Chapter 31: Animal Cunning — The Key of Oslov

Volume 1: A Serviceable Boy

Chapter 31 Animal Cunning

Chapter Notes

Well, I definitely did not plan anything like this chapter when I started this. But Besha grew on me, the little weasel, until I wanted this to happen and I wanted it from his POV. Hope it works!

Chapter Notes

Well, I definitely did not plan anything like this chapter when I started this. But Besha grew on me, the little weasel, until I wanted this to happen and I wanted it from his POV. Hope it works!

By the time the outside buzzer sounded, Besha had been waiting for-fucking-ever. He’d been pacing the living room, taking nips of sap to steady his nerves and then reproving himself, because the last thing he wanted was to get blissed-out and off his guard.Not that Gersha Gádden posed anything like a threat to him, of course. After spending all yesterday with his wife, enduring her insinuating comments and her scarcely veiled mockery, Besha could have flicked ten Gershas aside like bugs. In fact, looking forward to this rendezvous, to the delicious prospect of getting exactly what he wanted, was the only thing that had gotten him through that marital misery.But the mechanics of getting what he wanted could still be tricky, and besides, he liked to stay sharp in all situations. It was the only thing he really had going for him.“Come in, come in,” he said expansively, unsealing the coldroom. “The tea’s just steeping. Good lord, did you walk? You must both be frozen.”“Not at all, Fir,” said the boy, who was busy removing his outergear. The flop of his damp hair in his eyes gave Besha a shiver of desire. I haven’t had you for way too long.As for Gersha, he hung back, those sensual, heavy-lidded eyes narrowed with trepidation. When he unwound his scarf, Besha’s sharp eyes found a welter of mottled love bites the man hadn’t managed to cover with his collar.Well, that was it. Besha was already hard. He shifted to conceal it, but didn’t remove his probing gaze from Gersha’s neck. “I see you two had a productive day yesterday, Councillor.”Gersha went red—you couldn’t miss it even under the coldroom’s bleary fluorescents. The boy didn’t change color. He calmly hung up Gersha’s things and trailed Besha into the other room, gesturing to his Upstart to follow.Was Nettsha calling the shots in the relationship now? Verán would find that hilarious. But if things went well, Besha wouldn’t want to tell Verán about any of this.“Sit!” He indicated the sofas, still playing the good host, and began pouring the tea into the tumblers he’d laid out. From the corner of his eye, he noticed that Gersha made a move to sit beside Nettsha, but the boy waved him toward the facing sofa.Oh yes, very interesting indeed. Besha had known a few high-named men who were so smitten that they took orders from their kettle boys or their mistresses. But he hadn’t expected that of Gersha, for all his teasing about being in love. The little prig seemed too cold, too rule-bound.Besha hoped Nettsha really was calling the shots, because the boy would be more persuadable. When had he ever refused Besha anything?His cock swelled again as he remembered how the boy always looked when you first put the cuffs on him—how he stopped struggling and hooded his eyes and went limp, that pale throat exposed, those dark lashes shadowing his cheeks, swooning as if his spirit were leaving his body. Verdant hells, no one submitted more beautifully than Nettsha did, even if some of it was just acting.“I do hope you’ll excuse my breach of protocol in asking you both here,” he said, settling himself beside the boy and fishing a vial from his pocket.Gersha’s face was, if anything, redder. “Stop this charade,” he said in an almost growling voice that didn’t subdue Besha’s erection. “Why don’t you get down to business and tell us what you want?”The boy cleared his throat. Gersha’s gaze flew to him, one dark brow raised, but he went quiet.“How refreshing your frankness is, Gersha.” Besha poured half the vial into his palm and held it out for the boy. “I wonder if Verán would also find it refreshing if I told him everything you haven’t. How you gave his piece to your interrogator friend to . . . well, what was Egil doing, exactly? Or was it the two of you?”Again a glance sped between the pair of them, but it told Besha nothing. His informant hadn’t been able to see or hear any of the interrogation, only the preparations for it, so he was painfully curious. Given the unlikelihood of any form of treason on Gersha’s part, his best theory so far was that the man had a secret prison kink, which would make him quite the hypocrite.“It’s quite simple, really,” said Gersha.He cleared his throat and launched into an explanation that was obviously specious, and perhaps downright false. The moment he spoke the phrase “antique books,” Besha’s brain switched into a less attentive gear. Who on earth gave a damn about books written by long-dead people?He especially had trouble focusing because the boy had bent to lick the sap from his palm. Green hills and running rivers, the boy’s tongue was knowing. It was an effort not to lose track of Gersha’s dull tale, but Besha had long practice in compartmentalizing.