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The bathroom was a mess. Every inch of the space was covered in empty vials of preening oil, blunted combs, and discarded dresses. Wherever Andrealhus turned, new and increasingly unseemly stains lurched out at him. When this disgrace of a day was over, he was going to have a serious talk with Stella about the state of the room. He didn’t intend to make a habit of visiting, but they had guests, and the staff talked. Appearances were important.
Garish pink light beat down on his shoulders as he applied a final streak of eyeliner. He’d chosen a soft blue, bordering on neon. It was just bright enough to pop without being distasteful. With a flick of the wrist, Andrealphus set the pencil down and screwed on the cap. He took one last look at himself in the filthy mirror. It only confirmed what he already knew: he was getting too old for this.
Andrealphus ran a smoothing talon along his cheek. His wrinkles stood out in the harsh light, forming jagged crosses with the scratches along the mirror’s surface. He’d simply have to hope they weren’t apparent. While he’d made do with Stella’s toiletries and the essentials he kept tucked into his robe for situations precisely like this, the best stuff was in his quarters on the other side of the estate. With a final fluff of his feathers, he strode out into the hall.
The sound of his heels clicking against the icy floor rang out through the corridor. I love my little sister Stella, Andrealphus muttered as he went. I love my little sister Stella. He’d already burned through the mantra approximately a hundred times in the past hour.
His morning had started well, for once. He’d arisen energized, the memory of the trial coursing through his veins. One century. Andrealphus usually prayed there was no afterlife. He detested the image of his parents looking down and seeing the mess he’d made of things. Sometimes, he’d wasted entire mornings dwelling on the idea, digging his talons into his palms until they bled. But they’d won, hadn’t they? For ninety-nine and a half glorious years (and maybe more, if he played his cards right), he could walk with his head held high and his hands ungloved.
They’d celebrated, in the beginning. At least, Stella had.
“Come on Andy! Loosen up for once,” she’d said. It was a few days after the trial, and the ice had only just begun to settle into the building’s foundations. They’d stood a few steps removed from the crowd filling the ballroom. Andrealphus raised his voice to be heard over the chatter.
“Just promise me you’ll talk to Ipos?” he said. “We need allies, now more than ever, and it’s important we set up a supply-”
“Oh piss off, can’t the scheming wait for a day?” Stella downed one of the champagne flutes clutched in her talons. Her smile glittered as it bounced off the crystal of the glass. He’d never seen her smile like that when she was chained to Stolas. And that was what this was all about, wasn’t it? So he’d taken a conciliatory sip of his wine and watched the throng envelop her.
Their days fell into a well-trodden rhythm. Andrealphus would rise in Stolas’ bed, have an indulgent bath, and network at whatever party Stella was throwing that day. Life was good. Life was so fulfilling, in fact, that he began to dedicate more and more time to pampering himself in the mornings, laying in the water of Stolas’ tub until it was cold and his feathers were sodden.
As Stella progressed from throwing balls to festivals to outright benders, he spent progressively less time attending to them, or anything outside the threshold of his room. When she stormed into the dining room that morning, shrieking about that miserable bastard Paimon and how they didn’t have a bloody cent left, Andrealphus hadn’t been surprised.
He forced his balled-up talons to unclench. He’d spent a lifetime picking up after Stella’s messes, and this would be no different. By the time Andrealphus rounded the corner, his strides had fallen back into a confident strut. It collapsed as soon as he took in the tableau before him.
For a moment, Andrealphus stood bolted to the floor while his brain spun in useless circles. Stella stood leaning against a wall, a teacup gracelessly clutched in one fist. Her other hand was engaged in mixing out a small flask of what looked horribly like absinthe. An unseemly brown stain trailed down the front of her dress.
Andrealphus practically dashed across the room to her once he composed himself. Stella, completely absorbed, didn’t notice him until he was snatching the thin green vial out of her hands. He sniffed the bottle- definitely alcohol.
“Where is Paimon, Stella? It was your job to host him,” he hissed. “And what in Lucifer’s name are you doing? What happened to your dress?”
“He’s boring. What did you do to your clothes? You look like mum,” Stella replied. She regarded his outfit like it was growing mold.
Andrealphus’ preparations had included tucking away the fabric surrounding his chest and hips, letting the feathers beneath poke through. He’d tightened the lace at the back of his robe, too, drawing the string taught until his breaths came out short and only a thin veneer of plausible deniability lay between the soft material and his skin. They were simple adjustments, really. His clothes had been designed with such measures in mind.
“My attire is irrelevant. Is Paimon still with us?”
Stella shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably?”
Andrealphus twisted fistfuls of gown at his sides. “Probably?”
“Well, I spilled tea on myself, so I left to tidy up. You stole my bathroom, though, and I accidentally brought my cup with me so I thought, if I have to entertain this old bastard, I might as well have a little fun with it. Honestly, he’s even worse than Stolas sometimes.”
“Stella. You do understand that we are reliant on his support to keep the estate, yes?”
It was a rhetorical question. Apparently, whatever Stolas did when he wasn’t getting railed by peasants had little monetary value. Lucifer knew Stella didn’t produce anything. The entire estate was dependent on an allowance from Paimon, typically distributed during quarterly meetings with the man. It would have been nice to learn this before the morning of said meeting, but that was Stella for you.
The mug rattled as Stella’s talons curled around its base. “Well, I can’t talk to him. You fix it.”
“I intend to. Just stay away, alright? Go tidy your bathroom, or something. I’m going to go in there and butter him up.”
Stella’s beak crunched from side to side like she was physically chewing on the words. She’d never been particularly skilled at idioms. Andrealphus sighed. “I mean I’m going to sleep with him, Stella.”
She scowled. “Is that why you’re dressed like mum?”
Andrealphus loved Stella. She was boisterous and gorgeous and overflowing with enough life for the both of them. More than that, she was family, and family was unconditional. On some days, it was harder to remember that. “Please just run along,” he said.
“Whatever you say, mother.” With the last word firmly in her possession, she spun around and stomped down the corridor.
Andrealphus allowed himself an indulgent moment to pinch his fingers against the curve of his beak as he watched Stella leave. It did little to ease the pressure building inside his skull. The sitting room was only a few doors down. All he could do was hope Paimon hadn’t heard the argument.
