Intoxication

N.B. The copy of this story in Envy, the YaoiCon 2006 anthology, contains a number of misprints and editorial errors. I am very sorry for the inconvenience.

Yellow-throated songbirds pecked at the bars of their tiny, gold-wire cage, blinded and too fat to fly, searching in vain for the trays of millet and grapes, oats and figs that someone had taken away that morning. A soft mewling startled them, but they soon forgot it, oblivious to the sleek, golden-skinned cat-prince watching them. Tybalt licked his teeth contemplatively, sprawling in the Roman couch beside the cage. He flicked open the top and plucked out the fattest, laughing quietly at its futile squirming. It amused him for a moment, but soon he grew bored again, and he thrust it, head first, into a glass of brandy.

It didn’t take long. The bird drowned in minutes, its struggles against his hand growing weaker and weaker until they stopped altogether.

“That’s cruel, Tybalt, even for you.” Tybalt’s guest, a gentle sylph of a boy, just barely a man, tried to look away, but the beautiful tragedy entranced him, somehow, and he could not.

“Well, I miss her, and their suffering eases my own.” He plucked the bird’s feathers deliberately, one at a time, tossing them back into the cage. “You wouldn’t deny me that, would you, Methyst?”

Methyst buried his face in his hands, running his fingers back through his short, dirty-blonde hair. “Still her, even now… Tybalt… It’s been seven hundred and fifty years.”

“Seven hundred and forty-nine, two hundred eighty-seven days.”

“Even still.”

“Seven hundred and fifty years, seventy-nine days yet to pass.” He shrugged, opening the little iron broiler he kept beside the birdcage, and rested the tiny, naked body above the coals, watching its skin crisp and turn rich, caramel brown. “With all that waiting, I deserve an indulgence.”

“Tybalt, that’s not actually very long. You slept through the Third Punic War, remember? You woke up and held a hundred-year grudge against the Romans over razing that bakery in Carthage.”

“Well, I forgave them once they invented those little pastries with the fat dormice in them.”

“Still, if you can wait a hundred years for pastries…”

“Quiet, you.” He folded his ears flat in mock annoyance. “Can’t you see I’m sulking?”

“Do they really have to die for that?”

“I feel like an hour of pleasure now and then. Nothing else amuses me quite so much right now.” Tybalt laughed quietly, shaking his head, and turned away to watch the bird for a few silent moments, stretching his back in that slow, distinctly feline way.

Methyst bit his lip. From the back he could almost mistake Tybalt for some tall, finely-muscled girl, and he found it impossible not to imagine how it might feel to hold him, to feel those long, sleek muscles holding him down, daring him to explore their sheath of soft, perfect skin, or the gentle curve of his hips, just barely hidden by his thin silk pants. He swallowed hard, trying to think of something else. “Aren’t you at least supposed to wear a blindfold?”

Tybalt turned, looking over his shoulder to offer an impish little smile. “I’m not afraid of my sins.” A few minutes later, his snack was ready. In a smooth, practiced gesture, he took the bird from the oven, closed his eyes, and popped it into his mouth, its entire body a single mouthful. It was hot, still steaming, and he sucked in his breath, savoring the moment.

The prince’s back arched sharply as the rush of sudden, delicious heat washed over him, every muscle going tense and highlighting itself in perfect, subtle relief. It lasted for only a moment, though; he flopped over into the sofa, rolling onto his back as he settled into its thick, soft cushions. As he began to chew, a warm, contented purring rose from deep in his chest, nearly drowning the quiet sounds of his teeth shredding the soft, delicate flesh, and even in his horror Methyst wanted nothing so much as to feel that purring, to stroke his hands down Tybalt’s chest, down the smooth, slender plain of his belly, to feel that obvious pleasure made flesh and motion.

The temptation was too much. He crept closer, crouching beside the sofa, and brushed his fingertips against the arch of the prince’s hip, feeling his skin’s soft, supple perfection. It was everything he imagined, and he was about to stroke his hand up the long, gentle curve of Tybalt’s side when the songbird’s tiny bones began to break, making wet, cracking noises that seemed to go on forever.

Tybalt swallowed, eventually, picking the beak from between his lips as he rose from his little trance. “Would you like to try it, Methyst?” he asked, his voice mockingly innocent. “I have more.”

“That’s disgusting.” The spell was broken, and Methyst felt a queasy, sinking feeling in his stomach as he watched the prince lick away a shred of wing and fleck of brain from the edge of his lip.