“You don’t expect me to believe that?” he said, when Gersha had at last fallen silent. He raised his palm absent-mindedly to his mouth and licked up the leftover sap. “I know you like to read those old tomes, dear Gersha, scholar that you are, but—” he flicked his eyes to the boy— “well, that’s just absurd.”“Why is it absurd?” Gersha’s voice had a dangerous edge.“Well.” Besha shrugged. Wasn’t it obvious?He knew, of course, that Drudges could be clever. His Laborer informant in Int/Sec was invaluable, and Nettsha was clearly no fool, whatever Verán thought. But Laborer cleverness was a kind of animal cunning that had no use for books or numbers. Why read books when you could read people? Besha considered himself an expert on the matter, given that his own animal cunning was his primary asset. Privately, he despised most of what he’d been forced to study in school. And would he spend his time reading dusty old books, if he had free time? Not a chance in hell.“You have to understand how this sounds, Gersha,” he began.The boy interrupted in his deep voice: “Are you concerned that Fir Gádden and Fir Egil might have been doing something untoward, Fir?”Well, that was different. And cheeky. Since Besha could practically still feel the boy’s tongue caressing his palm, though, he didn’t answer too sharply. “Perhaps you should let your Fir speak for himself, love. And the answer is, well, of course I’m concerned.”He turned to address Gersha. “If you really did have doubts about Nettsha’s loyalty—which seems absurd to me, but I don’t have your delicate sensibilities—then you should have gone directly to Verán. The boy belongs to the Party, not to you.”Gersha’s knuckles had gone white on the tumbler. “He doesn’t belong to anyone.”Besha was protesting that he’d only used a very common figure of speech, and Gersha was retorting that it shouldn’t be common, when the boy’s voice cut through both theirs: “Fir Gádden thought it prudent not to bother Fir Verán with such trivial matters, Fir.”To his own surprise, Besha shut up. Gersha did, too.The boy had slouched a bit on the sofa, where his rangy form looked almost languid. “That’s why the procedure was off the books, Fir Linbeck,” he went on. “I believe Fir Egil prepared a report where everything will be explained to your satisfaction.”“That report was for my eyes only,” Gersha objected. “Not for Besha’s.”Besha guzzled his tea and laughed; the sap was starting to go to his head. “Can’t the two of you even agree on the story you want to tell?”Again it was the boy who answered, quite inappropriately: “He’s already told you the only story there is to tell, Fir. Now maybe it’s time for you to lay your cards on the table.”“Oh my, we’re commanding, aren’t we?” Besha had to admit, he was finding this bossiness a turn-on. It was so different from Nettsha’s usual personality that he wondered if the two of them liked to play at role reversal. “Is he like this with you in bed, Gersha? Because I’d love to sample a bit of that.”Gersha set his tumbler down so hard the tea splashed. It was a wonder the vessel didn’t shatter. “Enough of this,” he said. “I’ve told you everything, without deceit. So out with it. What do you really want from me—from us?”For a few seconds, Besha savored the flush of frustration on his colleague’s delicate features, the snarl of fury in his tone. He did love getting reactions, especially from high-named colleagues who prided themselves on their composure.When he was done enjoying Gersha’s discomfiture, he said, “It’s simple, really. I want to watch the two of you together, tonight, in my bed.”Besha had pared down and practiced this ultimatum until it sounded like something Verán would say—tossed off, casually contemptuous. He managed to articulate it without a quiver in his voice to betray just how often he’d fantasized about precisely this.He longed to see Gersha moaning in the boy’s arms, undone. He honestly wasn’t sure anymore whether the pleasure he took in those imaginings was about power, sex, or a potent mix of both.“And then,” he finished, “I’ll take my turn with him, as this is my appointed night, and you can watch. That seems only fair, doesn’t it?”Gersha sucked in his breath, his exquisite eyes pits of rage. Instead of answering, though, he went white as a waxwork, arrested by something to Besha’s left.The boy must have given Gersha some sort of warning. Now he said matter-of-factly, “That seems quite fair, Fir. There are just a couple of conditions.”Gersha breathed, “Good lord, Rishka, no.”Certainly the boy deserved a scolding for speaking for both of them, but Besha was so close now to getting what he wanted that he didn’t reprove him, only asked, “Conditions?”“Just a couple of things that would help Gersha enjoy this, Fir. First of all.” The boy flicked a finger in Gersha’s direction. “He’d like to give you a vial the way you just gave me one.”