“I would like to ask, Miss Emily,” Timothy began as they set up the last of the items in the study, “what your feelings are at this moment toward Stephen.” She blushed, and to relieve her, he added, “Chiefly I am trying to discover if you will feel comfortable spending the night with him in here. Because I have no intent of letting him remain in the turret with me. If his presence will make you uncomfortable, I will make him a bed at the bottom of the stairs and inform him he is on guard duty.”
She blushed again, but she also shook her head. “I don’t wish him to do that. He may stay with me.” Her expression became rueful, and she nodded to the spread of food beside the now roaring hearth. “If nothing else, he can help me cook.”
Timothy caught the longing on her face as well and indulged in a brief war between staying out of her business and digging his nose firmly into it. Then he remembered the soft, giving sweetness he had felt in their kiss, and the war was over.
“There are a few things the androghenie have which you might find useful, should you decide you wish to persuade him into any other activities.” He paused to let her be embarrassed, then went on. “Sex is a very healing act, Emily. I think we all could use some healing this night.”
She was still flushed, but she looked directly at him. “Is that your intent, then, in the turret? Is that—Is he…?”
“I intend to move well beyond mere intercourse, but yes. As for his being ready, this is what I was trained to do. Sex for healing.” He looked into the fire, then closed his eyes, his blood humming, already anticipating what was to come. “He will be my client. This is what I do.”
“Is that all he is to you?” She spoke softly, delicate but insistent. “A client?”
He opened his eyes again and looked at her, letting his nakedness show. “No.”
She took his hand. “Show me these useful things.”
He took her back into the kitchens but also to the courtyard. He showed her the most exotic fruits, explaining the aphrodisiac qualities of each. He introduced her to teas, wines, and lamented the lack of oysters, only to find a barrel they hadn’t discovered previously. He showed her where he had found the softer silks and some of the oils as well and a sponge. He also explained to her how to use them.
“Why is all this here?” Emily asked, as they entered yet another room full of supplies. “How?”
Timothy ran his hand over some silk fabric. “I don’t know the answer to either. My guess is, since this is the bolt-hole of the androghenie, that they had it stocked full of things they liked. I suppose it is maintained by magic.”
“But such magic,” Emily whispered. “They have been gone so long, and everything here is so fresh and so
real
. Madeline says illusion is simple, but truth is difficult.” She paused, suddenly considering something. “Timothy, I don’t wish to be rude, but have you thought… I mean, it’s just so convenient, all these things…”
“It is safe,” Timothy said with conviction. He turned away so she could not see his inner conflict. He had wondered this too, but only when he was not in the Other Side. When he was here, the rightness of it was so strong he could not shake it. It was not a spell. It was not a trick. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did.
It felt, in fact, almost as if this place were
his
. That it was, in a way, home.
“I will make you a sari from this,” he said, holding up a great length of rose-colored silk. “You will either need to perfect the art of donning it yourself, however, or you will need to be less bashful and let me help you into it.”
She looked ready to refuse, but then she touched the silk. “You will show me, and I will learn,” she said.
He did, and she learned; it was full dark when he left her, and she was flushed and nervous but excited as well. Timothy smiled to himself all the way up the stairs.
When he opened the door to the turret, Stephen was standing at the window, which was open wide to let in the thin light of the moon and stars. He looked agitated and a little angry.
“You took long enough,” he said.
Timothy shrugged and made no comment, only began to bring in his items from beyond the door. Stephen watched for a few minutes and then, almost grudgingly, came out to help.
“Thank you,” Timothy said, and he meant it.
“What is all this?” Stephen asked. He sniffed at a jar of oil, then closed his eyes and sniffed again.
“Supplies,” Timothy said. “I work tonight.” He brought in the last load and saw that Stephen was still smelling the oil, looking a little undone. He hesitated, hating the loss, then decided hers was the greater cause in this respect. Besides, he told himself, he could do this in the middle of a dusty road with no tools but his mouth and his hands. “Emily is at her toilet in the study; knock before you enter.” He nodded to the oil held tight in Stephen’s hands. “Please give that to her when you go; tell her it is one I forgot to show her and to use it sparingly.”
