Lesser Monsters, Part 1: Using John Read online

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  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Other Titles

  Lesser Monsters, Part 1: Using John

  Coming Soon

  About the Author

  Lesser Monsters

  Part 1: Using John

  By Kevin Thorne

  Lesser Monsters, Part 1: Using John

  Copyright © 2015 Kevin Thorne

  Cover design © 2015 Jay O'Connell

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Other Titles

  Discover other titles by Kevin Thorne:

  Lesser Monsters, Part 2: Ruthless Truths

  Lesser Monsters, Part 3: Unbound Appetites

  Lesser Monsters, Part 4: Captivity

  Using John

  Whispers swirled through the castle as fast as a fever, leaving a dread excitement in their wake.

  “The Sapphire Suite is being opened and aired.”

  “The Sapphire Suite? But it’s autumn, not spring!”

  “We must be having an important guest. A very important guest.”

  “Not a guest. It’s her suite. They wouldn’t open it for anyone else.”

  “Whose?”

  “Lady Helène.”

  “Who?”

  “You know. The third sister. The one in all the tapestries and mosaics.”

  “The one with the dark hair?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the bloodied heads swinging from her hand?”

  “There’s a reason they called her Belle Helène the Conqueror. The Merciless. The Ravager.” In a lowered voice, “She was the most terrible of them.”

  “Of the sisters?”

  “Of any of them. You know this is her castle, right? Not her sisters’. Even though she hasn’t been here in—well, a long time.”

  “She’s the one that won the war?”

  “She was the war.”

  ~

  When the summons came for the Scarlet Suite, John was unsurprised. The castle had been abuzz for days, ever since the Ladies had received a missive that sent them into a scurrying excitement. And when Lady Agathe became excited, it was always the attendants who paid the price.

  John tried to relax as he was scrubbed and buffed by the bath-maids, his muscled back oiled and perfumed, his black hair trimmed, his face closely shaved. It was a ritual to which he had become accustomed so long ago that he barely thought about it now. He did prefer Lady Nathalie’s ministrations to Lady Agathe’s—the dreamy sister had more straightforward pleasures than the mischievous one—but it was not his place to protest.

  He found Lady Agathe sprawled languorously on her bed in the Scarlet Suite, surrounded by crimson coverlets and amber-colored silk pillows. Burgundy tapestries draped the walls, wine-colored rugs covered the floor, and a blood-red robe adorned the Lady herself. Barely. Underneath her flame-colored hair, the robe had fallen open to display a bare shoulder and the swell of a breast.

  Despite himself, despite all he had seen and endured, John could not help but respond, like a dog salivating for its dinner. A quick, careful glance at Agathe’s watching emerald eyes told him she knew it, and approved.

  Without speaking, John flared a heavy linen sheet over the bed, and shook out a second, holding it up and averting his eyes. Agathe shrugged off her robe and rolled onto her stomach, between the sheets, without a word.

  She wanted silence, then. John twisted the cork out of a bottle of rosemary-scented oil, warming a few drops between his hands. He settled his palms on Agathe’s shoulders, massaging the knots he found there. He worked his way down her back, his knowledgeable hands eliciting the occasional sigh or wiggle. When he started running his fingers along her legs, she spoke.

  “You’ve noticed, I suppose, the preparations in the Sapphire Suite?”

  “I have, milady.” John gently lifted one of her bare legs, encasing her thigh between his broad hands and drawing them down toward her foot, a move that straddled the fine line between expected seduction and unforgivable presumption. To fall off on either side was to court peril.

  After repeating the maneuver on her other leg, he carefully lifted the top of the linen sheet, keeping his head turned away and his eyes downcast. Lady Agathe liked games, and until he knew which she planned to play, he was safest playing the role of the modest—if erotically eager—servant.

  Agathe turned over, settling into place on her back. “And what do you think of all the fuss these past few days? Aren’t you intrigued?”