As Andrealphus resumed his stride down the hallway, he curled a hand around the feathers of his hip and began to sway.
Swing your waist like a metronome, Andrealphus. Left then right. Yes, just like that, find a rhythm. Raise your hips higher, dear. Mother had given him plenty of instruction on the subject, as he came of age and she discovered the pictures of shirtless men he’d torn from their library’s books. If you’re not going to produce an heir, you’ll help the family in other ways, she’d said. And he had. Stella was always creating problems Andrealphus couldn’t solve with words alone.
As he neared the archway of the sitting room, Andrealphus plastered an inviting smile across his face. Intimacy had a way of scooping the hardness out of people, loosening lips and sweetening suggestions. In his experience, everyone just wanted to be held, one way or another.
The sitting room was cold. Vines of ice coiled along its walls, leaving glittering slicks of condensation in their wake. Icicles hung in tandem with the hideous chandeliers Stolas had selected on the ceiling. It had been half a year, and his presence still lingered like some sort of depressed ghost. The observation felt particularly relevant given the man seated across from him.
Paimon sat at the end of a round table designed to host dozens of guests. As Andrealphus entered, Paimon’s eyes flicked over his form, and, finding nothing of interest, returned to gazing off into the distance.
“Andrealphus. So kind of you to join me. I was beginning to fear your sister had left me to rot,” he said. His voice was, as always, bored. Andrealphus had seen Paimon very little and seen him emote even less. On the day of Stella’s wedding, Paimon hadn’t even stood, just staring blankly ahead and half-heartedly clapping along. Even sitting down, his shadow had stretched over the attendees behind.
You see that, Andy? That’s a real king, right there. Paimon Goeitia. Andrealphus still remembered the way his father’s clammy talon had wrapped around his shoulder, the stench of catered booze on his lips. That could be Stella someday. Maybe it could even be you.
“Apologies, my lord. I hope Stella was pleasant company.” Andrealphus curtsied as he spoke, lowering his beak until he could make out individual grains of rime on the floor. He lifted his waist ever so slightly as he went.
When he righted himself, Paimon’s eyes were narrowed. The weight of his full attention rested heavy in Andrealphus’ gut. “She was company,” Paimon replied.
“She is delightful, isn’t she? The three of us have had such fun over the years.” Andreaphus studied Paimon’s form as he lied. Hints of muscle traced the outlines of Paimon’s grandiose robes. Andrealphus resolved to praise him for that, later.
“The three of you?”
“Stella and Stolas, and I, my lord. Our little family unit.”
Paimon hummed. “I assume this was before you evicted my son from the estate?” Without moving an inch, Paimon seemed to have swelled in size at the head of the table. Andrealphus fought the childish urge to fidget from side to side.
“I-It was awful, wasn’t it?” Andrealphus stammered. “To think that he’d been misusing the grimoire for so long. Octavia was absolutely heartbroken, the poor girl.”
Paimon grimaced at the empty teacup cast in front of him. “Is that why you moved into my property? To comfort her?”
My property. For the first time, Andrealphus began to question the wisdom of his plan. His robe, practically a corset at this point, dug painfully into his waist. He’d given Paimon a good show bending down earlier, but there wasn’t a trace of arousal in his hard eyes. Just the deep red of a slowly burning flame, and the creeping sensation that he was in over his head.
Still, the original truth of his approach remained. Andrealphus had nothing else to give Paimon, and everything to lose. Slowly, he began to draw a finger along the rim of the table. “Of course, my lord. I do so appreciate your willingness to travel all this way to discuss the estate with us. These conversations can be quite exhausting, don’t you agree?”
Paimon blinked slowly and Andrealphus plowed on, willfully ignoring the sensation that he was marching towards the edge of an open cliff. “Perhaps we might adjourn to my chambers? Just the two of us,” he said, injecting the slightest touch of huskiness into his voice.
“And why would we do that?” Paimon’s eyes bored into Andrealphus. His teacup lay forgotten in front of him, a meager trinket on the altar of an increasingly wrathful god.
“It would be nice to get to know each other a bit more intimately, don’t you think? Away from this stuffy place.” Andrealphus’ hands twitched as he attempted to toy with the open neck of his robe.
“Fascinating, Andrealphus. Stuffy. And here I thought it was frigid, given how you managed to cover the entire room in ice.”
“F-forgive me, my lord. I forget that not everyone is as accustomed to these temperatures. Perhaps I might make it up to you?” Andrealphus’ voice sounded horribly like he was about to cry.
“Ah, you’re used to the cold. Is that why you're dressed like some kind of streetwalker?”
Something bubbled at the edge of Andrealphus’ vision, hot and heavy with the weight of a lifetime’s expectations. He needed to pivot, to salvage this situation somehow, but he stood frozen, eyes locked onto the floor and talons curling deep into the flesh of his palms. The pain was a million miles away.
“Do you know how many people want something from me every day, Andrealphus?” Paimon stood and the room seemed to wobble in response. It might have just been Andrealphus’ head, which felt increasingly loose on his shoulders.
“Do you think you’re the first to offer your body as payment?” He felt Paimon come to a stop next to him. “Look at me, child.”
Child. Andrealphus didn’t refute the moniker. He was thirty-odd years old, and what did he have to show for it? A body count a mile long, an increasingly dysfunctional relationship with the only actual connection in his life, and half a year in a mansion that had never been his.
Paimon’s body swallowed the light above Andrealphus, and a firm talon fell upon his shoulder. “Do you know how many of them are younger than you, Andrealphus? How many of them are infinitely more appealing?”
Something went loose inside Andrealphus. He could feel his insides melt out of shape, pooling hot and gooey in his chest.
“You are worthless to me. Remember that,” Paimon spat. “Retrieve your sister.” And that was that.
Andrealphus had spent his whole life learning to manage disappointment. He kept his composure as he strutted out of the room, down the empty hall, and into the nearest guest bedroom. The underside of his beak wobbled as he tugged the shades shut, but he didn’t let himself go until he was flinging himself onto the mattress.
He cried quietly. Tears and makeup ran in ugly streaks down his face, but the response felt automatic, his body rushing to make up for the impropriety of his emotions. “I need you to take care of Stella, Andy,” echoed his father’s gruff voice. “Promise me that much.”
