Chapter 6 #2
The older man beamed at the younger one as he reached for a slice of fruit from the plate in front of him. He fed the juicy bit to the young man, then leaned in to kiss and lick the juice that dripped from his lips.
Charlie caught his breath, blood stirring and cock growing. His guesses about the sort of place Brutus had invited them to were proving right.
“Come,” Valentine said quietly, his voice as sensual as the brief exchange Charlie had just witnessed. “I’ll show you how to serve your master.”
Charlie tensed, his mouth dropping open as he dragged his eyes away from the intimate couple to follow Valentine. “He’s not my master,” he said, barely above a whisper, as Valentine took his hand.
Valentine laughed, the sound melodious. “Are you certain about that?”
Charlie didn’t answer. He glanced back to Jonathan, who had taken off his shoes and was figuring out how to sit comfortably on the cushions at the low table next to Brutus.
He and Brutus were still talking, though he did glance up at Charlie just as Valentine swept him out of the main room and into a smaller, side chamber.
As soon as Jonathan was out of sight, Charlie gulped. “I know what sort of a place this is,” he told Valentine, too intimidated to speak in more than a murmur.
Again, Valentine laughed. “I’m sure you don’t,” he said, taking Charlie through the side room into an even smaller one.
That room was filled with cabinets and drawers, very much like the butler’s pantry he’d once seen at Mr. Heaton’s house when he’d been sent on an errand there. Valentine let go of his hand to open one of the cabinets.
“You can wear this,” he said, taking down what looked like folds of white linen from one of the shelves. “Although I like what you have on now.”
Charlie’s face flushed as he glanced down at his odd costume. “It was all he had for me to wear,” he explained. “My clothes were filthy and stinking.”
He’d tried to wash them the previous afternoon, but the water had turned dingy so fast that he’d given up and left them outside on the wall next to where Jonathan dried his photographs.
“They suit you,” Valentine said, nodding for Charlie to take the white cloth, then opening a drawer to take out a white, silken cord. “You’ve an unusual look to you.”
Charlie hugged the pile of cloth tightly, uncertain whether he was being insulted. It didn’t feel like all the other insults that had been hurled at him in his time, and there had been many.
Valentine laughed again. “It’s a compliment,” he said. “Unusual means unique, and unique means valuable.”
The tightness in Charlie’s gut lurched. Valuable. He needed to be valuable so that Jonathan wouldn’t throw him back into the street.
“I need to be valuable,” he whispered.
Valentine sent him a sideways smile. “Don’t we all.”
He understood. It was the second time in as many days that someone understood the twisted, burning things inside him without him having to explain. Charlie couldn’t believe he was so lucky.
Throwing aside every instinct for caution and propriety, he let Valentine help him undress and put on the toga. He didn’t have the first idea how garments like that worked, but Valentine was quick to help him.
“We don’t dress like this all the time,” Valentine said as he tied the cord around Charlie’s waist. “Sometimes this is more comfortable and sometimes wearing trousers and shirts is better. Especially for lessons and everyday things.”
“Lessons?” Charlie asked.
“Yes,” Valentine said, stepping back to observe his handiwork. “This isn’t just a brothel, it’s a school as well.”
Charlie’s knees nearly gave out. He’d known he was right about the Den, he just hadn’t expected to have someone confirm that so boldly or so quickly.
Valentine grinned at his shocked expression. “I love it here,” he said, as if that was the best justification for the den of sin Charlie had been drawn into. “We all do. It’s exciting and wicked, but it’s also safe. Unlike most of the rest of the world.”
He had a fair point. And it was far too soon to pass any sort of judgement on The Zagreus Den. He hadn’t been there for more than fifteen minutes yet.
“Come,” Valentine said, taking Charlie’s hand to pull him back through the side room toward the banquet hall. “Serving is easy. It’s just presenting the men with food and making certain their cups stay full. Since you have a master, no one will ask for more.”
“I don’t—” Charlie stopped himself. If he admitted that Jonathan wasn’t really his master, would that mean he could be asked to do more than serve at table?
What if Jonathan was his master? What exciting things would that mean?