  He strained desperately to hear some hint in her voice that would tell him his best response—there was excitement, and a catlike, predatory playfulness. Nothing unusual, nothing specific. He chose a neutral path. “I seek only to serve, milady. It’s what I’m here for.” He risked a glance at her face; she was studying him, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted. Her tongue ran over her sharp white teeth, auburn curls framing her heart-shaped face.

  “Indeed it is,” she purred with a slight smile, “and you do it well.” With her toes, she seized hold of the sheet and pulled it aside, revealing her naked body.

  The heat in John’s blood rose.

  “Come, sate your hunger,” she said, pulling his head toward the thatch of wiry red hair where her legs met.

  And then you’ll sate yours, John could not help but think, but he kept the thought off his face. He bent to the task before him with a practiced tongue, gently teasing and caressing. Maybe you’ll wait till the moment just before, and it won’t be so bad.

  He slipped a surreptitious hand into his trousers, ensuring that he was prepared for what would come next. It did not do to disappoint the Ladies.

  A cold shiver went through him as Agathe’s cool fingers untied the drawstring of his shirt, at the half-circle of his collarbone. Her red-lacquered nails played gently against his throat, tapping at the clusters of tiny scars there.

  “You heal so beautifully every time,” she murmured. She drew his neck toward her mouth, set all four of her lengthening teeth—top and bottom—against his pulsing vein.

  Despite himself, he tensed.

  “You can’t think that I would hurt you,” came her soothing voice. “You know that you’re safe from me, my pet, my dearest John.”

  The words filled him with a cold dread. He could picture the teasing smile on her face, her lively eyes laughing because she knew he knew she was lying. He knew then that she would not wait, that the game tonight was pain, for him, and endurance.

  “Now,” she murmured, tickling his skin with her tongue, reaching down between their bodies to push his trousers down and pull his cock toward her cleft.

  He thrust in abruptly, hoping a moment’s distraction might allow him to establish a rhythm that would so occupy her thoughts that she would release her hold on his neck. For a moment, it seemed to be working; she writhed and let out a soft sigh. He shoved in hard again, slicked by her juices.

  But then the searing pain struck his throat, her fangs penetrating his skin, worrying at his flesh. Her tongue felt like acid in the wounds, like salt, as she drank eagerly from him.

  He grew a little dizzy, his muscled arms tremb
ling slightly with the effort of holding his weight above her. But he could not afford to let his performance lag, not if he wanted the bite in his neck to be the worst of this evening’s adventures. He gritted his teeth and bore down, grunting with every thrust, coaxing and cajoling the distant fireburst in his groin closer and closer, tuning out the pain as he had learned. As he’d had to learn.

  Not too quick, now. Steady. Speeding up a little—yes, she liked that. It struck him that she liked thinking he both hated and loved her teeth inside him, that the pain somehow egged him on to greater pleasure. So he started deliberately gasping and shivering, rocking his whole body back and forth. She dug her fangs in deeper yet, to a fresh flare of agony, but he could tell from how she moved beneath him that she was nearly there, nearly done.

  He braced his knees anew on the bed, driving into her as she clung to him, feeling the moment when her starburst hit her. He could not quite reach his, but he feigned it anyway with a calculated frenzy of bucking and thrusting, knowing it would add to her pleasure—and thus, possibly, decrease his own future pain. As always, when he pretended, he wondered if she could tell, if that was part of the game.

  After a few final spasms, she disengaged from his neck, and he from her groin.

  “There now,” she said, her face flushed, her lips smeared with his red blood, “that didn’t hurt, did it?”

  “Not at all, milady,” he said, and the only reason the falsehood didn’t curdle in his mouth was that he knew she knew he was lying.

  Her lips curved into a smile, and her eyes lit with mischief. “Change is in the air,” she said. “The castle quickens. It’s exciting, don’t you think?”