He enjoyed the way Stephen looked jealous again as he took the oil, and he wondered, not for the first time, if this clumsy puppy deserved such a rose as Emily Elliott. Then he reminded himself that the heart knew its own, and he vowed to interfere no more.
Stephen nodded brusquely to him and exited the turret, but before Timothy closed the door, he saw the young man uncork the oil and take one more long and drugging sniff. Timothy smiled wickedly, and then he shut and locked the door.
He crossed to Charles, who was still quiet and still against the floor. He pressed his hand to his lover’s back, easing as he felt the rise and fall of his breath. Then he bent and pressed a kiss upon his cheek before rising to prepare the bower.
* * *
This time Charles dreamed of stars.
He knew he was dreaming, which was also pleasant; he settled in and tried to make it last. He sat in a great vast darkness, but he didn’t mind because the air and space around him was filled with points of light. It gave him peace such as he had never known. In this place, with these stars, the sorrow in his heart seemed lighter and more transient. It was good. He needed more dreams like this one.
But slowly he became aware of a strange sensation, and as he focused, he realized something soft and wet was falling on his cheek, his chest, and down across his arms. He looked up, trying to find the source, and he stopped, arrested.
It was her. It was the Goddess, here, at last, and she was bent over him, her long stardust hair blowing in an unseen wind. Her eyes were soft and shiny as glass, and from them he watched silent tears fall, shards of diamond that turned to wet dust against his skin. A thin veil covered her face, so sheer it was almost not there, but it was enough to obscure the finer points of her features.
Charles’s hand trembled as he reached up to touch her face.
The dream faded. Charles tried to hold fast to it, and in his struggles, he woke himself. For a moment the waking and dream worlds were joined. His hand was indeed outstretched, but it was Timothy’s cheek his fingers touched. Charles’s head spun as, for one dazzling moment, the Goddess and the man before him were one.
Then the last tendrils of the dream faded, and it was Timothy alone who leaned before him. The Catalian smiled and reached for something beside him, though he kept his eyes on Charles. “A good dream?”
Charles felt the wetness return and glanced down to see that his shirt was unbuttoned, nearly off, and that Timothy was lightly sponging his chest. The water was scented, but there were other, stronger smells too. He glanced around, his eyes widening as he took in the candles, the smoking incense, the jars of oil. Then he saw the bowl heaping with succulent fruit and soft cream, and his stomach contracted in sharp, sudden hunger.
Timothy reached for the bowl, drawing it into his lap. He dipped something red and fat and wet into the cream, then pressed it against Charles’s mouth. “Eat.”
Charles closed his lips around the fruit, but Timothy did not withdraw his fingers. He pushed the fruit firmly into Charles’s mouth, then withdrew one digit at a time. When only one remained, he curved it slightly on its exit, and Charles tasted tart, tangy fruit and Timothy all at the same time.
Timothy smiled at him and reached for another piece. Charles noticed, his blood warming, that Timothy was shirtless, his skin slicked with sweat or oil or maybe both. He wore what Charles supposed was a sort of sarong, a skirtlike thing of gold silk. Against his darker skin, it made him look nearly naked, and the combined effect of his undress, the scents, and the rich plum Timothy pushed between his lips to explode, lush and fat, within his mouth were erotic, like nothing Charles had ever known. He felt his sex stir as Timothy’s fingers dipped into the bowl again before coming back to his mouth. This time there was no fruit at all, only his thumb coated with the sweet, heavy cream. Timothy brushed the cream against Charles’s lips, and Charles took him inside, fire racing to his sex as his tongue rolled gently over Timothy’s salty-sweet flesh.
But when his cock began to swell, something shifted in his mind. He remembered what had happened, what he had seen. Black fog fell across his good feelings, and Charles pulled away.
Timothy stroked Charles’s cheek. “No, quiera. Stay here with me.”
Charles shut his eyes. “I’m a monster.”
“Hush,” Timothy said calmly. “That’s not true.”
Timothy’s hand on his cheek felt good, and he wanted to turn into it, to drag him down for a kiss such as they’d had on the stairs. But he kept remembering what the demon had shown him and what he had done.
