5. Jeffrey

Chapter five

Jeffrey

" C ome along, darlings, if you'd like to explore my passages."

It's a smaller crowd tonight. It always is on Sundays, unless it's a holiday on Monday, but there are still enough people for me to enjoy performing.

Even if Odai watching is a little distracting.

He didn't watch my first three tours, off somewhere else, I suppose, working on business turnaround ideas. But when I shimmy out from my hiding spot for the last tour of the night—you know, from where he was recently imprisoned behind a wall that is now somehow fixed as if nothing happened—I spot him at the back of the crowd.

"Anyone would be hard -pressed to not take you up on that offer, Mattie," Odai calls.

Oh fuck. He's bantering with me. "Just wait until we get to my deepest caverns." I bat my eyes back at him.

The crowd laughs.

We play into it, almost like he was a plant to aid my performance, and he has me in stitches and nearly breaking character more than once.

Someone brings up the Devil and having a forked tongue, maybe someone who took the tour before, or just a natural progression.

"I do enjoy a good double pronging," I say.

Odai adds, "Being spooned is lovely, knifed is better, but being forked is a test of endurance, right, Mattie?"

That fucker. "One I pass every time." I blow him a kiss.

I actually love it, because thinking on my toes like this gets the best lines out of me, some I plan to add to my repertoire for future tours.

"So that's the incubus's hole ?" one person jokes when we reach it.

"Would you like to check for yourself?" I urge him. "I assure you I am already quite familiar with feeling my way inside it." I'm not, Odai is the one who's familiar with feeling his way inside me, but the way he looks at me when I say that, the way our eyes lock, has me as hot and bothered as last night.

The patron gets the usual scare from Cas grabbing his hand, and the tour comes to an end. I could seriously do this forever, and even if I don't need a plant in the crowd to channel my inner Mattie, bantering with Odai felt fun in a way that only makes me love it more.

There are a few picture requests afterward, including with an elderly couple who think I was a hoot, their words, but when those lingering finish following Cas into the gift shop, it's just me and Odai.

"You truly are a different person like this, beautiful one," he says.

That he keeps noticing that ruins it a little. "Yeah, well, I'm being Mattie."

"You are not like the real Mattie."

"I suppose not. It's just a persona I invented. No one could really say how she talked or acted or… well, I guess you could."

"Yes." Odai smiles, a literal time capsule at my disposal. "But I like you and your persona better."

I am instantly back to being just Jeffrey, feeling my cheeks flush with some of that old worry surfacing that someone who thinks they like me will eventually realize how boring I am.

Down the tunnel, I see Cas peeking at us from the gift shop with that same smug smile as this morning. I flip her a quick bird that makes her laugh before I pull Odai out of sight behind the incubus wall—which is really weird to think when there is a literal incubus wall , and I am currently with said incubus.

The amulet is heavy, but in that comforting way of favorite jewelry that you want to remember you're wearing, so I decided I'd keep it on for tours. I switched to a purple corset to match it. Which means I also match Odai, whether in his conjured outfit or if he was back to looking like the gargoyle he really is .

Back here, in even dimmer lighting than the alcove where we met, it feels surreal to have someone so beautiful gently brush the hair back from draping over my shoulder.

"M-may I ask… what the real Mattie was like?" It feels almost mean, because she chained him up, threw him away when she was done with him like he was nothing more than a slave, but after I say it, whatever sadness I expect to see cross Odai's face doesn't surface.

"She was driven," he says. "Not unkind but direct and uncompromising. She knew what she wanted and did not hesitate to ask for it." He brushes back the other side of my hair, leaving my shoulders bare for his hands to rest on them. It feels like he wants something but is waiting for me to ask.

"Do you, um, have a preference for mistress versus master?" I ask instead.

Odai is so close, and the tunnel is cramped. I can smell the jasmine and incense that hangs on him like a hypnotizing haze. "If you are asking if I prefer Mattie over you, we have yet to fully realize much of a contractual relationship. But I was never with Mattie sexually."

"You weren't?"

"Mattie was a businesswoman. Our business together had different boundaries than those with her patrons."

