Cis M/trans M, a different cis M/trans M, two cis M voyeurs. Age gap, boss/employee relationship, under-negotiated kink, exhibitionism, implied cheating. Vaginal sex, both with and without condoms, vaginal fingering.

It had been three months since Adrian had started sleeping with his boss. Although maybe ‘sleeping with’ wasn’t really the right term for it. Three months since Victor Ambrose had bent him over his desk and fucked him, a hand pressed over his mouth so that none of their coworkers heard them. Or, he should say, three months since that had happened the first time. It certainly hadn’t been the last.

When he put it in such blunt terms, it sounded… seedy. Inappropriate. A case for workplace harassment. But that’s not how it felt at the time, with Victor whispering praise into his ear, soft hands sliding down his sides and gentling him through a shaking orgasm, helping him get dressed afterwards with lingering kisses that made him weak at the knees. He’d never felt disrespected, never even felt uncomfortable at the time– only when he remembered afterwards that this was something they could both get in trouble for.

Although he had to admit, that was probably part of the appeal. It certainly seemed to be for Victor, since he had still only ever seduced Adrian during, or shortly after, work hours. They still had only ever had sex in Victor’s office. He had still never seen Victor in anything other than the sharply tailored suit he wore every day, only ever unzipping his fly enough to pull out his cock, so that when he was buried inside Adrian he still appeared fully dressed. Adrian had never even seen him shirtless before.

Which was a huge part of why it had been such a surprise when Victor invited Adrian to come to the sauna of all places with him to meet an important client. He still wasn’t totally sure why he was here: it wasn’t like he was involved in any business negotiations. His area was data entry, not diplomatic relations, and he’d never even sat in on the long meetings Victor regularly attended. But he couldn’t say no to the chance of seeing Victor in such a dramatically different setting.

When he’d said ‘sauna’, Adrian had been imagining hot stones and wooden benches. Given Victor’s sartorial sensibilities and flashy car, he had assumed it might be some kind of luxury spa. So when they turned down a side street and ended up in front of an unassuming building with a faded rainbow flag fluttering, and Victor calmly led him down a flight of steps into a dark, discreet reception area, he realised that this was a very different kind of establishment to what he’d been picturing. The buckets of condoms and packets of lube in the locker room confirmed his suspicions.

It didn’t even occur to him to be nervous as he undressed, wrapping the provided towel around his waist, too occupied with staring at Victor instead. His boss seemed as unflappable as ever, calmly taking off each item of his suit and folding them neatly into a locker. Adrian was suddenly cognizant of how he’d shoved his own clothes in a crumpled mess into his own.

Victor was just as attractive out of his suit as in it. Adrian knew he was staring, his eyes tracking over the greying chest hair and toned muscles, but he’d been wondering for so long. With a chuckle, Victor finished removing his undoubtedly expensive silver watch and his wire rimmed glasses, placing them in his locker before closing it.

“Are you satisfied?” he asked, standing with his towel slung low on his hips, and Adrian’s eyes slid shamelessly down the trail of hair leading from his navel down to the area that the towel was covering.

“I… yes. You’re hot,” Adrian said, and felt like the world’s least smooth talker, but Victor smiled and reached out to take hold of his chin, tilting his face up to gaze steadily down at him.

“That’s good, because I like looking at you, too.”

Warmth flooded through Adrian’s chest, and he couldn’t help the dopey smile that spread across his face as he leant into Victor’s touch, smelling the musky cologne that he knew he applied to his wrists.

“I’ve, uh, never been to a place like this,” he said, which was probably obvious but he felt like he needed to explain just how awkward he knew he was being.

“I assumed. Don’t worry… I’ll take care of you.”

That was actually quite reassuring. Even with just a towel around his waist, Victor still maintained an easy sense of authority. Adrian felt certain that if anybody tried to be transphobic to him, Victor would shut that down immediately.

Besides, it also meant that he was less likely to get cruised because people would probably assume that he and Victor were a couple. That was probably for the best. He had no real idea what the etiquette in this kind of place was. Even if the idea of being wanted by a stranger was… quite exciting.

But that wasn’t why they were here. They were here, inexplicably, for a business meeting.

It was difficult to tell whether it was just Victor’s usual calm confidence or whether he actually knew this place as well as he seemed to. He led Adrian down a corridor, passing a man who was leaning against the wall with his own towel hanging around his shoulders, penis half erect against his thigh. Adrian tried to push past his shock: this was a gay sauna, for god’s sake, what did he expect? It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen a cock before.

Victor led him through a door with a simple sign describing it as the ‘STEAM ROOM’ and he was instantly hit with a wave of wet heat. It was dark, and the haze of steam was so thick that it was impossible to see anything inside other than the vague silhouette of what seemed like quite a large man sitting on a bench.

“That you, Ambrose?”

“Apologies for the delay,” Victor said smoothly, “Adrian, might I introduce Ivan Caulfield? Mr Caulfield, this is Adrian: one of my star employees.”

Adrian froze, unsure on how exactly to greet an associate of his boss when they were both naked other than a really quite small towel, and in a room where he could barely even see the man, but he was saved from having to work that out when the shape of a hand came at him through the haze of steam, and he gripped it gratefully, feeling the heat and the dampness of the water vapour on his skin as they shook hands.

“Good to meet you, Adrian,” Ivan said, voice a low bassy rumble, squeezing his fingers lightly before letting go.

Victor had settled back onto the bench and Adrian automatically sank down at his side, embarrassingly pleased when Victor wrapped an arm around his waist, even though it did raise the question, once again, of… well, why was he here? It certainly didn’t seem as though it was related to the business, but it wasn’t like he was Victor’s boyfriend, not somebody you’d bring along to a social affair. Was this what it meant to be arm candy? He found that he really didn’t dislike that idea.

“How is your poker tournament going?” Victor enquired, and Ivan made a dismissive sound from behind the steam.

“Absolute nightmare. Waste of my time. I’ve won about 10k but it’s been a shitshow from start to finish.”

Adrian let himself zone out, his bare arm resting against Victor’s, letting their small talk wash over him into a pleasant background hum. It was very warm, sweat and steam collecting on his forehead and gathering into a drip which ran slowly down his nose, and it was very easy to relax as they talked over him, no pressure to join into their conversation.

Casually, mid-sentence in fact, Victor eased his thumb under where Adrian’s towel was tucked to secure it over his hip, pulling it open. Adrian straightened up in surprise as the towel fell away and slid off his thighs, resisting the urge to cross his legs to try and preserve his modesty.

He glanced across the room at the other man’s shape. It was actually so dark that it was impossible to tell whether Ivan had a towel on or not. Everything was just a shadow: he couldn’t see his face, couldn’t see if he had hair or tattoos, nothing. Which meant that Ivan wouldn’t be able to see that Adrian was now completely naked. Adrian had to remind himself that he was actually allowed to be naked in the sauna anyway, but it still felt a little jarring.

When he looked up at Victor he could just about see his face through the darkness, completely composed and seeming very at ease as he talked to Ivan about the food at some event they’d both attended a few months previously. He didn’t acknowledge Adrian’s questioning look other than giving his thigh an encouraging squeeze, and then slowly sliding his fingers up, up Adrian’s inner thigh, slipping between his legs and stroking his labia. Adrian inhaled sharply, looking quickly at the shadowy figure of Ivan again, which told him absolutely nothing about how much he was able to see them.

A small smile was curving the corner of Victor’s mouth as he spread Adrian open with one hand, slipping his fingers in between his folds and continuing to chat away as though nothing untoward was happening, the bastard. It didn’t occur to him to try and get him to stop. Maybe because he knew that he didn’t want him to stop. He was grateful for the hiss of the steam and the two men’s voices, covering up the sound of how wet he was under Victor’s fingers.

Adrian bit down on his lower lip to stifle the noise that almost tore its way out of him when Victor’s finger circled his cock, dragging up the underside and lightly ghosting over the exposed head before redirecting to pinch at the hood. Absolutely teasing him. He knew that Victor actually knew exactly how he liked to be touched, and was very good at it. Adrian huffed a breath through his nose and glared at Victor, who merely raised an eyebrow at him, tracing the tip of his finger around the entrance of his cunt, so agonising slow that he was seriously beginning to wonder whether the whole point of this was to goad him into taking matters into his own hands and touching himself, before all of a sudden the entire finger had been shoved up to the final knuckle inside him and he gasped before he could stop himself, gripping the bench for support.

“Everything alright, lad?” Ivan asked with a deep chuckle from across the room, and if Adrian wasn’t already definitely lobster-pink from the steam, he knew he would be blushing.

“He’s fine,” Victor answered for him, likely assuming Adrian wasn’t in any state to reply, which in fairness he wasn’t since Victor had pulled him closer for better reach and was currently fingering him with intent: two fingers now inside him pistoning rapidly in out in out in out, curving up to jam relentlessly against his G spot, thumb pressed insistently at the side of the sensitive tip of his cock and occasionally rubbing in a way that made him twitch.

He was now almost certain that Ivan could tell what was going on, but still couldn’t bring himself to let him hear the kinds of private, desperate moans and whimpers that Victor was able to draw out of him so easily. His forearm was pressed hard over his mouth to muffle any sounds, feeling the sweat drip down from his forehead, down his nose, off his chin, down the slightly furred topography of his chest and belly.

Somehow Victor was talking again, about car tax of all things, voice perfectly even and composed, and when Adrian looked at him it didn’t even seem as though he was sweating very much either despite the fact that Adrian himself felt wet from head to foot, a veritable waterfall. He might have been a little offended to think that the other man was so completely unaffected, if it wasn’t that he could see the way Victor’s towel bulged visibly over his crotch.

“Ready to move on?” Ivan asked, and Adrian made an involuntary noise of protest at the idea that they might leave this room without him being allowed to come.

Victor chuckled indulgently.

“Shh, pet, I’ve got you,” he murmured, in his most velvety voice that always had Adrian positively melting, and which filled him with an odd sort of mortification to know that Ivan was listening.

“Fine, fine,” Ivan grumbled, his question apparently answered, “You really like this one, huh?”

Victor didn’t reply, leaving Adrian’s foggy mind to grapple with the conflict of being ‘really liked’ vs the unpleasant implication of being just ‘this one’, assumedly in a long line of other boys that Victor had bedded. Had he brought them all here, or at the very least introduced them to Ivan? Not for the first time, he was reminded how little he actually knew about Victor Ambrose.