Without Paimon’s support, they would become insolvent, if they weren’t already. Stella might be able to buy them time, given appropriate instructions, but Andrealphus couldn’t make himself move. He lay on the bed, lost in a tangle of ill-fitting robes and discontent. He felt tired. Not sad, or defiant, or afraid, or angry, or anything remotely useful. Just tired.
Andrealphus found himself thinking, far from the first time, about the wedding. Stolas was a tedious, sniveling wretch of a man, someone who’d been given everything and spent it all on nothing. Sometimes he woke to the sensation of the air being forced from his lungs, still feeling the statue flatten him months later. Andrealphus didn’t- and never would- regret what he’d done to Stolas.
None of that changed the fact that he should’ve been the one to marry him. He knew he would’ve done a better job than Stella. If he’d just been born the correct gender, they wouldn’t be in this mess. Andrealphus would’ve been the one walking up to the altar, holding parties, nursing Octavia, retreating after long days of politics to the same bed, eyes gently locked, Andrealphus’ breath quickening as Stolas reached around his waist and-
The bed smelled of him. Every wretched bed in the mansion seemed to smell of him, herbs and deep, murky oceans and the slightest tinge of ozone. The room’s air quivered as Andrealphus lay still, the only sounds his quiet breaths. Slowly, Andrealphus reached for the lace tying the back of his robe. It’d been weeks since he’d gotten release, and even longer since it had come in his bed. Intimacy is a tool, whispered his mother’s voice.
The cloth of his robe clung tightly to his neck. He deserved this. Needed it, even. Once he took care of the fluttering warmth in his chest, he’d be rejuvenated, ready to salvage things.
It wouldn’t take long.
The fabric of his robe clung to his skin as he shucked it off. He flopped on the mattress to do it, writhing like a stranded fish. Someone else should’ve been here to disrobe him, to save him from the indignity of having to do everything himself. Andrealphus closed his eyes. He tried to picture Stolas running slender hands down his chest, beneath the folds of his clothes. You did wonderful today, Andy, Stolas would say. I’m proud of you.
Andrealphus leaned into the imaginary touch as he dragged the cloth down his bare midsection. His thighs trembled as it went. I’m so happy we got married, Andy dear. I love you so much.
With a final kick, the priceless one-piece robe drifted to the room’s floor. In the dim light afforded by the closed shutters, his feathers shined. Kiss me, Andy.
Andrealphus’ hands practically vibrated as they reached down to his glistening entrance. As he slid in a finger, the need in his chest thickened, filling his lungs until his breaths came out thin and shallow. Stolas’ voice changed with it, growing darker, harder. I want to see my daughter, Andy,
There was nothing tender about his touch. His fingers thrusted, plunging in and out, chasing the fever filling his core. Do you think you’re the first to offer your body as payment, Andy?
Quietly, he whined. You are worthless to me. Worthless. Worthless worthless worthless, you stupid FUCKING bird. Strands of pre trailed from his fingers, dripping down to paint the feathers beneath. The sensation was indescribable. WORTHLESS. Andrealphus was so absorbed in the feeling of wet heat that he didn’t sense the door swinging open until it was much too late.
“Andrealphus, where is your wretched sister? I tire-,” Paimon strode into the room, and the world froze. Andrealphus couldn’t even hear the sound of his own heart. He lay suspended, one hand gripping sheets while the other lay knuckle-deep inside him, every fiber of his being focused on the man in front of him.
Paimon’s eyes swelled in their sockets. Andrealphus had the strange sensation that Paimon was seeing him for the first time. Some small, buried part of him relished the reaction.
Before Andrealphus could do more than utter a low croak, Paimon snapped back into motion. With a flick of the wrist, he shut the door. The soft click of the lock sliding into place, the first sound since Paimon had entered, echoed through the still air. When Paimon turned back to him, his arms were crossed, and his eyes gleamed. For the second time that day, Andrealphus noted the way his muscles rippled.
“Go on. Don’t stop on my account,” Paimon said. Some sharp emotion played at the edge of his widening smile.
Andrealphus’ limbs jerked, torn between a desire to cover himself and to run until Pride was a twinkling red speck in the distance. “My lord-”
“I said, go on.” It was a command this time.
Andrealphus swallowed, excruciatingly aware of the way his tears had carved troughs of makeup down his face. “O-of course, my lord.” He was still wet; his fingers slid between his thighs easily. Across the room, his crumpled robe lay at Paimon’s feet.
“Slow down,” Paimon chided.
Andrealphus flushed with indignation, but he relaxed his muscles, determined to hold onto the second chance fate had thrust into his lap. “Of course, my lord. Thank you for gracing me with your presence, my l-lord.” His voice hitched on the last syllable. He was already aroused again, and the beginnings of his orgasm mixed with the burning heat in his cheeks. “I-is there anything I can do for you, m-my lord?”
“You’re making a mess of this,” Paimon replied.
Who the fuck was this man to tell him how to touch himself? Andrealphus let himself break eye contact as he dragged his fingers over waves of achingly sensitive flesh. He was already humiliatingly close.
The orgasm never came. One moment, Andrealphus was teetering on the brink. The next, his hands were wrested above his head and Paimon was pressing his hips into the soft sheets. All Andrealphus could see from his new position was the pale crest of Paimon’s face looming over his, eyes deep and red and suddenly impossibly hungry.
“I’ve lived for longer than you can imagine, little bird.” Paimon’s breath burned as it pressed onto Andrealphus’ neck. “Pleasure, like everything, is about discipline, and patience. Qualities you clearly lack.” The hand pressed against Andrealphus’ midsection slowly began to slide downward. “Observe.”
Andrealphus had received many massages in his life, ranging from the passionless ministrations of servants to the clumsy groping of one-night lovers. Paimon’s touch was similar, at first. Pressure seeped through the skin of his chest, then his waist, until Paimon’s fingers were gliding the edge of his cloaca. A single digit began to swirl around his circumference and Andrealphus moved with it, grinding his hips into the touch.
“My lord,” he cried, “I’m so honored to-”
Something sharp dug into him. “Stop squawking,” said Paimon. The tip of Paimon’s talon wasn’t embedded enough to pierce skin, but Andrealphus whined at the spiking sensation all the same. “T-thank you, my lord,” he wheezed.