"But I thought you needed to feed that way as much as from granting wishes."

"I do." Odai's hands move up my neck, bypassing the chain of the amulet as if it is inconsequential compared to touching me. "I became one of her tailors or was sometimes a client for others as a boon when they pleased her."

"T-tailors? I knew Mattie employed men, but they didn't all dress as women? Or did you…?" The idea of Odai dressed as I am isn't at all a deterrent. He knows exactly what he is doing when he teases his fingers beneath my chin, tilting my head up to keep me from looking away. Then he digs his fingers into my hair to hold my head.

I want him to hold me like this while he's feeding me his cock, and the flash of that image makes me wet my lips.

"I did dress that way a handful of times," Odai says, "but usually not. Mattie had all kinds, and we serviced all kinds. In some ways it was the easiest service compared to my other owners. To be fed every night, sometimes multiple times a day, with carnal attention was… very fulfilling for me. But if you do not desire me, Jeffrey, as Mattie did not, I can seek such nourishment elsewhere."

" No ." My voice cracks as I say it. I'm sweating and hard, and all he is doing is massaging the back of my skull.

"You don't like to share, I take it?"

The thought of anyone else touching him makes me want to wish right that moment that he never be with anyone else, ever, but that's a master's possessive thinking, and I still don't know if we can be anything else to each other. "You do enjoy it, right? I need to be sure you're not my… slave." I trip on the word and wrinkle my nose. "You are so sexy, and I keep thinking about being with you again, but it would be awful if you didn't really want to be with me."

Odai moves one hand forward to cup my cheek. It's not seduction in his eyes, but something… happy that makes my pulse stutter. "I assure you, my desire for you specifically, Jeffrey, not only because I need such fulfillment, and not only because you bear my amulet, is very real. And I am not your slave, because you are not treating me as one."

The relief I feel hearing that is like a flood of heat behind my eyes. "I wish…"

Odai's chest heaves in anticipation.

"…for you to tell me what you want right now."

He smiles. "I would like to taste you again, Jeffrey, to pleasure you, right here, before you are called from my side. May I?"

"Yes."

Odai kisses me and… we didn't do that before. We didn't kiss. He had me deep throated, milking the best orgasm of my life out of me, and we never kissed .

Odai's tongue isn't forked now, but I wonder what it would feel like if it was, wrapping around mine the way it wrapped around my cock and balls and slid inside me. He pulls me tight against him with a powerful tug, showing immense strength that makes me melt in his hold. He is so big and strong and gorgeous.

One arm hooks around my waist, the other lifts up the front of my skirt and shoves down inside my bloomers to take hold of me, twirling some of my prerelease around his fingers. He pulls his hand free before giving a full stroke and looks me in the eyes while he licks the fluid from them.

Fuck . I am going to come in my bloomers. I start to rut against his leg, like a desperate dog in heat, seeking any friction I can find.

"Do you wish for more, Jeffrey?" Odai asks in his sexy rumble. "More than just me having a taste?"

"Y-yes." My voice cracks again. "Please. I wish that."

His hand returns beneath my skirt, and he yanks the bloomers down. I feel the air as I bob out from beneath my bustle. Odai takes hold of me more firmly, gathering more wetness from my slit, but then moves his hand to my backside and rubs the prerelease between my cheeks.

My knees quake. His other arm still has hold of me around my waist, so I don't have to worry about toppling.

"You like having a skirt on for this, don't you?" Odai asks.

"It does offer easier access." I chuckle, moaning and shuddering soon after, when his pointer finger brushes over my pucker. I rut against his leg again, and now that it's my bare cock against his harem pants, I want to feel skin . Although the roughness of the raw-feeling fabric is nice too.

"It is easier, isn't it?" Odai says. "Here…"

He turns me to face forward and lifts the back of my skirt. He tugs me against him with the same strength as when he kissed me, only now I can feel the line of his cock against my slick hole, even through his pants. He holds me there and reaches both hands around up under the front of my skirt. One fondles the heavy weight of my sac, the other strokes my shaft and teases over my slit.

The same thought as last night spills from my lips.

"I wish I could see myself like this."

"Granted," Odai says.

