And he could smell himself on her fingers.
She lifted a few fingers, so just the tip of her index finger was running across his mouth, and pushed gently at his lips. Alaric looked up into her eyes, and, hoping he understood, opened his lips just a little. She pushed her finger slowly into his mouth, wiping it across his tongue, before pulling it back, and using that finger to turn the page.
It was enough to leave the taste of himself in Alaric’s mouth. A bitter, somewhat salty flavor that spread over his tongue as Anisette calmly assessed the next page, and without looking at him this time, set her finger against his mouth again, and pushed.
Alaric took the finger in, licking at it tentatively before realizing Anisette was smiling under the mask. That small smile spurred him on. He ran his tongue up her finger, lapping at the skin between her fingers even as the uncomfortable taste spread deeper into his mouth.
A very slight tremor, so soft he wouldn’t have felt it if her fingers hadn’t been in his mouth, went through her hand.
He was affecting her.
Anisette seemed to realize that as well. She suddenly thrust her finger into his mouth. Alaric’s cock began to show interest again, shifting slightly across his stomach even as Alaric flushed. Anisette was pumping her finger into his mouth the same way that Pemberton had pumped his cock into her, and Alaric was licking his own come off of her fingers, desperately, because Anisette seemed to be enjoying it. He sucked at her finger experimentally, just as she pulled it out of his mouth and a lewd pop sounded through the tent. Anisette ignored it, wiping her finger off against Alaric’s neck, before turning another page.
When she returned her fingers to his mouth, Alaric just let it go. He stopped thinking about how sucking her fingers wasn’t entirely different from the “French Technique” that Thomas paid to have done to him, or that Anisette had allowed Pemberton to indulge in. He stopped thinking about how he was immobile in her lap, while she helped herself to something as wholly private as his sketchbook. It all just went away. The worries and responsibilities that usually plagued him drifted off. He thought, momentarily, that he could get used to the relaxation this caused.
As she pulled her fingers out of his mouth and replaced them after every page she turned, he sucked at them until the taste of his own come faded in his mouth. The payment Anisette had demanded was him, and, goodness help him, he was enjoying trying to repay her.
“Is this her?” Anisette asked, suddenly breaking the silence of the night.
Shit.
Anisette tilted the sketchbook down, as though Alaric needed to see the drawing to know who Anisette was talking about.
“Yes,” Alaric replied, the last letter getting lost as he tried to speak around Anisette’s fingers.
It wasn’t an exact likeness, none of his attempts had managed to convey the perfect, milky-rose tint of her skin, and her complicatedly styled hair had ever quite come out right. Anisette slowly drew her fingers back out of his mouth and turned the page again. Then the next. And the next.
“She’s different on every page. Did you know that?”
“What?” Alaric asked.
Anisette tilted the sketch book back down so he could see it and flipped back to the first sketch, where the girl was spread out on white sheets. She was relatively plain, perhaps a little too angular around the elbows and knees, and naked. The shading across her skin wasn’t quite right, as though Alaric had been trying to draw too many memories at once and muddled them together.
As Anisette flipped through the pages, the girl became a little rounder, a little fuller, a little more beautiful, a little crueler around the mouth. The relatively blank expression from the first drawing became more pinched, angrier, as the drawings went on.
Anisette dropped her hand down to him again, carding her fingers through his hair rather than sliding into his mouth this time.
“No. I didn’t know,” Alaric replied softly. He had gone through the sketches before, paged through them before he went to sleep. Breezed past them while looking for the next blank page to draw on. But he hadn’t really looked at them for months. In his mind, the girl always wore that mocking expression from the last sketch. He had been making it worse as it played over in his mind and now was all he remembered from the whole ordeal.
“Hmm,” Anisette offered. Alaric let his eyes close as she continued to run her slightly pruned fingers across his scalp with one hand and turn the pages of his sketch book with the other. The soft, not quite rhythmic slip of the pages lulled him.
