Chapter Twenty-Two

London, November 1880

Arthur’s invitation to Countess Winthrop’s annual masquerade had been rather exceptional that year. Under the usual scroll-work and feminine typeface enumerating the vague details of the event was a note engraved in a somewhat more lavish script:

Lady Petersham has prepared an exclusive gift for the Sultan in celebration of your marriage.

Lady Petersham. Lavinia Harwell, the Countess of Petersham. His wife.

Three months since their wedding day and he was still giddy.

He stood on the landing of Countess Winthrop’s dramatic entryway overlooking the grand lobby and surveyed the guests. A waft of floral perfume announced the presence of a masked odalisque at his side, her bounty barely shielded. She extended a slender and bejeweled arm and escorted him down stairs, through corridors, and beyond double doors to a lavishly decorated room. The dim glow of hanging braziers revealed an excess of velvet and embroidered pillows strewn on top of Persian carpets, and lengths of silken textiles draped tent-like from the ceiling. Two divans framed a darkened central space. A shadowy figure reclined on the divan on the right.

The odalisque bowed and departed, closing the door behind her.

The figure on the divan lit a lamp, then another, revealing himself to be dressed as a sultan as well, black bearded and masked, his bulk obscuring the slender sofa, his robe a deep blue to Arthur’s rich red.

A third lamp revealed a figure in the space between the divans.

A boy—or a youth rather, as he was too tall for boyhood—knelt on a pillow with his back to Arthur. He wore a crimson waistcoat and striped trousers, loose and baggy in the Eastern style, embroidered slippers, and a fez cap over his cloth mask. The blue sultan extended his arm in a gesture of presentation.

His wedding gift was an obeisant youth.

Arthur had never been the dominant with another man and he had only ever been with Joseph. Now he would play the aggressor.

The idea was far more arousing than he had ever thought it would be. His wife knew him too well.

He approached and the youth bowed his head, the act of submission sparking lust in his loins. On a low table sat a small lusterware jug, the sheen of the liquid therein proclaiming it to be oil. Arthur unfastened the frog closure of his robe then knelt down behind the boy.

He lay a palm on the youth’s shoulder and caressed his arm, the hairless flesh soft under his touch. Would his gift bear the sculpted muscles of an athlete? Or the supple form of one on the cusp of manhood? He preferred neither and wanted both. He would leave the vest to cover the boy’s torso until his passions needed the excitement of the unexplored.

Arthur reached for the jug and poured out a measure of oil. He smoothed the liquid over his erection, coating it, increasing his desire, breathing lewdly against the neck of the boy. The blue sultan shifted on the divan. Under his robe, he too was stroking himself.

It was a harem of a different sort. A night at a caravansary. Two sultans and their ferrash, a camp servant ready to do more than pitch their tent.

He snaked his arm around the youth to find the tie at his waist. He yanked the bow then slid the striped linen over the slender hips, revealing the temptation of rounded buttocks.

Arthur lay his hands on either side of the pale bottom before him, smoothing his thumbs over the orbs of his arse. “And now, my innocent, we shall slake our hunger in a forbidden way,” he murmured. “Bend over, my ferrash.”

The youth obeyed. Arthur stripped off his robe as he gazed at the glorious sight.

He stretched the cheeks to reveal the puckered hole shadowed in the crevice, the hair indicating the youth had reached the age of manhood. He poured oil on the delicate ridge of the coccyx, letting it flow into the dark split, then massaged it into the crinkled aperture. The youth gasped, a light, yearning sound that inspired his cock to full-stand. Was his ferrash as aroused as he?

He prodded the hole until the tightness abated. He eased in the head of his cock, the youth’s wanton sigh encouraging him to proceed.

The blue sultan came up behind to wait his turn with the youth.

Arthur delved farther. The youth yelped.

“Shh, shh, my ferrash. Let me allay your pain.” He reached around to grab the youth’s cock.

But he had none.

Shock faded to understanding when he discovered a feminine slit instead, slick with want. He growled a chuckle. He would thank his wife later. Until then it was much more fun to play the fantasy.

“A eunuch. Then you comprehend the unrequited and proscribed desires of men.”

He teased her clit as he pushed in slowly, increasing his ministrations until he was buried to the hilt.

He exhaled at the glorious constriction before commencing his carnal rhythm, savoring every beat.

Without warning, the blue sultan grappled him from behind. Arthur jerked to no avail against the muscular arm encircling his waist. One hand dug cruelly into his side as oily fingers probed his anus, thick and insistent, familiar in their path. His cock, slackened from astonishment, hardened anew.

And then the blue sultan pressed his prick against his unyielding passage, ramming in relentlessly, Arthur’s groaned complaints futile in the face of the sultan’s fervor.

Once sheathed, both men began a syncopated sensual rhythm and pain dissolved into a most exquisite double pleasure.

Arthur’s hand slipped away from the ferrash, his mind seeking his own bliss, pounding the arse before him as he was slammed into from behind. The sultan’s balls, heavy with seed, slapped against his, sparking pangs of tortuous delight through his groin. The cock inside him rubbed the root of his sex, inciting his ascension to a new rapture. Grunted oaths filled the air around them, prayers for reprieve from the sensual torment.

The blue sultan increased his momentum, ignoring Arthur’s cries as he strove for his own climax, his pistoning prick delving to unexplored depths. Pleasure and pain merged into one euphoric sensation to which Arthur was slave and not master. He let it overtake him, push him forward to oblivion, his howl of release a split-second before the blue sultan’s.

Arthur’s heart pounded, sending blood to rush dizzyingly to his head. His lungs burned from want of air.

His ferrash slumped to her stomach, freeing him from their union. The blue sultan’s cock slackened and fell out.

“Shit.”

Joseph’s relieved curse set Arthur laughing. Which made Lavinia giggle.

She rolled over and untied her mask, letting it and the fez fall to the floor. She gazed up at him then glanced at Joseph sitting splay-legged on the floor, tugging off his beard, panting his own exhaustion.

Her breasts were bound under her cropped waistcoat, her hair covered by a boyish wig. She smiled.

“And was the present to your liking, Lord Petersham?”

“To quote the Rubaiyat, Lady Petersham, ‘All begins and ends in Yes’.”