Like a Wisp of Steam (3 page)

He lowered her skirt, eliciting another gasp as the fabric just touched her sensitive skin, then untied her wrists and helped her up to stand again. She clutched her hands to her bosom. There was a different tension in her now, and her eyes showed a new awareness. Her fantasy no longer obscured her perception of the moment.

This was the most delicate juncture, and one wrong step could spoil the entire scene. Would he be the harsh Patron, the one who throws the suffering Innocent out into the wilderness, or the forgiving Patron, the one whose heart is softened by the Innocent's tears and soothes her hurts? He looked in his client's eyes, saw her yearning and chose.

"Come here, little one," he said, pulling her over to the bed. He sat down on the edge of the mattress and pulled her into his lap. He was too small and she was too heavy to give the full experience of sitting in the Patron's lap, but he knew how to carry her weight on both of his legs so that her feet were off the ground, sustaining the illusion.

His experienced hand found its way under her skirt, through her bloomers and up her soft thighs to her sex, quite wet. She gave a little eager sound and spread her legs wider.

Remembering the notes on the assignation card, he did not press his fingers deeply into her, but instead stroked her lips and button, searching for the right rhythm.

Her face pressed into his shoulder and her fists pressed against his chest as she murmured, "Sir, please, oh, sir—"

"Good girl," he whispered, his lips brushing her ear. She made an odd little sound, part gasp, part sob, and her thighs closed, mashing his hand against her. Her eyes closed with pleasure newly discovered, even if she had dreamed this moment a thousand times before, stroking herself in her own bed. This was the sacred moment that was somehow born from the hackneyed words and actions and costumes, straw spun into gold.

When her breathing slowed a bit, she looked at him, face to face. "Please sir, let me show my gratitude for taking me in." She slid between his legs, ending up on her knees before him.

He hadn't expected this at all, and it took him a moment to go with it and help her undo his trousers. She was surprisingly eager in this regard, taking his cock into her mouth without hesitation.

Each male player had his own trick for rising to the occasion, but he didn't focus on the sensations as he usually did. Instead, he thought of Miss Alwyx, looking resplendent and invulnerable in the Virago's dress, her massive bare arms wrapping around him, lifting him, crushing him against her bosom. She smiled playfully at his attempts to escape her grasp.
I won't let you go, little Ricar....

He spent into his client's mouth. She coughed a bit, and he discreetly passed her his handkerchief so she could spit out his seed.

Buttoned up again, he guided her to her feet and stood up, back in the Patron's authoritative manner. "Do not think this has won you any special consideration, girl."

"Oh no, sir, of course not," she said, swinging her torso back and forth, pleased with herself.

"Dinner will be at eight, sharp," he said and turned his back on her, the session over. Shame weighed on him as he left through the player's entrance. He had betrayed his client by not being in the moment. Even if she hadn't noticed anything, he had betrayed his own standards.

* * * *

Ricar and Chel sat on a narrow catwalk among the lights and rigging. They dangled their feet far above the stage and watched the show, as they had done decades ago when they were both apprentices, awestruck to have even bit parts in the Commedia.

They had the best seats in the house as the performance started beneath them. Again, Miss Dyr played the Innocent, fresh from the wedding to her Servant groom and about to settle into their marriage bed, when the Prince entered and demanded his right as their lord. The Innocent huddled on the bed, quivering hands barely covering her bosom, while the Servant feebly begged for his bride to be spared.

"Something's off with her," Chel commented.

Ricar was forced to agree. No one in the audience noticed, he was sure, but the Innocent had caught on to manipulating the Prince by his desires too quickly. There was calculation where there had once been spontaneity. And little by little, it was growing. Someday, even the most unsophisticated observer in the audience would pick up on it, and then the illusion would be broken.

"We'll need to train her in some new roles," he said, half to himself.

"She's a terrible Fatale, not much better as a Pedant. And she'll quit before playing a Pet or Harlot again."

"Or we find a new Innocent."

Chel shrugged. "We always do, sooner or later. Funny, we keep getting older, but the Innocents stay the same age."