But his concerns were swiftly swept away by Victor’s fingers as he pulled him into his lap so he could use both hands on him, one with three fingers now thrusting and curling and spreading inside his cunt, the other with two fingers jerking his throbbing cock. Previously, he might have thought he would struggle to be able to reach orgasm when there was a stranger in the room listening to every sound he made, but apparently that wasn’t going to be an issue for him. Ecstasy washed over him, heat clutching and relaxing in his gut and he moaned into his own arm, back arching, head thrown back and eyes squeezed shut, sweat trickling down over his eyelids.

“Good boy,” Victor told him, soft and quiet in his ear, just for him, and he moaned again and buried his head in his neck.

Slowly, Adrian was helped up on wobbly legs, Victor wiping his fingers off on his towel before wrapping it securely around his waist, tucking in the corner to keep it in place. Blinking, he followed Victor out of the dark steam room into the narrow corridor outside.

“Come on,” Victor gestured for him to follow, leading him to the showers tucked away in an alcove in the wall.

Adrian didn’t love how the showers were completely open, so that anybody walking down the corridor would be able to see him totally naked, but Victor drew him into the same side as him, taking off both their towels and turning on the spray, and he relaxed into his hands as his boss lathered up the complimentary shower gel and smoothed it over his skin, washing off the sheen of sweat he’d gathered from the heat of the last room. A moment later, Ivan joined them in the other half of the two showers, and Adrian would have felt rude about gazing at him if it wasn’t for Ivan openly looking him over.

Ivan was a huge man, at least a foot taller than Adrian and a few inches on Victor who wasn’t tiny himself. But while Victor was all lean muscle and long limbs, Ivan was built like a contestant on World’s Strongest Man. He was broad and burly, his wide plush chest and stomach thickly coated in dark hair, and he did have tattoos: a few old looking faded abstract designs on his arms and a geometric piece over his heart. His hair was shaved short, making his dark beard look more thick and lush, and one ear displayed multiple gold rings, matching the thick gold Cuban link chain around his neck.

It felt rude to stare at the man’s cock even though it was right there, incredibly present, solid and almost all the way hard, and it occurred to him that Ivan must have found it exciting to know what was happening to Adrian across the steam room, that this was because of him, and he realised that he really liked that idea.

He could feel Victor’s own erection pressing against his hip as he gently tipped Adrian’s head back, shampooing his hair and rinsing the suds out, light fingers combing through and smoothing it back against his scalp. Adrian sighed softly, leaning back against him, watching Ivan shampooing his thick mat of chest hair while Victor skimmed his hands over Adrian’s stomach, soaping up the trail of hair leading down to his pubic hair, pulling him back under the spray of water to clean him off.

“What are you thinking?” Victor asked calmly, addressing Ivan over Adrian’s head.

“First floor,” Ivan said decisively, which didn’t mean anything to Adrian, but he at least trusted Victor not to be taking him somewhere he wouldn’t be safe.

They all towelled off in the corridor, and Victor and Ivan both slung their towels around their shoulders, unphased by their nudity. Adrian hesitated, not sure if he was ready to just walk around everywhere naked but also not wanting to seem uncool or prudish, but Victor answered the unspoken question by firmly wrapping his towel around his waist again, tucking Adrian into his side with an arm around him and ushering him back through to a steep flight of stairs. Adrian noticed a plaque next to the stairs with clear directions including ‘Basement- Dungeon; Ground Floor- Sauna, Steam Room, Hot Tub; First Floor- Cinema, Open Play Rooms; Second Floor- Glory Holes, Closed Play Rooms’.

He didn’t have to wonder what made the play rooms ‘open’ for long, as almost immediately after climbing the stairs he was greeted with the sight of a small room with something that almost resembled a bed, outfitted with a large PVC mat in place of a mattress, almost completely visible through the red and white chains hanging over the doorway, like the kind used in butchers’ shops. Two men were entangled on the mat, one with his thighs tightly around the other man’s head as his partner enthusiastically sucked his cock. Adrian felt like he was going red, automatically averting his eyes when he noticed the man being blown looking over at him, and Victor laughed softly.

“People who go in these rooms want to be looked at, sweetheart, or they’d go to the private rooms upstairs. You’re allowed to watch.”

Did that mean that the three of them were going to be watched? Watched doing what?

“Here,” Ivan grunted, indicating another room a little further along.

This one was unoccupied, smelling faintly of cleaning products. When Adrian ducked through the chains in the doorway, he realised there was a tray full of condoms and lube on the side, which somehow made him feel better, as though part of him still somewhat believed that they were going to get in trouble for doing something sexual here, even though it had all obviously been designed with that purpose in mind.

Ivan had already seated himself in the corner of the bed, even managing to look huge while sitting down, and Victor drew Adrian along with him, getting himself comfortable and pulling Adrian into his lap, divesting him of his towel. Adrian realised he’d been deliberately angled to face Ivan, although anybody who passed by their room would get a good look as well. He was starting to get a good idea of why, exactly, Victor had wanted him to come along.

“D’you think he’s warmed up enough for me?” Ivan asked, his voice a deep rumble, and Victor seemed to be considering the question, running his fingers over Adrian’s chest, lightly pinching his nipples.

Without warning, Victor lifted Adrian up by the hips and dragged him bodily onto his cock, and Adrian really couldn’t do anything other than moan and try to reach behind him to clutch at him as the familiar sensation of his boss’ cock stretched his cunt open.

“Aw, c’mon Vic, he looks plenty ready to me,” Ivan complained, but he was watching them both with an expression of hunger, stroking his own cock to full hardness as Victor thrust up into Adrian, bouncing him on his thighs to get a rhythm going.

Adrian could feel his self-consciousness, already somewhat appeased by his first orgasm, beginning to completely melt away as Victor fucked him, one hand now spreading open his labia to give Ivan a good view of his cock disappearing inside him with each deep slide. But just as suddenly as it had started, Victor pulled out, and Adrian let out a sound embarrassingly similar to a whine at the sudden feeling of emptiness.

“Condoms, remember,” Victor prompted, and for some reason that sent a wave of intense warmth through Adrian, at the knowledge that Victor seemed to want to be the only one who got to have him raw.

The knowledge that Victor had brought him here specifically so that another man could fuck him had been slowly sinking in by degrees so that now, faced with the absolute truth of the situation, he felt as though he’d already fully acclimatised to it. It might have occurred to him to object if he wasn’t so excited by the idea of it. Ivan was big all over, and his cock was thick and veined, and Adrian wanted to know what it felt like inside him.

Ivan didn’t argue, rolling on the condom one-handed, and Adrian realised with a jolt that he was wearing a gold wedding band on his ring finger. He guessed it didn’t necessarily mean he was cheating on a spouse: maybe all parties involved were completely aware of the situation. It probably didn’t say anything good about Adrian that he didn’t particularly care either way. Actually, no, worse than that: he found the idea a little thrilling.

Victor settled himself with his back against the wall, holding Adrian to him almost tenderly and spreading his legs, hooking a hand under each knee and lifting them towards his chest so that his cunt was obscenely spread. Wordlessly, Ivan scooted closer, kneeling between Adrian’s spread thighs. This close, Adrian could see the water droplets still clinging to his beard, could see the lust in his eyes, and he reached boldly out to trace his fingers over one of the tattoos on his chest. With a soft grunt, Ivan took his cock in hand, lightly slapping it against Adrian’s thighs, against his pussy.

“Your boss reckons you’ll like my dick, boy. What do you think?”

“Yes,” Adrian gasped, “Yes, I think I will.”

With a low chuckle, Ivan angled his cock down and pushed. The sound that came out of Adrian as he felt the man’s girth stretching him out was an undignified little yelp, and he clutched at Ivan’s shoulders for support as he sank deeper and deeper, not stopping until he was buried to the hilt, his heavy balls resting against the curve of Adrian’s taint. Behind him, Victor pressed a light encouraging kiss to the side of his neck.

“How is he?” he asked, voice soft and intent, and somehow Adrian knew that he wasn’t the one being addressed.

“So fucking good,” Ivan grunted, “You’re a lucky bastard, Ambrose, getting to fuck this pussy whenever you want.”

“I know,” Victor said, and there was a note of pride in his voice which made Adrian feel warmth flood through him, tipping his head back onto Victor’s shoulder, sinking back into his comfortable grounding presence, but his eyes were on Ivan.

Ivan’s large hands gripped onto his hips, holding him in place as he drew back and then shunted powerfully forwards, thick cock dragging against the walls of Adrian’s cunt in just the right way to have him shudder and arch his back with a moan. Victor’s hands were once again sliding over his chest, not exactly participating but certainly supporting, petting down his sides and soothing him, occasionally murmuring “good” and “that’s it” in his ear as Ivan braced his knees against the mat and started to pound into him in earnest, sending sparks of need arcing through him.

He was effectively being fucked in Victor’s lap, his boss managing to maintain a sense of control and, Adrian felt, ownership: it was clear that he was in charge of the situation and Ivan was being permitted to borrow something that ultimately belonged to him. Adrian found that he didn’t dislike that dynamic at all. He quite liked the idea of belonging to Victor.

Ivan shifted to press his hands against the wall either side of Victor’s head, sandwiching Adrian in between the two of them, and it was almost too much, his lungs feeling as though they were being squashed against his ribs, but the solid wall of fat and muscle felt so damn good pressing against his front, pinning him securely into place as Ivan’s cock drove into him.

It seemed impossible that he would be able to take all this. Ivan was so big and he was moving so fast, so hard, slamming into him again and again; it should at least hurt and maybe it did just a little, but the kind of pain that was so deeply suffused with pleasure that it didn’t feel even slightly unpleasant. He couldn’t hold back the noises that were being driven out of him, moaning and gasping on every particularly enthusiastic thrust, and Ivan was panting and grunting above him, their sounds combining in a symphony of desire.

Blearily, Adrian became aware that they had an audience. A couple of men had paused in the doorway, both of them middle aged and fully nude, openly stroking themselves as they watched Adrian get railed. One of them, a shorter bald man with thick metal piercings in his nose and ears gave Adrian a wink as their eyes met, which would usually have sent heat rushing to his face but it seemed he didn’t have the blood to spare, nor the capability for embarrassment. He liked the idea that people were watching and thinking he was hot, maybe imagining they were the ones to fuck him like this.

