Work Text:
The pleasure houses of King's Landing rise and fall with the prosperity of their king, and in the years following the Blackfyre Rebellion the Good King's city rises high indeed.
Coin passes through hands in a river of gold, the portcullises on the seven gates creaking often enough to drown out the sept's tolling bells. The city draws vintners from the Arbor and mercers from the East, knights and nobles and merchants and schemers. They seek their fortune by day, and spend it by night, and those most willing to spend find their way to the Gossamer House.
It is here that you stand, hands clasped, interlaced. You've been chosen in the blind, an uncommon occurrence, and though the man in question came hooded and masked the house is abuzz with fantastic rumors: he is the barbarian chief of the Wildlings, with a tomb's hoard of treasure; a southern sorcerer with milk-white eyes who demands his women see no more than he. A septon flush with the Great Sept's plundered gold; a Targaryen dragon, perhaps the Breakspear himself.
You burn with curiosity, but do not inquire. You may never know the man's identity, but you will soon know more of him than most ever will. Your role is to ensure his evening is pleasantly spent. If he demands anonymity, it will be granted, graciously.
Still: you cannot resist a small shiver, as the blindfold settles into place.
"He's paid for the night," says Grayce, "an exorbitant sum." The proprietess of the Gossamer sees the world in terms of its value, her gaze a set of scales made to weigh and to measure. In her eyes you are precious; not for your beauty or cleverness or poise under duress, but because those qualities have made you the highest-earning of the Gossamer's girls.
"He chose you from the lineup," she continues, sliding a finger beneath the stitched band to test its fit. "He'll do what he wishes."
"It needn't be said, madam." Your tone is as smooth as the fine-spun silks in which you are draped. "He will be pleased."
If she has a reaction to that you do not see it. You only feel hands at your shoulders, turning you round and pushing you forward, towards the stranger who has bought you and condemned you to the dark.
The rooms of the Gossamer are variants on a theme. There is the Tyroshi Color room, its riotous rainbow evoking a hedonist frenzy; the Myrish Lace, elegant and intricate and desirable in its refinement. A room for samite, for cloth-of-gold, for dark opulent velvet.
As the door closes behind you, you lift a hand to the wall to get your bearings. Draped fabrics run between your fingers like water in a stream. The Yi Ti Silk room. You might have guessed. Sensuous, mysterious, exotically thrilling. It evokes the pleasures of flesh and unreachable dreams.
"I apologize for the theatrics," says a man's voice from somewhere in the darkness ahead. "I find my desire for companionship at odds with the need to keep others unaware that I'd sought it."
His voice is more pleasing to the ear than you'd expected; even, refined, yet wound carefully tight, like fibers that cling to a spindle as it turns.
That fine taut voice continues: "It is a convenience for me, but rather a disorienting experience for you, I imagine."
"Do not worry yourself, ser," you say, taking another step into the room. You picture the layout in your mind as you move; left, the pile of silks and pillows, the upholstered loveseat piled with lustrous throws; ahead, a side table laden with carafes of wine; right, the silk-draped pavilion of the bed. You keep your movements smooth and precise. The tiny beads woven into your gown clink softly in the silence. "We have the blindfolds for just such a purpose. You are not the first nor the last visitor to wish to keep your privacy."
In truth it is not as common as that — the occasional paranoid husband, a visiting dignitary. More often the clients request it so that the workers do not see. Their desires too strange — or cruel — to allow others to bear witness.
Your heart flutters for a moment as this thought stirs in your mind. You hope that this man is not one of those. That he will be gracious even though he goes unseen. You have been the Gossamer's for too long to expect pleasure or desire; all you wish is that the evening is spent uneventfully.
"I could guide you to a chair," he offers, and your breathe comes a bit easier. "Or pour you a cup of wine." A shifting sound, a swallow. "Arbor Gold, if I'm not mistaken. A pleasant surprise."
An exorbitant sum indeed, you think, your brows lifting beneath the mask. Grayce's carefully apportioned store of the stuff is not often opened for even the Gossamer's illustrious clientele.