  Some new game had begun. Carefully, John said, “If it pleases you, it pleases me, milady.”

  She went on, watching his face as she spoke. “We’re having guests in a couple of months who haven’t been here in many, many years. I wonder what they’d make of you.”

  “I’m here to serve, milady.”

  Her smile widened. The trap was sprung. “They’re Lords,” she said. “Two brothers.”

  He froze. “I—I wonder,” he stammered, “if Pelton might not be better suited—”

  She laughed. “Look at you, running like a scared little rabbit. Don’t worry, John. I’m only teasing—though you might prefer the Lords to what’s coming next week. I’ll have use for you then. After she arrives.”

  “After who arrives, milady?” He kept his voice mild, hiding his dread.

  “Haven’t you heard? My sister, Lady Helène. She’s finally coming home. And John—eat well and rest well.” She gave him a small, bloody-tongued grin. “My dear sister’s appetites are legendary.”

  ~

  Drained nearly to the point of illness by Agathe’s enthusiasm, John recuperated slowly. To his surprise, neither Lady called for him throughout the rest of the week. Lady Agathe must have meant what she said about him garnering his strength.

  It was not a comforting thought.

  Speculation swirled amongst the servants about the soon-to-arrive Lady. Would she come tomorrow? Next week? Next month? Would she bring a retinue of dozens? Thousands? Would her horse be armored in gold? Her saddle fringed with human skulls? Would she arrive at dawn? At blazing noon? In the middle of an autumn thunderstorm?

  When a lone rider in drab gear came up to the gates early one evening, no one expected it to be the dread Lady Helène herself. But her sisters greeted her with glad cries, ushering her into the parlor of the Sapphire Suite, sending chambermaids scurrying for a tin bath and hot water.

  And when the summons came for John, he responded as he always did, heading to the bathing room and its giggling maids, who today seemed even gigglier than usual.

  “Did you hear?” said Maida, a plump young woman with a bun of wavy brown hair. She always took her time bathing John, letting her hands drift over his back and rump. She probably thought he didn’t hear her tiny sighs, but he’d become accustomed to them over the years, and not just from her.

  “Hear what?” said Abigail, a freckle-faced blonde girl who always flushed deeply at John’s naked body, even as she helped scrub him down.

  “Lady Helène’s horse,” Maida said in an exaggerated whisper, her eyes seeking John’s. Her voice dropped even lower. “The scars along its neck.” She nodded significantly. “I had it from the groom. The foul-tempered beast snapped at any touch, even to be rubbed down after its lathered journey. And it fell on its oats like it hadn’t eaten in a year. Big strong thing it was, too.”

  “I heard she barely said a word when they brought her inside,” said Abigail, not to be outdone as she soaped between John’s toes with a small washcloth. “Just drifted along, while her sisters fussed and—” She fell silent.

  A new voice, full of scowls, broke over the steamy room. “You are not, I hope, speaking ill of our Ladies.”

  “Stroud, no, of course not—” Maida began.

  Stroud hove into view, the barrel of his belly straining at the cloth of his shirt. “Their ears are everywhere,” he went on, sternly. “It does not do to risk antagonizing those who feed and shelter us.”

  John spoke up. “Not a word was spoken out of place, Stroud.”

  “Not a word spoken that you would not mind the Ladies overhearing, hmmm?” Stroud looked John over with a sneer. As with Maida’s stolen caresses and Abigail’s blushes, Stroud’s distaste for John was not unexpected—possibly because of the way so many of the female servants sighed at John’s solemn blue eyes and chiseled jawline. Many of the men resented him, though some seemed to understand that his handsome face was both blessing and curse, because it brought more of the Ladies’ attention to him, and less to them. Still, with their attention came rewards: trinkets, jewels, gifts of money and silks. Status.

  “Just you be on your best behavior tonight, my lad,” Stroud said to John. “Too much is riding on this evening for any of your stupid mistakes.”