Tybalt only smiled, leaning over to press a light, gentle kiss to his lips, teasing him with the faint, dying memory of the bird’s last breath, of crisp sea air spiced with warm, smooth armagnac, of the quiet pop as its tiny lungs burst between pointed, feline teeth. “It’s delicious.”

“It’s both,” he murmured. His knees started to weaken as his senses clutched at the little flash of pleasure, feeling it die off into the faintest wisps of memory. “Like so many other things you love.”

He felt another kiss, harder, more insistent this time, coaxing his mouth open with gentle, soothing strokes of Tybalt’s tongue. It held him tight, until his breath was sucked away and Tybalt’s filled his lungs, until he could smell nothing but that rich, intoxicating scent, taste nothing but its memory, rich and sweet, hauntingly delicate, and most of all feel nothing but Tybalt’s arms around him and Tybalt’s kiss against his lips.

“Like the things you want to try.”

It wasn’t a question. Methyst blushed hotly, resting his cheek against the slight curve of the prince’s shoulder. His voice was barely a whisper. “Yes.” And then, unbidden, “Like all the things I want to learn.”

Tybalt purred again, bemused, standing and slipping behind him as he took a beautiful strip of embroidered white silk from the table. “I’ll teach you a few sins, then. Don’t be ashamed.” He tied it over Methyst’s eyes, turning the world into faint, hazy blobs of light. “We’ll hide your pretty face from God.”

Tybalt knows so very many sins, Methyst thought, feeling a square of chocolate press between his lips. Porcelana, he called it, and the name fit, creamy-smooth, luxurious and faintly smoky, a dozen variations on that simple theme evolving as it melted across his tongue. He’d laid his guest out on the couch, sprawling lazily over him, and introduced them to him, one at a time, pausing just long enough to whisper each new name, each new story, just long enough to hear him whimper, begging for more.

It started with that beautiful, terrible thing, the blindfold, smooth as water and decorated with something called the Forbidden Stitch, embroidery so fine and painstaking that the peasant-girls hired for it went blind if they practiced for too many years. He’d wanted to tear it off the moment he heard, but Tybalt held his hands, binding them with another strip of that unspeakable brocade. He left for a moment, and the next Methyst knew, stuffed a piece of sashimi into his mouth. It was very fresh, crisp, sweet, and lightly briny, but it had been cut from a still-living fish; he could hear it flopping weakly on a plate, somewhere close by. He wanted to spit it out, but Tybalt held his mouth closed, made him chew and swallow the delicious abomination. The little bowl of soup held pieces of a dozen lives stewed into a broth of Shaoxing wine and rare mushrooms, abalone and scallops, shark fins and choice bits of fish, quail eggs and shreds of chicken. After the fish it seemed not so bad, clear and gentle as a kiss on the forehead, so temptingly fragrant that his protests died in his throat, surrendering before the endless string of pleasures.

Like porcelana. Always porcelana, another square with each new story. It tasted the way Tybalt felt, so perfectly right that it had to be wrong, melting away his guilt the way Tybalt peeled away his clothes, so comfortable that it seemed only natural. By the time he tasted the third he couldn’t tell which was smoother or sweeter, the chocolates in his mouth or the feelings all around him, the effortless warmth of skin on skin.

Then there was a tiny sip of wine he called eszencia, the cask tended for him through good years and bad by three generations of cellarmasters, sharp and powerful, clean-finished and almost painfully sweet. And another, a cognac he’d commissioned six hundred and fifty years ago to drown his loneliness, after a hundred years without his beloved, a blend of priceless eau de vie, one from each year they’d shared together. It tasted like passion, like love and excitement and sweet, bitter sorrow, like spice and oak, flowers and hot summer nights of sweaty, frantic sex, winding down to slow, gentle lovemaking and cuddling with the dawn. It slipped down Methyst’s throat like a dream, trickled down his spine, and reached up to caress his brain with ghostly, vaporous fingertips.

It left him panting, senseless, knowing nothing else but want.

But that was nothing, a shadow to the way Tybalt turned his head afterwards, kissing away a drop from his chin, dragging it out into a long, slow lick along his jaw, curving back down his cheekbone, warm and rough, wet and slippery. That stopped, though. It stopped, just before the kiss that seemed so inevitable, that Methyst needed now so badly. He squirmed, realizing how uncomfortably hard he’d grown beneath the prince’s weight. He could feel Tybalt’s breath on his lips.

“You want something, Methyst?” Tybalt asked, stroking his captive’s hair.

“Kiss me.”

The hand in his hair tightened, pulling his head back slightly. “You know I don’t take orders.”

Methyst whimpered. “Please!”

