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Phèdre wasn’t the only one of us with perverse desires; she was just the only one who got paid to indulge them.
Forgive me for putting it so crassly, but the jangling in my pocket reminded me of whose coin I was spending and the irony of it all. I didn’t begrudge Phèdre any of it—how she earned her living and how I became beholden to her. Once, years ago, I did. But I’ve come to understand what she tried to tell me all along.
“What’s mine is yours, Joscelin.” Her voice was breathless and sultry for someone talking about finances. But then she leaned over, pressing her breasts against my shoulder and her plump lips by my ear. “Everything,” she sighed.
Everything. Though I didn’t exactly want the same everything that she did. It wasn’t in me to bring her pleasure through pain. And it wasn’t in her not to crave it. Thus the uncomfortable truth that I must always share what I loved the most—my everything.
A hard truth for one raised to be a perfect companion. I was, inherently, imperfect. And so, that was what I craved. Perfection. Or at least completeness and that feeling that I alone am enough. Total devotion to me as I am totally devoted to her.
I don’t know how it began. I never set out to seek comfort from someone else. But somehow, that feeling led me, a priest of Cassiel, to Mount Nuit. Again and again.
By now the way to Heliotrope House was familiar to me. At first glance, one might pass by the simple wooden gate that faced the street. One might not notice the gold inlaid sun and the delicate mother of pearl flowers gazing up at it adoringly. But push open the gate, walk up the stone pathway flanked with purple flowers, and you’d see the “Thou, and No Other” scrolled over the door, letting you know that the whole house had been waiting just for you.
Yes, it was a lie. Try not to think about it. It’s been said that the flower heliotrope is poisonous if eaten in large quantities.
A young woman in a gauze dress the color of ripe plums answered the door. I remembered her from a past visit or two. She was young. A fosterling who was about to finish her training. Her face brightened when she saw me as though she’d been waiting for me. “My lord Joscelin,” she said and gave me the kiss of greeting. I’m ashamed to say I had forgotten her name. “We’ve missed you. Be welcome.”
If I had been anyone else, I may have flirted with her. Tell her that her dress brought out the burgundy highlights in her hair. Ask her when she’s to enter Naamah’s service and how much longer we’d have to wait for each other. But I am who I am and crave only devotion, not just some fling with a servant of Naamah, no matter how beautiful she was.
She looped her arm around mine, fingers familiarly grazing my vambraces, and led me to the game room where the adepts played while they waited for patrons. Several adepts turned to look at me, all wearing that smile the fostering had. A patron—a man with graying hair and the beginnings of sagging jowls—raised his eyebrows at me and my gray Cassiline garb, and I stared back with equanimity. If he was judging a member of the Cassiline Brotherhood for coming to Heliotrope House, he didn’t know the first thing about us as people or D’Angelines. I scanned the room but didn’t find what I was looking for.
She brought me to a gray settee and bade me sit. “May I bring you something while you wait? Fruit? Cordial? Chiai?”
I shook my head.
“Then sit and relax, my lord Joscelin,” she said, pushing me into the settee. “If you change your mind, I’m here for you. You protect, and we serve,” she added with a playful wink.
“Is that Heliotrope’s new motto?”
She blushed charmingly. “No. It’s just for you.” She took my cloak and knelt down to remove my shoes. When she reached for my vambraces, I pulled back.
“As you wish.” With that, she moved to take my things to the cloakroom.
I fidgeted with the clasps of my vambraces while I waited and watched the fire burn low in the stone fireplace. The adepts of Heliotrope House claimed to love the sun. They said that is why they kept the room so warm, but I suspected it was to entice their patrons to remove their clothes. The heat made me nervous, and I dabbed at my brow. I should have accepted the fosterlings offer to bring me fruit or water.
The older patron continued to stare at me, adding to my unease. I hated sitting alone, waiting. The adepts of Heliotrope would be kind and welcoming, as always, were I to invite one over, but it wasn’t just any adept I wanted.
“It’s you!”
I would have expected a silence to fall over the gaming adepts and patrons upon hearing the voice that broke through the room. For servants to drop what they were holding. For all to gasp and turn. But the voice only had that effect on me. Such was the talent of the adepts of Heliotrope House.
Étienne rushed over to me and threw himself at my feet. Kneeling before me, he took my hands in his and brought them to his face. “Too long you’ve been away, Joscelin.”