"I would be grateful for a cup, if you please." This is as much to give him a task as to sample the vintage, for despite his carefully controlled tone you sense a restlessness in the stranger, the prowling energy of a hunting beast.
You hear him chuckle softly to himself as he moves to pour, as if there is something amusing about serving a cup of wine to a whore. A nobleman, then, for even a wealthy merchant would have no care of being seen here. There is too much poise in the man's behavior to make him a nervous husband, and he clearly knows the taste of the realm's priciest vintage well.
"Here." You feel a hand upon yours, lifting it to the cup. "I suppose a toast in this state would be ill-advised, as I've no wish to imperil your rather striking gown."
You smile at this, inclining your head and lifting the cup to your lips. "You are generous to describe it as a gown," you say, allowing teasing warmth to drip into your tone. The words elicit a laugh. Arbor Gold explodes like a sweet summer day on your tongue as you sip.
"You wear it like a queen," he assures you, though you know what you are wearing is filmy, flimsy, designed not to cover or warm but to delight and tease. Many men have named you beautiful, but there is a weight beneath the words, a solemnity to the smile you hear in his voice, that causes your stomach to stir like the moving of butterflies' wings. "I would ask your name, O queen, and yet… it seems unfair to do so without offering my own."
He takes a step closer, felt in the swirling of air. Above the smoke scent of the candles and sweetbitter incense you catch a hint of his smell; polished steel and a dark woody note, like a sword sheathed in something sumptuous to hide its iron.
"The blindfold you wear, it's fashioned as a mask." You feel the brush of fingertips against the feathers edging the blindfold's rim. "Red and gold, like a fox's fur. Fitting for one who is both pretty and clever."
Your breath catches in your throat, but you feel him draw slightly back.
"A fox I shall name you, then, for the night."
"Fitting indeed." You stretch out the goblet, which disappears from your hand. "Thank you, ser, for the wine."
"… More?"
"If you would be so kind." It's a strange sensation, a client offering you a drink. All those hours practicing: the pour, the swirl, the layers of taste, rendered meaningless as you stand waiting for a fresh cup to appear in your hand. You feel curiosity perk its eager ears, like the quick little fox for which you are now named.
You tilt your head, considering, though there is nothing to see. "And what shall I call you, my mysterious paramour?"
A pause. The sound of wine being poured.
"Ser will be fine," says the man, and you both drink the next glass in silence.
"I know this is strange," he begins over the sound of cups settled atop the table. His voice has gone lower, thicker, as if wrestling with some growing emotion. "If you are not comfortable with the arrangement, tell me now. I won't ask for a return of the coin." A grin slants his voice as he adds: "I don't mean to sound noble, but I take no pleasure from a woman's company if she does not enjoy herself, too."
The fluttering beneath your skin is not your heart, now. A tongue of warmth licks between your thighs.
You make a small movement towards the sound of the voice, and feel the air shifting, closing in, as the man steps in to close the distance.
"If I cannot see your face," you say, "may I gather a picture of it some other way?" You raise both hands, palms turning upward like flowers seeking the sun. The bangles along your wrists clink gently, delicately, the thin metal sounding light and fragile as glass.
"Of course." You hear another step, feel it in the narrowness of the space you can sense between your bodies. The scent of him is stronger now, richer, unmistakably masculine. You take short, sipping breaths so as not to allow it to overpower your senses and drown you deep. "Here."
His hand finds yours, and guides it to his cheek.
You are greeted with the bristle of beard, prickling beneath your skin. You slide your thumb along the line of it: short, neatly tended, thickening at the edge of a firm jaw and a tight-clenched chin. The lines bracketing the mouth are deep, well-carved — he is older, then. Not so old as to soften the skin, but old enough for time to have chiseled its mark. Your fingers map the crooked bridge of the nose, the knitted brow, the long high forehead and close-cropped hair. His eyelashes flutter against your palms as your fingers skate briefly to trace his mouth.