Other fingers joined the first, digging into his cloaca’s borders, a little here, a little there, never enough to give release or stifle his steadily growing arousal. Andrealphus screwed his eyes shut.
“Tell me how this feels,” Paimon said.
It felt like he was thrusting into himself with nettles wrapped around his fingers. Horrible. Amazing. “It feels glorious, my lord,” he choked. “I’m honored to be touched by someone as magnificent as-”
The next stabbing pain hurt so much Andrealphus was sure Paimon had drawn blood. He sobbed.
Andrealphus felt rather than saw Paimon lean in, breath splaying flat against his beak. The border of what felt like a thumb stalled on the edge of his cloaca. “Tell. Me. How. It. Feels. Enough supplication.”
Enough supplication. Something about the words struck a chord in Andrealphus’ chest. When he opened his eyes, Paimon swam in and out of his vision, his dark feathers popping and receding in the dimly lit room. When Andrealphus spoke, he had to force the words out of his throat. “H-hurts.”
“Good. Would you like me to stop?”
“No,” he whispered. His muscles coiled, straining against the growing urge to rock into Paimon’s touch.
“And why’s that?”
“I-I want it.”
Claws dug into the flesh of his thigh and he moaned, low and desperate. “Want is not a very meaningful word, is it? I seem to recall you wanting a lot of things today.”
“I need it, my lord.” Paimon’s finger remained perched on Andrealphus’ throbbing cloaca. “Sir? Paimon? Master? What should I call you? I’ll do it, I fucking swear I’ll do it, just please, please pleaseplease don’t stop.” Andrealphus’ last words came out ragged, his voice cracking with the rest of him.
Paimon hummed. “‘My lord’ is acceptable.” Andrealphus had time to register the hand holding his wrists surging upwards before the world burned.
There was no humiliation, no thoughts of how Andrealphus could spin this to his advantage- he wasn’t even aware of the room. The only things that existed were his uselessly flailing hips, the white-hot void, and the man inside him. Paimon’s fingers traveled like incandescent flames through him, up his hips and down his toes, piercing directly through his core. It took Andrealphus seconds and it took him years to cum. His body seized, and a high-pitched moan filled the air.
As the color bled back into the room and the heat diminished enough for him to feel soft sheets underneath, Andrealphus recognized the sound of his voice.
Paimon was still clutching his wrists. He sat on the bedside, head tilting downward at Andrealphus. For an insane moment, Andrealphus had an inexplicable urge to cup the other man’s face, bracing his palm against those rows of dark, shining feathers.
“Lick.” Paimon raised a claw as he spoke.
When Andrealphus conducted business, he went out of his way to fake orgasms. Release made fools out of the sharpest of men. It took him far too long to reconcile the way Paimon’s hand glistened, and the thick scent of arousal, with what had just happened.
Paimon squinted. “No?” he asked. Andrealphus lay frozen, all thoughts of social climbing lost to his refractory period and the depraved image of licking his cum off his uncle’s hand.
The grip on his wrists vanished. Andrealphus immediately missed it. “Well! That was amusing. I’m off to find your sister.” Paimon’s stride was breezy as he crossed towards the room’s door. By the time Andrealphus remembered how to operate his throat, Paimon’s hand was on the doorknob.
“W-wait!” he cried. His voice was childish and plaintive and nothing like him.
Paimon turned as slowly as a statue. “Yes, Andrealphus?” He didn’t even try to hide the smug grin creeping across his face.
“Stay?”
“Well, I can’t, can I? I have to sort out your allowance with Stella. Isn’t that why you wanted to bed me in the first place, little bird?”
Andrealphus felt hideously small, curled up alone on the bed, his seed leaking out onto his feathers. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“And why’s that? What else could you possibly get out of this?”
Andrealphus forced himself to choose his next words carefully. He could feel the situation sliding away from him, shifting from his original goal to something far more dangerous.
I haven’t cum in months, Andrealphus wanted to say. It’s only been a few minutes and I’m still so fucking horny.
I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed somebody touching me.
I think I’m hollow; if you pushed me too hard I would shatter into sharp little pieces, like one of Stella’s dolls.
“You didn’t want me to praise you,” Andrealphus said meekly. It was the only idea he could pull intact from the tangle of his thoughts. “I liked that.”Andrealphus stared at the floor as he spoke.
He wondered what Stella was doing right now. The mansion was so large that they sometimes went entire days without seeing each other, a state of affairs which had only intensified as Andrealphus had stopped leaving his room less. What would she think if she stumbled upon him now? It was strange how proximity had seemed to draw them apart.
“You’re incorrect.” Paimon’s voice lifted Andrealphus from his thoughts. “I do want you to praise me. I just expect you to do it properly.” Paimon smiled. “Think you’re up to the task, little bird?” With his stained hand, he curled a beckoning finger.
Tell. Me. How. It. Feels. Enough supplication. Heart juddering in his throat, Andrealphus nodded. He was swinging his legs over the side of the bed when Paimon tutted.
“No. Show me you need this. Crawl.”
It was a preposterous suggestion. Andrealphus was a marquis, for fuck’s sake. People dedicated their lives to serving people like him. He mattered.
Andrealphus knew he should storm out of the room, leaving Paimon astray in the doorway with seed staining his hands. It would be so easy to retreat to his bedroom, surrender to the care of people paid to care about him until the funds ran fully dry, then crawl back into his original, smaller palace, the one he never should’ve left, and curl himself up under familiar satin blankets and dream about what could’ve been.
Instead, Andrealphus lowered himself to the floor. He got down on his knees slowly, like his bones were made of glass. The floor was dirty; it’d been a long time since they’d had guests over. Flecks of dust, and the rare stray feather mixed with his train as he began to crawl.
Paimon’s eyes tracked him all the way. Andrealphus was acutely aware of all his imperfections: the feathers on the nape of his neck he could never quite style correctly, the way his skin rested just a tad too tightly on his hips, the knobbly shape of his joints.
“Your form is uninspiring, but I suppose that’s to be expected. We can work on raising those hips of yours later,” Paimon said. The word later sent a rush of panic and lust gushing through Andrealphus’ veins. He trembled lightly as Paimon ran a hand down the side of his face. “Ready, little bird?”