A mirror appears on the wall in front of us, covering the incubus hole, while the incubus behind me prods at my eager hole. I look… spectacular like this. The sheen of fresh sweat, the extra fullness to my hair from Odai massaging my roots, the fade of my makeup after hours performing, it's perfect.

But not as perfect as seeing Odai behind me, while the top of my dress shifts low enough for both nipples to be visible. Then he lifts the front of my skirt so I can see him fondling me under it.

Oh god . I want to watch him fuck me this way too.

A filtering of laughter reaches my ears, and I tense. The tour. There are still people down here from the tour, in the gift shop, and Cas could come back here, or someone could hear us at any moment! Whimpers I can barely bite back keep escaping me.

"I-I-I… wish…"

"Yes, Jeffrey?" Odai breathes on my neck, meeting my eyes in the mirror with a flash of glowing purple.

"For no one to hear us or come looking. "

"Granted. But then we must be swift, for Casandra's nature means she will worry and come looking anyway if we take too long."

Odai is on his knees in front of me so suddenly, I teeter, but he keeps a firm hold of me. He sucks me down his throat like last night, but as incredible as the view is looking down at him, it's just as mesmerizing when I look up. I hold his head, tangle my fingers in his hair, and almost wish I had his horns to grip as I watch myself fuck his face and can't take my eyes off me.

It's when one of Odai's hands reaches up and finds the peak of a nipple, flicking it to fuller hardness, that I come, hard , and even though I shouldn't be heard, I clench my teeth to keep from moaning too loud. Odai catches me when my knees fail and keeps me upright, while licking me clean—but not only around my shaft. His tongue becomes its slit self, and I feel its length flick back beneath my balls and lick the wetness from my hole.

I wish—ha, I almost say it aloud, but we don't have time—that he'd spilled inside me and was licking that instead.

"You see now? You are a cleric of desire, beautiful one," Odai says, and any obvious fork to his tongue or glow to his eyes are gone. I feel like I must be a mess, no matter how hot I look in the mirror behind him, before he blocks the view by standing. He straightens my costume and lifts my bloomers.

"Th-thank you?" I have to laugh because this is still too good to be true. It has to be, doesn't it? "Oh, and it's just Cas . Don't call her Casandra. "

"Oh?" Odai tilts his head. I love when he does that, like a big puppy. "I assumed it was short for the long form Casandra, which is such a beautiful name."

"It is, and I don't think she doesn't agree it's a nice name, it's just… not her."

"A person's name is sacred," Odai says, wiping the sweat from my brow and re-fluffing my hair back over one shoulder. "To be granted leave to call someone something that is only yours between the two of you is also sacred."

"Like beautiful one?"

"Yes." He smiles and leans down as if he might… but then he stops.

"You can kiss me! I want, wish for you to, if you want to."

"I do," Odai says.

I plunge my tongue into his mouth as soon as our lips seal. I knew I'd taste better on his tongue than any time I'd tasted myself on fingertips or through another lover's kiss. I pull back and whisper, "Can you use your real tongue?"

His smile is a grin when the forked tip flicks out. I kiss him harder, and he sucks my tongue with twists of his as expertly as he sucked down my spunk.

We have to stop, and I'm breathless when we do, exhausted, but content.

"The patrons have almost all gone," Odai says with a crane of his ear toward the gift shop, "and Cas is growing curiouser than my powers can stop her. "

"Okay. But I wish to not have any obvious signs or traces left on me of what we just did."

"Granted." He kisses my cheek, and I feel as fresh as if I just showered and reapplied my Mattie makeup. The mirror is gone from the wall when he moves from in front of it, and he takes me by the hand to lead me after him.

"Where were you two?" Cas is waiting for us at the gift shop entrance.

"Just hashing out ideas," I say. "We lost track of time."

"Uh huh."

I know she doesn't buy it, but if Mr. Bevilaqua suspects anything sordid, he plays the oblivious card.

It is only after I've said my goodnights to them and am getting ready for bed that it dawns on me Odai has gotten me off twice now, and I haven't returned the favor. Not that he's asked for me to, but maybe he can't ask unless I give him permission first. Unless I wish for him to make his wants known to me, like I did earlier.