“Excuse me?” How did you control a situation that was so far out of bounds? The sensation was unusual and, Besha had to admit, a tiny bit intoxicating. “Is that really what you want?” he asked Gersha.The green-eyed Councillor didn’t answer, only pulled a vial from his tunic and spilled the contents into his palm. He said to the boy, “I’m going to trust you, even though I don’t want to right now.”Was this some sort of role-play? With Nettsha looking inscrutable and Gersha angry and stony-eyed, it was hard to say. But now Gersha stretched out his hand, practically thrusting the sap under Besha’s nose, and Besha had to do something.Maybe it was the sap already in his system talking, but all he wanted to do was keep that confused, mortified look on Gersha’s face. So . . . why not play along?He sank to his knees on the white carpet, crawled forward, and applied his tongue to the sap on his colleague’s palm. He guzzled and sucked assiduously, giving the trembling hand a tongue-massage the way Nettsha did, until Gersha wrenched himself away and said, “You’re obscene.”Besha pitched to the side, laughing helplessly. The fresh dose of sap was already making his whole body thrum. “That was lovely,” he said. “So I’m to be the kettle boy tonight, am I? What’s your second condition, Gersha? Or perhaps I should be asking Nettsha for my orders?”“That’s not his name.” There was nothing tentative about Gersha’s voice now. “Call him Tilrey or don’t speak to him at all.”After a baffled moment, Besha remembered that Verán had renamed the boy. Well, it wasn’t like he’d chosen his own nickname, either. “Very well,” he said, rolling his eyes as he rose unsteadily to his feet. “I’ll call him whatever you like. Is that it for conditions? Can we retire to the bedroom?”“No,” said Gersha, at the same time the boy said, “Yes, Fir.” And then, to Gersha, “Let’s go, Fir.”They kept whispering to each other as they followed Besha down the corridor. Gersha sounded upset, the boy reassuring, then pleading. The whole thing was tremendously entertaining, Besha decided; even if Gersha ended up backing out, it was worth it to see him squirm this way.As for the boy, well, he was practically begging for some kind of chastisement, and Besha had experience in delivering it. He flicked on the lights in the bed canopy and sat down with a bounce. “I hope you don’t mind if I observe at close range.”Gersha clearly did mind. He stopped at the edge of the bed with his arms crossed, scowling.The boy bent to murmur something soothing in his ear, then said to Besha, “One more thing, Fir. Do you still have that scarf here, like you said? The one you used to tie me up on our first night together?”Good lord, what next? “I knew you were sentimental. It’s in the closet, top row on the left, I think.”Belatedly, Besha remembered he’d stowed that scarf here because it was a Harbourer scarf that Malsha Linnett had gifted him. Not that it mattered, of course, since Linnett was out of the picture. But the scarf was distinctive, woven with glaring reds and greens you’d never see in an Oslov garment, and he’d worried about Davita finding it and asking questions.The boy emerged swiftly from the closet with the scarf wound around his arm. “I thought you might like to see Fir Gádden tie me up with this, Fir.”The words “tie me up” made Besha go rock-hard again. This time he didn’t try to conceal it, lounging back against the headboard. Maybe the clever boy had designed this whole situation to fulfill his fantasies.“Well,” he said, trying to sound less desperately eager than he felt, “you’ve certainly earned a little discipline. But are you sure your Fir will cooperate, love? Because he doesn’t look very eager.”Rather than answering, the boy simply pulled off his clothes—tunic, boots, trousers, shirt, briefs—and let them drop to the carpet, graceful as always. Besha’s mouth went dry. Gersha, he could see, wasn’t even watching.Naked, his pale body golden under the lights, the boy slunk over to Gersha and began rubbing against him, whispering in his ear, apparently working his cock through his trousers. The sap in Besha’s system was making the lights blur; he blinked and rubbed his eyes.Why an interrogation? It did bother him that Gersha hadn’t told a more plausible story. Gersha couldn’t be lying on his own behalf; he was way too proud. Could he be lying for the boy? Why?Besha would worry about all that tomorrow; there was probably a simple explanation. Maybe Egil had recruited the kettle boy to lure the Valde girl into a confession—they were friends, weren’t they?—and Besha’s informant had misinterpreted the situation.Impatient with the delay, he patted the bed beside him. “Come along now, Gersha. I want to see our lad give you another one of those pretty hickeys.”Gersha looked like he might spit in Besha’s face. “You know nothing about us.”