“Alaric? What is this?” Anisette asked. He opened his eyes to find himself looking directly up at the picture he had drawn earlier that evening.
“Nothing, Anisette, just a flight of fancy.”
“Is this me?” she asked.
“Yes, Anisette.”
“I don’t have a head.”
“I was late.”
“Is that all, Alaric?”
He pressed his head up against her hand. “I don’t know how to draw your face.”
Anisette paused at that, before resuming the movement of her fingers in his hair.
“Alaric, did you design your ship?”
“Yes, Anisette.”
She flipped back to the first sketch, the technical drawings, looking over them again. “So, you could do this. You could make this happen.”
“What?”
She returned to the last sketch in the book, holding it over his head.
“This. The balloon, you could make this?”
Alaric paused. “Yes. I suppose so. If I had access to enough silk for that.”
Anisette gestured around at everything. “What about this?”
The tent, the silk sheets, the silk cushions, the silk dresses, Anisette had so much material around he could make a balloon large enough to carry much more than just the two of them in the little carriage he had drawn underneath the balloon.
She dropped her fingers back to his face, and he took her index and middle finger into his mouth as she watched him intently. She pushed a third finger into his mouth, plunging them down before adding a fourth, which, even with her delicate hands, was one too many, enough to make swallowing difficult and make the stretch against his lips uncomfortable. He had a sudden flash of Pemberton’s mouth stretched around his cock. Anisette pushed her fingers down, toward his throat, and he choked for a moment before she pulled them back, but only slightly.
“We haven’t discussed payment.”
“Mmm,” Alaric attempted.
“Do you remember what I asked you for, your first night with me?”
“Mmm.” Alaric hoped that sounded like a yes. It was as close as he could manage.
“Would you fly with me?”
A shiver ran down his spine as he heard her voice drop deeper than ever. She sounded nearly desperate, but Alaric thought he must be imagining that.
“Travel with me?” She pressed her fingers farther into his mouth for a moment before slowly, slowly pulling them back out, floating her hand over his body. She settled her wet fingers around his cock, and ran her fist up his length. He could feel himself harden in the wake of her movement.
“Create this and be free with me?”
She meant it. He could tell she meant it. And he could do it. And it was insane.
Yes, he had left behind the life he hated and jumped on a pirate ship, but he was far from the only one. And even though he had gone directly from his horrible job to the docks, he had spent months thinking about it beforehand, watching balloons and Zeppelins float by overhead.
He owed her, he had feelings for her…but he had never seen her face. He didn’t know her real name. She ran her spit slicked fist over his cock, and he shuddered.
“Please,” he managed breathlessly.
“Please what?” she purred. “Come on. Beg me.”
“Please, please.” He let a breath drag out over his lips as she squeezed. “Let me see your face.”
Anisette’s hand stopped moving. H
er thigh muscles tightened under his neck.
“Anisette?” he gulped.
“That’s what you want?”
“Yes, Anisette.” She had said she liked it when he begged. “Yes. Please.”
Her hand started up again, tight and wet and fast, sliding over the oversensitive skin as Alaric continued to whimper out his request. “Please let me see your face, let me see you. Please.”
“Build this for me, fly with me, and you’ll have that. You’ll have everything, Alaric.”
“Yes, Anisette,” he agreed hazily.
“Don’t come until I tell you to.”
“Yes, Anisette.”
Chapter Six
Alaric clutched his satchel to his chest and nearly stumbled out of Anisette’s tent, knees still weak, muscles still stiff, and cock still sore as he recovered from the last few hours of Anisette’s attentions.
Her proposal rang in his ears.
“Would you fly with me? Travel with me? Create this and be free?”
How could he answer that? He had known her for less than a week. He didn’t know her real name. He had never seen her face. And while he clearly did owe her for the ecstatic hell she put him through and for the weight of shame already lifting off of his shoulders, surely she hadn’t actually expected him to repay her with his actual self. Surely money was a reasonable substitute?