His lips are pressed tightly shut beneath your questing fingertips. He does not take your hand to kiss it — he does not make any motion at all. He stands before you, motionless, still, like a statue in a folk tale awaiting a magicked kiss. Only the faint flexing of the jaw as your hand settles back to his cheek gives you any indication of the roil of feeling that batters against that firm facade.
"It is a fine face," you say, and feel him smile beneath.
You follow the broad sweep of his shoulders and on down his arms. You skim past muscles tensing beneath velvety garb — there will be time enough, later, for that. But if the most important aspect of a man is his face, then his hands are a close second, and it is these you inspect next.
You're not surprised to feel the telltale thickness of a swordsman's callouses, hardening the base of his fingers and between thumb and forefinger. You turn his palm upward to trace it, callouses giving way to smoothness where the hilt of a sword does not chafe. A noble, indeed, then, or perhaps a knight — a merchant's hands would be soft, a laborer's hard in more and different places. His thumb skims the thin skin of your wrist fleetingly. From above you hear a stifled exhale.
He is wearing rings, one on each hand, hammered smooth metal with a wide oval signet. You feel briefly a sinuous curve along the bezel, like a hawk or a serpent, before he withdraws, leaving only a heavy warmth where his hands had rested in yours a moment before.
"I ought to do away with these for the night, I suppose," he says with a certain ruefulness, and you hear shifting fabric as he pockets the rings. "The hands are yours, however, if you have further need of them…?"
Your laugh is genuine, and it startles you. It has grown unfamiliar. The draped silks of the room snatch it from the air nearly as soon as it sounds.
"I may," you allow, your voice dropping coyly, "but not quite yet."
The man's voice is wry, though you notice it's taken on the faint edge of a rasp: "I await the moment eagerly."
You are a professional. You do not flush easily. It must be the pavilion of silks all about you, the fox-feather mask.
"If I am to undress," you say, for you have gleaned from the man's behavior a willingness to draw out the encounter — an appetite for seduction, perhaps, or a need to prove his own iron self-control, "it would seem a terrible imbalance. You already have me at a disadvantage being able to see; to be the only one clothed hardly seems fair."
"I assure you, little fox," chuckles the man, "you are a far prettier sight than I."
You accept the compliment with a gracious smile, one that never loses it shine no matter how many times it is brought into the light, though in truth his words spark a candle-flame glow inside. "I suppose I will have to let my hands do the seeing, then. Since you insist on depriving me of the opportunity to decide for myself just how pleasing the sight of you might be."
"I shall endure the trial," he says, his laugh broader this time.
You close the distance, close enough now to feel the heat of his body. Your fingers trace the velvety cut of his surcoat, finding engraved metal buttons that you work slowly loose. Your progress catches on the curve of a belt buckle, which he hastens to free. It falls to the floor with a slap of leather and a clink, and you are sure then that this man wants you very much indeed, for you suspect he is not normally the type to cast his clothing to the floor with such abandon.
The surcoat is loosened, the shirt beneath undone. His hands settle at your waist and draw you in as you map him, gathering a picture of his body by scent and by touch. You work your fingers over the broad swell of his chest, through the scattering of hair, pausing to circle a scar at his collarbone, another ridged over his ribs. They give you anchor points to seek, these little imperfections; something to distract from the feel of firmness and muscle, from the war-drum pounding of his heart beneath your hands.
The muscles of his torso tighten as your fingers follow the scar around his ribs.
"They're not so bad as they feel, though I'm afraid there are many."
"Your body knows both ends of a sword," you say simply. "It is a fine body, ser. As is the face, and the hands."
Your fingers skate down from chest to navel, feeling the thickening trail of hair that disappears at the band of his trousers, the planes of his hips, the stiffening swell between his legs. A strange shimmer of nerves passes through you as you reach for the stays. You have undressed many men in your time, but not so often in the dark, where you have only skin beneath your hands to guide your way.
