Johnny take a walk with your sister the moon

[maculategiraffe]

"Look, sweetheart," said Holden patiently, and Bran, loving the sound of the word in his master's gentle voice, looked up into his eyes, trying to smile. "We've talked about fear being a self-fulfilling prophecy, yes?"

"Yes, master," said Bran, who fully realized that walking into his mistress' presence as white-faced and shaky as if he were going to face a monster-- or hiding here in his master's lap when he was supposed to be serving her-- were both very likely to get them off on the wrong foot. "I'm sorry."

"I mean," Holden continued, and Bran was thankful he sounded amused rather than annoyed, "what exactly do you think Alix is going to do to you?" He ran a hand through Bran's hair, and Bran calmed a little at the reassuring touch. "Have you had bad experiences with women before, kiddo?"

"No, master," said Bran unhappily. "I haven't had any experiences with women. My-- my former masters didn't really have many, um, female friends."

"That's a shocker," said Holden dryly. "Then why are you so scared? Has Alix ever given you a reason to be frightened of her?"

Bran started to gnaw on his lip, then caught himself and stopped.

"It's not that, master," he managed, his stomach churning. "It's just-- if I displease her-- if I-- disappoint her--"

"She's not expecting fireworks, sweetheart," said Holden, and pulled Bran in to lean against his chest, stroking his back and pressing a kiss to his temple; Bran breathed deeply against his master's solid warmth. "If she wanted an expert, she could have me or Yves or Jer. She just wants to play with you a little. And you're very good at taking direction, so I don't know what you think is going to go wrong."

Bran nodded miserably. "But-- I'll do my best, master, honestly I will, but if I-- if I fail to please her--"

"Then what do you think is going to happen?" Holden asked reasonably. "She's not going to punish you, if that's what you're worried about. If she thinks you need to be punished-- which won't be unless you actually get mouthy or defiant with her, and I'm not really seeing that happening-- but if she does, she'll talk about it with me, and I'll handle it."

"Thank you, master," said Bran gratefully. "But--" He hesitated. "If she-- you sort of-- I mean if she says something-- if she tells you-- to do something, then-- you will, won't you?"

He cringed at how that sounded, and was immeasurably relieved when Holden threw back his head and cackled, his laughter shaking Bran's body as it rested against his.

"And here I thought you thought I was lord of all creation!" he said finally. "I guess it really is pretty damn obvious who rules the roost around here." He pulled Bran back again to look into his face, still looking amused. "Look, kid, you're right and you're wrong. Alix might be the boss of me, but not when it comes to my boys. You're my responsibility, not hers, and that means that I make the decisions when it comes to you. Alix understands that about me. It's part of why we work well together. You don't have to be afraid that she'll make me do anything to you that I don't want to do."

Bran nodded; he was comforted, though still not precisely comfortable. It wasn't that he didn't like his mistress, or that she had ever been less than gentle with him, but then, that could have been because he tried so hard to stay out of her line of sight; he had barely made eye contact with her in the months since his master had brought him back home from Karl and Tara's. The real if vague fear at the back of his mind was that even if he didn't fuck up spectacularly at pleasing her-- which he probably would-- by even attempting to serve her, he'd be bringing himself to her attention, which might reverse the unbelievable good fortune of the fact that she apparently didn't resent his presence in the household.

But he hadn't brought himself to her attention; she'd noticed him, and decided she wanted him tonight-- and had been nice enough, anyway, to ask his master to talk to him about it instead of just exercising her right to haul him off to her bed by the scruff of his neck.

Holden leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

"Can you handle this?" he asked seriously. "Because if you really don't think you can, then you probably can't. I'm not going to set you up to get so scared that you do get yourself in trouble. If you're too scared and you can't calm yourself down, you don't have to do this. I'll talk to Alix and we can set you off-limits to her for now."

Bran leaned forward and pressed his lips to his master's; Holden kissed him back softly, gently, stroking his back.

"I can handle it, master," he said when they broke apart. "Thank you."



He was calm enough to be graceful as, in answer to the clear "Come in," he walked into the master bedroom and towards his mistress, who sat on the edge of the bed, fully clothed in her businesswoman's high-necked blouse and narrow skirt, waiting for him. At a gesture from her, he sank to his knees at her feet and bowed his head; she leaned down, lifting his chin so that he had to look into her clear hazel eyes.

Alix might be old enough to be his mother, but she was still a very pretty woman. And after all, Holden was old enough to be his father, and that didn't prevent him from being heart-stoppingly gorgeous. Her hand was soft along his jaw, and she had a nice smile.

"It's all right, Bran," she said. "I won't bite you. I leave all that to my husband."

Bran smiled a little as she pulled her hand back, examining him with apparent approval.

"Such a pretty boy," she said, and Bran smiled wider. He'd gotten a little addicted to praise from Holden and Yves, both of whom seemed to enjoy rhapsodizing over his beauty as they touched and caressed him. Was Alix going to caress him like that? Would she be kind and gradual, or abrupt and businesslike the way Jer was? Bran didn't mind it from Jer, not any more, but that was because he knew Jer enjoyed him, and he was far from sure that Alix would. And Jer might outrank him, but-- not only was Alix Bran's mistress, but she'd been Holden's mistress, which barely bore thinking about.

"Strip," she said, gently.

Bran shifted, a little clumsy at first in his hurry to obey, and got his tunic off while still on his knees and with a minimum of flailing around. He dropped his tunic to the floor and looked back up at his mistress, wondering what happened next. Presumably he'd be expected to fuck her at some point, and he was far from sure he was equal to the task. There had been that time he'd topped Holden, but that wasn't really the same; Holden had the same anatomy Bran did, and as Holden had said, all Bran had to do was the same thing Holden (and Yves, and Jer) did regularly to Bran. Why hadn't he asked to get a little practice in on a female fellow slave at some point, in anticipation of having to please his mistress?