“Not yet, no. But I’d like to.”Gersha tried to wrest himself away, but the boy gave him a kiss on the forehead, patted his shoulder, then disentangled himself and sat down on the bed.Gersha glared, but he stayed put. Besha felt the hot anticipation in his belly shift into overdrive. He reached out and drew the boy into a fierce, claiming kiss.The boy submitted beautifully, as he always did when their role-play didn’t require resistance, arching his back and opening his mouth for Besha’s exploring tongue. “You little minx,” Besha hissed in his ear. “You’ve been doing all this just to rev me up, haven’t you?”The boy only shrugged, then whispered back, his hair against Besha’s cheek, “Gersha’s having trouble getting in the mood, Fir. I’m wondering if we could help him.”The words made Besha momentarily unable to control himself; all he could do was gasp and rut against the boy’s bare thigh. Then he collected himself and asked, “How would we do that?”Instead of answering, the boy began unbuttoning Besha’s tunic.This seemed like the right direction. Besha allowed the boy to peel off the heavy garment, then to tug his shirt over his head. The warm air felt good on his bare chest, and he stretched flat on his back and closed his eyes, keening gently as the boy’s lips brushed across one nipple and then the other, pausing to suck and nip.Then he opened his eyes and gazed brazenly across the bed at Gersha, who clearly was trying not to look and not succeeding. “Are you sure you don’t want to join us?”The boy took hold of Besha’s cock, devilishly experienced, and pumped it twice, tantalizing him. “There’s one more thing we could try, Fir,” he murmured. “Could you put your arms above your head?”Besha understood. He’d issued such commands plenty of times, and he’d also received them, usually from his lovely wife.But this was different, this was good, because he had Gersha’s attention now. The man’s eyes burned into him like a brand. Ever since their school days, he’d wanted to feel that intense gaze on him, to see the pupils of those sea-green eyes dilate with desire.Maybe the feeling was more hate than love, but it set Besha on fire, making every inch of his skin raw and sensitive and needy. If Gersha wanted to see him degraded, well, fine. It was just a game, and Besha always won games.Animal cunning and a willingness to play dirty. Those were his secret weapons, happily rare among his fellow Upstarts.He stretched his arms high above his head and obligingly crossed the wrists. He shivered as the boy wound the scarf around them, trussing them firmly but not numbingly. The boy knew what he was doing, Besha reminded himself, as a series of tugs told him Tilrey was knotting the other end of the long scarf to the bed-frame. I’m safe. And god, I’m sapped.One more businesslike tug on Besha’s aching, engorged cock, and then the boy was at the foot of the bed again, whispering to Gersha and reaching between the man’s legs, easing off his tunic.Besha pulled on the knots experimentally. They held. He was no longer sure what was going to happen, and the not-knowing was more pleasant than he would have expected. A warm sense of willingness, of pre-emptive acceptance, flooded all the blood vessels in his groin.I’m safe, he reminded himself. And after all I’ve achieved, don’t I deserve to let myself go now and then?He moaned gently as the boy returned to him, accompanied this time by the still stiff-faced Gersha. Tilrey began tugging off Besha’s trousers. Besha lifted his hips compliantly, knowing where this was going as if he’d always known.“I want him to fuck me,” he whispered. If they’d asked for this in the living room, he would have laughed in their faces. But now . . .Now it was all he wanted.The boy was talking to Gersha soothingly again, saying something about how ready Besha was and how much he was going to enjoy it. Gersha’s face still showed flashes of anger and disgust, but the bright flush there betokened the dawn of arousal.And that was enough to make Besha roll over. The boy’s hand on his rump served as a signal. Then he was prone, and the boy was raising his hips to slide a pillow underneath. He spread his thighs without being told, and gasped as a slick finger teased at his opening.“See how he wants it?” the deep voice said. “Do you believe me now?”Besha reared involuntarily as the boy’s finger breached him, then exhaled and held still, savoring the sensation of fullness. It was a while since a man had done this to him, and probably never so artfully.“Believe what?” he murmured.The boy chuckled, a vibration Besha felt inside his body. “I told him you wanted his cock inside you. He didn’t believe me.”“Well, I won’t believe it’s happening until you stop doing all the work, lad.” He shivered from scalp to toe as the boy’s second finger crooked itself inside him, knowingly finding the right spot. “Shouldn’t he be touching me, at least?”“Gersha,” the boy said. “Please. You know I want this.”It was an odd thing to say; why should Gersha care what the boy wanted? But Besha forgot it the next instant, because Gersha’s hand was moving tentatively over his back, tracing the vertebrae. And he was arching in response, driving the boy’s fingers deeper into him, his whole body aching with the certainty of need.It was so long since he’d been able to surrender control this way, and a voice inside his head still nagged, Is it safe?Besha silenced it. He had two beautiful men in his bed, both well under his thumb, neither capable of outwitting him. If he wanted to be broken open, if he wanted to squirm wantonly under Gersha’s reckless, inexperienced thrusts and revel in the proof that his dignified little colleague was a man with urges like any other, who was going to stop him?“Come on, Gersha,” he breathed, bucking up against the other Councillor’s tremulous hand, craving more contact. “Come on. I want your cock now.”