Not so often where you find yourself wondering, hoping: will he, indeed, be pleased?
He steps free of the trousers, and you sink to your knees. You continue exploring: his thighs, his knees, the bones of his shins. You have never considered a man's calves before, you think, as your palms cup the solid muscle, knowing full well it is not the part he is now throbbing for you to take into your hands. How powerful they are. How firm. How often unseen.
You tilt your chin up, though there is no face to meet, and slowly, excruciatingly, your fingers rake up his thighs to the place between.
He inhales as you seek that velvet-soft skin, tracing curiously around the crown of his cock, the firm length beneath, a rod of iron beneath its warm casing of flesh. Involuntary muscle flexes beneath your touch; a drop of moisture beads onto your fingers, already coaxed from his throbbing tip. Your mapping of his body's terrain has been tortured agony, one he has borne silently.
"Do you still find it fine, my body?" he asks, the words low and graveled. "Now that you have seen it in its entirety?"
"Very," you murmur, and let your tongue slide over the dew that clings to your finger.
A low groan thrums up from the man standing above you, vibrating the air between you and him. Before you can make any move to explore with parts other than your fingers you feel hands at your shoulders, drawing you roughly up.
"You've evened the scales, it seems," he murmurs, one hand slipping to your cheek. The other slides along the low neck of your gown, teasing first one and then the other strap from your shoulders in a clinking of beads. Silk slithers down your legs and pools at your feet. There is a moment of stillness as the dress falls away, and you wonder what has happened, if he has frozen at the sight of something you can't see.
"I was a fool to call you a fox," he grates, and you realize: it is you. It is you he has seen. "You are the sun itself. If I stare overlong I will surely be as lost in darkness as you."
"Then don't just stare," you breathe, and as if he has been waiting for this permission all along he pulls you in close and lunges to meet your mouth with his.
The kiss is forceful, yet careful, like the taut firmness of his body softened by the heat of his skin. His tongue probes your mouth, seeking, parting your sighing lips. He tastes of heat and hunger and sweet Arbor Gold. You can feel your body warming, heating, the blood stirred within you as his tongue strokes yours.
"You are a vision," he murmurs as he breaks free, nuzzling down the line of your throat, your collarbone, his tongue circling the pebbled swell of one nipple with hungry intent. You feel teeth graze your skin, a possessive nip. He sucks at your breast more firmly, then the other, and your inability to see the scene only heightens the thrill of the feeling: darkness punctuated with the scrape of his beard, the slick of his tongue, your nipples hardening beneath his unseen mouth.
"Tell me what you look like," you breathe into his ear as his hands slide down your spine and settle at the curve of your ass. You feel the hardness of him pressed up between your legs, sending a wave of warmth washing from cunt to throat as you speak.
His words are muffled as he works his way back up your throat to your lips: "I look like any other man."
You sink your fingers into shorn hair and pull, sharply, relishing the sound and the feel of the gasp of breath he releases. "I very much doubt that."
He exhales, softer now, as if in acquiescence to your touch. "My skin is pale. My eyes are blue." His lips skate along the shell of your ear, his words sending shivers all down the stretch of your body. "My hair is dark, though half gone to gray. I look like a thousand other Westerosi men."
"Are you handsome?"
He laughs, and kisses you, but does not answer. His hands drift from your hips downward, inward, teasing between your legs, and you let out a little hum of pleasure as his fingers meet your welcoming warmth.
"Do others name you handsome?" you venture. At this he pauses, hands and lips slowing in their eager work.
"Yes," he admits, "but as for the truth of it, it is difficult to trust."
There is something sad about this, something that makes you want to draw aside the blindfold and tell him that you have already felt all of him, that you are assured of his handsomeness.
You cannot do so, of course. Not without bringing the encounter to a close. And you find yourself, now, wishing to make it last.
"Perhaps that is why you came here, then." You arch into his touch and hear a sharp hitch of breath. "Some find a simple sincerity in the flattery of a whore."