Andrealphus screwed his eyes shut and opened his beak. He’d never liked the taste of cum. It was sticky and salty and irritated his throat as it slid down. He dutifully lapped his tongue over Paimon’s hand, warm and dry and surprisingly comfortable in his mouth, anyway, spurred on by years of experience swallowing his pride and other men’s seed. When the only thing left on Paimon’s hand was his saliva, Andrealphus pulled back, making a show of swallowing deeply.
“Was that really so bad?” Paimon asked, inspecting Andrealphus’ handiwork.
Andrealphus opened his beak, then shut it. Enough supplication. “I’ve never liked the taste.”
Paimon smiled. “We’ll have to feed you something else then, won’t we? Disrobe me.”
Finally, something he was good at. Andrealphus reached for the seam of Paimon’s trousers, only to have his hands lightly batted away.
“Keep those sharp little talons on the floor where I can see them,” Paimon said.
Andrealphus flushed but placed his hands on the floor. After everything else he’d done this afternoon, undoing a button with his beak was just a drop in the bucket. He arched his back, knees on the ground, as he pressed into Paimon’s hips and began to work. The taste of copper buttons mixed with the salty aftertaste still coating his tongue.
Paimon began to stroke the back of his neck. “So obedient. So good. This position suits you, little bird,” he said. Andrealphus could feel him tugging fistfuls of feathers, pulling on them like he was trying to calculate how much force he could apply without ripping them off. “No talking, no silly little attempts at manipulation.”
It took every ounce of willpower Andrealphus possessed to keep his hands on the ground before him. Paimon smelled wonderful, chalk and pines mixing with the increasingly overpowering scent of arousal filling the room. He could feel it washing over him, filling him up until all his insecurities and doubts and uncollected thoughts spilled vaporous into the surrounding air and his awareness shrank to him, Paimon’s feathers, and the button between his jaws.
When it finally came undone, Andrealphus eagerly bit into the fabric of Paimon’s trousers. They came down easily. It was nice to just be good at something simple for once.
Andrealphus was rewarded for his efforts with the sight of Paimon’s thighs. His feathers shone, glossy and effortlessly lustrous in a way Andrealphus knew no care products could replicate. Paimon’s glistened invitingly at the level of Andrealphus’ head. He inhaled deeply, trying to breathe in as much of Paimon’s arousal as his lungs could hold.
“Good bird. Let’s get you that treat, hmm?” Paimon said, roughly patting him on the head. Andrealphus struggled to understand what happened next. One of Paimon’s hands stayed planted on his head. The other, which Andrealphus could barely see by craning his neck upwards, seemed to be weaving through trails of murky fluid.
“You look surprisingly cute, you know. Staring up at me like that,” Paimon remarked. His words were the first thing to pierce through the weighted blanket which seemed to have settled on Andrealphus’ thoughts since he’d started picking at the button.
“I-cute?” Andrealphus stammered. He’d been called many things by lovers: gorgeous, beautiful, pretty, appealing, desirable… That irritating parrot Vassago had even called him hot once before Andrealphus had burned that particular bridge. But cute? Never.
“Cute.” Pinpricks of light glittered as Paimon weaved the speckled fluid. “Like a pet or some kind of small animal. Something that needs protection.” Andrealphus’ cheeks and chest blazed. He didn’t know how to feel about the implication that he needed protection, or that he might deserve it.
Paimon brought the increasingly cylindrical clump of fluid to his waist. He’s holding stars, Andrealphus realized. They freely tumbled throughout the inky fluid swirling around Paimon’s hand and, for a fleeting moment, Andrealphus caught a glimpse of distinctly Stolas-like wonder passing across Paimon’s face.
Gathering the universe in his free hand, Paimon curled his talons and began to stroke. Andrealphus wrinkled his eyes in confusion. Paimon seemed for all the world to be pleasuring the air in front of him. He grunted as he caressed empty space, claws flexing slightly as he- oh.
The inky substance gradually coalesced, following the path of Paimon’s hands until Andrealphus’ beak was inches away from the increasingly corporeal outline of Paimon’s cock. He couldn’t tell where its surface ended and the rest of Paimons’ frustratingly perfect body began.
“Like what you see?” Paimon asked.
It was humongous. Little galaxies swirled along its quivering length as Andrealphus stared at it. He hadn’t had time to stretch out this morning, but he doubted it would’ve mattered. None of the toys in his collection came close to Paimon’s size.
The hand on his head shifted to the back of his neck. By the time Andrealphus’ throat started working, he was already sliding across the floor towards Paimon.
“M-may we do this somewhere else? My lord,” he stammered. The warm feeling from earlier was gone, replaced by an acute awareness of himself, naked and kneeling in a pool of his slick.
The grip on his neck stalled but remained firm. “Does it matter where I take you, little bird?”
“It’s Stella. I don’t… I’d rather she didn’t walk in on this. Especially if it gets loud.” If it gets loud. As if Paimon hadn’t had him shrieking like a banshee earlier.
Paimon gazed down at him, seeming to see the pitiful excuse for what it was. “She really isn’t aware of you doing this?”
I mean I’m going to sleep with him, Stella, he’d said. Stella was perfectly aware of what he was.
That hadn’t bothered him in the morning, but that had been before he’d crawled to Paimon’s knees and lapped himself from the palm of his hand. Something had changed. Andrealphus might not be able to define it, but it made his stomach curdle at the thought of Stella seeing him all the same.
“She doesn’t need to know the details.” Andrealphus stared at his knees as he spoke.
Mercifully, Paimon accepted his answer with a sigh. “I suppose you’ve earned one request,” he muttered. Paimon snapped his fingers, and Andrealphus felt his entire world come apart.
*****************************
Time was a funny thing. If it weren’t for the passage of the sun, or the wrinkles slowly etching their way across his face, it might as well not exist. When Andrealphus was lying in the bath, eyes shut, head against the railing, and body suspended in the water, it didn’t. He existed in a liminal space, where Stella wasn’t married and his parents were still alive and he still had things left to like about himself.
Andrealphus wasn’t immortal. Proximity to the Goeitia bloodline gave him some degree of longevity, but, eventually, he would slip away. Sometimes Andrealphus lamented how he wouldn’t be able to spend eternity scheming and seducing, spinning endless wheels to cart him and Stella forwards. Other times, when he was lying in the bath he’d stolen, a guest with nothing left to say, he welcomed the idea.
