🍌 CW - sexual content

I had a bad feeling about the salons.

It was one of those sick apprehensions that sprouted deep in my gut and spread throughout my whole body, until my fingertips were tapping against my sides just to keep from ripping my hair out.

A thin layer of sweat covered me, but I couldn't tell how much of that was due to my nerves and how much was due to whatever substance was in my system.

Beyond the imposing salon doors, I could hear the clink of glasses, an occasional sharp cry, and the ever-present rumble of hearty laughter.

My fist lingered in the air, poised to knock but lacking the courage.

"Wait for me."

I turned back. The Marquis' blonde hair was messy, his eyes big and slightly wild, and his clothes... his clothes were all but gone.

He wore a long overcoat buttoned to conceal whatever horror he was hiding beneath. His legs were bare, his feet free of the shoes he'd worn to the ball. His slim, swanlike neck, normally covered by a dramatic jabot, was now exposed.

"What in God's name are you wearing?"

He tossed me a sly grin. "You'll see."

He brushed past me and rapped his knuckles thrice against the door. I shivered. Whatever lay on the other side couldn't possibly be good for me.

Only a few seconds passed before the knob turned. The door cracked open and revealed a masked woman dressed in gold.

Literally, only gold.

A thick golden necklace dipped between her bare breasts, on which heavy rings shaped like flowers adored each dark nipple. Two separate gold chains dangled from the lowest petals and glittered in the wavering candlelight.

"Holy Mary," I murmured.

A layered waist chain was positioned to drape diagonally from her hip to her thigh, revealing only slips of ebony skin beneath.

She had a deep, rich voice that rolled off her tongue like a clap of thunder. "Lee Lee! Come in, darling."

"Kisi." The Marquis stepped forward to kiss both her cheeks.

Like the rest of her, sleeves of gold covered both arms from wrist to elbow. Delicate golden vines snaked down the backs of her hands and decorated her fingers.

"What-" I began, suddenly struggling to recall the English language. "What in-"

I lost the ability to speak altogether as the woman stepped aside and pushed open the mahogany door.

Inside, people sprawled across every inch of the room - on sofas, on tables, up against walls, out on the floor. Some in pairs, others in groups, kissing, licking, touching all that could be touched.

The candles lining each wall were dark red. Lines of crimson wax spilled over like dripping blood.

Leo's hand grazed mine. "Come, come in."

Mystified, I stumbled after him, resisting my instincts to run. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting I realized this was far more than just a wild orgy. The costumes ranged from feathers to furs. Scents of sage and jasmine masked the smoke drifting through the air.

On one sofa, a young woman sat between two older men, white petticoat pushed up to her waist, her legs strewn over one man's lap and her brown curls loose from their once tidy updo. One of the men fondled her breasts through her tight bodice while the other's fingers disappeared between her plump thighs.

Men sat at tables in the center of the room, tossing coins into a pile and grumbling over hands of cards. Women sat in their laps, offering them sips of wine from tall glasses.

"I told you." Leo regarded me with a gloating smirk. "You Englishmen cannot handle real fun."

It was then that I realized, these were the French. These were the people the Duc de Montpensier had brought with him to London.

A girl lay spread naked like a starfish over the velvet table, her wrists and ankles bound with a ragged rope. Another woman, raven-haired, stood just to the side and tipped one of the candles over her lithe body.

A drop of red wax fell, an inch from her cunt.

She moaned and arched off the table.

I clenched Kisi's arm. "What circle of Hell is this?"

She gave a throaty chuckle. "The deepest."

I hurried to the refreshment table.

Leo followed me. "Good idea, keeping those clothes," he chirped. "We can pretend you're dressed as a poor man."

I gestured to an unlabeled bottle of amber liquid and watched a stoic server pour me a glass. "Why would we do that?" I asked dryly.

"Because everyone here is dressed as something."

He was right. Every guest, save for the naked ones, wore grand, theatrical attire. The servers wore masks and were dressed head to toe in the same color as the walls, to blend in. As if they were nothing but objects decorating the room.

The Marquis unbuttoned his heavy overcoat, then let the material slip off his shoulders and fall to the floor about his ankles. His smooth chest was bare. A glimmering string of crystals, akin to one finger's width, circled tightly around his hips and connected to a tiny silk pouch covering his crotch.

"Oh..." I bit back a grimace.

He fingered the crystals and looked up at me. "Like it?"

I tossed back my head and downed the glass. I would need more than one drink to get through the night. "I think you'd be better off going nude."

"I will be, eventually." With a fiendish smirk, he took my hand and led it along the path of the crystals.

His skin was soft, slippery with some type of oil. White-blonde hair met my fingers. I squeezed him tightly and his lips parted. "Tell me, Marquis." I took in every detail of his face, every subtle change in his expression as he went from teasing to needy. "Have I any chance in the world of bedding you?"