If he continued on with her, if he left The Revenge of the Saint Mary, did he have any assurance he wouldn’t become just as much of a non-entity to her as Pemberton was? Nothing more than a tool to use on some new boy she acquired somewhere else? Tied around the neck and hauled about like Pemberton was?
Or worse, what if he became as much a slave to Anisette as he had been in London? What if he lost the fire of passion she caused in his body and became as cold and robotic as he had been in his London job?
He clutched his bag closer to himself and shivered slightly, the cold of the night settling against his sweat covered skin.
But what if he never saw her again? What if he climbed back onto his ship and flew away and no other woman ever made him feel the way he felt about her? She made him feel good about things he had been ashamed of for months. She made him feel taken care of in a way he had never found in the bitterness of the sooty and mechanic real world or in the selfish and cutthroat world of piracy.
And, perversely, she made him feel powerful. The predatory look she got in her eyes as she caressed him, how fast she had cut short her game in order to soothe him. The breathiness in her voice as she had told him how she had wanted him on his knees in front of her. The smile on her face and the tremble in her arms as she pressed her fingers into his mouth and he sucked at them. The fact that he caused that reaction in her.
He walked as he pondered, paying no attention to where his feet were taking him until he looked up from his boots and found himself at The Traitor’s Head.
Pemberton was behind the bar, pouring drinks for a group of fortune tellers. The only sign he might have been doing anything else earlier in the night was the slightly sweat darkened fabric of his bandana.
Alaric took a step forward and stopped, suddenly realizing he was about to approach a man who, less than an hour ago, had been sucking Alaric’s cock as Alaric struggled against his bindings. Pemberton caught his eye, and jerked his head, beckoning Alaric over before crossing the bar to refill another patron’s glass.
Alaric dropped into an empty stool, feeling himself flush slightly as Pemberton returned, glass and bottle in hand. He poured Alaric a tumbler of gin.
“Thank you…” he started.
“Jack,” Pemberton said, with a grateful nod.
“Jack,” Alaric said before gesturing to himself and supplying, “Buck.”
“Of course.” Pemberton smiled. “You all right, Buck?”
“Yes. A little worn out.”
“Right. It’s amazing though. I never feel quite as alive as when she.” He cleared his throat and tugged at his bandana in a way Alaric distinctly remembered.
“Right,” Alaric agreed. He opened his mouth. There were so many things he wanted to ask Pemberton. If he really enjoyed serving the way Anisette assured Alaric he did. If he knew her any better than Alaric did. If Alaric would be insane to consider throwing his lot in with a mysterious woman in a mask. But he heard himself being hailed and turned to see Thomas jogging toward him.
“Buck! There you are!” Thomas panted, dropping down into the stool opposite Alaric and scaring Pemberton off. “Where in hell have you been all damn evening?”
Alaric opened his mouth to reply and was immediately cut off.
“No- wait. I’ll hazard a guess. You were with that devil woman again.”
Alaric raised his eyebrows and leaned back. “And you mean to tell me that you weren’t spending the last of your share on getting your cock sucked?”
“No, actually I wasn’t. I was on deck, fixing the balloons with Greyson, and without you. Like the Captain told us to.”
“What?”
“The Captain wants to be ready to leave before dusk tomorrow. We were all supposed to spend the evening finishing the balloons. But some of us had our heads in the clouds all day and needed to sneak off to have demons tie us up and whip us.”
Thomas’s words slapped against Alaric’s ears.
“What did you just say?”
“Oh, aye, I know all about the Red Lady and her methods.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Amelia, and Chastity, and another whore, whose name, I cannot pronounce, though the lady does incredible things with her tongue,” Thomas started, grabbing Alaric’s gin and taking a sip. “They tell stories about her. The way she entrances men. Does all sorts of crazy things to them. Makes them obsess over her and pay to provide her pleasures. And how much have you given her, Buck? What has she made you do?”
