4. A Bad End #2
It wasn’t often Aria went home before midnight. His skin buzzed with the possibilities of it—energic love-making, instead of the sleepy kind he and Ellor had to settle with on the rare nights they got to have sex.
He stopped to kiss Romy upon her cheek before he left. “Enjoy the rest of the night,” he said. “I'll see you soon.” And he meant it.
“Say hello to Ellor for me,” she replied, winking. “Go give him that good sleep.”
Aria waved her off, blushing, as he pushed out the double doors of the guild headquarters, and circled up the staircase at the entrance. The second floor, the dorms, had a locked door.
“Odd,” Aria mumbled. During party nights like this one, it was usually left open for the bards to come and go more easily. Perhaps someone was being particularly safe. He fished for his key. It took a few tries to unlock—the damn thing stuck all the time.
As he entered the entrance hall, he called out, “Ellor? I’m done for the night,” and unlaced his boots. No shoes on the nice carpets The Bardic Post installed on this upper floor. His socked feet creaked with each step upon. “El? Are you up here?”
A thunk and a few quiet voices echoed from a bedroom down the corridor, past the sitting room. And then Ellor called, “Yes, love. Sorry, one second.”
Aria blinked, confused. “Is someone else he—"
He didn't even need to finish the question before he was provided the answer.
A thin blonde human woman, probably closer in age to Ellor than Aria, stepped out of the bedroom, wearing nothing but a robe.
It took Aria a moment to recognize her with her lipstick smudged, and her perfectly straight hair all mussed, different from her typical bob.
“Lind?”
She stood on her bare toes, heels lifted high into the air, and she presented Aria with a smile that made his insides turn to ice. “Hi, Aria. You’re early.”
Ellor took a single step out of the bedroom doorway and leaned against the jam. He was fully dressed, minus his suit jacket. But his shirt tail was halfway untucked from beneath his vest, and his right shoe was untied. Shoes he shouldn’t be wearing on the carpet.
Aria asked, “What's going on?”
And Ellor continued to lean. Casual. “I got you a gift, my love.”
Lind trotted forward, the sound of her bare toes shuffling along the rug, and held out a hand for Aria to take. “We were waiting for you.”
Aria took her hand into his and gave it a squeeze in greeting, but he experienced her touch like he was out of body. “I'm sorry. I still don't understand what's happening.” Lind tugged him forward, standing close enough that he could smell her perfume. And Ellor’s cologne.
“I got you a gift,” Ellor repeated. He stood up, finally, and strode over to them both. He placed a hand against Aria's hair, and did the same to Lind. “I know you're shy. I'll do all the talking. I'll do all the work. Okay?”
Aria looked into his face, baffled. He couldn't ask it again. What's going on?
Ellor chuckled. “You know how you've said you were upset we didn't fuck every night?”
Aria couldn't help the gasp. He shot a wide-eyed look at Lind, like she could somehow have not heard, but her thin-lipped smile said it all: she'd heard this already. He turned back to Ellor and said, “That's not something to speak of in mixed company, Ellor. Please.”
“Shush. You needn't be embarrassed. She’s heard it all, love.
How you've complained that we don't engage intimately often enough for your tastes.” Aria thought he might combust, but Ellor kept on.
“I simply cannot engage in sex that often.
I'm tired. I'm busy. But, well—there's another component to it all, you know? Spices. Flavor.”
“Spice?”
“If you've ever eaten a potato with salt, having one without it is—disappointing. But more than that—if you've ever eaten a potato with pepper? And then cayenne pepper? And then cream? Goodness, there’re many combinations. It's almost agonizing to return to eating plain potatoes.”
Aria had the same out-of-body feeling from before. He was staring down at himself, staring owlishly at Ellor, as he said, “Am I a potato?” And then, in a broken voice: “A plain potato?”
Ellor burst into a laugh. “What I mean, Aria, is that Lind has agreed to join us tonight.”
“Join us?”
“We’re going to make love. All three of us.”
Aria took a step away from them both. “Ellor,” he whispered, hushed but firm, “You know that I’m kinsme.”
“I won’t ask you to do anything you wouldn’t want to. Listen to this.” Ellor stepped forward, placed his hands on Aria’s shoulders, and stroked down his arms. Gently. Warm. “You press your cock into me, whilst my cock is inside of her. When we both come, it’ll be together. See?”
Lind added her hand atop Ellor’s, on Aria’s arm, and whispered, “I’ve always thought you stunning, Aria. Please?”
Aria opened his mouth to decline, but Ellor leaned in, and muffled the words with a kiss. And then said, against his mouth, “This is just more of me. Don’t make me hide it from you—this part of myself. You love all of me, don’t you?”
