Lee chapter 22

[maculategiraffe]

Lee saw Mona before her master did, and he might have been worried about her reaction-- he'd literally taken her place in her absence, after all-- if the look on her face at the sight of him sitting there had been anything but what it was. She didn't actually clap her hands or congratulate her master, but that was what her expression as she looked at him managed to convey, before her eyes met Lee's, beaming at him as if he'd done her a favor.

The reporter, coming in behind her, just looked amused at Lee's change of location, but the photographer looked ready to spit nails, and at the stormcloud on her face, Lee, despite his pleasure in the lord's caresses, suddenly wanted very, very badly to be back in his own master's arms, preferably with his face buried against his master's chest. But he didn't have permission to move, and while part of him realized he could probably have asked for it without being punished for his presumption, it wasn't the part that actually worked his vocal cords.

"Lee," said the lord almost apologetically, "maybe you should get up, now that Mona--"

"Oh, that's fine, master," said Mona brightly, before Lee could move. "There's room for everyone. Isn't there, Lee?"

She sat down on the other side of Lee from her master, still smiling at him, and put her hand over his. Hers was cool, to his surprise; he wondered how scared she'd been at the interview.

"I guess you don't have a problem with this," said the photographer to the reporter, in a tone that made it very clear she had a problem with something, in addition to a problem with the fact that her friend didn't.

"Robin," said the reporter quietly. "We're guests here."

Robin was pale with anger, but at least she wasn't actually yelling when she answered, "So we're supposed to sit here and smile while this kid gets passed around like a bowl of peanuts?"

"Or you're free to leave," Lee's master said pleasantly, at the same time as the reporter said, "I don't really need you for this part."

"Look at him," said the photographer to the reporter, jerking her head at Lee. "He's not like that Jer one. He's not part of their happy little family. He's scared. You could really just sit here and chat while they--"

"Lee," said the master, "come here."

Trembling again, but reassured by the gentleness in his master's voice, Lee obeyed, then hesitated before his master, not sure whether he should drop to his knees or climb back into his master's lap. Holden held out his arms, and Lee scrambled into them, dropping his head against the warm, solid shoulder with an involuntary sigh of relief as the strong arms closed around him.

"Denys," the master said pleasantly, "why don't you finish your interviews in the filing room? Andrei, do you mind going with him? As you said, you don't really need Robin for this part, do you?"

There was a pause before Denys said uncertainly, "Okay-- I mean-- my lord?"

"Of course," said Taganov, and there was a general creaking and rustling of imminent departure before the room went quiet.

"What?" said the photographer's voice then. "What was that all about?"

"He's scared of you," said Holden. "He was fine before you walked in, and he'll be fine after you leave."

"Isn't that convenient," said Robin, but she sounded a little nonplussed. "Why would he be scared of me? I don't own him. And you didn't toss him to me like some kind of party favor, either."

"I would never send Lee to sit next to you," said the master calmly.

"Why would you?" the photographer agreed aggressively. "I couldn't afford to buy him, so why would I get a free sample?"

"That isn't why," said the master, still calmly, "or I wouldn't let him sit in Bran's lap either. I wouldn't send him to you because you can't control yourself. You saw that Lee had changed his seat, and without knowing or asking why or what had happened, you lost your temper, and Lee saw his master's guest looking furious at the sight of him. So I saw a boy who had been perfectly happy and content two seconds before suddenly hunch his shoulders and suck in his bottom lip, and I knew exactly what had just happened, but Lee didn't see me looking furious at the sight of him, because that would have frightened him more, and he doesn't hear anger in my voice now, even though I'm talking to you, because he needs to feel safe in my arms right now, and he does."

"He has no reason to be scared of me," said the young woman stubbornly. "I don't have any power over him."

"No, and you don't respond well to feeling powerless, do you?" said Lee's master. "And you've chosen an enemy that's big and strong and established enough that you always feel powerless. I understand you better than you think, Robin. We're not that different, you and I."

"Oh, we're not, huh?" Robin demanded. "You'll excuse me if I don't take that as a compliment."

"It's not meant as one," said Holden. "Do you love my daughter, Robin?"

"Do I what?" Robin gave a forced laugh. "Is this some kind of suitor screening process? Valor's not a minor any more, you know. And we've already fucked. Quite a bit, actually."

"Thanks for sharing." Lee's master shifted, then, and pulled Lee back slightly by the shoulders, looking into his face. The master's own face was calm and thoughtful, and after a moment, he leaned forward to kiss Lee's cheek before he drew him back down against his chest.

"When I was a slave," he said, and Lee shivered a little with the strangeness of the words, even though he'd believed Bran when Bran said the master and mistress had been slaves when they were young, "my master couldn't control me. He could whip me to ribbons and I'd still mouth off at him again the next day. But with a look in his eyes, with his trust in me, Lee can make me sit here and chat with you as pleasantly as if you weren't picking fights with me in my own house. Bran can make me stand next to him, desperate to touch him, and not reach out for him, because he asked me not to. Yves can make me control my naturally selfish and greedy disposition to give him satisfaction. Is there anyone who has power like that over you, Robin?"

"That's not power they have over you," said Robin, but she sounded a little less angry and a little more interested. "That's power you have over yourself."

"But I wouldn't have it without them," said Lee's master quietly. "I couldn't control myself for my master. It wasn't that I wouldn't-- I couldn't. But I can-- for them. Can you? For my daughter? For anyone?"

Into the long silence that followed came, eventually, a`knock at the door.

"Come in," said Lee's master, and the door opened.

"My master said I could come ask permission to talk to Lee alone for a bit," said Mona, rather quickly, and Holden pulled Lee back by the shoulders again.