  Anger rose, fresh and clean, in John’s mind. He was about to snap a retort when he realized, from Stroud’s smug face, that he was being goaded: Stroud wanted to unsettle him, to make him distracted or clumsy.

  To make him fail, and be punished.

  So instead, John issued a practiced laugh. “I can only hope to make more ‘stupid mistakes’ that bring rubies to my doorstep. Lady Agathe sent down a bottle of fine wine last time. Apparently she enjoys my… mistakes.”

  While Stroud fumed, John rose from the bath, streaming water, unselfconsciously showing off the sculpted body that years of work in his father’s smithy—and more years of swimming in nearby lakes—had given him.

  “The oils, Abigail, if you please, my darling,” John said, lifting up his arms and giving Stroud an insouciant grin. “I mustn’t keep Lady Helène waiting.”

  The smiling Abigail flushed an even deeper crimson as she reached for the scented jars on the table behind her.

  Maida said, “I’ve towels for you here, John,” and wrapped them around John’s shoulders as he stepped out of the tin tub. He caught the note of jealousy in her voice, and, from the narrowing of Stroud’s eyes, knew he’d caught it too.

  “You think you’re clever,” Stroud said. “But you don’t know what you’re in for, with the fearsome Lady Helène. You know only her sisters.”

  “And their guests over the past five years,” John pointed out. “I’m accustomed to a variety of tastes.”

  Stroud flashed a triumphant smile. “Yes, I’m sure you are. As any good whore should be.” And he swept out before John could respond.

  “Don’t you listen,” Maida said in a furious whisper as John stood stock-still, shock keeping him quiet. “You’re worth a hundred of him.”

  “He’s just jealous,” Abigail put in, her voice stung on John’s behalf. “The Ladies have never shown an interest in him, not ever. He’s not good enough for them. He hasn’t half your—your….” She faltered.

  “Your looks,” Maida put in. “Your charm.”

  “He couldn’t stan
d it,” Abigail said. “Ministering to the Ladies like you do. He hasn’t the courage.”

  He gave them an arrogant, reassuring smile, as if Stroud’s words had not affected him. But all the while, he thought, All true, what they say. But none of it a contradiction. Stroud spoke the truth too.

  ~

  Unsettled, John moved toward the Sapphire Suite, folded sheets over one arm, bottle of scented oil in the other. He told himself that Stroud just wanted to humiliate him, to scare him. He’d attended to plenty of the Ladies’ female guests—how much worse could this one be?

  Flashes of dreadful memories washed across his mind’s eye, seared his mind’s nerves, and he had to put a hand out to the heavy stone wall.

  For a moment, he thought of the open gate with longing. He could do it—run back to his room, pack, and be out of the castle before anyone missed him. There wouldn’t even be any retribution. That was part of the pact. But—if he left, he could never come back. Never earn the kind of living that allowed him to take care of his aging, ailing parents, nor find good care for his elder brother, who at thirty still had the mind of a young child, and needed the kind of constant supervision that his frail mother could no longer provide.

  Stories crept through his mind like ghosts, stories of attendants being slain by the Ladies or their guests, in a moment of pique or passion.

  He took a deep breath. He had no time for these kinds of thoughts, no room for being off-balance. He needed all his wits, his skills, at their sharpest.

  And so he banished the doubts, step by step, breath by breath, as he moved down the hallway toward the Sapphire Suite. He let his mind go curiously light, distanced from his body. The minutes would pass, one after the other, and they would build to hours, and the hours would build toward morning. All he had to do was let the minutes pass.

  And remember his place. His part. Willing, worshipful servant. Eager erotic partner. Selfless snack. Pleasing, pliable—

  Pliable whore.

  No. Pliable masseur. There was a reason the Ladies asked for him so frequently, and it wasn’t all because of his looks. His smithy-strengthened hands could ease the aches out of the tightest muscles.

  And now here was the pale blue door, in front of him.