Breath gusts over your throat as he lowers his face to the crook of your neck. For a moment the embrace takes on a different shape; it is as if you are carrying him, holding his weight.
"Perhaps," he murmurs, beard bristling your skin. "Or perhaps it was the rumor I heard of the Gossamer's most radiant gem."
Heat flushes through you in a heady rush. His fingertips caress you more firmly, massaging that shivering and sensitive place. You abandon your idle speculation as to his appearance; it is pleasant to imagine him handsome, but in the moment it hardly matters, especially if he is willing to touch you like this. His fingers slick between your thighs, one sliding briefly inside to elicit a low cry of pleasure.
"Are you satisfied, little fox?" he rasps, and you grind your hips against his hand in answer.
"Not yet."
He lets out a growling laugh, hands and lips retreating, and then you feel him at your back and the backs of your knees, sweeping you up and carrying you like a bride to the silk-laden bed.
There is nothing for a moment, only darkness above and softness beneath and warmth throbbing beneath your aching flesh. You feel a flicker of fear, though he's given you no reason: the beast can rise suddenly in a man, especially when he goes unseen.
You feel him settle into place over you, knees between your legs. Fingertips ghost along your collar before he bends to kiss you there, a lingering press of the lips. He does the same with your breasts: fingers tracing a circle, followed a moment later by mouth and tongue. By the time he trails down the dip at the center of your belly you realize that he is signaling his intention without speaking, featherlight touches followed by his fever-hot mouth, and then his hand delves between your thighs and you feel with a gasp the wet warmth of his mouth.
He runs his tongue along your cunt in a slick wave of heat, lingering to nudge at the peak of flesh that has begun to throb and swell.
"Ser —" you manage — "there's no need — you're paying —"
"I've paid for exactly this," he retorts, his beard scraping lightly at your thighs as he looks up to speak. "I'll have my turn. But right now —" fingers massage your flesh, coaxing, teasing, growing slick with your need, his voice guttering to a growl as he continues: "Right now I want to taste you until you're seeing new colors and babbling the gods' seven names."
You hum, shuddering, as his mouth seeks the core of your pleasure and laves it with heat. Your hips rock wantonly into his hungry mouth. "I can't — see anything — like this," you pant, your open eyes staring at a red dark sea. He withdraws again, laughing, nipping your thigh as he retreats.
"You have some mouth on you, girl."
"You're one to speak."
He barks a laugh and returns his attention to that tiny throbbing pearl of flesh, circling and lightly sucking at it until you feel the pounding of your heart rushing down between your legs, all of you throbbing in time with its frantic beating. His fingers slip between your folds, working you open, his tongue dipping into your cunt before withdrawing to resume its feast. In darkness your hand seeks his shoulder, his temple; settling atop his hair as your body surges up against him, the other fisting through the silken sheets.
"There is no sweeter sound than the word 'please'," says the man, slowing to lift his face from between your thighs. You feel a finger slide inside, curling against your inner walls as he speaks. "When it is uttered at last. When it's spoken with real, naked desire."
He thrusts deeper, plunging inside you, drawing out a high, whining cry.
"I may pay for the company, but I cannot pay for that. To have you begging, pleading — ah, that must be given freely."
He bends, exhales, hot breath puffing over skin that has never ached so exquisitely. His tongue laves that pearl of your flesh, its slickness mingling with your own wet, your hips squirming as he probes and parts you from within. Your body is a storm, each touch shattering you like lightning. You feel desperately, achingly, wrenchingly empty, desperate with need for him and hollowed by desire.
"Please," you whisper, and all at once he is drawing back, flipping you over, pulling your eager hips back toward his.
"Please…?" he echoes, his cock gliding between your thighs, pressing up against you, a promise and threat.
"Please — I want you," you gasp, "inside."