“Do you have a master?” he asked Valentine instead as they neared the open doorway into the banquet hall.
Valentine’s happy expression faded. “I did,” he said, glancing back at Charlie as they passed through the doorway and headed to one of the tables of food waiting to be served. “He died.”
“I’m sorry,” Charlie whispered, not particularly inclined to talk anymore once they were surrounded by men who watched them and could easily take them apart with a click of their fingers and a command.
Valentine’s look of grief seemed to swallow him for a moment. “It’s been six months,” he said as he moved some of the slices of roast chicken from the platter where the bird had been carved onto a golden serving plate. “I’m not ready for another master yet.”
Charlie’s heart went out to the young man. He’s never experienced the death of someone he cared about, but he knew what it was like to lose his life and his home. He did the only thing he could think of and rested a hand gently over Valentine’s.
Valentine glanced up at him, his grief shifting into a kind smile. “I like you,” he said. “I hope you stay.”
Charlie hoped he stayed, too, even though he didn’t have the first idea what that implied.
He knew his staying was connected to Jonathan staying, though.
Because of that, as soon as Valentine filled up the plate and whispered a few quick instructions about how to serve the tables, Charlie turned his focus to making certain his savior had everything he needed.
“And you’ve managed to keep all this concealed for ten years?” Jonathan asked Brutus, in the middle of a conversation, when Charlie arrived at the table.
Charlie lowered himself to one knee, as Valentine was doing farther along the table for some of the other men, and held the tray forward, head slightly bowed.
“As you can imagine,” Brutus said in answer to the question, “members of the Den have a vested interest in keeping this paradise as much of a secret as possible. So yes, we’ve been able to go unnoticed for ten years.”
Jonathan might not have heard the answer. He stared at Charlie with wide eyes, a flush coming to his face, as soon as Charlie offered him the plate.
“Look at you,” he said, breathless with either wonder or amusement. “You match this dazzling ensemble perfectly.”
Charlie smiled, face heating. He couldn’t help it. The comment was one of approval, and the more he could gain Jonathan’s favor, the safer he would be.
“I knew he would enjoy himself here,” Brutus said. When Charlie peeked at him, he winked.
Charlie wobbled, his body feeling like jelly for a moment.
“I think I could get used to a performance like this,” Jonathan said, helping himself to a slice of chicken from the plate. “And you say you do this every day?”
“It’s how we live,” the man sitting next to Brutus said.
Charlie gulped and peeked at that man from under his lashes. He was just as dark and imposing as Brutus, but perhaps a bit bulkier. The two men looked very similar.
“Charlie, this is my brother, Titus,” Brutus said, confirming Charlie’s guess.
“Lovely to meet you, Charlie,” Titus said with a kindly nod.
Charlie had to resist the urge to lower himself under that nod. He didn’t want to fumble the plate he still held out to Jonathan.
“You said that my membership in the Den would include Charlie as well?” Jonathan asked as he finished loading his plate.
Charlie lifted his head and glanced with wide eyes from Jonathan to Brutus and Titus and back again. If Jonathan joined the Den with him, then he’d have to keep him.
“Yes, if you’d like,” Brutus answered.
Another wave of wobbles knocked Charlie off-balance again. So Jonathan did not necessarily have to keep him to join the Den.
He would have to work harder.
“I still haven’t decided what to make of any of this,” Jonathan said, cutting into his meat.
Valentine hissed quietly to get Charlie’s attention. As soon as Charlie looked his way, Valentine stood and nodded for Charlie to do the same. He gestured for them both to move down the table to serve some of the other men who were waiting.
“You do not have to give us your answer yet,” Titus said to Jonathan.
“I am intrigued,” Jonathan reassured him, watching with just a touch of wariness in his eyes as Charlie knelt in front of another man down the table. “But what is this job you said you’d like me to do, and is it a prerequisite for membership? Like a trial or a test?”
“Not at all,” Brutus said, waving his hand and then finishing the bite he’d been chewing before going on. “We will happily pay you for the photographs we’re after.”
“Handsomely, because of the risk,” Titus added.