Looking at his face was like looking into a mirror. No, that’s not right. We didn’t look anything alike. Étienne’s brown, curled hair fell to just above his jaw. His eyes were the cool blue of a cloudless winter day. He was half a hand shorter than me and broader in the shoulders. But in his eyes, I saw the same longing that was in mine. The yearning for wholeness. Striving to be everything. Determination through failure that others call stubbornness. I saw me.
And in his eyes, I saw us both suddenly become whole.
“You’ve probably been out saving the world again, haven’t you?” His voice was halfway between awe and accusation. “I know it’s only something like the fate of the world that would keep us apart.”
“Something like that.”
He stood and held out his hand. “Come,” he said. “And tell me everything.”
Everything. There it was again, that word. Laden with expectation. With Phèdre, when I gave my everything, it wasn’t enough. With Étienne, I alone was his everything.
Well, that’s how he made me feel, at least. And for now, it was enough. My hand in his, I followed him.
Tell me everything, he had asked, and I always had. Everything from my petty jealousy of Hyacinthe to my difficulties coping with Phèdre’s desires and her penchant for chasing after Melissande. It was to Étienne that I had told the horrors of Daršanga. He was my confidante.
As heliotrope is a low growing flower, there were no beds in the pleasure rooms. Only soft pallets and pillows laid on the floor. Nearer to Earth and the flowers that had bloomed where Elua walked, Étienne had explained to me. He knelt down on the pallet before me and ran his hands up the back of my legs in some gesture that no doubt Phèdre and all servants of Naamah had a colorful name for. He brought his hands to mine and pulled me down so that I was kneeling too, and face to face, he kissed me gently but fervently.
He took my arm and opened the buckles of the vambrace, slowly and deliberately. It had grown into a ritual for us. They were a symbol of who I was. My training and values and how hard it was to put it aside for the pleasure I’d take with him. It was never something Étienne took lightly. One at a time, he removed the vambraces and placed them reverently on the table between the open hands of Naamah and a bowl filled with flower petals and candles floating on scented water.
He returned to his position kneeling before me. I felt his hands flow up my back, and he deftly released my hair from its club. In smooth, liquid movements, he brought his hands forward to my chest and began undoing the buttons of my doublet and shirt. His fingertips gently stroked my chest and came to rest at the top of my breeches.
I caught his fingers and pulled him closer to me. “I thought you wanted me to tell you everything,” I said between kisses.
He shook his head. “You are my everything, Joscelin.” He leaned back on the pallet and pulled me down with him so that I hung over-top of him. He wove his fingers through my hair and brought my mouth over his, kissing me deeply. When he released me, I opened my eyes and saw his face staring up at me adoringly.
“I need you, Joseclin,” he said with a charming blush. “All of you.”
I rolled onto my back, and Étienne straddled me and resumed his kisses, starting at my mouth and working his way down. Down my neck, around my collarbone in a way that made me arch my back and moan, then down my chest. When he came to my waist he stopped to toy with the laces of my breeches. My erection was already pushing against the fabric in anticipation. He unlaced my breeches and took my shaft into his mouth, humming a Siovalese tune as he did. I held his shoulders and called out his name.
When I was nearly at the peak, Étienne stopped. “I said I need all of you. Everything.” He dipped his fingers in a jar of oil next to the pallet and spread my legs apart, playing with the opening he found there. “I want to be inside you, Joscelin. I want to give you this pleasure.”
I hadn’t known the pleasure of it until Étienne had shown me.
“You play with Naamah’s pearl with your consort,” he had explained to me the first time. “We don’t have one, obviously. Elua gave us other gifts,” he had said and crooked his finger, rubbing a delicate place inside of me.
It was like there had been an explosion inside my body. I gasped and saw stars and wanted more. I looked over at Étienne and his hands wrapped around his generous shaft and realized he alone could give me more.
That first time, he gave me a wicked smile, letting me know we alone were in on a secret. “Your consort won’t be able to reach the spot the way I can.”
He was right. As much as I loved her, Phèdre couldn’t. She couldn’t give me everything. And so I went to Étienne. For this as much as the feeling of completeness he gave me as I returned each kiss, each stroke, and each thrust to him and each time knowing he was as fulfilled as I.