A shudder, a shift, a shaky exhale. He impales you with one deep, swift stroke, the emptiness inside you filled to the brim with a cry. Your back arches, writhing, taut with desire. One of his hands grips the flesh of your ass, the other sliding around to caress the place he has lavished with his honey-wine tongue. You are swelling, swollen, nearly bursting with this feeling, hands twisting through sheets though there is no purchase to find. Your body trembles with the motion, shuddering as he rams you with deep, seeking thrusts, delving into the inmost parts of you, so swift and firm that you can't believe your body can take it but you can, you can take it, you want nothing more than to take and keep taking, eyes bound in darkness and body unbound by desire.
"Say it again," he growls, and you whimper: "Please."
"Again."
He is filling you, gripping you, fucking you so hard and so deep that you can barely manage the words, as you say breathlessly:
"Please."
The slick sounds of your coupling, the spiced wood of his scent now salted with wetness and sweat. In the darkness you see nothing, but feel everything amplified a thousandfold.
"Louder."
You are moaning now, crying out, back arched like a bow as you are split open with pleasure. You feel yourself tightening, clenching, spasming around his relentless motion, and then the word is lost in an obliterating heat. You shudder and shake, bucking like an animal under his grasp as your cunt quivers around his cock, helpless with need.
Your eyes are shut tight, but there is nothing to see.
His breathing comes quick, ragged, his cock thrusting deeper and faster even as your body grows limp and weak, and just when you think he will release himself inside you he pulls free and lets out a broken groan, and along the arch of your back you feel the hot spatter of his seed.
He shudders above you, slickness pooling in the base of your spine and sliding around your waist. Your arms tremble to keep you propped up on hands and knees, the faint aftershocks of your climax still shivering through you like a quake in retreat. You don't mind the mess, only feel a faint sense of lack, of regret. Many have tried to claim you before, but none have done it so well, or so thoroughly.
And yet —
Even with the promise of moon tea he has not taken the risk.
It is then that you guess what the rings and the nose and the scars truly mean.
"My apologies," he says gruffly, and the bed shifts, his weight lifting and the sounds of someone moving about before he settles back down and you feel a damp towel pressed to your back.
You laugh, exhilaration and nerves fluttering high in your throat. "Trust me, ser, there's no need for apology."
The towel is set aside, an invisible weight sinking heavy to your side. You can hear his breathing, slowing now, settling, but still short and rapid from the exertion of release. His hand traces your shoulder, your arm, falling into place at your waist.
"If I may say, ser," you begin, once you can stand the quiet and the curiosity no longer, "your spear seemed not at all broken to me."
A tensing, where his hand lies. A spike of nerves.
Then the hand lifts, and fingers slip beneath the mask's band, and light rushes in from beneath, so bright for a moment there is nothing to see.
"I ought to have known a woman as clever as yourself would work it out eventually." Prince Baelor Targaryen, the heir and the Hand, has a wry slant to his mouth as he sets your finely stitched mask aside. Such blue eyes, you think dazedly, like a dream of the sky. "But in this bed I am only a man."
"A fine figure of one, though, certainly," you smile, touching your fingertips to the thick gathering of beard at his chin. The hair is brown and black and peppered with gray, nothing showing of the bone-pale dragon kings you have been taught to fear and revere.
"I do not grudge you the guess, but I must ask for discretion," says Baelor. Something like tiredness shadows his gaze. "Even now, as a widower, if it were to be known that I sought the company of a paramour — one who was paid, no less…" You see the muscle, the scars, the breadth of his chest, the body you learned so dearly rising and falling as he lets out a heavy breath.
"I'll keep your secret, on one condition."
The muscles you have felt tensing and flexing beneath your hands do so before your eyes, now, the nervous tightening of shoulders that have so often girded for the thrust of sword or spear.
"And what is that?"
You wrap your legs around his hips, roll him onto his back. He tenses beneath you for a moment, then melts into acquiescence.
"You must promise to come to me again."
He laughs, and the movement rumbles all through you. "For a fox so clever, you drive a terrible bargain."
You bend forward, your breasts brushing his slow-breathing chest. "Is that a yes?"
You feel his answer, stirring beneath you, even before he speaks it:
"Yes."