Victor’s lips were pressed against Adrian’s jaw, slipping a hand in between their bodies to slide two fingers against Adrian’s cock and rubbing in insistent circles, drawing the pleasure that thrummed through his entire body and helping it to coalesce and grow as the rapid deep friction inside him lit him up from the inside out.

“Do you want to feel him come around your cock?” Victor asked conversationally, like he was the only one who had any control over that.

“Fuck yeah,” Ivan growled, “I’m so damn close… let me feel how tight this pussy can get.”

There was something about being talked about like he wasn’t even here, or more like his own thoughts didn’t matter, as though he was just a hole to be fucked and used, that had him shuddering with need. He could feel Victor’s lips curving into a smile against his neck as he pressed his fingertips down hard against Adrian’s cock, roughly stroking the stiff shaft through the delicate hood before he pressed right down over the sensitive tip, grinding in insistent circles as Adrian’s whole body seized up and fell apart under his fingers and on top of Victor’s lap and under the bulk of Ivan’s body.

As promised, he could feel his cunt clench and spasm uncontrollably around the thick cock inside him, and he felt more than a little pleased with himself when Ivan swore in a muffled string of slurred curses and buried himself deep as he came.

There was something so calming about coming down from his orgasm with Ivan’s weight on top of him, and Victor petting through his hair and kissing the side of his head. Eventually, Ivan drew slowly out of him, giving him a rough pat on the cheek.

“Good job, kid. Let’s do this again some time.”

He tied off the condom, tossing it into the waste bin and shaking Victor’s hand over Adrian’s head as he got up off the bed to leave.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said, and Adrian wondered once again what precisely their arrangement was here, what unwitting transaction he’d just taken place in, and he would definitely have to ask Victor about that, but not right now.

Not when he felt soft and comfortable and pliant in Victor’s lap, receiving soft kisses and gentle murmurs about how well he’d done, how good he’d been.

There was a cleared throat from the doorway, and Adrian looked over in surprise, having forgotten about the men watching them.

“Can we get in on this?” the man without the piercings asked, gesturing to Adrian.

Honestly, Adrian would have been more than up for it, but Victor’s arms tightened around him.

“Not today, I’m afraid,” he said, and there was a possessive note in his voice that made Adrian’s heart leap, “But you’re perfectly welcome to keep watching.”

He helped Adrian turn in his lap, guiding him to straddle his thighs so that they were face to face, cupping his face and bringing him in for a long lingering kiss while the other men moved into the room to take up the spot on the bed that Ivan had vacated, their arms around each other, touching themselves while they watched.

Effortless, easy, Victor slid his cock back up into Adrian’s cunt with a pleased groan, his hands on his hips encouraging him to ride him slow and lazy at first, their kisses steadily becoming more heated and Victor’s thrusts inside him becoming more purposeful.

“You feel so good around my cock. Like you were made for this. Made for me,” Victor murmured, dropping his head to mouth kisses against his neck and Adrian moaned in response, turning his head to tongue along the muscular curve of his shoulder, tasting the salt of his sweat.

Without warning, Victor rolled them both over, easily repositioning Adrian onto his back on the mat without even pulling out, rolling into him with deep grinds of his pelvis that had Adrian gasping and clutching onto him, easily wrapping his legs around Victor’s slender waist. He used the leverage of his calves at the small of his back to rock up against him, meeting each thrust eagerly. Victor was always so attentive, and his entire focus was on Adrian despite the two other men in the room. His hands slid down over his chest, pinching his nipples a little on the rough side, just like he knew Adrian preferred, dragging perfectly manicured fingernails down the soft curve of his stomach.

“Do you have another one in you? For me?” Victor murmured, fingers returning to their previous position on Adrian’s cock, which was swollen and a little sore from the attention already paid to it.

Adrian didn’t point out that it was Victor who had brought him off both of the other times as well, and that, even though the second time had been while he was being fucked by somebody else, he got the impression that one way or another that had somehow been for Victor as well.

“Yes, I, ah, I think so, if you keep doing that,” Adrian groaned, and Victor flashed him the kind of pleased smile that always had him melting inside.

It felt so good. There was an obvious appeal in being fucked across Victor’s desk with him in the suit he wore to conduct business all day, but this… being able to finally see everything, to finally feel the older man’s body under his hands, to feel the expanse of his bare chest against his and for every point of contact between them to be hot skin against skin… it was perfect.

Relentlessly, Victor’s fingers dragged over his sensitive flesh while his cock drove into him again and again, and he leaned in to kiss him deep and filthy, devolving into the two of them panting and moaning into each other’s mouths, as though they were the only people in the room, in the whole world.

His muscles were twitching and shuddering uncontrollably, thighs clenching tight around Victor’s waist as though afraid he might pull out and leave him bereft, as he was driven inexorably onwards. Pleasure clustered inside him, so much, too much, and then he was coming again, shaking apart on Victor’s cock, while Victor slammed in to the hilt with a sigh of exultation and Adrian could feel warm liquid splash against his internal walls and realised with a flutter of pleasure that his boss had just creampied him in front of two strangers.

Victor kissed him again as he pulled out, fingers pressing back into his cunt as soon as he’d vacated it, fingering his come back inside him as it attempted to spill out of him.

“Fuck,” groaned the man on the other side of the mat, and Adrian peered blearily over just in time to see him spill over into his own fist, and he realised that his companion was already cleaning himself up from a similar state.

Okay, so apparently he was definitely an exhibitionist, because the knowledge that watching the two of them together had been so exciting that it could get people off was a stupidly hot concept to him.

“Cheers, gents,” the man with the piercings winked, getting down off the bed, and Adrian gave them a flushed nod as the two of them left together, hand in hand.

Victor took his time in cleaning them both up and, when Adrian felt up to standing, he was tasked with holding both of their towels while Victor assiduously sprayed and wiped the mat down with the provided cleaning supplies. It felt like anybody else would look undignified, cleaning while completely naked, but somehow he pulled it off.

“Thank you for your assistance, today,” Victor told him as they walked back through the complex, in the same tone as when he praised any of his employees for a piece of particularly good work, except for the fact that he had a proprietary arm wrapped around Adrian’s waist, fingers curled around his hip.

“Any time,” Adrian said, and sincerely found himself hoping that Victor would take him up on that.

There was a cleared throat from the doorway, and Adrian looked over in surprise, having forgotten about the men watching them.

“Can we get in on this?” the man without the piercings asked, gesturing to Adrian.

Honestly, Adrian would have been more than up for it, but Victor’s arms tightened around him.

“Not today, I’m afraid,” he said, and there was a possessive note in his voice that made Adrian’s heart leap, “But you’re perfectly welcome to keep watching.”

He helped Adrian turn in his lap, guiding him to straddle his thighs so that they were face to face, cupping his face and bringing him in for a long lingering kiss while the other men moved into the room to take up the spot on the bed that Ivan had vacated, their arms around each other, touching themselves while they watched.

Effortless, easy, Victor slid his cock back up into Adrian’s cunt with a pleased groan, his hands on his hips encouraging him to ride him slow and lazy at first, their kisses steadily becoming more heated and Victor’s thrusts inside him becoming more purposeful.

“You feel so good around my cock. Like you were made for this. Made for me,” Victor murmured, dropping his head to mouth kisses against his neck and Adrian moaned in response, turning his head to tongue along the muscular curve of his shoulder, tasting the salt of his sweat.

Without warning, Victor rolled them both over, easily repositioning Adrian onto his back on the mat without even pulling out, rolling into him with deep grinds of his pelvis that had Adrian gasping and clutching onto him, easily wrapping his legs around Victor’s slender waist. He used the leverage of his calves at the small of his back to rock up against him, meeting each thrust eagerly. Victor was always so attentive, and his entire focus was on Adrian despite the two other men in the room. His hands slid down over his chest, pinching his nipples a little on the rough side, just like he knew Adrian preferred, dragging perfectly manicured fingernails down the soft curve of his stomach.

“Do you have another one in you? For me?” Victor murmured, fingers returning to their previous position on Adrian’s cock, which was swollen and a little sore from the attention already paid to it.

Adrian didn’t point out that it was Victor who had brought him off both of the other times as well, and that, even though the second time had been while he was being fucked by somebody else, he got the impression that one way or another that had somehow been for Victor as well.

“Yes, I, ah, I think so, if you keep doing that,” Adrian groaned, and Victor flashed him the kind of pleased smile that always had him melting inside.

It felt so good. There was an obvious appeal in being fucked across Victor’s desk with him in the suit he wore to conduct business all day, but this… being able to finally see everything, to finally feel the older man’s body under his hands, to feel the expanse of his bare chest against his and for every point of contact between them to be hot skin against skin… it was perfect.

Relentlessly, Victor’s fingers dragged over his sensitive flesh while his cock drove into him again and again, and he leaned in to kiss him deep and filthy, devolving into the two of them panting and moaning into each other’s mouths, as though they were the only people in the room, in the whole world.

His muscles were twitching and shuddering uncontrollably, thighs clenching tight around Victor’s waist as though afraid he might pull out and leave him bereft, as he was driven inexorably onwards. Pleasure clustered inside him, so much, too much, and then he was coming again, shaking apart on Victor’s cock, while Victor slammed in to the hilt with a sigh of exultation and Adrian could feel warm liquid splash against his internal walls and realised with a flutter of pleasure that his boss had just creampied him in front of two strangers.

Victor kissed him again as he pulled out, fingers pressing back into his cunt as soon as he’d vacated it, fingering his come back inside him as it attempted to spill out of him.

“Fuck,” groaned the man on the other side of the mat, and Adrian peered blearily over just in time to see him spill over into his own fist, and he realised that his companion was already cleaning himself up from a similar state.

Okay, so apparently he was definitely an exhibitionist, because the knowledge that watching the two of them together had been so exciting that it could get people off was a stupidly hot concept to him.

“Cheers, gents,” the man with the piercings winked, getting down off the bed, and Adrian gave them a flushed nod as the two of them left together, hand in hand.

Victor took his time in cleaning them both up and, when Adrian felt up to standing, he was tasked with holding both of their towels while Victor assiduously sprayed and wiped the mat down with the provided cleaning supplies. It felt like anybody else would look undignified, cleaning while completely naked, but somehow he pulled it off.

“Thank you for your assistance, today,” Victor told him as they walked back through the complex, in the same tone as when he praised any of his employees for a piece of particularly good work, except for the fact that he had a proprietary arm wrapped around Adrian’s waist, fingers curled around his hip.

“Any time,” Adrian said, and sincerely found himself hoping that Victor would take him up on that.