“I killed Smith. I turned him into ash with barely a thought.”
“You saved me from him,” Timothy said.
“I remember feeling so dark, Timothy. I remember feeling the rage and the hate. It was so hot but so cold. I don’t ever want to feel that again.”
“Then don’t.” Timothy drew Charles’s hand to his mouth and kissed it.
Charles laughed bitterly. “You were right. I was a fool, and you were right. There is no Goddess, and there never was. There are only fools and pawns and those that control them.” His throat felt thick and tight. “I was so stupid. I believed in
dreams
. I sold everything for nothing but fancies in my head, fairy tales I told myself because I was pathetic and lonely, and I was stupid enough to believe they might be true.”
Timothy squeezed his hand, not enough to hurt but enough to get his attention. “Stop this.”
“No,
you
stop.” Charles shook free of Timothy and waved him angrily away. “Didn’t you hear? I was
made
. I was
invented
. I am nothing more than a puppet, stuffed with what my makers wished me to be.”
“Quiera, I was made to suck cock and spread my cheeks for whoever had the coin. Is that all that I am?”
Charles turned to glare at him. “You weren’t
made
for that,” Charles countered.
Timothy arched an eyebrow. “I was indeed. My mother was poor and had no way to feed me. As soon as I was finished suckling, I was given to the slave master at a local den. They intended me to be a member of what they called the ‘lot.’ I was to be a young slave for those who liked boys. I could be bought or rented as soon as I came of age, which was eight at that time. My playthings were rubber dildos, Charles, and in the evenings, if I had been good that day, I was allowed to watch the slaves mate.”
“That’s wrong,” Charles said with heat.
Timothy nodded, but he looked calm. “I do love my country, but we all have our sins. There was a movement to end the lots, and they were closed six months before I was to be put on the block. As a sort of public apology, I was admitted into the gardens themselves, a rare thing for anyone regardless of their birth origins. We all were given the training, but most of the lot boys fell back on what they knew and ended up placing themselves up for auction as soon as they reached the new majority of fourteen. I considered it. I wondered how I could be as good as the shining gods that walked naked through the grass, so graceful as they led their clients to their bowers. I felt shame that I, just a gutter boy, should be admitted to such a place.”
Charles said nothing, his mind spinning with the foreign images and ideas that Timothy was painting. He had always had a yearning for Catal and mourned the loss of what he’d thought to be a beautifully liberal culture, but now he wondered if it had been what he had imagined it to be.
Timothy dipped a sponge in the water and ran it over Charles’s chest and across his nipples, the light, rough contact making them pucker and turn erect. “But I decided to stay, to keep learning. And I did learn, and I did well. There were some who turned their nose at the former lot boy playing at court concubine, but some clients seemed to welcome the idea. In fact, in the end it was why I ended up in the healing gardens.”
This was a new idea to Charles. “You healed people with sex? I thought—” He didn’t know how to phrase the rest.
“That I was just a whore?” Timothy dipped the sponge again. This time he made a trail down the center of Charles’s chest, ending in a lazy circle around his abdomen. “There are no ‘just whores’ in the pleasure gardens. But I would not expect an Etsian to understand. Sex is not a shame in Catal. It is, in a way, our religion. Through uniting with another in body and spirit, we return to the source of life which made and released us. Through sex we celebrate and heal one another and create the most wonderful gift of all: new life.” He dipped the sponge again. “I was very good at my job. I loved it very much. Most concubines in my garden left by their late thirties to marry, either to have children with a woman or settle with a former client or another slave. Sometimes they did both. I never wanted it to end. I bragged I would be the oldest concubine in the garden and still the most popular.”
The sponge paused. Charles saw the pain in Timothy’s eyes, and he reached up without thinking and took his arm.
Timothy accepted Charles’s hand and kissed it. Then he drew him to his feet. “Come,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
Charles let Timothy lead him to the window, sidestepping candles and pillows and other exotic things as he went. Even with his heavy heart, just looking around the room made him feel soft and safe. He wondered briefly if this was a dream within a dream. But then he felt Timothy’s oil-slick fingers close over his own, and he knew it was real. There were touches that could not be replicated, sensations that not even dreams could mime.