Damon Snow and the Nocturnal Lessons (4 page)

“Fuck me,” I said, because that was the only way I was going to break that beast out of its cage.

Price gasped, his cock bobbing against his stomach. I shoved my ass back, getting my knees under me so I was in a decent position for him. His cock pressed against me for half a moment before he plunged it inside me.

My muscles screamed, stretched open so suddenly like that, even with the preparation. I half-screamed, half-moaned, and again, he took that as encouragement. I thought it might have even been encouragement.

He didn’t give me a breath to adjust, and the beast inside him liked it. It liked the way I grunted and groaned at every thrust. It liked the way Price controlled me at the hips, that all I could do was just take it. Price pounded into me too fast for me to even think of pushing my hips back to meet him.

And my cock screamed in enjoyment. It wanted the beast too. It wanted to capture it, absorb it into my body, take it into me like I would be taking Price’s spendings. Price liked the noise, the beast of lust inside him did, so I made as much noise as I possibly could. I hated being vocal, but I wanted that lust more.

“Fucking whore,” Price snapped, thrusting into me as hard as he could. The barrier broke, and he pounded into me one last time, riding the dissolution flooding through his body. He tried to thrust again, trying to make it last as long as possible, or maybe because he couldn’t stop, but he trembled against my back instead.

Of course he couldn’t stop. All of his lust poured into me with his seed.

Price collapsed on top of me, and the weight made my legs buckle beneath me. I hated to think how comforting it was, to have a man’s weight collapsed on me like that. I shouldn’t like it at all. Especially not having to listen to Price’s jagged breath against my ear. But then, mine was ragged too.

Price had paid quite the chunk of coins for this. Benjamin and Mother Dover would say that if he wanted to crush me until dawn, he could. So I didn’t even try to move him. I just closed my eyes and enjoyed the remnants of the lust beast as it slowly sunk inside me. The true me. The me I was cursed to be, trapping me here.

Byrne’s money wouldn’t change that. I could never say ‘no’ to a tumble. I always had to feed myself with their sinful lust, their unnatural desires.

Price’s breath evened out on top of me, and for a moment, it seemed he had slipped into sleep. I resigned myself for an uncomfortably long night awake.

But then he rolled himself over, and my back felt cold. Price’s sweat-slicked chest had kept me warm against the night chill.

“Why are you really here?” I asked, because Byrne wanted me to.

Price made a choking sound. “For a human connection.”

Liar.

“For this.”

Exactly. All men were alike. This assignment would be easy.

Chapter Three

I had been correct. Price hadn’t left coin on the nightstand.

But I still had my flat to write about. Mother Dover’s was generally quiet during the day. Sometimes blokes came in looking for something, but mostly they waited until the evening. Mother Dover let us do what we willed during the day, so long as we weren’t needed nor caused a ruckus.

I stayed holed up in that top room for the morning, my arse still throbbing while I scribbled down my encounter. I sneered at the barely legible script, but it would have to do. Byrne could read it, and he wouldn’t expect more from me. I dressed in my best silks and paid Byrne a visit.

A real gentleman would have sent a card around and waited until the sociable visiting hour, but I wasn’t a real gentleman.

Besides, I knew Byrne wouldn’t mind. His butler let me through the front door, even though I knew I was only back door material. Byrne had insisted. I was to play a young scholarly chap who had come to the City to take care of the poor lonely man as part of my charity work. I had added the last part, sneering at him, but he hadn’t protested.

As far as I could tell, his servants didn’t gossip, nor paid me much mind either. But then their master was ailing; who would deny him the last bit of comfort he could have?

Byrne blinked sleepily at me when his butler led me to his bedroom. Someone had tucked him into bed on his back, pulled the curtains shut and doused the lights. Finished with his duty, the butler abandoned me. Byrne must have left orders with him to see me in, whether he was in a fit state or not.

Then again, Byrne wasn’t often in what could rightly be called a ‘fit state’. Not for weeks now.

“Damon — what?” Byrne stuttered. “Is it Tuesday already?”

I visited Byrne thrice a week, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

“I can return later,” I said.

He slid his eyes down to the leather-bound book in my arms. “No, no, come in,” he said. He tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but only managed to strain himself.

I hurried to his side and wrenched the sheets loose enough so I could help him slide up and lean against the assortment of pillows. “Your maid seems to fear that you’ll attack someone if she doesn’t trap you.”

“Hmm? Oh.” He looked down at the sheets. “She’s a sweet girl, fresh from the country.”

I frowned at him. I’d heard stories of what happened to sweet girls who had come into London with nary an ill thought in their heads. But Byrne, as he had professed, didn’t have much interest in fillies, so it was probably fine. He wasn’t like to take advantage anyway, in his current state. Even I was safe.

“Well? Hand it over,” Byrne said. His hands raised just enough to motion for the book, but not enough to tremble. I placed the book in his hands, opened the curtains to give him some light, and found myself the chair from Byrne’s makeshift breakfast table.

Byrne’s eye ticked when he saw my handwriting. He looked at me, and I looked back at him, as brazen as the pornographic stucco on Mother Dover’s fireplaces. He coughed and returned to the book.

I watched his eyes move across the page, and his lips move as he read. It didn’t take long. I hadn’t written much. I hadn’t needed to. He frowned and looked up.

“Pleased?” I asked.

“It would please me if you had actually done what I had asked,” Byrne said.

“I did.” He had told me to speak with a flat. I had. He told me to learn about the flat. I had. He told me to write in the journal. I had.

“’He’s obviously on two thousand pounds a year,’” Byrne read. “’Yet he doesn’t even leave an extra six-pence on the side table.’”

