as figure projected sales. This was enough to keep him busy for the better part of the week.
In addition to all this, Funtom Easter merchandise was advertised that ten percent of all profits would be donated to Lewisham Hospital, to build a new wing. His cousin Edward had been attending King's College, an institution closely tied to the hospital, which is why the boy decided this is where the charity would benefit him most. According to projected sales, this promised to be a huge sum. No doubt it would bolster the Phantomhive's reputation for philanthropy. Ciel had everything to gain from taking such a move.
It was Tuesday morning when the young master received a letter from Marchioness Francis Midford:
My dear nephew Ciel,
We do look forward to your visit Easter weekend. Goodness knows you have been working yourself to death, for my husband and I have hardly seen you since last Christmas. I approve of your commitment to your work. You continue to make the name of Phantomhive proud.
We have noticed the flowers Elizabeth has been receiving as of late. I cannot help but find it a little unexpected of you, but I approve of how you have been courting my daughter in such a feverish yet gentlemanly manner. When you visit, we have much to discuss on the manner, and I felt it only fair to give you forewarning of this. We expect much more of you yet, Ciel.
We recently received your invitations to the ball in May. We heard rumors of how influential this charity event will be and we applaud your decision to help fund Lewisham's upcoming renovations. Enclosed is our RSVP. I know it is rather early to be sending it a month in advance, hardly fashionable, but you are family.
When you do come to visit, please bring Tanaka with you. He has been a family friend for such a long time, and the idea of him spending Easter alone sounds dreadful.
Warm regards,
Aunt Francis
The young master found this letter disconcerting. "What does she mean she expects more of me yet?" The cryptic comment plagued him for the better part of the day, distracting him from accounting figures. He placed a lot of value on his aunt's opinion of him, and was willing to go to great lengths to appease her. He did not care for my assurances that Marchioness Midford would not ask something of him if she believed her nephew could not fulfill her expectations. This did little to put his mind at ease and he dismissed me in irritation.
Later I heard him screaming something over the phone in French to the manager of the Le Havre factory, and proceeded to slam the phone on the receiver and retire to the game lounge downstairs. He came to dinner that evening smelling of bourbon. He was not in a mood to be questioned, but I did not like to see my master under such strain.
I decided I would handle matters of the ball myself, considering that taking one less obligation off of my master's mind would be the most help. I made arrangements to hire a string quartet in London for the occasion, which had a good reputation for these sorts of events. Invitations had been sent out a little over a week ago, and no doubt more RSVPs would continue to arrive. Ciel would not have a word with me on the matter, irritated enough that a final shipment out of the Le Havre would be arriving on shelves two days late, cutting into potential profits over very time-sensitive merchandise.
"What sense is there in stuffed rabbits being on the shelves on the twenty-third? Everyone does their spring shopping the weekend before Easter!"
He had awoken Wednesday morning with an aching head, making work all the more strenuous. A less than productive day had only caused further frustration. By Wednesday evening, the young master was beyond stressed.
"It's always unfortunate when Easter arrives early," Ciel sighed as he turned over under the coverlet of his bed to look in my direction. "This week has been dreadful."
Candle light danced across his furrowed brow. He had an uneasy tension about him, the sort of fatigue a person carries with him when for as much as they would like to rest they cannot quell the endless worries in their mind. I stood distanced from his lounging form in the bed, a pillow tucked under his middle as he eyed me.
I felt a stirring, gazing over his reclined form. "I think a good night's rest will do you well." Another part of me did not want to encourage this longing.
"I am not tired."
"Perhaps I could fetch you a book?"
"I am in no mood to read." Heavy-lidded eyes suggested Ciel was in the mood for something else. He sat up to pull off his nightshirt. I knew he was wearing nothing underneath it, and the sheets of the bed pooled a little too low around his hips. "I could use a massage." He smirked. "You can forgo the candlewax this evening."
I slipped the massage oil from out of a vanity drawer and strode to the bed. I would forgo a lot of things if I could help it, but the manner in which he sprawled over the pillow tucked underneath him, and how the covers shrank back from his middle... I found myself once more sitting on the edge of the bed, gloves off, kneading bare skin and Ciel's moaning was muffled by the pillows spread about his face. I had the distinct impression he was urging me to initiate some course action.
Ciel only needed some brief distraction from the stresses of the day, I reasoned. He depended on me to provide that, and I could not help but feel a little flattered. Was it not one of my many obligations as a servant? The boy was easing under my hands, so trusting, so pliant. He turned his head to look at me through lidded eyes, his fringe draped over softened features. There was that longing once again, the sort that was beyond mere desire for pleasure. It brought me back to thoughts of Ciel's peculiar preferences. "Young master, I must ask... what is it about me that you find so attractive?"
He sat up, forcing me to pause, his mismatched eyes meeting mine. "Why would you ask such a thing?" That scolding look indicated he was put off by such a brash inquiry.
"Is it a crime to be curious?" I looked down to his slim chest and I saw my hands trail across his collar bone, as if they moved of their own volition. He watched my fingers move across his skin and lowered himself back to his pillow. The simplest touch caused a fluttering in his chest.