For a moment he stayed silent. We were so close now, in this room where moans and yelps of pain alike bounced off the walls and only the red candlelight illuminated his face. He tilted his head back, brushing my nose. "You might."

My hand slipped between his legs.

He only smirked further and danced back. "Go play. I'll find you later."

I watched him blend into the crowd of lovers like a teardrop in a rainstorm and turned quietly back to my drink. I felt awkward now, alone and out of place. Go play, he had said. Was that what they called it? Playing?

The men at the card table had untied their cravats. Beads of sweat lined their balding heads and shone in the red light. The smoke in the air, the color of the walls, and the hazy feeling in my head all made for a surreal experience. The walls appeared to warp and bend, swaying like flowers in a breeze.

My eyes fell on a fat nobleman in a gray wig crawling across the floor on all fours. He was entirely nude, a bag of bloated, sagging flesh, save for a thin rope around his neck. He carried the other end in his mouth and sniffed at the women's skirts like a dog.

Disturbed, I reached for a second glass.

Someone bumped into me from behind and I jumped.

A short girl smiled up at me, teeth a sickly yellow and hair the color of honey. Topless, with small round breasts and a plump roll of flesh about her middle. She wore a leather kilt that covered her groin and arse but exposed both curvaceous hips.

"You look lonely." She didn't move to grope me like a London whore, just stood with one hip rocked out and traced a hand along her inner thigh. "What's your taste?"

My eyes shifted again to the fat man on the ground. "Not that."

She chuckled and gestured for me to follow her as she wove through the room, then bent over one arm of the sofa and stretched up on her toes to push her hips high in the air.

"Make it rough," the girl moaned.

It was fascinating to me that a woman, without the incentive of money, might wish for this from a man. An unloving man at that.

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. She reached behind her and spread herself wider, showing off a flash of her cunt.

"I-I'm sorry," I mumbled. "I can't-"

She looked over one shoulder. "What's wrong with you, boy?"

"I don't... I don't feel well." I spun away and pushed through the crowd of people laughing and drinking. The air smelled of heavy perfume, of sweat and sex. A man's arm grazed mine and I flinched.

I felt like I was back on the streets. In the tavern, in the back alley. Drowning in a sea of lust and greed.

The rich were as filthy as the poor.

Kisi stood by the table of refreshments, a glass in one hand and eyes slowly surveying the room. I made my way over.

"You look ill, waiter." She, too, had a French accent, mixed with something I couldn't place.

"I need a drink."

She watched me from the corner of her hooded eyes. So much of her was bared to the world, and yet, she was still shrouded in mystery. "It is always a pity when one's shame gets in the way of pleasure, no?"

I kept my eyes on the masked server. "I am not ashamed of anything."

What a lie that was.

Kisi sipped from her glass. "I have likely been an escort more years than you have lived. I can read men exceptionally well. You let fear thwart your desires."

"Some desires need thwarting," I said.

"Let me tell you about myself," she murmured. "I came to Europe on the arm of a French surveyor. He said he was liberating me, called me his princesse. He left me in a Parisian brothel and I never saw his face again." She gave a small, desparaging laugh. "I made my own way long before I found myself in the favor of His Grace. I learned to craft a world of my own making. Here, we may assume roles different than the ones assigned to us outside these doors. We may be powerful, weak, animalistic. There is no judgment, only pleasure. Or pain, if that is what one desires." Her eyes twinkled. "Here, I may be anything. A Queen, an Empress, a deity. I lower my eyes to no one."

So that was what Leo meant about the great equalizer.

It sounded sort of beautiful, the way she described it. But I didn't like the idea of a fellow who thought he was a tiger crawling all over me or someone pouring candlewax on my balls.

"The Marquis," I said. "Where's he?"

Kisi smiled. "The Marquis can usually be found in the southwest corner."

Time sifted through my fingers like sand. Two, five, ten drinks ran down my throat and finally, the nerves disappeared. I made my way along one side of the room, my hand firmly planted against the wall for balance, until I reached a semi-circle of men. There were young men and old men, some handsome and some ghastly, all in various stages of undressing. A rowdy cheer went up.

In the center of the circle two naked men were wrestling on the ground. Their large, straining muscles were slick with oil and their faces were red with bulging veins. They flipped over, grasping at each other and grunting.

"Get him! Crush him!" an onlooker crowed.

My head was still spinning. I reached for Leo's arm.

He turned away from the circle with a coquettish grin. "Enjoying yourself?" he whispered, his voice low and husky.

I pressed my cheek to the top of his head and let my lips linger in his soft hair. "Not as much as I would enjoy you."

One of the onlookers palmed his shoulder. "Montpensier!" He had a thick French accent. "You have yet to place your bet!"