Letting Off Steam was originally published in Trans Erotica on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Trans M focused, trans M/cis M vaginal sex scene, threat/fear of pregnancy (but nothing comes of it), murder (blunt head trauma), mention of eye trauma, murderer POV

Title taken from ‘The Raven’ by Edgar Allan Poe

I must admit that I am not without flaws, several of which have plagued me throughout my entire life. I can be petty, cruel, stubborn and single-minded, but my central sin is one of envy. That creeping, green eyed monster has been my constant companion since childhood, poisoning friendships with a possessive viciousness and sabotaging my own opportunities as I fixated on what I perceived myself to be lacking.

That said, I can also acknowledge my positive attributes. My stubborn nature allows me to be patient in turn, and when necessary I can be very accommodating. Particularly if I have an end goal which would make all the waiting seem oh so worth it– and I can honestly say that I did very little without a plan in mind.

One’s wedding day is always a momentous occasion, worth planning for in careful detail. I considered my face in the looking glass, turning it from side to side as I delicately applied a spread of rouge across each cheek to produce a pretty flush over the pale complexion I had achieved with face powder. My eyes stared back at me, the eyelashes subtly tinted with charcoal to darken the roots and eyebrows shaped into neat curves, and I had lightly painted my lips into a rich bitten rosy hue. I felt as though I looked like a pretty little wax doll, the effect of which was rather enhanced by the ringlets in my glossy chestnut hair, pinned with little pearls on the top of my head and dressed in orange blossoms.

The gown was a cascade of taffeta and satins that enveloped me and made my shape into a strange sort of bell, with puffed sleeves surrounding my arms and my waist cinched just enough to create the illusion of a great rotunda of skirts. It was white, to show that my new husband had wealth enough to buy a dress to use for only one day, and to display my supposed virginity: a notion which I had chosen not to dispel for him.

It could be said that my new husband was a distinctive looking man, and he knew that full well. When he had required part of his left eye to be surgically removed after an accident, he begrudgingly allowed himself to be fitted with a glass simulacrum, but took the opportunity to refuse a naturalistic copy of his other iris be painted on in order to mimic, as closely as possibly, the appearance of his functional eye. Instead, he ordered for his prosthesis to be made in a shade of obsidian so dark that gazing into it feels rather like staring into an abyss. He enjoyed this tremendously, feeling that it gave him a much more interesting appearance than most, and I daresay he was correct. It was the first thing that attracted me to him. The second was his money.

Yet despite being so deeply individualistic as to prefer an eye that shone like jet, he was remarkably fussy when it came to arranging our wedding daguerreotype. Eventually he insisted that I be seated, and he standing by my side, which he felt would be the proper way of things. I knew, although I did not say aloud, his reasoning for this: he disliked that he and I stood at the exact same height, and felt it would be a more manly image to tower over me, one possessive hand on my shoulder. As we remained frozen in place, waiting for the camera exposure to capture our forms, his fingers twitched and clenched against the material of my gown and his elbow rested hard against the back of my chair on which he was leaning for support– but he would never have consented to the both of us sitting.

For a man of such considerable wealth, our wedding ceremony was remarkably restrained. We attended church, said the necessary words, and breakfasted with a small gathering of his family and colleagues– my remaining kin did not warrant invitation. None of our guests seemed particularly moved by the proceedings, but my husband did surprise me with a rare smile and a squeeze of my hand as we exited the carriage and stepped together towards what would now be my new home. His ersatz eye shone beetle-black in the sunlight.

His house was much too large for the two of us, even with the retinue of servants he retained. He repeatedly told me it would feel less empty once we populated it with “brats”, not seeming to notice my shudders. It was an inherited country manor and thus contained many rooms and outdoor amenities which neither of us had any interest in. We did not play tennis on its empty courts. We did not host soirees in its vast and cold ballroom. A great deal of the house was shut off entirely, as we had no need for it. I spent long hours seething at the waste of it all, and longer ones stewing in my awareness that none of this was truly mine, even by marriage, and that if he cast me aside I would have none of it.

“There,” he said with panting satisfaction, on the night that he believed to have deflowered me, “I expect that will have taken.”

I smiled, and allowed him to kiss me while buried deep inside me, before excusing myself to the water closet that adjoined my dressing room to clean myself out as thoroughly as I was able.

It must be stated that my life had improved significantly after marriage. I had been working as a parlour maid and deeply dissatisfied with my station, working for what I saw to be a family entirely composed of unpleasant and frivolous flibbertigibbets from the old lady to the wailing infant. The opportunity to leave was one that I seized with both hands, and I was determined to insinuate myself in the path of the man with the eye of pitch when he was a guest at the house at which I was installed, and did so with a sinuous calculated charm, until he had little alternative other than to propose.

My days were now devoted to domestic leisure but, unlike my husband who had the freedom to dine at his club and go hunting with a loud rabble of lords and dukes, I was expected to while away the hours at home with a new maid for company. I could sew perfectly well but found fiddly delicate needlework infuriating, and had no interest in watercolours. Reading was pleasant enough when the days were dark and wet, but when the sun was out I eagerly took advantage of the stable, taking out a fine grey mare and riding hard around the grounds. Yet I yearned for more, pressing my husband for details on his days, hungry to know where he went and who he met with.

I could feel my envy growing and festering within me: a dark vine that crept over my heart and strangled it. One evening, while we lay in bed together listening to the rain lashing against the windowpane, my head pillowed on his barrel chest while he talked about his day visiting Parliament, I felt something fundamental shift in my mind. A black veil passing over my sight.

His fingers curved under my face, bringing it up to his and kissing me slowly, his breath very hot on my face. I did not object to him sliding up my nightgown, although I must confess that my mind was elsewhere. His attentions were never unpleasant, at least, and he did seem to have some interest in my pleasure, although I suspected that may be due to believing my orgasm was crucial in conceiving the dreaded, inevitable child.

As he pushed my legs apart and slid his fingers into the hot centre between my thighs, a plan began to crystallise which had been secretly germinating in a dark hidden corner of my mind for some time.

“Are you quite well, my dove?”

It seems that I must have had too absent an expression if he had noticed my thoughts begin to drift. I smiled and murmured something about his hand, how good it felt, and he accepted my answer without question, petting my cunt affectionately before he pushed his fingers back inside. I did like to be touched: I enjoyed being the object of a man’s attention, seeing his arousal grow as his gaze roved over my body. Yet I did sometimes find it tiresome to be the one who always had to lie perfectly still, as a lady was expected to do, instead of taking my own pleasure as I may have done before I became a wife. It simply wasn’t done to ride one’s husband’s cock: one had to wait for it to make its own way into one’s body and hope it did a decent job while it was there.

He pressed kisses to my chest, over my breasts, cupping one in his hand and lapping at the nipple in a way I found distinctly unappealing to look at but was at least a pleasant enough sensation. Then he had his cock in his hand, and I relaxed in anticipation of the part I found easiest. More than that: I enjoyed it. I could allow myself to be washed up in sensation and drift away, my entire world and my entire body narrowed down to merely the hot wet slide of flesh in flesh. My legs parted easily as he kneeled between them, his pelvis slotting into place against mine, and I settled myself into the deep stretch of his cock opening me up, slower than I’d like.

I sighed softly and arched my back as the pleasure spread through my abdomen. My husband wasn’t such a bad man, although it was easy enough to think so when he was fucking me, his skin against my skin, pressing down on me with his weight almost suffocating, almost soothing. It made it easier to bear not being allowed to move when I was being physically held down anyway, and his hips rolled on mine to drag his cock with blissful friction inside the hot core of me.

One last time. I would enjoy this for this one final time.

But I need not worry about that just yet. I allowed myself a little freedom in stroking my fingers up his arms, over the strong planes of his chest, my breath coming out in little gasps while he grunted and his thrusts inside me became more deliciously brutal.

I did not reach a release of my own. I rarely ever did. This type of coupling simply did not provide me with what I needed– and yet I did enjoy myself regardless in my own way, I cannot deny that. But as my husband held onto me by the hips, burying himself inside and allowing his seed to spread into my body, it was difficult to feel as though he’d earned the privilege.

He silently rolled onto his back by my side, and I was equally silent in slipping away nude to once more scrub his fluids from out of my body. I took my time, knowing of his tendency to fall asleep soon after the act but needing to make sure I allowed for the possibility of it taking a little longer than usual. Quietly, so quietly, I took up the heavy cast iron doorstop in both of my hands, hauling it up to my bare chest and cradling it like the child he insisted I give him.

The bedroom was dark when I returned to it but the curtains were open and a little moonlight illuminated the man in the bed. For a second I froze on the threshold, seeing the light reflect in his eye, but it was only the glass eye which often did not fully close. The other lid was shuttered tight and his chest rose and fell slowly with sleep. Step by step I crept to the head of the bed and heaved the lump of heavy metal to my shoulder. My arms shook a little as I got it above my head, and for one trembling moment I saw his face in the dim light and felt a little stab of regret. But not enough to stop me. My arms came down, and so did the object, and it slammed into my husband’s skull with a sickening crunch.

I did not wait to see if he was dead outright or just dazed. My hands were still holding on to the doorstop, ringing and sore and shaking with exertion, but I forced myself to lift it up again, panting, and used all the strength I could muster to bring it down as hard as I could.

Yes, he was certainly dead now. Dead and still and silent, his chest no longer moving, the breath frozen in his mouth. The impact had caused his face to collapse slightly, and I realised with a start that his eyes were both open and staring, gleaming in the moonlight. Everything was wonderfully quiet. But I did not have time to luxuriate in my actions. There was so much to do before daybreak.

The darkness made it hard to see the blood, which was likely a blessing. I did not panic. I merely went about the painstaking process of concealing my crime.

I needed to remove the body before I did much else but first I spent some time altering it by use of my sharpened letter opener, particularly the face, so that he would be much less likely to be recognised if found. Then I dressed, quickly, in an old suit of my husband’s he used for country walks, and wrapped the corpse up in the sheets, tying it tight to form a shroud and keep all the blood inside. I was not the strongest but my husband was not the largest man either and the nerves leant me strength: I was beginning to feel a tight band of anxiety around my chest when I thought about being caught before my grim work was over.

By the time I got my bundle outside I was shaking and sweaty, my arms sore and weak from exertion but I knew I had to keep pushing. I didn’t dare to give in to the urge to drag the thing along the ground and risk leaving obvious marks in the soft sod of the lawn, and so I continued to let it lean its awful dead weight on my shoulder and only dragged its feet.