Aria couldn’t breathe. Finally, he nodded yes.
I love him, Aria thought.
No, said his soul. Not him.
The room was dark. Aria was apprehensive about using one of the dorm bedrooms in such a way—all members had the master key—but Lind promised she and Ellor had planned this well.
And despite how Ellor spoke of the arrangement before, Aria wound up on his back, on the bed, with Lind herself pressed to his side. “Could we try a kiss? Just one,” she said.
Not her.
Aria flushed red, but nodded. He’d kissed girls before—even enjoyed it, if not sexually.
When he turned his head, her lips found his, and her hand cupped his cheek with a tenderness he was unused to.
Her tongue licked the seam of his mouth, and when he opened, she slipped inside in a way that he was used to.
The way her tongue stroked the top of his mouth, and the kiss that followed—
She kissed the way Ellor kissed. Because she and Ellor had kissed before. Many times.
All at once, Aria understood. Ellor doesn’t love me back.
Aria shoved her away, and scrambled back on the bed. He fumbled into Ellor’s arms. “You looked great, Aria,” he said, mistaking Aria’s panic. “You did good.”
Aria ripped himself from Ellor’s hold, out of the bed, his chest rising and falling as his understanding made it hard to breathe. Hard to speak. And now, hard to see, because his vision blurred. “You truly think me an idiot.”
“What?” Lind said, sitting up on her knees. “Aria, no.”
“You two are having an affair,” he choked out. “And when you got caught by me just now, you had this plan. How long have you had this plan, should I discover you two?”
Ellor sucked on his teeth before he said, “You’re not thinking straight, my love.”
“Don’t call me that,” Aria said, stomping forward. A tear broke free of his lashes, trailing down his cheek. “How long have you been fucking her, El?”
Ellor and Lind met eyes. She shrugged. Ellor sighed. “It’s not an affair. It cannot be. The nature of your relationship with me—"
“How long?!” Aria screamed, and the floodgates opened. Tears blurred his vision, trailing down his face. His voice cracked as he asked, “Months? Years?”
Lind said, “The first time Ellor and I had sex, you hadn’t even met him, yet.” And when Aria gasped, she quickly added, “But we stopped for some time.”
“Aria, surely you know that my intentions with our relationship are… Simple. Straightforward.”
Aria wiped his face with both hands and forced a scream down his throat. “By Elys. I’m an idiot.”
“No, don’t say that,” said Lind.
“Shut up, Lind,” Aria snapped.
“Let’s calm down,” said Ellor. He stood out of the bed, and reached out to touch Aria on the shoulder. Aria slapped his hand back, and Ellor said, more firmly, “You need to calm down.”
Aria wiped his face again, fury blinding him more than tears. “Don’t touch me. Don’t tell me what to do. Just—don’t.” He gathered himself and left. He grabbed his coat from the back of the door, stomped into his boots, and stormed out of the dorms.
He doesn’t love me back.
He doesn’t love me back.
I am his adame. And nothing more. I serve him sexually. I serve him magically.
Aria had given five years of magic to Ellor—that’s what Ellor wanted. An elf’s boon. Health, longevity. And Aria had gotten paid in return. Nothing more.
He was no up-and-coming bard. He was a servant. He was an adame.
Aria took the stairs two at a time, down from the dorms, back into The Bardic Post headquarters. He slammed open the double doors, and the party paused at his sudden appearance, and the loud crack from the doors as they hit the brick wall. The bards, on the stage, halted their music.
“Aria?” asked a voice from somewhere behind the bar. He couldn’t see who—his eyes were blinded by tears again.
“He doesn’t love me back,” Aria choked. A few of the partygoers looked around, confused.
But this was it: this was how Aria would make it right.
He’d reveal the truth to all of Ellor’s friends.
Because The Bardic Post hosted everyone on this night, for Romy’s send-off.
Other bards in the guild that were paid by him, some of his titled peers, and anyone who thought him admirable for all his philanthropy.
Aria raised his voice and said, “Duke Ellor Abante is a fucking prick. And worse, an adulterer. He never loved me back. I caught him upstairs with Lind.”
The reaction of the crowd was oddly muted. Someone said, “The flutist?”
Another said, “Well…”
And finally, a voice from behind him said, “They all already know this, Aria.” He turned to see Lind, redressed in her pinstriped party suit.
She’d even combed most of her hair—only a stray flyaway danced in the air as she walked past him, and into the room.
“We all already knew about Ellor. Truthfully… "
She met eyes with the giantess, seated on a couch nearby, and the giantess nodded in agreement.