Leo smirked up at me. "What do you think? Shall I play his game or yours?"

I wondered, what does French nobility taste like? My guess was, very sweet.

We slipped away to an empty black sofa in the back of the salon. It was beside a closed door, easily the most secluded place in the huge room. He pushed me down hard and straddled my lap.

"Make me want you, Murray," he whispered against my ear.

"I think I already have."

That made him scowl. "You think too highly of yourself." He undid the first two buttons of my shirt and let his fingers dance across the exposed skin. "And yet... you are just a poor servant boy. Not many would have the couilles to talk to me."

A shriek rang out. I looked across the room to see a woman being struck with a stiff horsewhip.

"This is madness," I whispered.

His face dipped down to hide all else from sight. "Aren't you mad?"

All at once my lips were on his, and one half of me screamed stop, what are you doing while the other chanted don't stop, don't stop, don't ever stop.

Leo moaned and gripped my shoulders. My heart was torn, the stop mixing with the don't stop until the tangle of emotions came to a tight knot in my stomach.

"Murray," he whined. In his accent it sounded like the name of a god.

"Yes." I massaged his cheeks with both hands and began grinding them down over my crotch. "Say my name." I want you to scream it until it's the only word you know.

Leo's tongue trailed lazily along my lower lip and dipped into my mouth. I relaxed my jaw, accepting him, but then his tongue left my mouth as quickly as it had entered. "I prefer to call you servant boy."

I stared at his lips, at the dark bruise and partially healed cut where his teeth had severed the flesh. I imagined biting into them, making it hurt.

I was tired of old men with prickly beards and mouths that tasted like death. I was tired of keeping my eyes down and letting rough hands wander my body while I pretended to be anywhere else. I was tired of kneeling in an empty alley and digging my nails into my palm so I wouldn't gag from the smell, the taste, the feeling. The feeling of men.

But I wanted this. I wanted sweet-smelling boys with soft hair and soft skin, that brought out a hunger in me like nothing I'd ever known.

"Mm..." My fingertips slid over his throat and rose as he swallowed shakily. "What if I told you..." I paused, letting him wait for my words. "I want to eat you alive like a rare steak?"

He leaned up, both hands on my thighs to steady himself. He was riding me through my trousers, grinding on my hardened cock all on his own. Candlelight bounced off the red walls and flickered over his bare skin. In this red, smoky room, filled with gasps and moans and bodies twisting erotically, it was as if I entered Hell itself.

Perhaps Heaven and Hell were one and the same.

"I'm all yours," he breathed. "Bon appétit."

I squeezed him tighter. His hips bucked up a little, his back arching, and I wasted no time in pulling the string of crystals aside to stroke two fingers over his exposed entrance.

Leo turned into a whimpering mess as I traced the soft, hot flesh. "Y-You're more skilled than I thought," he gasped out. I caressed him tantalizingly slow, making him feel every second. He let out a squeal as I sucked the tender skin of his throat, my teeth scraping his adam's apple. It took every ounce of strength I possessed not to bite down.

"Sweetheart, I have more skills than you could ever imagine."

Desperately, he fought to unbutton the stiff trousers I wore. These clothes were a downgrade from the Lord Chamberlain's, but at least they fit me. A little giggle escaped him as finally, he drew my trousers open and took my cock in both hands.

I groaned and raised a fist to my lips to stifle the noise. It felt so good to be touched after such a long time. "It seems you are skilled too," I murmured. My hands cupped his sides, thumbs traveling up his taut stomach and smooth chest. "You like being told what to do?"

He shivered violently as my thumbs grazed his nipples. "S'il vous plaît."

"Get on your knees."

As he sank to the floor I took in the flagrant debauchery spread across the room.

The honey-haired girl getting fucked over the card table, her face wet from the liquor spilled across its surface. The muscular man slamming the moaning woman against the wall, hands pulling her knees up to wrap around his waist. Kisi, entwined with another woman on the floor, writhing like two animals in heat.

The sight of them captured my attention. It had never occurred to me that two women could do the same things that men and women could. I'd seen women kiss before, tavern wenches putting on a show for the male customers, but this seemed different. They were lost in each other, serving no one but themselves.

My fingers slid through Leo's silky blonde locks as he took me in his mouth. His eyes were half-closed, pupils huge, eyelids fluttering shut. He moaned as I moved his head up and down and thumbed away the saliva running down his lips. "That's it," I whispered. "Take it all."

I imagined ripping the crystals off him so hard they burst apart and rained down on the salon floor. I imagined exploring his body with my mouth and locking him in a deep kiss as I buried myself inside him.

I muffled a groan. His hand sped up, twisting and turning.

I sank back as the pressure within me exploded like a gunshot.

And in that very same moment, the huge salon doors burst open to reveal the Archbishop backed by a red sea of Royal Guards.