"It'd be a little easier if we could look at more people. Not just fresh-faced tiny girls."

"You mean like your Miss Alwyx?" Chel chuckled. "If somebody tried to ravish her, she'd just roll over and crush him to death. Better find another pretty face and tiny waist."

"She's a member of my company, nothing more." He changed the subject. "If we can't find a new part for Miss Dyr, what shall she do?"

Below them, Miss Dyr turned away from her groom and presented herself with lowered eyes to the Prince.

"Oh, she'll land on her feet, be some rich man's wife or mistress."

"And if she can't squeeze an annuity out of him?"

"She can work in a dress shop or something. Either way, the little harpy won't be our problem anymore."

The moment the Prince laid a hand on her, Miss Dyr broke down sobbing.

"They come in, and a few years later they go out again, and what do they have to show for it?"

Chel smirked. "Ricar, it is rather late to bite the hand that has fed us, and quite well, all these years."

"What about you, then?" He couldn't help noticing the lines around her eyes, how thin her neck had become. On stage, with the right makeup and costume, no one would notice, but in the assignation rooms.... Then again, he hadn't been called to play the Rake or Prince in a few years either.

"Even a magnificent bitch like me can't play the Fatale forever," Chel said. "Then it's the Pedant and the Matron, and then ... well, I can still direct, design, choreograph. I shall manage."

Suddenly tired, Ricar started to stand up.

"Where are you going? It's not finished." Chel pointed down to where the Innocent had paralyzed the Prince with conflicting emotions.

"We did the exact same scenario twenty years ago, remember?" He sat down again.

"Oh, right. My very brief stint as the Innocent. Somebody threw eggs at me."

He finally said something that had been running through his mind for some time, even before he met Miss Alwyx.

"Maybe if we tried some new scenarios, new roles, instead of our same old things?"

After a moment, Chel said, "The punters won't go for it."

"You mean they don't want to see anything new, or you don't want to try anything new?"

Chel dodged the question. "Do you want to risk our ticket sales and our assignation fees? I don't. And I know Davis won't. You don't know what it took to get him to let me produce some afternoon shows."

"I admire what you've done with those. That bit with the gauze cocoon, very innovative...."

"Well, tell the punters that. They seem to be in agreement with Davis. Classics, classics, classics."

"You mean, clichés, clichés, clichés."

* * * *

The emergency bell still jangled as Ricar hurried into assignation room twelve. His eyes immediately went to Miss Alwyx, instead of the client. Apparently unharmed, she sat on the animal-print bed in a Beast costume, dejectedly holding the headdress in her lap. The client, dressed in his own Hunter costume, paced angrily back and forth on the grass-patterned carpet. A tangled clump of ropes and straps lay on the floor between them. "Is there a problem, sir?" Ricar asked.

"That," the client said, jabbing a finger at Miss Alwyx, "is the problem. The most pathetic excuse for a Beast I have ever seen."

"Sir, I—"

"I expect a proper Beast from your establishment, with some serious fight in her. If I wanted a simpering little Innocent under me, I'd have ordered one."

"I was trying to—" she began.

"Miss Alwyx, please wait for me outside," Ricar said. She got up, apparently struggling not to cry, and left the room through the player's entrance.

"Sir," Ricar lied, "we've had many problems with that player. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. She will be sacked immediately."

That mollified the man somewhat.

"If you'll go and see our house manager, sir, he'll discuss the matter with you."
He'll also discuss your sizable unpaid
bill
, Ricar did not say.

Ricar escorted the man, still grumbling, out of the room to the hall and pointed him at Davis' office, then went back through the assignation room to the player's corridor where Miss Alwyx waited.

"Are you quite all right?" He almost put a hand on her upper arm, but thought better of it.

"I'm fine. He didn't hurt me, just yelled at me until I pulled the bell cord."

"What happened?"

"I saw this circus show once, where the lioness would sit in the tamer's lap and purr. I thought he'd like that in my Beast."

"There's always a degree of menace in the Beast," he told her. "The taming can never be complete."