Even though he thought he was supposed to give his full attention to the man he was currently serving, Charlie glanced curiously back at the conversation. His heart beat faster at the idea of Jonathan taking any sort of risk.
“I hardly see how photographing a gaggle of guests at a country house party could be dangerous,” Jonathan said with a sly grin.
“They would not know you are there to photograph them,” Titus explained. “You would be there to ostensibly photograph Lord Frome’s gardens and his art collection.”
“And he’s requested this?” Jonathan asked with a frown.
“He has mentioned in conversations that he would like to have his art collection inventoried and his garden preserved in photographs,” Brutus said with a nod. “He does not, of course, know us at all, nor is he aware of the connections he has to us.”
Charlie wondered what those connections were. Unfortunately, his serving duties took him farther down the table from the conversation. Not so far that he couldn’t still listen in, though.
“You think he would hire me for this task without knowing me?” Jonathan asked, checking on Charlie’s whereabouts once again. “Why?”
“Because he knows your father,” Brutus said.
Charlie nearly dropped his plate.
Jonathan fumbled his fork. “My father?” he asked, his voice dropping to a bitter register. “And do you know my father?”
“Moorgate is an MP,” Titus said. “Most of London knows him.”
“I’ll give you that much,” Jonathan said, resuming eating with an air of false casualness. “But what makes you think my father, whom, I might add, hates me, would recommend me for the job of photographing some old toff’s gardens? My father generally wishes he had never begotten me.”
“You can leave that up to us,” Titus said, his smile chilling Charlie to the bone.
“We are quite adept at making gentlemen think that doing our will is their idea,” Brutus added with a smile that matched his brother’s.
The hair on the back of Charlie’s neck stood up.
He didn’t doubt the two brothers’ power for a moment.
He wasn’t as certain about their motivations, or about their morality, but he didn’t doubt they had the ability to make people do whatever they desired.
The deep, throbbing pull in his gut was proof of that.
That thought was interrupted by a plaintive sound from the young man with the gold collar, whose place Charlie had nearly reached.
He sat in front of the man he was with now, straddling him.
Judging by his undulating movements and the dewy flush of strain on the older man’s face, the activity they were engaged in was obvious.
Right there, at the table.
In a room full of people eating their lunch and going about their business as if these things happened every day.
The Zagreus Den was a club, a brothel, and a school. Charlie wondered what sort of subjects were taught there.
“I will need some time to consider your offer,” Jonathan said, likely oblivious to what was happening around him.
“Of course,” Brutus said with a friendly smile. “We’re in no hurry for your answer.”
“Except that Lord Frome’s house party is already underway,” Titus added in a lower voice.
“It will continue for weeks still,” Brutus added.
Charlie had reached the end of the table, and at Valentine’s prompting, he stood and followed his new friend back to the serving table at the side.
“I shall endeavor to make a decision about your offer as soon as possible,” Jonathan said, watching Charlie’s every step as he moved away.
“Good,” Brutus said. “Perfect. And now that business is out of the way, we will all be free to enjoy today’s entertainments.”
He nodded to the musicians, who ended the song they’d been playing and started another, livelier one. Several of the young men who had been serving left their plates and platters where they were and gathered in the center of the room to dance.
“Do you want to join us?” Valentine asked with an excited smile. He quickly added. “You don’t have to. You can go sit with your master and watch instead.”
Charlie shook his head tightly as he set his plate down. He glanced longingly at Jonathan, who was still watching him.
Valentine laughed. “Go on, then. There will be time for dancing later.”
Charlie smiled politely, then hurried around the outskirts of the room, desperate to be near Jonathan. As intoxicating and inviting as the scene around them was and as much as he liked to Valentine, everything about The Zagreus Den was bizarre and unsettling.
He wasn’t sure he liked it.
He worried he liked it a bit too much.
Mostly, he just wanted to get through it and still be with Jonathan at the end of the day.
As he sank to kneel by Jonathan’s side, gratified when Jonathan smiled at him and rested a hand on his thigh.
Somehow, they’d fallen into a world neither of them understood, although Charlie was already starting to guess one thing about it.
Once you were invited into The Zagreus Den, it was impossible to get out.