“He didn’t,” I said. “And he does make two thousand pounds a year.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“With his clothes,” I said.

“Did you even speak to the man?” Byrne asked.

“I did,” I said. I had to. Price seemed to need prodding along each step of the way. I deserved a tip for that.

“What, pray tell, did you ask?”

“What he was there for,” I said.

“Oh, yes.” Byrne dragged a finger down the open page. “It’s right here. ‘He came to Mother Dover’s because he wanted a fuck.’”

“He did,” I said. “And I gave him one.”

“But why?” Byrne asked. “Why Mother Dover’s?”

“Because he wanted arse instead of cunt,” I said. Obviously.

Byrne pressed his lips together and exhaled, like it took great strength to keep from getting out of bed and strangling me.

“I mean, because he fancied a molly, instead of a girl,” I said. That was proper, wasn’t it? “He probably has a wife for that sort of affair.”

“Does he?” Byrne asked. “Or is he a perennial bachelor?”

“Does it matter?” I asked. “You told me to find out why he went to Mother Dover’s. I told you. It’s the same reason every prick goes there, yourself included.”

“And what, pray tell, is that?”

I felt the poison on his tongue, but even if Byrne wanted to pretend he was any different from the other flats at Mother Dover’s, I wasn’t going to indulge him. “To stick their cock into something warm.”

Byrne slammed the book shut. It seemed to take more out of him than Byrne had to spare and his breath heaved. “That isn’t why, Damon,” Byrne said.

“Oh yes, that definitely makes sense,” I said. “It’s a mere accident — they tripped, and their coins fell out of their purse into Mother Dover’s hands, and their cocks fell into the nearest arse. Yes, I see now, a complete accident.”

“How is it you have become so jaded, so young?” he asked. “So blind?”

I wasn’t blind. Perhaps it was my nature that gave me advantage. I could feel what those men wanted, and it wasn’t pleasant conversation. Nor was I young, but I had lied to Byrne about my age, as I did all my culls.

“You didn’t even make an effort,” Byrne said.

“I did,” I insisted. “I could have taken the night off, foisted the bastard onto someone else, but no, you asked me to do this, so I did it. My arse still hurts, thank you very much!”

Which wouldn’t make the next time very pleasant, even if the lust I captured from them would heal that wound.

“Your arse still hurts,” Byrne whispered.

Damnation. I wasn’t supposed to say that. That was one of the cardinal rules of molly-work. Never admit when one was hurt. The flats didn’t care. It annoyed them to think someone else has enjoyed one’s body, even knowing one was a whore, and that they’re left with the leftovers. Some men liked that, coming in a buttered bun, but Byrne didn’t.

“Never mind,” I said, standing. I hid my wince at the sudden gesture. “You never had any intention on following through with your business arrangement, so I’ll bid you adieu.”

I stormed to his bedroom door, and I didn’t know why I felt so angry. At myself for breaking rules? Or for him for breaking his deal? That couldn’t be it. I had known from the start he had never cared to follow through. Or perhaps I was just angry that I had ruined the best work I had, where all I had to do was to be mocked for hours for my less than flash upbringing.

Or maybe I was angry that he didn’t even protest.

“Wait,” Byrne said.

I paused at the door. For a moment, I almost walked out and slammed the door in his face.

“Give it one more chance,” Byrne said.

I turned back to him. “Why should I? I already know the answers that you seek. I just don’t know what you expect to find.”

“Something… more,” Byrne said.

Oh yes, that was clear. “Or is it that you just wished to read some naughty tales? I can do that easily enough, and you needn’t bother pretending that there’s another reason. I heard a story from that public school St Bartholomew's, where they pack the boys into dormitories—”

“There’s no need,” Byrne interrupted. “I didn’t know you’d attended public school. Although that explains how you knew how to read.”

“I didn’t,” I said. Where would my mother have gained the money? She’d been able to feed and clothe the two of us, taking in the laundry of bawdy houses, but that didn’t extend to an education. She had taught me to read and write some, hoping I could become a clerk at a store. “I heard that story from a friend.”

“You have friends?”

I clucked my tongue. “Why do you need to know?”

Byrne threw up his hands. “I can see how you’d have such a hard time with my request.”

“I’m having a hard time because you don’t want to accept the truth,” I said.

“Neither do you, it seems,” Byrne said. He crumpled in the bed, like a paper crammed into a ball and thrown away. He seemed tired, more than usual.

I sighed and perched on the corner of his bed. “Fine, what do you expect me to do?”

“Visit this gentleman again,” he said.

“It could be some time before he returns,” I said.

“You could learn where he lives.”

Yes, because Mother Dover would love that. Molly houses survived on their discretion alone. No one knowing real names or places, unless the flat was a rattlehead like Byrne, so if one of us mollies were taken by the runners, we couldn’t give them up to save our own skins. We would, too. Sodomy was a hanging offence. “Perhaps,” was all I said.

“Then ask him questions this time,” Byrne said.

“Questions.” I had asked him a question. “You haven’t turned agent provocateur, have you?”

“Agent provocateur?” He seemed split between shock at the question and pride at my use of French. “Why would you ask me that?”

“Why else would you wish to know about other clients?” I asked. “If you aren’t interested in the recounts, what else would possibly interest you?”

“It isn’t necessarily about them,” he said. “It’s about you.”

“About me,” I repeated, and it sounded as daft when I said it as it did when he had said it.

“I… I worry about you,” he said. “And you don’t even understand why.”

I gave him a queer eye. “So you want me to have an out.”

Byrne shook his head, and smiled.

“Fine,” I said. “What questions would you like me to ask?”

“When you meet a new friend, what would you want to know?” he asked.