His surroundings had all the darkness he’d come to associate with those long hours in the bath, but none of their comforting stillness. He had the impression of tumbling across a screaming void, the universe intermingling with each of his cells as it passed through him. There was no light, or he had no eyes to see it with. Whatever the sensation was, it was short-lived. As quickly as Andrealphus had begun to move, he was still once more.
At first, there was only an understanding of his existence. Awareness of his breathing, hard and ragged against the ground, came next. It took effort to reconstruct himself from the tangle of sensory feedback, to connect his arms to his wrists to his chest, and separate left from right, up from down. Gradually, his surroundings came into focus.
The room was plain. It contained dressers, a massive bed covered in clean white sheets, and a sweeping window letting in bright red light as it cut across the room’s wall. There was an almost aggressive lack of personal touches or respectable furnishings. It was the kind of room he envisioned Stolas and his lover living in. Its only distinguishing feature was the man sitting on the bed.
“I was beginning to fear I’d have to revive you,” Paimon said. At some point, while Andrealphus was unconscious, he’d removed his clothes. It took physical effort for Andrealphus to pry his eyes away from Paimon’s broad chest, and succeeding just led his eyes downward, to the erection nestled between his wide legs.
“What is this hovel?” he asked. The room’s air was unpleasantly hot against his skin. Andrealphus never felt comfortable anywhere which wasn’t coated in or actively growing frost. Stella, for all her faults, had never once complained about it.
“This is my bedroom. When you live forever, you begin to develop a certain… appreciation for minimalism.” Paimon sounded almost wistful.
Andrealphus wiped his hand across his brow, and felt it come away covered in a soft sheen of sweat. “Immortality not all it’s cracked up to be?” he asked. It was a foolish thing to say, but the room’s heat was getting to him.
For a moment, Paimon just stared at him. Andrealphus could faintly hear birds chirping in the distance. Leisurely, Paimon rose. “I forgot how tedious the sound of your voice was,” he said. The ground shook lightly under his feet as he approached.
A glance around him confirmed that Andrealphus’ clothes hadn’t made the journey with him. Nobody knew he was here, and nothing lay between him and Paimon, who was easily capable of tearing him in twain with a flick of the wrist. Instinctively, Andrealphus began to shuffle backward.
Paimon squatted down in front of him. “You seem tense. Is that an accurate assessment, little bird?” He reeked of ozone and arousal. Andrealphus’ feathers puffed.
“You teleported me naked into your home. Surely you can allow me some trepidation,” he said.
“Listen.” A heavy, clawed hand fell on his shoulder. “If I wished you ill, you would be dead, your staff would be giving witness statements on Stella’s role in your murder, and mine would be drafting up documents to turn over Satan’s verdict on the property.”
“Th-that isn’t very comforting, my lord,” Andrealphus stammered.
Paimon lurched back up to his full height, arms crossed. His cock, which seemed permanently glued at full mast, slapped lightly against his cheek as it went. “Tell you what, little bird. I’m going to stuff this-” He stroked himself, slow and indulgent. Something in Andrealphus’ chest threatened to pop. “-into you. But, if it’s too much, just strike me! Hard as you like.”
“You want me to harm you?” Paimon took a step towards Andrealphus. His eyes strained at the edges of his sockets, engorged with hunger and desire.
“Believe me, little bird. There’s very, very little you could do to harm me.” When Paimon cupped Andrealphus’ chin in his hand, his touch was surprisingly gentle. “I just want you to alert me before I break you. Do you think you can do that?”
Andrealphus gazed into Paimon’s eyes. He recognized the consent check for what it was, and he had no illusions about Paimon being gentle. Intimacy is a tool, his mother had said, so many times, but it was a tool he had mismanaged. Paimon had said nothing about granting the allowance, and Andrealphus had barely even tried to sway him. When this finished, he was going to return to a bed that hadn’t and soon wouldn’t be his.
He would return to miserable days spent in bathwater and sleepless nights under blankets, endless transactional sex and steadily fraying relationships. Sometimes, when Andrealphus looked into the mirror, he didn’t recognize what lay on the other side.
Paimon’s hand felt warm under his chin. Maybe, for once, that could be good enough. Andrealphus arched his back and cupped Paimon’s hand with one of his own. He smiled. “I suppose that sounds permissible.”
Paimon actually laughed at that. The sound was surprisingly musical, coming from such a large man. “Such a haughty thing. You know, I’m not sure if I like you more like this, or this.”
There was no time for Andrealphus to react. One moment, Paimon’s thumb was tracing circles along the underside of his beak. The next, his jaws were being pried open, and Paimon was entering him with all the tenderness of a jackhammer.
Andrealphus was certain his jaw was going to snap off. There was just so much of Paimon. His cock, not even hilted, pushed against the back of his throat. Andrealphus’ tongue slapped at Paimon’s base from its pinned position at the floor of his mouth, simultaneously panicking and trying to experience as much of the man as possible. Paimon tasted of sweat and musk and airy heat.
“Deep breaths, little bird. We both know you’ve done this before,” Paimon said. He wrapped his arms around Andrealphus’ shoulders, and Andrealphus leaned into the touch.
He had done this before, and even if all the blowjobs he’d given over the years never got him anywhere, he’d be damned if he didn’t put on a show now. Andrealphus breathed long and deep through his nostrils. Slowly, he began to move his tongue with purpose, lapping along Paimon’s length.
“Much better.” Paimon began to slowly thrust, his hips rolling in long undulations that shook Andrealphus’ frame. Andrealphus kept licking, heedless of the inexplicable bruises this was doubtless going to leave. Something to remember him by. He was getting into rhythm now, moving with Paimon’s hips, exploring every inch of his curves as his hands dragged across his waist.