"Are you comfortable with that, sweetheart?" he asked, and when Lee nodded, his master kissed his cheek again and said, "Where will you be, Mona?"

"In my-- I mean, his room, if that's okay," said Mona, and Holden nodded.

"Go on," he said to Lee. "I'll be here if you need me."





Mona seemed inordinately happy to see Lee. She led the way confidently towards and up the stairs; it was obvious she knew her way around this house, and from the slip she'd just made, the bedroom that was Lee's now had once been her own. Lee smiled a little at the thought, though he didn't know exactly why, and Mona's lips curved back at him, but she said nothing until they were in Lee's room, Lee settled on the bed and Mona in the chair.

"Did my master make an offer for you?" she asked, matter-of-factly.

Rather startled, Lee cleared his throat. "He-- he just asked my master-- to keep him in mind. For when I'm ready. But I might not-- I mean--"

"You don't have to be nervous on my account, sweetie," said Mona, smiling broadly at him, and he saw that her front tooth was chipped. For as happy as she'd managed to look before, she hadn't smiled widely enough to display it; he wondered if that had been on purpose. Maybe her master didn't like to be reminded of her damage. "I've been after him for years to find a nice boy to worship him and keep him home at night, instead of gallivanting around with a string of noble jerk-offs who always end up breaking his heart. Or even in addition to the jerk-offs thing. Baby steps, you know?"

"Why hasn't he?" Lee asked, puzzled. Obviously Lord Taganov didn't object to the idea of owning pleasure slaves, so why wouldn't he want to own a boy? Didn't he like them?

Mona shook her head. "He's such a romantic. He says the idea of sex with a body you own seems so cold and heartless."

Lee was even more puzzled. "But what about you?"

Mona smiled again. "We don't have sex. It's not that I'd mind if he wanted to, not anymore-- I love him, he's the best master anyone could ever have-- but he doesn't like women that way. And anyway, it would be too strange, after all this time."

"Oh," was all Lee could manage for the moment. Mona grinned.

"I know it's kind of odd," she said. "But that's why we need a boy around the house. But-- romantic, like I said. If you ask me, the only reason he's been so mad for Bran all this time is that Bran's so obviously in love. Like a picture in a catalogue, you know, slippers on a hearth beside a roaring fire and a good book and whatever-- my master would buy the slippers, even though he knows they don't actually come with the fire and the book. You know? Not that he'd buy Bran and take him away from Mr. Larssen, even if he could, I don't mean that-- he just likes the idea."

Lee thought he did understand what Mona was saying. Bran loved his master so much that it was almost a physical quality, a joy that shimmered from him in Holden's presence, a magnetic attraction of his eyes to the older man's face. When the two of them had been in Lee's hospital room at the same time, the attraction between them had been just as obvious, but troubled, Bran seeming uneasy with his master at the same time that his eyes reflexively sought him out, Holden's hands straying towards Bran and then jerking back as if he'd been snapped at.

So much had been bewildering to Lee at the time-- like the fact that Bran, whom Lord Dunaev had sold to the slave breakers five years before, still belonged to them and looked healthier and happier than any slave Lee had ever seen, and the fact that the slave breakers themselves were being so nice to him-- that Lee hadn't had attention to spare for this particular strangeness. Now he found himself with his master's voice echoing in his head again: Bran can make me stand next to him, desperate to touch him, and not reach out for him, because he asked me not to.

Why would Bran ask his master not to touch him? That was too strange. Lee would have to ask him.

"He's a sucker," Mona was saying. "I'll go ahead and tell you that now-- but you won't be taking advantage of him, if he does buy you. I won't let you. Not to be mean-- just letting you know in advance."

Maybe Mona's frankness should have been alarming, but Lee found himself liking it. It was nice to know where you stood.

"Plus," she added, smiling at Lee with genuine friendliness, "I mean, Bran's adorable, but isn't it just too convenient that the only person my master could possibly bring himself to buy to sleep with is completely unattainable? Until now, of course. Oh, you should have heard him talking about you after you left yesterday."

"What did he say?" Lee asked, too interested to remember to be nervous.

Mona grinned. "He was beating himself up for scaring you by kissing you, and saying how you'd probably never want to see him again. I told him he was crazy, and that the way you'd kissed back, he'd have to fight you off next time."

Lee went so red that blood hummed in his ears.

"Did he kiss you again?" Mona asked, and Lee managed to shake his head. "Oh, well-- all in good time. Isn't he great? You think so too, don't you?"

Lee nodded shyly, smiling, and Mona reached out to take his hand and squeeze it gently.

"Tell me about yourself," she said. "I want to get to know you. Not the bad stuff-- I know you've been through a lot-- just tell me about you. What do you like?"

Lee hesitated.

"Peaches," he said finally. "I think."

Mona blinked at him for a moment, then laughed, squeezing his hand again.

"You are too cute," she said. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Seventeen," said Lee, glad she'd moved on to more easily answerable questions. "And a half."

"Gods, you're just a baby," said Mona, and reached out to stroke his cheek with the back of her hand for a moment. Why did everyone keep doing that? "I hope I'm not scaring you-- I kind of tend to talk a lot. That reporter guy loved me. The photographer bitch, not so much."

"You aren't scaring me," said Lee truthfully. Whatever else he liked, he was pretty sure he liked this girl. "Mona?"

"Yeah, sweetie?"

"Did he-- uh-- did he say--" Lee took a breath. "Did he like kissing me?"

Mona laughed again. "Oh, I could eat you up. Yes. Yes, he liked kissing you."

"Oh," said Lee, smiling. "Good."