Finally, I made it to the animal composting pit secured inside the shed a little way behind the stables, backing on to the land belonging to an adjoining farm. I unwound the sheet from the body, knowing that might slow the process of decomposition, and toppled the thing slowly into the pit of filth. For a moment it just lay there and I worried I might need to dig it in until eventually, inexorably, it began to sink. It was too dark for me to be sure when it had entirely disappeared, but when all I could see was the lumpen surface of putrescent sludge I turned tail back towards the house. There were many miles to go before I slept.

Over the course of several hours I carefully cut the sheets into strips, lit a small fire in the grate and fed it in. Dawn was beginning to creep over the horizon, her bright fingers aiding me in searching out each spot and splash of blood I had left behind. It was long and tiring work but I had worked before. I had been a maid before. I had no problem scrubbing the evidence from the floors, then fetching the fresh linen and remaking my marital bed as though nothing whatsoever had happened.

Methodically, I packed two trunks. My gowns, my jewellery, each gift my husband had given me. And the other trunk I packed for him, as a wife may do for a husband, considering what clothes may be needed for a short journey. Suits for hunting, for leisure, for dining. A light linen for warmer weather, a wool for colder nights. Ties, coiled like snakes in a neat row, tucked in with pocket squares for blankets. I folded his shirts with crisp care and placed them one by one.

At last, I sat at the desk, watching the fire die down in the morning light, and I wrote a letter to my husband. In my own hand I wrote out how regretful I was for this disappointment to him but I knew I could no longer perform the duty of wife. It had been too difficult, you see, for me to adjust to the transition of the large house. So far from the society of those I knew. I begged his forgiveness and apologised for not leaving an address, but I feared it would be too painful if he was able to contact me. This missive I signed with my name, clear and looping, and left it there on his desk.

As I left the house in the one gown I had left, watching the coachman heave my heavy trunk onto the cab, my heart felt as light as a feather.

The trunk itself I abandoned at a coaching inn on the way up to Scotland, removing a small portmanteau containing only a few necessary items. In less than an hour I had changed into a suit, washed off all of my cosmetics and plaited my long hair into one long rope before cutting it off at the nape of my neck to stow with my gown in my bag to be disposed of later. My appearance thus altered, I returned home to collect my second trunk and left my husband’s home for the last time.

It took me two days to get my sea legs. I had never been on a boat larger than a rowing boat before and this huge steamship was almost overwhelming in its enormity. At first I had thought I was perfectly safe, when the last sliver of England slipped away over the horizon and all I could see was glittering sheets of undulating blue, speeding me inexorably towards America and a future where nobody knew my face.

I refused to show any sign of nerves as I stood on the deck, allowing the cigarette smoke to curl up from between my fingertips. The man at the other side, leaning against the railings, did not particularly seem to have noticed me but I could not entirely trust that. He was a policeman, after all.

It had been simple to tie up my loose ends. Surprisingly so. I was grateful that the safe in my study contained enough money to tide me over for the time being, while I wrote preliminary letters to the bank to explain the situation. America. I would be travelling there for a short trip to settle my thoughts after the sudden desertion of my wife. In a month or so I would write to say that I had decided to make an entirely new start of it and request the house be sold– but that was all to happen in good time. First I merely had to get across the Atlantic without discovery.

They would need to find the body to have anything on me whatsoever, and I had ensured before leaving that even a stick thrust down into the compost did not catch on anything suspicious. I did not think any of the servants had seen me leave and was grateful that we kept a small and overall unobtrusive staff.

Certainly at some point I expected to be questioned about the disappearance of my wife. Somebody would be sure to notice and need to follow up, just as a formality, to be sure I didn’t know anything other than what I had already written in my correspondence about the farewell letter, which I had left out still on the desk in case anybody cared to peruse it. Yet I was confident that my story held firm. As long as I stayed far away from England and anybody who might know my features, I felt I would be safe.

After the first inelegant donning of my first suit, I had taken some time to refine elements that I felt might be too telling. I blackened a cork, using the soot to thicken my eyebrows, and I was pleased with the effect I was producing with the pomade in my hair. No longer wearing cold cream and powders had certainly changed the texture of my face, but I had not been satisfied. It had still been far too soft and doll-like. I managed to rough it up somewhat by scrubbing my cheeks and jaw diligently with sand and being on the steamer was certainly helping as my face had reddened significantly from the saltspray and ocean wind.

Absently, I toyed with my necktie as I watched the sunlight playing on the surface of the waves. I had been concerned that I might need some of the suits to be tailored for me but we had been the same height and composed of similar enough builds that they might as well have been made for me. I found the cut of this one particularly flattering, enjoying the way the lapels fell over the planes of my chest, which I had learned to pin down flat enough to be disguised by the shape of my clothing.

The policeman had taken out a newspaper and was starting to read, a pipe clenched in his teeth. I would need to walk past him in order to return to the lower deck. Not a problem for a man with nothing to hide, I reasoned, and I still had no evidence that he was even here because of anything I had done. Perhaps he was simply on holiday.

I held my hat on so that the sea wind couldn’t whip it away, walking calmly towards the steps, although with somewhat of a wobble: my depth perception was not what it used to be.

“Good afternoon,” I greeted the man with the newspaper with as much nonchalance as I could muster.

“Afternoon– uh.”

The constable glanced up and then stared, his gaze fixing me, roving over my face with an intense curiosity, before he seemed to realise what he had been doing and quickly looked away.

“Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to gawp.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said airily, “I’m rather used to it.”

As I descended the steps towards my little cabin bedroom, intending to rest a little before dinner, I caught a glimpse in the reflection of the porthole of my austere face, features so changed by the obsidian eye, cold and weighty, pressing somewhat uncomfortably where it didn’t fit entirely perfectly into the still-sore and swollen inside of the raw empty socket.

all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming was originally published in Trans Erotica on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Cis M vampire/trans M human, dry humping, vaginal sex, blood drinking. Some implied manipulation.

A historical story loosely set in the late Victorian/early Edwardian period. Apologies for any and all historical inaccuracies.

It never occurred to me that I had any choice in the matter of my employment. You must understand: my guardian was a powerful man, unusually powerful, and possessed of an imposing personality. I would not say I had ever been frightened of him precisely, although I had been almost thirteen when I entered his household with all the sullen brashness that those years brought. I could not imagine being a small child in his home. He was never a father to me and I never addressed him as anything other than ‘Sir’. I was treated perfectly well, given food and an education, but there always remained a distance.

He did at least inform me of my new position in person, although not quite face-to-face as he was partially concealed behind the morning paper.

“I have secured a post for you. You begin tomorrow.”

I glanced across the breakfast table. His kippers lay untouched. He always reads the newspaper before eating, at which point his food would all be cold– and no wonder he never had much of an appetite.

“Thank you,” I said automatically, “Will I be travelling far?”

“You are still to live here, if that’s your concern.”

There was a reason that I had been largely taught at home by a collection of trusted governesses instead of attending boarding school as my guardian himself had done. Perhaps the reason why I felt so indebted to this man was that he had closely guarded the secret of my birth for over a decade.

If I had been orphaned and sent to live with him while I was still living as a girl I doubt that I would ever have had the courage to tell him my true wishes. It was fortunate then that I had already cut my hair short and begun to wear trousers when I found myself suddenly in his care.

“Are you Alberta?” had been the first thing he said to me when I stood anxiously on his doorstep, still in the black suit I wore to my parents’ funeral.

“Bertie,” I corrected automatically, not yet having had the chance to develop any real sense of awe for my new caretaker.

“A tomboy?” he considered my attire, “Or an actual boy?”

The question baffled me for only a moment, having never been asked it with such directness. I knew the answer.

“A boy.”

He had simply nodded. He never asked any questions, not caring to know why I thought so or how this came to be. I doubt that he had much interest in how I had come to such a conclusion. Yet I must be grateful to him for accepting it all so easily, and indeed for using his not-inconsiderable connections to ensure that all my papers were officially drawn up in the name of ‘Albert Sinclair’. Suddenly I found myself provided with everything I could possibly need. Except for love, of course.

Once, with more candour than I was used to, my guardian mentioned that it was better for him that I had turned out this way as he would not have been altogether sure how to deal with a girl, and I do believe that to be the truth. Sometimes I feel his acceptance was more to do with my potential usefulness to him. I was already certain that he had not arranged this present job for me in order for me to make my own way in the world, or contribute any money to the household: he had enough of that. There would be some other motive behind it… there always was.

Yet I had learnt from experience that I had to be careful in how I phrased direct questions in order to avoid irritation and more than likely his refusal to divulge anything. I could not simply ask anything so prosaic as ‘what is the job?’ or ‘what will my duties be?’ as I would never have received a direct answer. I did the first step myself, ruling out the idea that it would be any sort of outdoor work, or anything involving manual labour. The focus of my training had never been on anything physical.

“Ought I bring along my typewriter?”

There was a pause, and I regretted my choice of such a closed question.

“Most likely,“ he answered curtly.

So writing was a part of it. Very well. I enjoyed writing and could type very proficiently. Yet this would never be a simple clerk position. Although it was possible that the job itself was less about the type of work and more about some peculiarity of the post.

“My new employer is a friend of yours, Sir?“ I enquired, supposing that perhaps this was a means of repaying a favour.

The corner of his mouth quirked up and I knew that I had struck close to it.

“Not quite.“

From him that was a generous admission, tantamount to a hint. I knew better than to push eagerly on with more questions as that would result in a stony silence less penetrable than the keep of a castle. Not a friend, nay, the extremity of his reaction suggested the furthest thing: an enemy. Well, that was hardly a surprise. I did not doubt that my guardian had more foes than friends, but it took a moment for me to make sense of that.

“Am I to collect information or perform sabotage?“ I ventured.

He folded his newspaper and laid it down beside his plate, finally looking in my direction. It was always hard to tell, but I felt that he was reasonably pleased with my deduction.

“Start with the former and depending on your findings we will see what action is necessary.“

***

My new suit, chosen for me and made to my measurements, had already been pressed and hung by the time I returned to my room after my lessons that day. I was rarely able to communicate with the serving staff although I knew that Mr Sinclair had a fleet of them. I rarely even saw them. He always maintained that the best servants should do their work so diligently it would seem like a feat of sorcery, and disdained the type of person who treated their staff as members of the family who happened to work for them. This aligned with his overall philosophy as I myself did not particularly feel like a part of his family despite legally being his ward.