Paimon let out a long, pleasured sigh. “Such a good slut,” he moaned. Andrealphus gripped the feathers of Paimon’s hips in response, gripping them as Paimon accelerated. His head dimmed, conscious thought drifting down, down, down as he began to lick faster, desperate, matching Paimon’s increasingly punishing pace, everything hot and throbbing faster, faster in his mouth, strings of saliva mixing with his cunt throbbing on the floor, making wet, sloppy gasps as he bottomed out into Paimon’s hips, over and over as-
Paimon pulled away. His breaths came out in hoarse gasps as he held Andrealphus by his head feathers. Some distant part of Andrealphus glowed with pride. Sensations of his body, and all the thoughts that came with it, were far away, dislodged by Paimon’s thrusts. He watched as something resembling composure reasserted itself on Paimon’s face. “Just full of surprises, aren’t you?” he said.
Andrealphus barely registered Paimon pacing around him. He was only aware of the dull ache in his throat, and the cloud-like buzzing sensation resting atop his skin. He might’ve spent eternity swaying side to side on Paimon’s carpet if it weren’t for the sharp sting at the base of his hips.
“I knew these were good for something,” Paimon muttered. It was the only warning Andrealphus received before Paimon wrapped his hand around Andrealphus’ train and began to walk.
Andrealphus squawked. The humiliation of being dragged by his tail feathers, and the way the carpet rubbed against his face as he slid across the floor brought him back to himself like a bucket of cold water. Paimon strode across the room and Andrealphus followed, leaving furrows and a scattered trail of pre on the rug as he went.
Bright red light danced across his feathers, and then Paimon was lifting, easy as a pillow, onto the windowsill. The glass, heated by the summertime sun, was warm and firm against his back.
“This is a window,” he said. There was something wrong about that, but his brain was too addled to grasp it. Something cool and slick pressed against his cloaca and he squirmed.
“Your brilliance never ceases to amaze me, little bird,” said Paimon.
Andrealphus continued to shift against the feeling of Andrealphus’ fingers spreading him open. “People can see through those.”
“On a roll, aren’t we?” Andrealphus gasped as Paimon flipped him to face the outside of the window, face squished against its surface. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt, but his bones and vision vibrated all the same.
There wasn’t a trace of civilization outside the window. Paimon’s entire mansion was surrounded by endless fields of rolling red. As his vision cleared, rows of tastefully arranged trees, and slowly moving smudges which he identified as imps came into focus.
“Your servants could see,” Andrealphus said. He whispered the words as if they might hear him from below.
“If the help look up, they will see my mansion. They will see the gates, the windows, the statues. They will see my property.” Andrealphus was flipped back like he weighed nothing more than the feathers on his skin. “While you’re here, that includes you. You see, little bird, I don’t particularly care about my son’s house,” Paimon continued.
Andrealphus whimpered as Paimon began to slide inside him. His eyes remained locked on Paimon’s as the universe began to shrink into those burning red eyes and the hot tangle of need and pain between his legs. Paimon sank deeper, far too fast and far too slow.
“I don’t think you care either, little bird. I haven’t given you a thing, and you’ve offered yourself up to me anyway.”
The two of them pressed together, Paimon’s hips coming to rest flush against his. Andrealphus’ shoulders pressed into the sweaty surface of Paimon’s chest. You’ve given me enough, he tried to say, but all that came out was a long, strangled moan. Andrealphus wondered if this was what love felt like. He’d never had reason to wonder.
“Let me tell you a secret,” Paimon said, his breath hot against Andrealphus’ face. Claws dug into Andrealphus’s hips as Paimon pulled back and began to thrust. “I don’t really care for this,” he continued.
The glass burned Andrealphus’ skin as his back spasmed against it. Paimon’s fullness took on physical weight inside him, expanding outward, bubbling up his throat. He let out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a low, keening sob.
“Do you know how many people I’ve bedded, little bird? You could build monuments with my lovers, rivers with my seed. There is not a single thing your body can offer me that I haven’t received a thousand times already.” Paimon was going quickly now, their hips jostling together with wet thuds. He was Paimon’s chariot, the plug to his socket, the key to his kite-
“But I never, ever tire of watching sluts like you write for me.” Paimon’s eyes bulged like they were about to pop out of his skull. Andrealphus registered liquid, warm and sticky, trickling down his hips where Paimons’ claws met flesh. The pain was excruciating and yet somehow the most important thing he’d ever felt. Better than the court case. Better than Stella’s wedding. Better than touching himself for the first time, a gangly teenager trembling under bed sheets.
“You wanted to be here. You chose this. Because you. Are. Mine.” Paimon rasped.
Andrealphus saw himself reflected in Paimon’s red eyes, blood and pre spilling down his thighs, broken feathers all along his chest, makeup smeared across his beak. He looked obscene. He looked real.
“I’m here,” he gasped, speaking through lungs filled with the breadth of his own need.
“I know, you beautiful, stupid bird,” Paimon gasped. “I know, I know. Fuck, I’m close.”
“I’m here. I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.” Andrealphus whispered until he couldn’t speak anymore, until the only language between them was the undulations of their bodies. Pain and pleasure and the sensation of meaning something, frothed hot in Andrealphus’ chest. Paimon came with a roar. They shuddered, the air drenched with sex and the slightest tinge of copper. Warmth and Paimon’s triumphant face followed Andrealphus into oblivion.
*******************************
Andrealphus woke up swathed in blankets. He moaned and rolled to the side. His whole body felt like one continuous bruise. Worse, the sheets had been prepared all wrong, tangling in lumpy clumps against his legs. One of the servants hadn’t done a proper job of fluffing them, and he’d be sure to make them pay handsomely.
“I hope you don’t expect us to cuddle.”
The voice came from his side. When Andrealphus turned, he saw Paimon reclining against the massive bed’s headboard. A stack of what looked like legal documents lay clutched between his claws.
The day’s events returned to Andrealphus in a wave, and he collapsed against the pillows with a groan. He flopped his head onto his neck to inspect the ruin of his waist. Walking was going to be difficult for the foreseeable future. “This is going to take weeks to clean out, you know,” he said.
Paimon chuckled. “No more ‘my lord’?”
“You seemed to have mixed impressions of the phrase.”
Paimon hummed and returned to perusing the documents.
Andrealphus stared at his clenched fists, black twigs against the sea of plain white laid out before him. The bed was drab, not at all befitting of a Goeitia, but it was comfortable. A cool breeze drifted in from the open window and brushed through his feathers. There wasn’t much space between him and Paimon- he could reach out and lay a hand on the other man’s knee if he wanted.