Not that Gersha Gádden posed anything like a threat to him, of course. After spending all yesterday with his wife, enduring her insinuating comments and her scarcely veiled mockery, Besha could have flicked ten Gershas aside like bugs. In fact, looking forward to this rendezvous, to the delicious prospect of getting exactly what he wanted, was the only thing that had gotten him through that marital misery.

But the mechanics of getting what he wanted could still be tricky, and besides, he liked to stay sharp in all situations. It was the only thing he really had going for him.

“Come in, come in,” he said expansively, unsealing the coldroom. “The tea’s just steeping. Good lord, did you walk? You must both be frozen.”

“Not at all, Fir,” said the boy, who was busy removing his outergear. The flop of his damp hair in his eyes gave Besha a shiver of desire. I haven’t had you for way too long.

As for Gersha, he hung back, those sensual, heavy-lidded eyes narrowed with trepidation. When he unwound his scarf, Besha’s sharp eyes found a welter of mottled love bites the man hadn’t managed to cover with his collar.

Well, that was it. Besha was already hard. He shifted to conceal it, but didn’t remove his probing gaze from Gersha’s neck. “I see you two had a productive day yesterday, Councillor.”

Gersha went red—you couldn’t miss it even under the coldroom’s bleary fluorescents. The boy didn’t change color. He calmly hung up Gersha’s things and trailed Besha into the other room, gesturing to his Upstart to follow.

Was Nettsha calling the shots in the relationship now? Verán would find that hilarious. But if things went well, Besha wouldn’t want to tell Verán about any of this.

“Sit!” He indicated the sofas, still playing the good host, and began pouring the tea into the tumblers he’d laid out. From the corner of his eye, he noticed that Gersha made a move to sit beside Nettsha, but the boy waved him toward the facing sofa.

Oh yes, very interesting indeed. Besha had known a few high-named men who were so smitten that they took orders from their kettle boys or their mistresses. But he hadn’t expected that of Gersha, for all his teasing about being in love. The little prig seemed too cold, too rule-bound.

Besha hoped Nettsha really was calling the shots, because the boy would be more persuadable. When had he ever refused Besha anything?

His cock swelled again as he remembered how the boy always looked when you first put the cuffs on him—how he stopped struggling and hooded his eyes and went limp, that pale throat exposed, those dark lashes shadowing his cheeks, swooning as if his spirit were leaving his body. Verdant hells, no one submitted more beautifully than Nettsha did, even if some of it was just acting.

“I do hope you’ll excuse my breach of protocol in asking you both here,” he said, settling himself beside the boy and fishing a vial from his pocket.

Gersha’s face was, if anything, redder. “Stop this charade,” he said in an almost growling voice that didn’t subdue Besha’s erection. “Why don’t you get down to business and tell us what you want?”

The boy cleared his throat. Gersha’s gaze flew to him, one dark brow raised, but he went quiet.

“How refreshing your frankness is, Gersha.” Besha poured half the vial into his palm and held it out for the boy. “I wonder if Verán would also find it refreshing if I told him everything you haven’t. How you gave his piece to your interrogator friend to . . . well, what was Egil doing, exactly? Or was it the two of you?”

Again a glance sped between the pair of them, but it told Besha nothing. His informant hadn’t been able to see or hear any of the interrogation, only the preparations for it, so he was painfully curious. Given the unlikelihood of any form of treason on Gersha’s part, his best theory so far was that the man had a secret prison kink, which would make him quite the hypocrite.

“It’s quite simple, really,” said Gersha.

He cleared his throat and launched into an explanation that was obviously specious, and perhaps downright false. The moment he spoke the phrase “antique books,” Besha’s brain switched into a less attentive gear. Who on earth gave a damn about books written by long-dead people?

He especially had trouble focusing because the boy had bent to lick the sap from his palm. Green hills and running rivers, the boy’s tongue was knowing. It was an effort not to lose track of Gersha’s dull tale, but Besha had long practice in compartmentalizing.

“You don’t expect me to believe that?” he said, when Gersha had at last fallen silent. He raised his palm absent-mindedly to his mouth and licked up the leftover sap. “I know you like to read those old tomes, dear Gersha, scholar that you are, but—” he flicked his eyes to the boy— “well, that’s just absurd.”

“Why is it absurd?” Gersha’s voice had a dangerous edge.

“Well.” Besha shrugged. Wasn’t it obvious?