The next morning I only had time for a rushed breakfast of toast and coffee before I had to pile into the gig with my portable typewriter in its case and my hat crammed under my armpit. The driver urged his horse on without a single word to me, presumably having been given all relevant information in advance, so I had nothing to do but sit back in my seat and watch the buildings fly by while the wind whipped my hair back from my forehead.

I had absolutely no idea how far we were travelling, other than knowing it would be near enough to commute there and back on a daily basis: it could have been ten minutes away or two hours. In the end it was somewhere in between, enough time to cross from one side of the city to the other. Rather unceremoniously, the driver pulled the gig to a half in front of a façade in the Strawberry Hill Gothic style, complete with a crenellated roof and arched windows. It was a complete contrast to my guardian’s Classical sensibilities, his own home constructed in the Palladian style with miniature Doric columns flanking the entryway– yet there was a certain similarity in the two houses that gave me pause. Both at the very least were white townhouses of a similar age, built in the fashions of the previous century.

After taking time to straighten my tie and comb my hair, wedging my hat onto my head, I found the brass door knocker. It was shaped to resemble a small slender hand, giving the odd sensation of shaking hands with a very cold small personage as I took it and rapped sharply. I was left waiting only a moment before the door was answered by a tall and rather imposing figure.

“Welcome to my home,“ the stranger in front of me said in a soft pleasant voice, “Please come in, Mr Sinclair. It is truly a pleasure to make your acquaintance.“

I still found it utterly bizarre to be referred to by my guardian’s surname.

“My thanks, sir… are you Mr Montague?“

My host inclined his head in confirmation, ushering me across the marquetry flooring. I felt a little abashed over the incredulous tone I had used when asking his identity, but truthfully he was so different to my expectations that I had been thoroughly taken aback. My guardian had not merely hinted but actually outright stated that Mr Montague had been a mentor figure to him, which in my mind had conjured images of a doddery old white-haired patriarch. It was possible, I supposed, that a mentor could also be a peer. A boy his own age at school, perhaps, who was simply more learned in some areas. Yet even that did not seem possible when I looked at the man in front of me.

Mr Sinclair had been already in his sixties when I was installed in his home as a child of twelve, already too old to consider himself a father to me, and I too old to see him as anything of that sort. He was now a decade older than that, having celebrated his three-quarter-century birthday just this year. I would have expected Mr Montague to be at least that age or, as I had expected, older. Yet I felt he could not be any older than his late fifties. His shoulder-long wavy hair, although streaked with silver, was largely still black, and his eyes were dark grey and sharp below elegantly shaped eyebrows. He wore a neat little beard only lightly peppered with white.

He had on an odd assortment of clothing: a sumptuous red silk dressing gown with wide sleeves and a golden braided belt over a soft linen shirt with no collar and what appeared to be cycling trousers which stopped at the knee, revealing primrose stockings and pointed shoes with a significant heel worked in a plum coloured leather. The effect should not have been cohesive and yet, perhaps due to the man’s upright authority and self-confident manner, I began to feel as though I was the odd one, fingering my starched pointed collar nervously as I walked through the entryway. The house was decorated in a similarly eclectic style and my immediate impression of my new employer was of a man who enjoyed collecting. Various glass fronted cabinets contained specimens of fossils, stones, shells, bones, feathers, huge glittering beetles and dried tropical flowers in all the colours imaginable. Art covered every wall, from the expected oil paintings to more experimental canvases pushing the bounds of Impressionism.

“Come, come,” he beckoned, “We go to the library.”

This was a large room with shelves on every wall, many covered in bound books of various sizes and shades of leather and vellum. Others contained loose large leafs of paper, tied into neat stacks, or rolled pieces of ancient parchment stored in what appeared to be an old hat box. There was no window, only gas lighting: perhaps to protect the older manuscripts from sun damage.

Multiple crates and trunks stood in the centre of the room, some with packing labels suggesting an overseas origin. Mr Montague ushered me in the direction of this mysterious cargo, giving me a shrewd look out of the corner of his eye.

“What do you know of the work you will be doing here?”

“I am fairly well versed in historical archaeology,” I said carefully, nervous about betraying precisely how little I had actually been informed about this appointment.

My assumption about the man’s specialism was based not only on the physical evidence before me but on the previous two months of study where my education had abruptly shifted away from the previous focus on the philosophy of science to a study of antiquarianism, complete with a new tutor to unceremoniously replace the one I had been getting to know. I had naturally known that there must be some motive behind my guardian’s change of heart, but it was not until now that I fully appreciated how long he had been preparing me for this post– without telling me anything about it, of course.

“You are not discouraged from asking questions while you are in my home.” Mr Montague said, his voice sharp and incisive, pivoting on one heel to look me directly in the face.

Abashed, I forced myself not to look away, allowing his piercing gaze to penetrate deeply into my eyes. I believed that I understood the implication of his words: he had once known my guardian personally so would know how… in-communicative he could be. Yet, whether it was loyalty or suspicion, I did not take the opportunity to admit my frustration with how ill I had been prepared. Instead, I walked across to place my typewriter on a small table, opening the case and running my fingers over the keys.

“I do not know precisely the subject of your work,” I said carefully, “But I am eager to learn more.”

“Sit down,” Mr Montague gestured, several of his fingers glittering with ornate rings studded with gems.

The library was full of seats of many kinds, from richly upholstered chaise longues to carved mahogany benches and a variety of plump cushions and rugs so that one might repose and read at one’s leisure. Nothing in the Sinclair household was designed for comfort so it was truly quite foreign to me. Hesitantly, I selected an oxblood red leather wingback armchair, self-consciously smoothing down the trousers I was wearing as they wrinkled over my knees.

“I have recently found myself in possession of five crates of artefacts, sight unseen, which need to be unpacked, examined, identified and catalogued. I will not expect you to be able to identify most of these objects, but you are free to try. All of my books are open to you while you are here. But that research is largely my area. I will largely require you to help me with the unpacking and clerical work.”

I must say that this was a colossal relief. It would not have been out of character for my guardian to expect me to be able to perform a role designed for somebody with a specialist degree in the subject. I agreed readily to help with Mr Montague’s work, rolling up my shirt sleeves so that I might begin. My new employer provided me with an apron to cover my clothing in case of excessive dust, and between the two of us we used a crowbar to lever up the nailed-shut wooden lid of the first crate. It was stuffed with dry straw but I could see multiple lumpen objects stored inside. Montague was standing back, watching me, and I did feel a little self-conscious as I reached inside the roughage with two hands and took out a heavy thing wrapped in a scrap of linen.

It turned out to be a figurine worked in a hard polished wood of a grinning demon, carved with what seemed to my eye to be a great deal of care and detail, apart from the eyes which had been gouged so roughly and deeply that they were merely empty holes in an otherwise delicately wrought face.

“Ah,” Montague said, taking the sculpture from me and turning it this way and that, “Hungarian, I believe. This box was entirely taken from the Ottomans, procured from a gentleman in Constantinople.”

He set the object down on a nearby table and I typed rapidly, hoping that my improvised labelling would suffice. Object. Wooden. Decorative. Pagan/Demonic? Transleithania.

“How old do you make it?” I asked, doing my best to mask the fact that I hadn’t the faintest idea myself.

“Oh, not old. 1600 at the very oldest,” he said carelessly, and I was struck with the differing ideas of age when speaking to an antiquarian, for whom any object created before the Norman invasion was positively modern.

As we worked through the box, with me tapping down brief descriptions in accordance with Mr Montague’s identifications, I got the impression that none of these objects matched whatever he had been hoping to find. It did seem, however, that there was a theme: everything pertained in some way to the occult. The wooden demon was not the last grinning goblin I saw, unwrapping clay totems and stone sculptures, relief carvings of cavorting creatures, and even a mosaic of a hideous open maw full of sharp teeth. It was difficult to tell without context of the culture from which they had been taken whether these beasts were an object of fear or worship.

My nervousness had begun to ebb as I worked in silence, listening attentively to Montague as he rattled off descriptions of each uncovered item. Some of them appeared to provoke more interest than others, and he paused for almost five minutes to deliver a monologue on the “most beautiful art” in Prague several centuries hence.

“Ah!” he exclaimed delightedly, after I had unwrapped a large rectangular something to reveal a smooth leather tome with stamped words in what seemed like Sanskrit to my unlearned eye, “I had hoped we would find at least one book in here.”

He took the quarto from me and delicately flipped through it, seemingly reading the unfamiliar language without issue.

“I have read this one before. A shame. Ah well,” he sighed, and glanced over to see my fingers poised uncertainly on the typewriter keys, clarifying for my benefit: “Tales of Vetala. Hindustani folk tales. Early 1800s. Do you know what a vetala is, Bertie?”

“I do not,” I admitted, my heart leaping and twisting in surprise at the sound of my Christian name on his lips.

“It is a demon that may enter corpses and use them as puppets to do their evil will.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to this, so focused my attention on the next piece inside the box. It was a long and slender object wrapped tightly in a thick damask and fastened with a leather thong which, when untied, revealed a long and sharp knife with black tarnishing along the blade. It seemed as though Mr Montague shrank back slightly when he saw it, his eyes narrowing, although at the time I put his expression down to an attempt to assess the worth.

I tipped it around in my hands, looking for a maker mark, but Montague shook his head.

“There won’t be any stamp on it. This was not made for commercial sale, but for personal use. No matter– it certainly looks like real silver. Ah, you’ll forgive me if I do not handle this myself. I have a skin sensitivity relating to silver.”

The first crate had been entirely plundered of its contents, the straw pulled out and sifted through to be sure that no hidden gem was lurking out of sight, and we paused for lunch. I was surprised that Mr Montague waited on me himself, and indeed I had not seen any servant since entering the house, despite his apparent wealth. He led me down to a kitchen which seemed oddly sparse and neat as a pin: stone surfaces scrubbed and copper pans gleaming. The larder was completely bare other than a basket of bread, fruit and cheeses which was taken out and laid on the table.

There was certainly at least enough food for two, but I was the only one to dine. My employer assured me that he rarely ate during the day but that I should eat all I liked. It may have been due to my living in a household in which such tricks were commonplace, but my initial instinct was suspicion that this was some sort of test… although for what purpose I had no clue. I hadn’t lost sight of the fact that I had been given this job with the intention of gathering some sort of information, which meant there must be something below the surface that I was not yet seeing. Yet I couldn’t help but feel at ease as Mr Montague struck up a pleasant conversation about literature and seemed genuinely eager to hear my own thoughts on the latest Jules Verne.