"Please forgive me, sir. I still have a lot to learn here and I want to do my best," she said.

He turned to her sharply, thinking she had said that in mockery of the Innocent, but she looked back at him without guile or even irony.

They stepped aside to allow a trio of Pets to scamper by on their way to an assignation room. Ricar pondered what to do.

He had seen Davis's meticulous records of each player's performance. There was no denying that Miss Alwyx ranked near the bottom of the company in both total assignations and gross assignation fees. Many customers found her size appealing and requested her as a Fatale or Beast or Harlot, but she didn't develop the essential repeat business. And money had to be tight for her without supplementing her salary with assignation fees.

Yet ... she never missed rehearsals or curtain calls, gamely took any role assigned to her, and performed exceptionally in Chel's training sessions. There were far more troublesome and less talented players in the company.

"I wouldn't worry about it too much," Ricar said. "Certain people enjoy complaining for their own sake."

"Maybe we should do a special three-hand act," she said.

"Customer, Player, and Manager." They both laughed a little at the thought.

"We just need to find the right role for you," he told her.

* * * *

The train pulled into the platform with a hiss of steam, and the doors cranked open, letting the travelers on the platform stream in. Miss Alwyx started to join them, but Ricar gestured to her. "No, down there."

He led her to the first class car at the end, showed his rail pass to the porter and said, "And one guest." The porter tipped his cap as he ushered them inside. They settled into the plush bench seats, facing each other. He smiled at Miss Alwyx's delight in the polished brass and mahogany fittings and the bag of hot nuts from the vendor's cart.

The train left the station and clattered along the elevated track, letting them look down on block after block of newly built row houses, homes for those who toiled in the factories whose smokestacks dotted the horizons.

Ricar was about to ask her about rehearsing under Chel, when she said, "I just wanted to say that it's an honor performing in your company. I've followed your work for years, since the first time I saw you, back when you were in the Crimson Engine company. It was Carnival, and your company performed
Branwen in Furs
. You were amazing. I honestly never thought that men could do the Innocent, but ... Oh, I don't even know what to say. I went back and saw every show you were in."

"Well, thank you." He almost winced at the memory of how crude his performances were back then. At least the audience didn't know any better.

* * * *

"Ready, Miss Wynne?" he had asked, poised to go through the door from the player's corridor to the assignation room.

"Please, call me Chel," she said and grabbed his ear. "On three. One ... two...."

With surprising strength for her small frame, Chel shoved him through the door by his ear. He let the momentum carry him across the room, suggesting the tiny woman had thrown him, and collapsed against the wall, right in front of their client.

The client, a grey-haired woman wearing a Servant's black and white dress, gasped as he looked up at her with pained eyes.

"You clumsy oaf!" Chel, looking suitably cruel and sensual in her Fatale's red and black dress, jabbed her riding crop at him. "You'll serve me correctly if I have to beat it into you."

The client raised her hands in supplication. "Please, mistress, have mercy on him!"

"Mercy?" Chel scoffed. "Get over here, you!"

Ricar gave the client a look of suffering, then slunk back to Chel and knelt before her, carefully positioned so the client would have a good view.

"Undress," Chel commanded, tapping her crop against her riding boot.

He unbuttoned his white shirt and set it aside, his face turned away as if ashamed to be half-naked before his mistress and her Servant.

Chel clutched his chin in one gloved hand. "How dare you let me appear in public improperly dressed!" She slapped his cheek. He rocked his head sideways, exaggerating the impact and eliciting a sympathetic sound from the client.

Chel stalked around behind him, positioned so the client would have a good view. "Such willfulness only understands the lash," she stated, and raised the crop high.

On stage, the blows of the Fatale or the Prince were faked, but here in the assignation room the clients wanted the bruises and sometimes even the blood. There were tricks to create the proper impression, of course, but he had asked Chel to use her full force on him. Apparently he had underestimated her. Her crop slashed repeatedly into his upper back, precisely aimed, sending harsh vibrations through his entire body. He had to lean forward and rest his hands on his knees to keep from falling forward under her onslaught.