He knew, of course, that Drudges could be clever. His Laborer informant in Int/Sec was invaluable, and Nettsha was clearly no fool, whatever Verán thought. But Laborer cleverness was a kind of animal cunning that had no use for books or numbers. Why read books when you could read people? Besha considered himself an expert on the matter, given that his own animal cunning was his primary asset. Privately, he despised most of what he’d been forced to study in school. And would he spend his time reading dusty old books, if he had free time? Not a chance in hell.

“You have to understand how this sounds, Gersha,” he began.

The boy interrupted in his deep voice: “Are you concerned that Fir Gádden and Fir Egil might have been doing something untoward, Fir?”

Well, that was different. And cheeky. Since Besha could practically still feel the boy’s tongue caressing his palm, though, he didn’t answer too sharply. “Perhaps you should let your Fir speak for himself, love. And the answer is, well, of course I’m concerned.”

He turned to address Gersha. “If you really did have doubts about Nettsha’s loyalty—which seems absurd to me, but I don’t have your delicate sensibilities—then you should have gone directly to Verán. The boy belongs to the Party, not to you.”

Gersha’s knuckles had gone white on the tumbler. “He doesn’t belong to anyone.”

Besha was protesting that he’d only used a very common figure of speech, and Gersha was retorting that it shouldn’t be common, when the boy’s voice cut through both theirs: “Fir Gádden thought it prudent not to bother Fir Verán with such trivial matters, Fir.”

To his own surprise, Besha shut up. Gersha did, too.

The boy had slouched a bit on the sofa, where his rangy form looked almost languid. “That’s why the procedure was off the books, Fir Linbeck,” he went on. “I believe Fir Egil prepared a report where everything will be explained to your satisfaction.”

“That report was for my eyes only,” Gersha objected. “Not for Besha’s.”

Besha guzzled his tea and laughed; the sap was starting to go to his head. “Can’t the two of you even agree on the story you want to tell?”

Again it was the boy who answered, quite inappropriately: “He’s already told you the only story there is to tell, Fir. Now maybe it’s time for you to lay your cards on the table.”

“Oh my, we’re commanding, aren’t we?” Besha had to admit, he was finding this bossiness a turn-on. It was so different from Nettsha’s usual personality that he wondered if the two of them liked to play at role reversal. “Is he like this with you in bed, Gersha? Because I’d love to sample a bit of that.”

Gersha set his tumbler down so hard the tea splashed. It was a wonder the vessel didn’t shatter. “Enough of this,” he said. “I’ve told you everything, without deceit. So out with it. What do you really want from me—from us?”

For a few seconds, Besha savored the flush of frustration on his colleague’s delicate features, the snarl of fury in his tone. He did love getting reactions, especially from high-named colleagues who prided themselves on their composure.

When he was done enjoying Gersha’s discomfiture, he said, “It’s simple, really. I want to watch the two of you together, tonight, in my bed.”

Besha had pared down and practiced this ultimatum until it sounded like something Verán would say—tossed off, casually contemptuous. He managed to articulate it without a quiver in his voice to betray just how often he’d fantasized about precisely this.

He longed to see Gersha moaning in the boy’s arms, undone. He honestly wasn’t sure anymore whether the pleasure he took in those imaginings was about power, sex, or a potent mix of both.

“And then,” he finished, “I’ll take my turn with him, as this is my appointed night, and you can watch. That seems only fair, doesn’t it?”

Gersha sucked in his breath, his exquisite eyes pits of rage. Instead of answering, though, he went white as a waxwork, arrested by something to Besha’s left.

The boy must have given Gersha some sort of warning. Now he said matter-of-factly, “That seems quite fair, Fir. There are just a couple of conditions.”

Gersha breathed, “Good lord, Rishka, no.”

Certainly the boy deserved a scolding for speaking for both of them, but Besha was so close now to getting what he wanted that he didn’t reprove him, only asked, “Conditions?”

“Just a couple of things that would help Gersha enjoy this, Fir. First of all.” The boy flicked a finger in Gersha’s direction. “He’d like to give you a vial the way you just gave me one.”

“Excuse me?” How did you control a situation that was so far out of bounds? The sensation was unusual and, Besha had to admit, a tiny bit intoxicating. “Is that really what you want?” he asked Gersha.

The green-eyed Councillor didn’t answer, only pulled a vial from his tunic and spilled the contents into his palm. He said to the boy, “I’m going to trust you, even though I don’t want to right now.”

Was this some sort of role-play? With Nettsha looking inscrutable and Gersha angry and stony-eyed, it was hard to say. But now Gersha stretched out his hand, practically thrusting the sap under Besha’s nose, and Besha had to do something.