He was certainly a charming man, that much could not be denied. And up until this point I was completely baffled about why my guardian had sent me here. I had assumed that there was some level of proprietary information which would benefit Sinclair’s business, yet I had seen nothing of the sort. He had no interest in dusty old relics, that was certain. It was less unbelievable that Mr Sinclair considered him an enemy: he detested charismatic people and broadly considered them to be false and untrustworthy.

After I had finished eating, and politely turned down another offer of a pot of tea, we returned to the library and set upon the second crate with renewed vigour. I had noted that Montague had seemed a little disappointed with what we had found earlier, and this attitude continued during the unearthing of the first couple of objects in this box which consisted of a sack of coffin nails and a heavily scuffed leather item that Montague declared was not even worth categorising. He reached past me to impatiently sweep away the next lining of straw, revealing a smaller box below: a steamer trunk made of crocodile skin with gleaming brass fastenings, sealed with a large lock.

“Well, now, isn’t that intriguing?” Montague murmured, testing the lock, and then hurrying to rummage through a drawer in a nearby bureau.

He returned carrying what I assumed to be some manner of rogues’ toolbox, producing a selection of picks and, to my astonishment, proceeded to break open the lock as easily as if he did this every day. At his bidding I pushed open the lid, revealing a collection of books in folio size. Each spine was plain aside from a strange symbol branded into the crimson leather, and I heard a sharp intake of breath from my side. He reached out and reverently eased out the first volume, opening it in his lap at such an angle that I felt as though he did not object to me also looking over his shoulder. It seemed very old and was written out in a long sloping hand rather than typeset, although I supposed that anybody could use methods of antiquity even in the modern day. The frontispiece was a woodcut of what appeared at first to be another demon: yet instead of a grinning capering imp, this creature was hunched over with an expression of intense melancholy. It was a little disconcerting to look upon, and I found myself automatically glancing away to read the title on the opposite leaf.

De Tragoedia Vampyri, Or A Compendium Concerning The Anatomy and Physic of the Vampiric Creature and Studies Thereupon. Vol I: A Complete Historie of the Vampyre from Genesis to the Present Day.

“This is precisely what I was hoping to find,” Montague confided in a hushed tone, almost cradling the book to his chest as he flipped feverishly through the pages, all written in that same hand.

“Then this is your specialism? Vampires?”

The man looked up at me with an odd sort of searching expression.

“Yes,” he said eventually, “Although from a different angle to most. Many of the scholars in this field aim to destroy the vampire… nurturing dreams of being the next Van Helsing.”

That wrongfooted me somewhat. I would have thought that the majority of scholars would not actually believe that vampires existed– the same way that many were sceptical of spectres or goblins from rustic folk tales.

“Then your angle?”

Montague sighed, his long fingers turning back to the frontispiece and pointing to the woodcut of the miserable looking creature.

“I believe vampirism is an affliction like any other. A vampire is not a demon. They were humans, once. Now they are forced to shun the society of others, to skulk in the darkness, to hunger for blood,” he closed the book, settling it carefully back amongst its fellows.

“Have you… have you ever met one?”

He chuckled softly and a shiver ran down my spine. My eyes tracked over the walls and their lack of windows. I remembered suddenly how he had been so cautious with the contents of the crates, letting me unwrap any mysterious object first. He’d refused to touch the silver knife. Was there a single mirror in this house? None that I had seen thus far. I wet my dry lips with the tip of my tongue.

“You could say that I have a personal interest in the topic,” he said.

This would certainly explain how he appeared so much younger than my guardian. Perhaps he had always been this age ever since Mr Sinclair was a boy. Which would naturally mean that my guardian had known from the start that he was sending me to work for a vampire and had not deemed it worthwhile to mention. A flare of frustration rippled through me. The man never told me a damn thing. I felt like I had talked more to my new employer over the course of this single day than I had to my guardian in ten years of living with him.

Montague had not said anything else. He was looking at me still, waiting for my response. I swallowed.

“I did wonder why you weren’t eating anything,” I finally said, “Does that mean you only eat…”

“…blood?” he asked softly, “Yes. Although I promise that it isn’t as grisly as the Penny Dreadfuls would have you believe. It’s usually quite pleasurable in fact, for both parties.”

I realised that his eyes had slid to the bare section of my neck and I felt a flush rise in my cheeks. He noticed that I was looking at him and hastily took a step back to put a distance between us.

“Forgive me,” he entreated, “I haven’t been able to feed in some time. Talking about the subject just now… I got carried away. I would never… I don’t feed from people against their will, I promise you that.”

Fool that I may be, I thought that I believed him. I was not particularly naive, or I did not think that I was. And I must admit that the topic had stirred in me some not insignificant amount of curiosity.

“When you do feed from people,” I asked, attempting to maintain a tone of scholarly interest, “Does it have any… adverse side effects?”

“It may cause some temporary lightheadedness. But I really don’t take so much. One cup, perhaps.”

I looked down at my body, imagining the vast quantity of blood pumping about my veins. Surely I could spare a cup’s worth of the stuff for the sake of scientific discovery.

“If you like…” I murmured, aware of the heat in my cheeks, and rather than finishing the sentence aloud I unfastened the studs of my collar and took the entire circle of starched fabric away to reveal the entire length of my neck, bare and soft.

“Bertie,” my employer said, and his voice was strained but his eyes did not leave my neck, “I must tell you. When I said the act was pleasurable… I should have said intoxicating. It can be overwhelming. I need you to be absolutely sure because once we start… I fear neither of us will be able to stop.”

Perhaps I should have taken this as warning, rather than enticement. Yet I had been bored and aimless in my guardian’s house for too long, hungry for adventure, and feeling unrulier still after learning that once again I had been sheltered from information I ought to have been trusted with. Mr Montague had trusted me, and thus I felt I could trust him at least to be telling me the truth that he wasn’t about to tear out my throat.

“I understand. And I am willing.”

He sucked in a breath, and nodded. Getting to his feet, he stepped to the table and picked something up: it was the silver knife we had examined earlier, which I had wrapped back up in its cloth. Holding it gingerly, he brought it to me and placed it in my hands.

“Unwrap this and have it by you. Then you can be sure, if things go too far, that you will be able to stop me by any means. This is one of the few methods that can truly harm one of my kind.”

It felt like this was intended to be reassuring and yet all I could think was that surely if this procedure was actually so safe I would have no need of the knife. Still, I took off the cloth and set the knife beside me on a little table so that I would be able to seize it easily if I should need to.

Montague had ushered me to a chaise longue large enough for the two of us to sit side by side, encouraging me to sit with my back supported by the cushioned backrest, perhaps in case I fell suddenly into a swoon. I watched with some bemusement when he took a large silk handkerchief from his pocket and began to tuck it neatly around my throat with strangely cold fingers until I realised it was to protect my shirt from any stray drops of blood. Once more, this act of gallantry once served to illustrate the reality of the situation. It should have been enough to have me see sense and make my excuses to leave. I did not.

His hands were gentle as they guided my head to tilt to one side against a pillow, but the look in his eyes was that of an animal. I did not shudder as his cold breath puffed out over my skin but held myself still until the very moment when I felt the press of something hard against my neck and then a sharp pinching pain that drew a sudden unintentional gasp. The first thought was that he had lied to me: this could in no way be described as ‘pleasurable’. Then I felt a tongue sweep wetly beneath the teeth and my eyes fluttered shut, warmth slowly suffusing my body.

It ought to have occurred to me earlier, but it was only just now that I realised precisely how close Mr Montague was to me. I was reclining, my legs apart and bent at the knee while he leant over me in a kneeling posture, one hand resting on my knee, one of his legs between mine, and his mouth working and lapping at my throat in a manner which was sending trembles through my entire body. It was not dissimilar to swallowing a warm glass of whiskey and feeling it slide hot down one’s gullet, heating the entirety of the insides. I could now see why he had suggested I lie back as my muscles felt soft and pliant, my body feeling deliciously buoyant.

I could feel the blood flowing from me, into his mouth, hear his swallows by my ear and a soft growl as his tongue laved the skin, and I realised foggily that the heat spreading through me was beginning to coalesce and pool in my core. It took a moment before I recognised it as arousal, and realised that I had begun to dreamily rotate my hips up towards my employer in a frankly scandalously lascivious manner. I halted myself in horror, hoping he was too absorbed in his meal to have noticed. Yet a moment later, without any other acknowledgement of my plight, he shifted his position forwards so that his thigh pressed firmly between mine, and my back arched in an involuntary shudder. My cunt throbbed desperately and I could feel the wetness spread into my smallclothes, threatening to leak all the way through my trousers.

But my mind felt too agreeably dazed for my usual meticulous concern in concealing that particular secret of my anatomy. It barely occurred to me that it was inappropriate on multiple levels for a man to engage in such practices with his employer. All I knew was that I desperately needed more friction and more pressure and that I frankly felt I may well die if they were not directly applied. Mr Montague did not seem to be otherwise paying me any mind, still drinking deeply from the side of my neck, but he flexed the muscle of his thigh precisely where I needed it and I gasped, clamping my thighs around his and grinding down to increase that blissful contact. If my mind had been more clear I might have had the wherewithal to feel deeply ashamed of my behaviour, rutting as I was like an animal in heat, but I must emphasise that such a thought did not cross my thoughts, nor did any thought whatsoever other than my desperate need. I was beginning to feel a little feverish with it, the hot centre between my legs aching with desire and my body was shaking and twitching. At some point I had taken hold of Mr Montague, one hand gripping the sleeve of the dressing gown he wore, the other shamelessly fisted in his shirt over his chest. He paid me no mind, other than to silently roll his bent leg back and forth at the knee so that it pressed harder and softer alternately, brushed up against me and then pulled slightly away, stimulating me enough that I could feel the sensation winding tighter, low in my belly, that familiar feeling of being close to release.

My fingers clenched and unclenched in his clothes, arching my back to try and get as much contact with him as I possibly could. Whether by accident or design, his tongue suddenly moved against the skin of my neck in just the right way, his lips tightened, and he sucked a little harder than he had been doing up to that point, and his thigh ground hard into my cunt and I clung to him and violently shook through a climax so powerful that everything in my vision turned white.