It also feels weird or rude to not invite him to share my bed, but then, he doesn't sleep. I guess it would be weirder and far more of an imposition to have him lie with me and not be able to do anything for eight hours.

"Um, Odai?" I peek out into the hallway anyway.

"Yes, Jeffrey?" He appears from one of the other rooms.

"Are you okay just having to stay up all night alone?"

"I can occupy myself. I was hoping to catalog the remaining items up here. If I may?"

"Of course! Anything you want. I mean, I wish for you to have whatever autonomy you need to, um, well, help with saving Madame Mattie's, but also to get whatever you need. That's probably too vague of a wish, huh?"

"Thank you, Jeffrey," he says. "It is plenty clear and appreciated."

"Okay. Well, goodnight."

"Goodnight."

This is still weird, going to bed knowing he's out there like some ghost haunting my home, after sucking me off twice . I've never done that before with someone I wasn't dating, and we are not dating. We aren't even together.

Are we?

I am too tired to think about it. Since I don't need to keep the amulet on, I decide to not wear it to bed this time, given it's not the most comfortable thing when trying to sleep. I put it in the top center drawer of the bureau, which is really a vanity more than a dresser, with the center drawer, and then three drawers on either side where you can sit in front of an attached mirror.

The center drawer seems to stick when I push it in, and I figure something got caught, or maybe it got off its track. I pull it back out to reset it, but with it comes something else, rattling loose a part of the desk I've never noticed before.

There is a very thin board that pulls out above the drawer, sort of like a cutting board built into a kitchen. Probably for extra writing space. It takes a bit of effort, but I manage to pull it the rest of the way out.

It really is just a flat wooden surface, but thin enough to have been stuck in there with it… is a card.

I pick it up. It's larger than a playing card. There's a woman on it, intricately drawn, and I get this strange feeling like she's Persephone, caught between paths of the Underworld and the living. It makes me think of Mattie too.

There is something almost spiritual about the woman rather than regal. She holds a pomegranate in one hand and a wand like a religious scepter in the other. Her robes flow to her feet. Her hair is long and full, swept over one shoulder. Everything else about the card is symmetrical, caught in between planes or ideologies, yet she seems happy like between is exactly where she should be, or at least where she would choose to be if the choice was hers.

I feel lightheaded when I blink away from looking at it, like I was somewhere else for a minute. I'm not usually that poetic, so maybe I was.

Maybe I'm just tired.

I do wonder where the card came from, whether it was something that actually belonged to Mattie, but I can worry about it tomorrow. For now, I put it away in the drawer beside the amulet and head to bed.

Odai

There is a new warmth that settles in me as I allow myself the time Jeffrey has granted to recall the people connected to the items I find in the first room. Many of these things—an old shawl, a piece of jewelry, a tarnished tea set—were wished of me by Mattie, sometimes for herself, sometimes to give to others. Trinkets but signs of just the right amount of wealth to not imply theft or the impossible for one such as she.

Remembering them and those wishes being granted fills a small part of the void growing within me, knowing I have hours ahead wherein Jeffrey cannot make wishes himself or have me fulfill his desires. He can only dream. Hopefully, those dreams will spur new desires for him to request of me tomorrow. His restraint is good, and I want to be pleased by it, but I need more.

My mind tries to drift to thoughts of Jeffrey, of how there is something about him, in his want of me beyond only his want of other wishes, that captivates me and makes me want him. Many masters and mistresses have held my attention. Many have seemed different at first, like they might be the one. All ended the same.

My mind tries to focus on the good, on only Jeffrey, but my compulsions are toward teasing out more wishes and more desires to fulfill. It pains me that I cannot fight it.

The autonomy granted to me is not fully my own. There is a catch, as he so cleverly surmised. Because I cannot stop the growth of my hunger, and I cannot warn him how far it will make me go to fill that void despite how massive a chasm it will become.

I will enjoy every moment, even those Jeffrey will come to loathe, no matter how much I might wish I didn't. I can only hope that, in the end, he is not a disappointment like Mattie or those who came before her.

For his sake.