He felt Tybalt grind his hips against him, felt Tybalt hard, too, sliding against him with the promise of forbidden pleasure. “Should I take care of this, too?”

Even through the blindfold he knew Tybalt was smiling, amused by the deep, hot blush that overtook him. His answer came out as a whisper that even he could barely hear. “Yes, please, Tybalt, please.”

Tybalt purred, his breath warm and inviting. “How much do you want it?”

“I don’t even know anymore, just please give it to me. You’re right, about everything; it’s wonderful, it’s horrible but I love it, I’ll do anything, just… mmmph.” He melted into the kiss, thrilling with excitement as Tybalt slid away the thin layers of fabric that separated them, ecstatic when his hands caressed his thighs, pulling them up, along the arches of his hips. Methyst crossed his feet neatly behind the prince’s back, just over the base of his tail, squeezing him a little closer, enjoying that warm, intimate embrace.

He could have been happy there, only kissing, only cuddling, naked and together, but to Tybalt it was not enough. The prince sat up again, and Methyst felt something cool and slippery pressing just beneath the base of his spine.

Oh, he thought, half in contentment, half in nervous surprise. He wriggled his hips a little, trying to decide whether he liked it or not. By accident he pushed himself down, feeling about an inch of slender fingertip press into the tight ring of muscle, and he gasped, his back going tight as a sharp, pleasurable heat raced along the nerves and muscles. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, he liked that. He pressed down a little more, squeezing experimentally, and he made a small, happy sound at the feelings he found. This was definitely the most shameful thing Tybalt had shared with him, but he thought he might like it best of all. It was only a finger, gently exploring the first few inches of his body, but it was making him pant, a little faster with each tiny motion, building to something wonderful that he did not know.

Then it was gone, a worse tease even than the almost-kiss. A silent scream forced Methyst’s mouth open wide as he pushed his hips into Tybalt’s hands, needing the release he knew, somehow, would come. A measure of molten chocolate spilled into his open mouth, spreading hot across his tongue, smooth as porcelana but stronger, almost overwhelming, so intense that it was almost bitter. He heard laughing. “You’re going to like this even better, don’t worry.”

Tybalt’s shaft settled into the crease of his rear, the thick tip coming to a stop in the little pit beneath the base of his spine. He swallowed hard. This was much bigger than a finger. It felt big enough to hurt.

It was. It was big enough to hurt quite a lot.

His scream burst out of his throat as Tybalt pushed into him, and he grabbed at the cushions, digging in his nails to ease the pain. Tears rushed to his eyes, soaking into the blindfold. And then Tybalt was into him, past his resistance, and he was no longer stretching, but stretched, no longer sinking into worse pain with every passing moment, only accepting Tybalt deeper and deeper into his body. He stopped screaming, only panting now, trying to come to grips with the pain as Tybalt began to thrust into him, slowly back and forth.

He could probe much deeper than a finger this way. Tybalt whispered the most wonderfully soothing things to him, and the thick, smooth shaft pressed against places Methyst only dimly knew he had, touched them in the most seductively, distressingly enjoyable ways, made him writhe in unfamiliar delight. A single thrust at a time, agony turned into pleasure.

It swallowed up his world. The prince knew exactly how to rob him of his breath, exactly how to break his control, one slow, perfectly natural stroke at a time. Every breath came as a little moan or grunt. Nothing really mattered, nothing but being taken, being owned this way. He wanted to spend days like this, with his mouth and belly full of these wonderful, sinful things, his rear full of this wonderful, sinful lover, who treated him as his plaything, who was tying this wonderful knot of pleasure, building to a climax.

Climax did not come. For what felt like hours it failed to come.

Pleasure turned slowly into agony. Or perhaps it didn’t. It was hard to tell anymore. He was babbling, he knew, trying to beg Tybalt to release him, not sure what he meant at all, moving like a puppet in the prince’s hands, his strings pulling tighter with every passing moment. And when he felt him lean down, felt his breath against his skin and the long, slow caress of that rough, feline tongue against his shaft, the torrent of release battered his mind into darkness.

How long Methyst slept, he could not tell. A long, dull, half-pleasurable ache flared into pain every time he tried to move his legs, but at least his hands were free. He reached up, pulling the blindfold down around his neck. Tybalt slept beside him, naked and content, holding him comfortably. In sleep he looked almost innocent, with soft, angelic features and a shock of messy, ink-black hair. It was hard to believe he could be so cruel. For a while he just lay there, feeling thick, sticky fluid running down his thigh, and tried to weigh the absurd blend of shame and pleasure.

Wincing, he sat up, reaching tentatively for the cage and its fat, blinded treats of little singing birds.