“You called me beautiful,” Andrealphus said. Even in the quiet room, his voice was barely audible.
Paimon set the documents at his side with a shrug. “I stand by everything I said. I am drowning in potential suitors, and many of them are more attractive than you. Not to mention brighter.” Andrealphus indignantly squawked, and Paimon chuckled. “They always want something, though,” he continued. “You just wanted me.”
Paimon’s voice was controlled, but Andrealphus had been playing the game long enough to identify vulnerability like a hawk scouting prey. This was his chance. All he had to do was lay down some praise, make Paimon feel wanted, and he’d be back on track to keep the house. A dozen potential flatteries gathered on his tongue, but when he began to speak, his voice was soft. “I didn’t mean for you to walk in on me. But I felt-” He stalled.
Paimon regarded him silently, head cocked slightly to one side. Andrealphus returned his gaze to his lap and let each word carry him to the next. “I’ve spent so long keeping up appearances that having you want me, after everything I said, everything you saw was… I don’t know.” The words wouldn’t come. Andrealphus had come to the verge of understanding something earlier, some divine truth about his existence finding him impaled on Paimon’s cock, but it was gone. Andrealphus strongly suspected he was never going to get it back. It’d been nice while it’d lasted, at least.
A talon wrapped gently around his own. “Have you considered being a concubine?” Paimon asked.
Andrealphus spluttered. “What?”
“Whatever you’re up to in that sad little castle of yours, it’s a waste of your talents. This was memorable, and I don’t say that lightly.”
“What are you proposing?” He fought to keep the image of himself captured in Paimons’ red eyes, exposed, defaced, content, out of his voice.
“Exactly what I just said. Be mine. I have plenty of rooms in the castle, and you’d be well-compensated.” Paimon’s talon tightened around his, almost, but not quite, stinging. “Meet my needs, and let me meet yours.”
Needs. It was hardly the first time someone had begged him to stay, weaving together fantasies of lives together from their tangled bodies and the afterglow. None of them had made his heart hammer like this, though. “My sister,” Andrealphus said. “What of her?”
“Your sister is reprehensible.” Paimon’s response was instant. “Even worse, she's useless. I don’t bankroll individuals who have no value to me.”
Andrealphus’ fluttering heart began to still as a familiar, cold weight settled into his chest. “The trial was my idea, my lord. Stella didn’t have any part in it. Besides, it was only due process, your son-”
The talon wrapped around his own retracted. Andrealphus felt the space on the bed between them stretch into a chasm as Paimon spoke. “I don’t care about the trial, Andrealphus.”
“Then help us both. You have the resources for it,” Andrealphus said, voice thin with desperation. “I can’t just leave her behind.”
“Why are you clinging to her? What has she ever done for you?” Paimon spat.
Nights spent doing damage control between politician’s sheets. Endless frayed nerves. Broken bottles. Gossip over tea. Braying laughter waking him in the morning. Memories of walks in the park, of co-conspiring to cheat against their parents in darts, of picking out dresses for the wedding. Her smile refracted tenfold on icy walls. The sensation of looking into a dirty bathroom mirror and knowing whatever lay on the other side, buried in layers of muck and scratches, was part of him, one way or another.
“She’s my sister,” Andrealphus said. It was the only answer he’d ever had.
Paimon sighed. His gaze flickered between Andrealphus and the papers lying on the bed.
“You and Stella will receive the previously established allowance for this quarter,” Paimon said.
“What?” Andrealphus couldn’t have heard him right.
“For the next one, you’ll have to convince me. You know how,” Paimon continued. For the first time since Andrealphus had known him, he sounded weary. “Congratulations, Andrealphus. You got what you wanted.”
He had. So why didn’t he feel like it? “I want my clothes,” he said, voice trembling. He wanted so much more than clothes, but they were the only thing he could bring into words.
Paimon flicked his wrist, and Andrealphus felt stars wash over him. They tumbled across his naked form in a wave, shifting from black to blue until he was wearing an exact replica of the robe he’d greeted Paimon with that morning. It rested heavily on his frame. “Are you done?” Paimon asked.
“I thought you wanted me here.”
“I want you to make up your mind.”
Andrealphus wrapped his arms around his aching legs, pulling his body into a tight ball on the covers like some sort of sulking child. I want. I want. Some moments that defined your life- stretching forever outwards in all directions until everything lay touched by their shadow. Andrealphus knew he was in the thick of one now, but he was powerless to act on it, prisoner to the feverish boiling of his blood in his veins.
“What about when I’m old?” Andrealphus tried to speak with enough force to conceal the way his beak trembled. “How am I supposed to be your concubine when I’m decrepit and hideous? What will I be worth then?”
Some soft emotion, approaching the border of hurt and sympathy, emerged and was immediately crushed on Paimon’s face. “That’s for you to decide, isn’t it?”
Andrealphus’ legs shuddered underneath him as he swept them off the bed. Pain and the remnants of warmth curled across his spine. “This isn’t fair.”
“Correct.” Then Paimon was snapping his fingers, and Andrealphus was nothing once more.
**********************************************
Andrealphus identified the limits of his own body faster this time. As he picked himself off the floor of his house, a dull thrumming reverberated through his bones. By the time he was on his feet, the sound had coalesced into words.
“...the money? Where the fuck did you come from? Where did you go? Did he fuck you? Andrealphus?” Stella stood in their dining room, eyes livid, a bottle clutched in one hand. I don’t remember when she stopped calling me Andy. The thought crossed fleetingly through his mind.
The castle seemed to have shrunk in his absence. He stared, hands limp at his sides, at the sheets of glittering ice he’d meticulously layered and rows of self-portraits he’d commissioned. The colors seemed to have dimmed in his absence.
“Andrealphus! Answer me, for fuck’s sake!” Stella screeched. For the first time he could remember, her shrill voice dragged like nails down his spine.
“We’ll keep the castle,” he muttered.
Stella scowled, somehow unsatisfied with his answer. “What now, then?”
Andrealphus wanted to storm into his quarters, kick his feet up on the bed, and cry. He wanted to touch himself until there wasn’t a drop of fluid left in his body. He wanted to call Paimon and scream at him. He wanted to beg to see him again, soon.
“A bath will do me good,” he said weakly.
Somehow, he knew he’d do it all before the day’s end.