Ciel murmured, "Well, Sebastian... um, I like your hands." The confession resulted in a slight blush in his face. He gathered my left hand in his own, his thumb circling over the seal.
"I am already well aware of this fact." My fingers tangled with his. "Is it because you know the pleasures I give?"
He was silent for a moment, taking in the details of my hands, perhaps looking for some flaw. He would find none. His fingers fluttered over the palms, tracing lines and creases, winding around the mounds of my hands as if to divine some detail of myself. When one wears gloves often, it is a shock to register gentle touch with such intensity.
"I've always been curious about your nails." He turned my right hand over to study them more critically. "It's so unnatural for them to be this dark, and I know you don't darken them in any cosmetic way. It has me wondering if…" He paused to crane his head over the bed, looking at my feet on the floor. Even the dim light my polished shoes still gleamed.
"What were you wondering?" I pressed.
Ciel would not look at me. "What of your feet?" He blushed further from such a boyish curiosity.
I could not help but chuckle. "Astute as always, my young lord!"
"So would my assumptions be correct?"
"Quite."
"Might I see?"
I blinked in surprise. "Is the young master asking me to take off my shoes?" The boy nodded. I leaned over the bed to untie laces, dress shoes slipping off and wool socks following. Ciel peered over and his breath caught to see the shock of pale beneath the hem of my slacks. It must have been a strange sight. Formal work attire was the standard, professional, pressed, and polished. Here I was with my bare feet resting on the carpet in my young master's bedchamber. I stretched my toes on the soft surface, nails gleaming as onyx as my discarded shoes. The boy looked incredulous, as if he had not believed me.
"Wow, so bizarre. What causes this, anyway?" He was bending for a closer look. I leaned against the firm post at the foot of the bed, and I rested my feet beside him, hands laced in my lap. Decency be damned, I thought.
"If you must know... it is a shade of my true condition, manifesting itself despite this comely form." His fingers traced the bones over the top of my feet, and I shuddered. "I have endeavored to act and appear human many times. With every contract I have made, I improve upon this mask. Regardless of how skilled I have become at projecting this human form, some characteristics of my natural state must surface."
"Why is that?"
"Because no matter how well I can wear the mask, or act the part, I will always and forever be what I am."
He pulled my right foot into his lap, peering with acute observation as though it were an object to be studied. My breath suspended, his fingers trickled under the arch, around the big toe, and the contact was as a chord that shot through to the core of me. "... I think that is what I like about you most," Ciel whispered.
He was a dreadful distraction, and I replied dumbly, "You like me because I am a demon?"
"No, it's not that, necessarily. What I mean is— there is constancy to you. I can depend on you to be genuine with me."
I was silent. The boy was so naïve.
Ciel lifted himself from the covers, and I was reminded of how he wore nothing at all, clambering over me to straddle my lap. His weight pressed into my thighs and my hands fell around slender hips. He caught my gasp in his mouth, a kiss wild and passionate and he cupped my face with such possession...
"I like your lips as well. I like how you close your eyes when you kiss me."
"You still have more to tell, young master?"
"Take this off," the boy breathed, pawing at my tie, fumbling over buttons. I ripped the tie away, shrugging away vest and collar, and Ciel clawed at exposed skin. "I like your skin… I want to feel it." It was his touch on my bare shoulders that forced all reason from me. I shifted over the center of the bed to cradle him under my chest, crouching on knees as he struggled to pull away my trousers. He would have me bare before him, wretched and wanting. "Sebastian, I like to be wanted by you."
My voice was low in my chest. "Do you even know what you are asking for?" His arms were around me, nails clawing at the small of my back. I buried my nose in his hair, relishing a scent that had me pulling him closer. He moaned from the contact, grinding into my hips.
"Maybe I do know, Sebastian. I am already damned and wretched, and I really don't care anymore." Hands groped at my hard erection, pulling and pleading, tongue and teeth on my neck.
"Haah... If I may be blunt... you are a damn fool."
"I would strike you if I did not believe it to be true. I should, simply for your impudence. Or perhaps I should just show you how much of a fool I really am. Lie on your back." I turned over and rested my head in the pillows, feeling apprehensive. Apprehensive? What reason did I have to feel that way?
This was my master, I thought. This most elementary fact knocked me to my senses. Was I under the misconception that I was entitled to any control? Perhaps I was the fool. I watched in horror as his hot mouth overtook my aching erection and my speculation was confirmed. I am the damned fool, dominated by serpentine tongue.
He bobbed over me, pulsing slickness covered in his spittle, vitriol that would dissolve all my defenses. "Young master..." my voice cracked. Again I was being serviced and in the master's own bed, and my hands twitched with the need to touch him.
Ciel raised his head to look at me with brazenness. "Do you like this?" Tender nuzzling followed, and he chuckled in that pompous manner. "I rather like this arrangement."
He would not undo me this time, I resolved. I may find pleasure in this boy, but I would not let him reduce me to a quivering mess.