Maybe it was the sap already in his system talking, but all he wanted to do was keep that confused, mortified look on Gersha’s face. So . . . why not play along?

He sank to his knees on the white carpet, crawled forward, and applied his tongue to the sap on his colleague’s palm. He guzzled and sucked assiduously, giving the trembling hand a tongue-massage the way Nettsha did, until Gersha wrenched himself away and said, “You’re obscene.”

Besha pitched to the side, laughing helplessly. The fresh dose of sap was already making his whole body thrum. “That was lovely,” he said. “So I’m to be the kettle boy tonight, am I? What’s your second condition, Gersha? Or perhaps I should be asking Nettsha for my orders?”

“That’s not his name.” There was nothing tentative about Gersha’s voice now. “Call him Tilrey or don’t speak to him at all.”

After a baffled moment, Besha remembered that Verán had renamed the boy. Well, it wasn’t like he’d chosen his own nickname, either. “Very well,” he said, rolling his eyes as he rose unsteadily to his feet. “I’ll call him whatever you like. Is that it for conditions? Can we retire to the bedroom?”

“No,” said Gersha, at the same time the boy said, “Yes, Fir.” And then, to Gersha, “Let’s go, Fir.”

They kept whispering to each other as they followed Besha down the corridor. Gersha sounded upset, the boy reassuring, then pleading. The whole thing was tremendously entertaining, Besha decided; even if Gersha ended up backing out, it was worth it to see him squirm this way.

As for the boy, well, he was practically begging for some kind of chastisement, and Besha had experience in delivering it. He flicked on the lights in the bed canopy and sat down with a bounce. “I hope you don’t mind if I observe at close range.”

Gersha clearly did mind. He stopped at the edge of the bed with his arms crossed, scowling.

The boy bent to murmur something soothing in his ear, then said to Besha, “One more thing, Fir. Do you still have that scarf here, like you said? The one you used to tie me up on our first night together?”

Good lord, what next? “I knew you were sentimental. It’s in the closet, top row on the left, I think.”

Belatedly, Besha remembered he’d stowed that scarf here because it was a Harbourer scarf that Malsha Linnett had gifted him. Not that it mattered, of course, since Linnett was out of the picture. But the scarf was distinctive, woven with glaring reds and greens you’d never see in an Oslov garment, and he’d worried about Davita finding it and asking questions.

The boy emerged swiftly from the closet with the scarf wound around his arm. “I thought you might like to see Fir Gádden tie me up with this, Fir.”

The words “tie me up” made Besha go rock-hard again. This time he didn’t try to conceal it, lounging back against the headboard. Maybe the clever boy had designed this whole situation to fulfill his fantasies.

“Well,” he said, trying to sound less desperately eager than he felt, “you’ve certainly earned a little discipline. But are you sure your Fir will cooperate, love? Because he doesn’t look very eager.”

Rather than answering, the boy simply pulled off his clothes—tunic, boots, trousers, shirt, briefs—and let them drop to the carpet, graceful as always. Besha’s mouth went dry. Gersha, he could see, wasn’t even watching.

Naked, his pale body golden under the lights, the boy slunk over to Gersha and began rubbing against him, whispering in his ear, apparently working his cock through his trousers. The sap in Besha’s system was making the lights blur; he blinked and rubbed his eyes.

Why an interrogation? It did bother him that Gersha hadn’t told a more plausible story. Gersha couldn’t be lying on his own behalf; he was way too proud. Could he be lying for the boy? Why?

Besha would worry about all that tomorrow; there was probably a simple explanation. Maybe Egil had recruited the kettle boy to lure the Valde girl into a confession—they were friends, weren’t they?—and Besha’s informant had misinterpreted the situation.

Impatient with the delay, he patted the bed beside him. “Come along now, Gersha. I want to see our lad give you another one of those pretty hickeys.”

Gersha looked like he might spit in Besha’s face. “You know nothing about us.”

“Not yet, no. But I’d like to.”

Gersha tried to wrest himself away, but the boy gave him a kiss on the forehead, patted his shoulder, then disentangled himself and sat down on the bed.

Gersha glared, but he stayed put. Besha felt the hot anticipation in his belly shift into overdrive. He reached out and drew the boy into a fierce, claiming kiss.

The boy submitted beautifully, as he always did when their role-play didn’t require resistance, arching his back and opening his mouth for Besha’s exploring tongue. “You little minx,” Besha hissed in his ear. “You’ve been doing all this just to rev me up, haven’t you?”

The boy only shrugged, then whispered back, his hair against Besha’s cheek, “Gersha’s having trouble getting in the mood, Fir. I’m wondering if we could help him.”