"You've really never been with a woman?" asked Alix, who could obviously read his mind. Bran couldn't consider that a good thing.

"No, mistress," he whispered, his throat dry.

"Well, it can't be that bad," she said, and held out one shoed and stockinged foot to him. He bent down to unbuckle the slender strap of the shoe and ease it off, hoping that was what he was supposed to do; it must have been, since she held out the other foot after he laid the first shoe to the side, not too close to his own discarded tunic. "I've been doing it with Holden for twenty-one years, and he's still in one piece. Stockings, now." She paused as Bran, trying not to let his hands shake, felt very carefully along her leg, to a little under her skirt, till he found the edge of the stocking, which was being held up by some sort of strappy contraption above her knee. "The garter-- all right, good, you've got it."

Bran thought of twenty-one years, longer than he'd been alive, as he touched the second slender leg, eased off the stocking and laid it and the second strappy thing-- garter-- with the first, alongside his mistress' shoes. He wondered where he'd be in twenty-one years, and then he stopped wondering, because Alix was unbuttoning her blouse.

Bran had seen the scar before-- the thin, ragged letters cut across her chest, between her breasts-- but only in a quick, dim, confused flash that he wasn't supposed to have witnessed. The first upward stroke of the N and the horizontal line of the L were lost beneath the twin cups of the undergarment that encased her small, palm-sized breasts, but the name of his mistress' former master was clear enough. He wondered if it was more polite to pretend it wasn't there, or that it wasn't appalling enough to need to pretend it wasn't there.

"It didn't even hurt much, when he did it," she said, so unexpectedly that it took a minute before Bran understood. When he did, he was so shocked that he looked up into her eyes again without even meaning to as she dropped her blouse to the floor beside his tunic.

"I was just so happy," she added, almost apologetically. "That I wasn't on the market any more. That he cared enough to turn me from an asset into--" She brushed her fingertips lightly against the scar, as if completing her sentence. "He didn't even have to tie me down. I held--" Her eyes closed, briefly, then opened again. "--perfectly still."

Bran watched her pretty, aging face, thinking about this, wondering if he could hold still if Holden took a knife to him. He thought maybe he could-- but he also thought that if Holden were the kind of person who would do a thing like that, Bran wouldn't have fallen in love with him in the first place.

"He still hasn't managed to teach you to hide what you're thinking," Alix told him, and Bran, startled and blushing, tried to duck his head, but her palm caught his chin and kept it tilted up towards her. "And you're right. You have better taste in men than I did at your age."

Bran swallowed, but Alix' eyes were soft and her lips faintly curved as she went on, "But you risked your life rather than lose him, so you should understand-- at least-- how I felt."

She took her hand away again, reached behind herself to unhook the breast-cupping thing, and pulled it off, dropping it to the floor on top of the blouse. Her breasts were low-slung against her ribcage, the nipples turning up pertly, crinkling up as she looked down at him and continued, "How proud I was. I didn't think I'd ever want-- a body he hadn't marked. A body he didn't own."

"I do understand, mistress," said Bran boldly, and she smiled at him again, her hand moving to caress his head gently.

"I thought you would," she said, and stood, stepping slightly to the side to avoid mashing Bran's face with the fabric of her skirt. She unfastened something at the waist of the skirt and let it fall; she was wearing another, shorter, smaller skirt under it, and then she stepped out of that as well, and she was naked. She had pubic hair, which looked funny with no cock in the middle of it.

She sat back down on the edge of the bed and, matter-of-factly, spread her legs. Bran shifted automatically forward, to do-- whatever he was supposed to do, presumably with his mouth, presumably that at least wasn't different-- but she put a hand on his forehead, and suddenly he was back on his first day in this house, kneeling before his master with a hand on his forehead to stop him, bewildered, afraid, but touched so gently.

"I don't want your mouth," Alix told him. "Not tonight. I'm not in the mood to give you a full tutorial. Just look for a minute."

Bran did, as she took her hand away from his forehead and reached up to the back of her head to take out her hairpins. It was fairly complex between her legs, and shiny, and it smelled oddly familiar-- a bit like fish, that was it, like fresh fish, marine and a little dirty. There were folds and crevices, at least one of which allegedly concealed a hole big enough to contain his cock. Bran wasn't convinced. Anyway, what was he supposed to do with his mouth? There was nothing to get hard. How was he supposed to tell if she was ready, if she couldn't get hard? Did the hole need-- widening, like his own hole before Holden fucked him? At least, from the looks of things, he wouldn't need lubricant.

Her long fair hair falling loose around her now, Alix reached to him, and he put his hand tentatively in hers; she brought it to her own groin and guided his finger to the innermost fold, and in. It slid in easily, into a hole that was wet and soft and complex as the outside, and when he gave it an experimental wiggle, she moaned.

It was such an unexpected thing, to hear her moan, that he realized he'd never imagined her growing aroused the way men did, her breathing heavy and her skin flushed and her body moving seemingly outside her own control. He'd pictured her, somehow, still cool and quiet under him, her eyes appraising, and he'd hoped only for words of praise, or to escape her disapproval; he hadn't thought what it would be, to see and hear and feel what he was doing to her. To his mistress.

"There," she said softly, sliding his finger back out of her, "is where you put your cock. Any questions?"

"No, mistress," said Bran, whose cock was suddenly paying a lot more attention.

She tugged at his hand, still wet from being inside her, and he moved obediently up from his knees and onto the bed next to her; she pulled him with her as she lay back, on her back, on the spill of her hair, drawing up her knees, smiling at him, scarred and strange and beautiful.

"Come on, sweetheart," she said, and drew him closer, laying one of his palms on her scarred breast. "Inside."