Étienne pulled off his linen breeches and shirt and knelt before me mother naked with his erection in his hand, stroking the shaft. I brought myself to my hands and knees, waiting for him. I felt Étienne’s hand on my ass, caressing me softly until I begged. He laughed gently and teased me with his cock, pressing slowly and gently at my opening.
“Oh, Joscelin,” he gasped as he slid inside me. “This is what I’ve longed for,” he said as he pushed his hips, back and forth, pressing upon Elua’s gift as he had shown me the first time. “To fill you. To be one with you. Two pieces, only whole together.”
“Étienne,” I called back in a moan, desperate for him to tell me he desires nothing more than me. My mouth on his. Our bodies locked together in pleasure.
He reached his hand around my legs and grabbed my shaft, pumping as he thrust. I pushed my hips back towards him, rocking together, begging him to go deeper.
It must be a skill of the adepts of Heliotrope House that they pace themselves and take their pleasure at the exact moment of their patrons’, always coming together. At least, that’s how it was with us. We came in unison in guttural moans and fell down to the pallet together, lying side by side. He stroked my hair and hummed that Siovalese tune again. I felt whole. I felt everything.
“I want nothing more than this moment,” Étienne said when he finished the tune. “Well, and maybe some wine,” he added with a laugh. “Shall I call for some?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned to leave the pallet.
That’s when I saw the marque on his back. I’d seen it before, of course. And I always had the same reaction upon seeing it. Stunned by its beauty—a spray of purple flowers, three stalks winding their way up his back, each longer than the last. A few green leaves curled at the bottom. Then I’d be hit by the stark reminded that none of this was real. Étienne nó Heliotrope had made his marque long ago and stayed in the service of Heliotrope House because the house had been good to him. It provided him with paying patrons and the tools he needed to ply his trade. He in turn gave money back to the house.
Money that I’d give to him for his trade. Far from everything, this was, in essence, a transaction.
“No, I should be going.”
Étienne frowned. “Stay with me.” He laid his hand on my chest. “Please.” He nodded to the table where my vambraces and Naamah’s hands lay. “I’ve something for you.”
I furrowed my brow. “Aren’t I supposed to give you something?” I reached for my doublet and fished the pouch of coins out of the pocket.
He caught my hand. “You’re special to me. You know that, right?”
I bit back a retort. Something along the lines of isn’t that what you tell all your patrons, but even less kind.
“Just go see it,” he insisted.
I hadn’t noticed the small wooden box before, painted in green and yellow. I dropped the pouch into Naamah’s waiting hands and took the box.
“Open it,” Étienne urged.
Inside was a silver ring. The ring was small, but the design was complicated. A scythe maybe. And a small flower of amethyst. That I recognized. Heliotrope.
“I didn’t know what to get you. What you’d wear. Nothing too large or flashy. Something simple to go with your Cassiline gray.
“It’s the glyph of Saturn,” he explained, slipping the ring on my finger. “Cassiel’s planet, so the scholars say. A scythe, because Saturn is father of the harvest. The lines here intersecting,” he said, pointing to the lines crisscrossing the left side of the glyph, “are the crossroads you’re always standing at. With your consort and with me. And this flower at the bottom in the hook, heliotrope, of course.”
I stared at the ring on my finger with a heavy feeling in my chest, overcome. It was a thoughtful gift, appealing to my Siovalese love of knowledge, my upbringing as a Cassiline Brother, and my own damn fate to stand at the crossroads again and again. And the striking element of the ring, the amethyst flower. Heliotrope. Devotion. Mine to Cassiel and Phèdre and Étienne. All the complicated elements of my life.
“A lover’s token,” I said, my voice cracking at my emotions. I knew enough about the practices of Naamah’s servants to know that these were not given lightly.
Étienne put his hand on mine. “I know you’ve scorned us servants of Naamah, Joscelin.”
“I didn’t know. It was a long time ago.”
He held up a hand to silence me. “Nonetheless. I know you think this is all a lie. I want you to know what lies between us is more than just my trade.” He kissed me again. A warm kiss that he tried to imbue with all his genuine feelings for me. “My feelings for you are real. I know you and Phèdre are lovers that Cassiel, Kushiel, and Naamah couldn’t tear apart, let alone world politics. I know that the two of you are truly blessed by Elua. That’s an awe-filled romance that drew me to you. I don’t aspire to compete with that, but know that for me, you alone are enough.”
I nodded, too afraid to speak. To be enough. That’s all I ever wanted.