When my senses returned to me, I was lying back against the chaise longue with a sheen of sweat on my forehead and an uncomfortable wetness spreading across my thighs. Mr Montague had disengaged and was delicately dabbing at his reddened lips with the napkin he had previously placed to cover my shirt.

“Please refrain from touching your neck for a moment. The wounds close quickly but not instantly.”

I was suddenly aware of the slight itching sting where I had been bitten but I resisted the urge to explore it with my fingers.

“You weren’t wrong about that being… pleasurable,” I said, feeling as though my cheeks must have gone very red.

“It doesn’t always happen to quite that extent. I hope it didn’t make you feel too… uncomfortable.”

“Not at all,” I said quickly, and then, a little shyly, “You said that you would feel the same pleasure from feeding. Was that true in this case?”

He looked searchingly at me for a moment, his eyes slowly sliding over my body, and gave me a small nod.

“I found your blood very stimulating,” he confessed, “And I would like to explore the rest of you, should you desire it.”

I did not speak my answer aloud yet communicated it effectively enough by shifting in closer, winding my arms around his neck, and he eagerly pulled me onto his lap where I could feel the proof of his arousal press solidly up against me. It seemed as though vampires were still perfectly capable of all manner of copulation. His lips against mine were only a little colder than an ordinary man and I tasted just a hint of a metallic flavour that must have been a trace of my own blood as he licked his way hungrily into my mouth in much the same manner as he had lapped at the wound in my neck. I could feel the sharp edge to his canines when my tongue swiped over his teeth, imagining the way they had so easily sunk into my flesh.

“I should say,” I broke off the kiss to hastily add, as his hands were beginning to unbutton my shirt, “My anatomy is somewhat–”

He put up a hand to stop me speaking, and his voice was gentle as he replied:

“My dear Bertie… I am myself a living corpse. I’m hardly in a position to judge what makes a man.”

I felt my cheeks flush once again, and couldn’t refrain from leaning back in to kiss him again, no longer reluctant to let him see me as I was. My shirt slid easily off my shoulders, revealing the corset I wore underneath: a simple and rather ugly thing designed for wear in equestrian sports which was at least a little more comfortable than some of the others of its kind that I had tried.

He ran his fingers almost reverently down the boning, not attempting to remove the garment– I assume in deference to my own potential discomfort. In truth I felt I would usually have been more comfortable with it on but at this moment my skin was aching to be touched directly and I did not hesitate to reach back and unlace it, my fingers trembling less with nerves but with desire. The stiff pieces of the corset fell from my ribs, leaving me feeling raw as the meat of an oyster prised from its shell.

A small gasp tore itself from my lips as Montague traced featherlight fingers down my collarbones, skimming over my ribcage and circling up to my nipples, circling them teasingly until I was shuddering in place and then taking pity on me and captured both those sensitive little buds between his fingertips and tugging just hard enough for my eyes to roll back in my head, sensation vibrating through my whole being. Despite his cold skin, his touches seemed to send heat through my body wherever he touched: a heat that only grew, demanding to be quenched. I could feel my cunt once again throbbing with need, more insatiable than I’d ever have expected from my own self.

It seemed deeply unfair that the other man was still completely clothed when I longed so dearly to see and to touch, so I dragged myself closer by one hand on his lapel before divesting him of the robe entirely, pushing it off his shoulders where he let it flutter to the floor with a graceful wriggle. His own shirt soon followed, revealing a pale chest dotted over with raised white scars, only partially covered with dark chest hair. I pushed my fingers through this thatch, curiously pressing over a particular scar. Montague’s lips twisted at my questioning look.

“A sword. It might have been the end of me if I wasn’t… turned.”

I couldn’t help but wonder exactly how old Montague was. There had been swords for a long time, after all, so this statement meant little. He could have been born in the Bronze Age or truly only be the same age as my guardian. But that felt like a conversation for after, as his hands were now on the fly of my trousers and there were significantly more pressing matters to attend to. I lifted my hips and impatiently pushed both the trousers and my smalls beneath them down my legs and kicked them from one ankle onto the floor.

“Beautiful boy,” he murmured, taking hold of one of my calves and skimming a hand up the inside of my thigh while I twitched and threw my head back, delighted at the attention.

My own fingers curved under the waistband of his inexplicable cycling breeches and used the fabric to pull him closer, positioning my thighs either side of his hips as I began to open his trousers.

“Did you want something, my dear?” he asked, eyes bright and mischievous, crinkled at the corners with wrinkles I found myself finding really quite attractive.

“Your cock, sir, ideally deep in my cunt,” I answered boldly, and he laughed loudly, assisting me in freeing his prick from its clothing prison.

“Then that is what you shall receive.”

I barely had time to admire the thing before it had been directed between my legs and was sinking slowly into me, opening me up deliciously. It did not feel cold at all from what I could tell, but perhaps my own heat was so great that it warmed him up almost immediately. I clutched at his shoulders, hissing in my breath between my teeth, and he held still out of courtesy until I swatted at his chest and rocked my hips meaningfully, curving one leg around his waist and pulling him in those last couple of inches. It was gratifying to hear his own sharp little inhale as our hips met together: surely, even if he was really only as old as he looked, he had significantly more experience than I did. Yet he seemed to be entirely engrossed in me, his eyes locked on mine, his hand curved around the side of my neck with his fingertips lightly stroking over the sensitive spot his teeth had previously punctured.

It had occurred to me that I had been entirely played from the start. Had he always intended to drink my blood? Perhaps even the ensuing seduction was planned. I remembered that I was here because my guardian considered this man to be some sort of implicit threat and wanted me to act as a spy. He could be very dangerous indeed. Is it terribly tragic to say that I found it difficult to care when he was treating me with more desire than I had felt from a lover before, and more attention and respect than I had from any other man? If it was all lies, I supposed that I would choose to believe the beautiful lie, at least for the moment.

He moved inside me, cock dragging slowly almost all the way out and then thrusting in so deep I gasped out an entire lungful of breath and arched under him, bracing my arms against the chaise so that I could move against him, meeting his movements to take him in deeply. The ecstatic warmth I felt when he had fed on me had mostly faded and yet my need and arousal had not abated.

“Can vampires…” I asked breathlessly, working out how best to ask the question, “…produce children?”

After a small pause, Montague laughed warmly, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me onto his lap so that I could ride him at my leisure, using his shoulders as support to rock up onto my knees and sink back down with a soft groan.

“Only the infernal offspring we create by passing on our vampirism. My seed has been entirely sterile for centuries.”

Centuries, I thought dizzily, rolling my hips to stimulate myself on him. He leant in to kiss me again, hands smoothing tenderly down my sides and making me shiver, goosebumps exploding into being down my skin at the light brushes of his long graceful fingers.

“Why do you ask, dear boy?” he inquired, eyes gleaming in a way which made me suspect that he knew fully well.

His fingers had now found their way between my legs, rubbing my sensitive flesh in small circles and moving with me despite the erratic motion of my pelvis which seemed to be jerking back and forth of its own accord, fucking myself on him until I was panting and my forehead was glistening with sweat.

“Will you finish inside me?” I finally managed to answer him, so caught up in the ecstasy of the hot, fast friction of his cock driving into me and the pressure of his hand that I forgot to be embarrassed by the desperation in my voice, nor the shamelessness of the request.

He gave me a sharp toothed smile, canines sliding over his lower lip.

“I would be delighted,” he told me, voice low and velvety, grinding his fingertips against me and causing me to whimper and twitch.

His other hand tightened on my hip, tilting me towards him so that he could angle up in such a way that his thrusts into me were rapid and deep and I could only hold onto him, so tightly that my fingernails dug into his skin, and rock against his thrusts as hard as I could, my movements becoming more sloppy as I chased release. I was sure that Montague was also close, his breath coming out in pants and grunts, trailing open mouthed kisses over my neck.

“Bite me,” I begged, and he moaned desperately, not hesitating before he sank his teeth into the meat of my shoulder.

Pain and pleasure exploded through me, the scent of my own blood in my nostrils and bright colours swirling across my vision as I hit my peak with such force I felt as though I might shake all the way out of my skin. I could feel my cunt quivering and clamping hard around the cock inside me, and Montague cursed softly with his teeth still buried in my shoulder, only managing two more stuttering thrusts before he pulled my hips down to sink himself as deep as he could go, flooding my body with his own release. He removed his canines from me with an apologetic kiss to the spot that I felt with some satisfaction would leave me with a truly magnificent bruise.

For a moment we just sat there together, his head resting on my shoulder, long hair tickling my collarbone. His cock was still throbbing inside me, and I still occasionally twitched from stimulation, slowly recovering from the exertion of our coupling. Eventually he drew out of me, his seed leaking down my thigh, and I tried to work out if it was any colder than any other man’s emission but it was truly impossible to say.

“Mr Sinclair expects me to report back on your activities,” I blurted out suddenly, and was absolutely aghast at myself for doing so.

“Yes, I know. Has he told you why?” Montague inquired, with no sign of betrayal in his voice, his fingers languidly combing through my hair.

“No,” I didn’t bother to conceal my bitterness, “He tells me as little as possible.”

“I cannot pretend to be surprised. Well then, I shall tell you. I expect Sinclair wants to see how close I am in my research to finding a treatment to benefit my kind.”

“Does he hope to sell it for himself?”

“Sharp boy. Yes, I expect so. It was part of the reason for our quarrel. Well… I can’t ask you to abandon your loyalty to your guardian just because we’ve…” he gestured meaningfully between us.

I fell silent. It occurred to me again that I might perhaps have been manipulated, seduced, in order to gain my fealty. If so, it felt like it was working. Certainly, I owed Sinclair some gratitude for clothing and housing me for an entire decade, but I did not know that I owed him my loyalty. I was not altogether sure that he had earned it.

“I suppose you have no reason to trust me other than my word,” I began, “But I will not betray your confidence. I will tell him nothing whatsoever, if that is what you ask of me.”

“Perhaps not that. But I would appreciate your discretion,” he murmured, his tongue against my neck.

It may seem foolish to throw my lot in with an ancient vampire I had only met that day as opposed to the old man who paid my way in the world, but I suppose I may be a foolish person. I knew I was not being asked to make my choice at that moment and yet I also knew I had already decided– and from the way Montague tucked me into his side and pressed a kiss into my hair, I felt as though he knew precisely what I was thinking.

Hot Blood Begets Hot Thoughts was originally published in Trans Erotica on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.