“It’s nothing like that, Thomas. You’re just jealous. If you had been a bit more cautious with your money you would have been able to hire a little higher class of whore for somewhat more sophisticated activities as well.” Alaric curved his shoulders, pulling his gin protectively into the cave his body formed over the bar’s surface.
“‘Sophisticated’ is what we’re calling it are we?” Thomas snorted. “Being tied and up and beaten, that’s sophisticated?
“That’s not what she does. She does exactly what Amelia and Chastity and your unpronounceable woman do, just with a bit more class. And there is nothing wrong with having one woman for longer instead of getting tossed down an assembly line of women. And anyway, I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Well, be warned, if you aren’t around to check through the balloons tomorrow, the Captain’ll have you strung up in the rigging and flogged. But maybe if he has someone do it in a red dress, you’ll enjoy it.” Thomas pushed himself unsteadily from the bar and took off across the fair grounds. Alaric watched him storm off for a second, before downing the last of his gin.
****
Anisette carefully folded the dress Pemberton had discarded and set it on her vanity. She picked up her chemise, bloomers, and corset, folded them, and set them on top of the dress before pulling a sponge and a bar of soap from a drawer of her vanity. She took the basin and pitcher from the top of the vanity and walked to the middle of the rug where she filled the basin with water from the pitcher. She set the sponge in the basin, wrung out the excess water, and dabbed soap onto the sponge before scrubbing her bare arms.
This could be the perfect solution, she thought, as the heady scent of jasmine began to bloom across her skin. Instead of settling, instead of enduring the neighbors and attempting live the quiet life under the scrutiny of strangers, she could see the world. Flit from the cold of England to the blistering heat of Morocco. See Berlin. Paris. Rome. See everything she couldn’t drive to. See everywhere she couldn’t be a woman alone. See it with Alaric.
She ran the soap across her sore neck, down her sweaty chest, over her still sensitiv
e breasts.
He had been amazing tonight. So beautiful, so sweet, so obedient. And so…something else she wasn’t sure how to express. The way he had looked up at her when she had told him he had nothing to be embarrassed about. The bliss on his face as he sucked at her fingers had done something to her. She had loved the way the lines in his face had lightened when she showed him the way he had over exaggerated and over analyzed what had happened to him with that other woman. He had looked happy. She had made him happy.
She didn’t often do that. She caused relief, satisfaction, fulfillment, but rarely happiness. She found it intoxicating. And now her mind was buzzing with how happy he might be, flying and free with her, with no masters but themselves.
She had never been this excited to have a man return to her, and she had never anticipated excitement at the thought of finding a way to settle down with a man without actually settling down. When she had spotted Alaric at the bar a few nights ago, she had never thought he would make her this happy.
****
Alaric considered going after Thomas. But as he watched Thomas stumble across the path of an extremely angry fire dancer, Alaric figured even if anyone was in the hold, they wouldn’t listen to anything Thomas might drunkenly divulge. Most of them didn’t listen to Thomas while he was sober.
Instead he pulled his sketchbook out at the bar, took out his tools and began to break his fantasy, he and Anisette, floating carelessly across the surface of the difficult world, down into the equations and yardages that could make it real. He worked until the bar cleared out, leaving he and Pemberton nearly alone as Alaric worked his pencils over the expanse of cream colored paper, slowly and methodically populating it with sketches and numbers.
Just as he finished the last of his estimates on what sort of weight he might be able to carry with different amounts of silk and finished the last of his technical drawings, Pemberton brought him a beer and sat down across from him at the almost entirely empty bar.
“She’s almost like a drug,” Pemberton said, out of the blue. “Sometimes I feel it’s worse than opium. I see the smokers stumbling across here, glass eyed, like the dead, and I think- that’s how I feel.”
The Promise of Silk Page 7