"How much of me can you take into your mouth?" I whispered. I threaded my fingers through his hair with soft tenderness. "Are you able to conquer all of it?" I held him fast as I lifted my hips, wishing to force more of myself upon him.
He tensed with a gag. It was enough to entice the prideful boy to swallow more. Those lips slipped further down my shaft, nose nuzzled into pubis. Hot breath lapped over the head.
"So greedy, young master," I purred. "Will you forever continue to impress me?" His lips pulled at me, tongue swishing, head dipped with urgency. He was determined not to back down from my challenges. He wanted to prove himself, put me in my place, as it were. I tilted back my head on the pillows, sighing deeply in an attempt to relax myself, but this too was foolish. I felt him humming over my length, relishing in this act.
I could feel the tightening within me, his mouth was urgent, lips traveling with slick speed. His fingers cut into my thighs as I felt myself lifting up, I clutched at tendrils falling over his lidded eyes. Tongue licked as soft as fire under and around, causing the pressure to coil tighter and tighter, he pulled fiercely, desperate to cause the coil to snap.
The sight was overwhelming, his shoulder blades pressed back, rear raised as his head jerked, eyes wet from the effort. My breath was shallow, I twitched to hold back, but he only looked up with watery eyes, contract blazing. I felt a shuddering in my mind as I heard him command without voice. "Come, you wretched demon, come."
I seized, releasing with weak, cracking moan, holding the back of Ciel's head with quivering force. He gagged and sputtered, another convulsion wracked me to tear apart the coiled strings. He pushed from me, coughing as I shuddered, my breath rattling.
Control was an illusion, I reasoned.
He looked a mess, slavered face and rumpled hair. It was too precious. I clung to his shoulders, pulling him against me. I wanted to taste my own wretchedness on him. My lips overtook him, hungry to explore his mouth, and his soft sack grinding into my still-sensitive organ.
His rocking was urgent. "I want it," he whispered over my puckered lips. He was so hard, so ready. I grabbed for the massage oil on the bed side table, slathering my fingers. My slick hand reached under him as he straddled over me. He clutched around my neck as a finger slid through his heated tightness. His knees shook and he gave a strangled cry, but urged me further by pushing against the intrusion. My free arm held him tightly against me, burying my face into the crook of his arm. I could smell his desperation, sweet musk, mixed with my own vileness. I dribbled the oil over his lower back, running down his backside, between his cheeks, to pool where my fingers pushed deeper. He cried and shuddered, his hardness pushing against my abdomen. He grabbed the bottle from me, tipping it over my front and the oil pooled between us. He thrust against my oiled belly as fingers filled him. He took his pleasure greedily, despite tense muscles around my slick fingers.
"Relax, young master," I whispered, my hand around his middle to still him. I leaned lower, allowing him to lie over me as I continued to pump into him. His fingers combed through my long hair, and I lapped at his chest. I pushed deep and he jerked against me. "Sebastian-" and again, "I can't..." and again, "No!" he gave a strangled cry as he came undone, a beautiful heap as he moaned into my ear, his orgasm rocking him to pieces that collapsed over me, and I continued to lap at him, filled with such ecstasy. I slowly pulled oiled fingers from him and he whimpered from their absence.
"I wasn't ready," He looked at me with irritation.
"You seemed ready enough." His lip pouted, but he decided to cozy into me.
Silently I pulled him from the bed, walking him to the wash room. The water was cold as I sponged sticky skin. He winced from my cleaning his backside, but gave no complaint. He shivered as he watched me wash myself, and I was quick about it.
He was eager to tuck into bed, and while I bent to gather my effects Ciel bade me, hands outstretched. "Sebastian, stay."
"Oh young master, you have not asked such a thing since you were a child."
"No, not like that. I'm not afraid... I just want you here."
I raised my eyebrows in slight surprise. "In bed with you?"
He pulled back the sheets and slid over as an invitation. It is hardly worth mentioning that I was reluctant, but I complied and felt his hands reaching around me. "Hold me." He pressed into my thigh and my hand stroked his back in something resembling affection. Fire crackled behind the grate and Ciel's steady breath warmed my neck.
I wanted to not lie so stiffly under the covers. The boy relaxed into me, breathing deep, lazily rubbing against my thigh. It was no use to tell him that this was not advisable. I had other obligations awaiting me in the kitchen, but the tired Earl was beyond caring at this point. In the very least, he was no longer stressed, free to doze fitfully before another day would alert him of his duties.
The night was still, the manor silent... fire burned low, and in the stillness I could hear a voice that did not penetrate the air, "Sebastian..." it was the master's voice that only echoed in own head. It sounded distant and mumbled, tangled in his half-consciousness.
I pulled his dosing form against me, a hand lacing with my own. Streams of thoughts seemed to crackle. "What is this? How can we..." I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. No, oh damn it all no. "... has come to this. So wrong, unbearably wrong... cannot stop, do not want to stop." Yes, this was wrong. I did not want this, all my worst anxieties bared before me. "...falling for you? Never leave me... "