The words made Besha momentarily unable to control himself; all he could do was gasp and rut against the boy’s bare thigh. Then he collected himself and asked, “How would we do that?”

Instead of answering, the boy began unbuttoning Besha’s tunic.

This seemed like the right direction. Besha allowed the boy to peel off the heavy garment, then to tug his shirt over his head. The warm air felt good on his bare chest, and he stretched flat on his back and closed his eyes, keening gently as the boy’s lips brushed across one nipple and then the other, pausing to suck and nip.

Then he opened his eyes and gazed brazenly across the bed at Gersha, who clearly was trying not to look and not succeeding. “Are you sure you don’t want to join us?”

The boy took hold of Besha’s cock, devilishly experienced, and pumped it twice, tantalizing him. “There’s one more thing we could try, Fir,” he murmured. “Could you put your arms above your head?”

Besha understood. He’d issued such commands plenty of times, and he’d also received them, usually from his lovely wife.

But this was different, this was good, because he had Gersha’s attention now. The man’s eyes burned into him like a brand. Ever since their school days, he’d wanted to feel that intense gaze on him, to see the pupils of those sea-green eyes dilate with desire.

Maybe the feeling was more hate than love, but it set Besha on fire, making every inch of his skin raw and sensitive and needy. If Gersha wanted to see him degraded, well, fine. It was just a game, and Besha always won games.

Animal cunning and a willingness to play dirty. Those were his secret weapons, happily rare among his fellow Upstarts.

He stretched his arms high above his head and obligingly crossed the wrists. He shivered as the boy wound the scarf around them, trussing them firmly but not numbingly. The boy knew what he was doing, Besha reminded himself, as a series of tugs told him Tilrey was knotting the other end of the long scarf to the bed-frame. I’m safe. And god, I’m sapped.

One more businesslike tug on Besha’s aching, engorged cock, and then the boy was at the foot of the bed again, whispering to Gersha and reaching between the man’s legs, easing off his tunic.

Besha pulled on the knots experimentally. They held. He was no longer sure what was going to happen, and the not-knowing was more pleasant than he would have expected. A warm sense of willingness, of pre-emptive acceptance, flooded all the blood vessels in his groin.

I’m safe, he reminded himself. And after all I’ve achieved, don’t I deserve to let myself go now and then?

He moaned gently as the boy returned to him, accompanied this time by the still stiff-faced Gersha. Tilrey began tugging off Besha’s trousers. Besha lifted his hips compliantly, knowing where this was going as if he’d always known.

“I want him to fuck me,” he whispered. If they’d asked for this in the living room, he would have laughed in their faces. But now . . .

Now it was all he wanted.

The boy was talking to Gersha soothingly again, saying something about how ready Besha was and how much he was going to enjoy it. Gersha’s face still showed flashes of anger and disgust, but the bright flush there betokened the dawn of arousal.

And that was enough to make Besha roll over. The boy’s hand on his rump served as a signal. Then he was prone, and the boy was raising his hips to slide a pillow underneath. He spread his thighs without being told, and gasped as a slick finger teased at his opening.

“See how he wants it?” the deep voice said. “Do you believe me now?”

Besha reared involuntarily as the boy’s finger breached him, then exhaled and held still, savoring the sensation of fullness. It was a while since a man had done this to him, and probably never so artfully.

“Believe what?” he murmured.

The boy chuckled, a vibration Besha felt inside his body. “I told him you wanted his cock inside you. He didn’t believe me.”

“Well, I won’t believe it’s happening until you stop doing all the work, lad.” He shivered from scalp to toe as the boy’s second finger crooked itself inside him, knowingly finding the right spot. “Shouldn’t he be touching me, at least?”

“Gersha,” the boy said. “Please. You know I want this.”

It was an odd thing to say; why should Gersha care what the boy wanted? But Besha forgot it the next instant, because Gersha’s hand was moving tentatively over his back, tracing the vertebrae. And he was arching in response, driving the boy’s fingers deeper into him, his whole body aching with the certainty of need.

It was so long since he’d been able to surrender control this way, and a voice inside his head still nagged, Is it safe?

Besha silenced it. He had two beautiful men in his bed, both well under his thumb, neither capable of outwitting him. If he wanted to be broken open, if he wanted to squirm wantonly under Gersha’s reckless, inexperienced thrusts and revel in the proof that his dignified little colleague was a man with urges like any other, who was going to stop him?

“Come on, Gersha,” he breathed, bucking up against the other Councillor’s tremulous hand, craving more contact. “Come on. I want your cock now.”