He almost doesn't. Wakes up after the night of heat, curled in the very corner of the nest, and for a long time his hand rests over his belly, and he imagines it. A boy, he thinks, and his mind almost adds Phillip, but his thoughts shy away from the word at the last instant. Imagines Aaron's dark hair and Alexander's bright blue eyes, imagines the keenest intelligence. Imagines what it would be like to nourish an infant of his own body.
It's foolish. He weeps into the pillows, shaking and shivering, and he takes the damned herbs, and they make him sick, and it's awful.
He doesn't take any business for the next week. He insists that he's ill, and Benedicta doesn't bother him. He brought in enough money that night (Burr left extra, which gives him a pleasant shiver every time he thinks about it) that he can afford some time idle.
The first gift comes the next week. It is a journal, in a small bag, bound to perfection, so that each page lays almost flat when it is opened. Embossed leather, with a little cord to wrap around and close it. Alexander hasn't owned anything so nice and so frivolous (clothing and jewelry don't count; decorating himself is part of his profession) in this lifetime. The paper is finely pulped, carefully cut. He doesn't know what it cost. In the little bag, then, he finds a small bottle of ink, good ink, and this makes him weep. It seems wrong to use the goose-quill that he cut himself on this, but he does, he writes and he writes. He copies over some of the poetry that he's scratched in the bundles of paper that count as journals for him. He writes down his memories of this life, as early as he can recall.
The next time, he is invited to Burr's home. There is supposed to be dinner, but Alexander is on Burr as soon as he sees him, down on his knees and sucking Burr's cock like it's a dear and welcomed friend. Burr has him over the table in the dining room, and later Alexander fucks him, hot with the power of it, the clench of Burr's hole around his cock.
There is a pattern to it. Alexander takes customers as he always has -- he does not reduce it for Burr, but he does spend less time in the brothel. He finds that Burr isn't disgusted when Alexander comes to him fresh from a good fucking. In fact, Burr seems to take some kind of feral enjoyment from finding another man's seed on him, and so Alexander does it again, letting Burr find out with his questing, inquisitive fingers when Alexander arrives already wet and used. Burr always fucks him better. It wasn't just the heat that made him enjoy it. He blooms under Burr's attentions, every time.
It's hard to pinpoint when he realizes that the herbs didn't work. He just starts being sick more often, and it's concentrated in the mornings. He thinks it's a lingering malaise, but then he finds that his nipples have grown incredibly, unbelievably sensitive, to the point where a client pinching them tight causes him to reflexively slap the hands away. And he has nosebleeds. And he thinks about strange foods with an odd and focused preoccupation.
So he avoids staying the night at Burr's, once he starts to understand what's happening to him. Once he slips away after Burr went to sleep, but the look in Burr's eyes the next time they meet is unbearable. He has no excuses. He lets himself be persuaded, and even though his nightmares persist (sometimes waking him with little pathetic whimpers still on his lips) he stays. He does his best to hide the nausea, rising early and vomiting somewhere he can't be seen, then creeping back in and waking Burr with a mouth on his cock, something that explains the raspy voice.
Burr catches him in the library reading about incarnations, repeats. A book about those particularly comes as the next gift, and Alexander weeps over it.
Burr brings him to a party. Shows him off, arm around his waist, obvious enough that Alexander is a whore. Alexander plays it up and allows himself to be displayed, but when an attorney, forty years or so old, starts showing off about the recent case he argued in New York district court, sneeringly dismissing the omega that he was defending, Alexander's temper flares and he eviscerates the man's argument right in front of everyone, complete with case law citations. Afterward, the man looks like he genuinely would rather have had Alexander cut off his testicles in public. When Burr extracts him, and they are outside, Alexander humiliatingly starts crying, ugly sobs that come from nowhere and feel ripped from the heart of him.
Alexander receives no less than six cards from gentlemen, as well as one couple and one widowed lady, at that party, asking about his availability. Alexander is careful not to refuse Burr, but once or twice Burr's inquiries come up dry, when Alexander is off eating a lady's cunt while her husband pleasures himself in Alexander's ass. He is starting to gain the reputation he craves, as a high-paid courtesan, discreet and beautiful and gifted.
But he hoards every gift Burr gives him. Doesn't sell any of it, not the silver ring, not anything. He is possessive about the things, petty, sharp-edged. He is not sweet and kind with Burr, either, not always; he is often prickly, picking fights, arguing. He loves arguing. It has been so long since he had an intellectual match, and he craves it all the time. And sometimes Burr infuriates him. Once, at a party, after -- well, not after an argument, because Burr refused to argue, and that was what made Alexander angry -- a permanently sweaty and portly man, an enemy of Burr's, approaches Alexander and asks how much to make him leave mid-party or leave with someone else. Alexander names an exorbitant price, and a check for that full amount is placed in his hand within ten minutes, and Alexander is out the door on an elderly gentleman's arm another five minutes after that. (It's actually not an unpleasant night; the man is a widower and quite deaf, but asks quite politely if he can try Alexander's ass and finger his cunt, as he never had that particular hole on his late wife, and Alexander finds himself providing tender companionship to a man who hasn't had it in years.)
He can't keep the pregnancy from Burr for long. Of course Burr notices, eventually, that Alexander's bony edges have started to soften. Alexander doesn't really try to hide it, but he doesn't say a word about it, either.
no subject
He almost doesn't. Wakes up after the night of heat, curled in the very corner of the nest, and for a long time his hand rests over his belly, and he imagines it. A boy, he thinks, and his mind almost adds Phillip, but his thoughts shy away from the word at the last instant. Imagines Aaron's dark hair and Alexander's bright blue eyes, imagines the keenest intelligence. Imagines what it would be like to nourish an infant of his own body.
It's foolish. He weeps into the pillows, shaking and shivering, and he takes the damned herbs, and they make him sick, and it's awful.
He doesn't take any business for the next week. He insists that he's ill, and Benedicta doesn't bother him. He brought in enough money that night (Burr left extra, which gives him a pleasant shiver every time he thinks about it) that he can afford some time idle.
The first gift comes the next week. It is a journal, in a small bag, bound to perfection, so that each page lays almost flat when it is opened. Embossed leather, with a little cord to wrap around and close it. Alexander hasn't owned anything so nice and so frivolous (clothing and jewelry don't count; decorating himself is part of his profession) in this lifetime. The paper is finely pulped, carefully cut. He doesn't know what it cost. In the little bag, then, he finds a small bottle of ink, good ink, and this makes him weep. It seems wrong to use the goose-quill that he cut himself on this, but he does, he writes and he writes. He copies over some of the poetry that he's scratched in the bundles of paper that count as journals for him. He writes down his memories of this life, as early as he can recall.
The next time, he is invited to Burr's home. There is supposed to be dinner, but Alexander is on Burr as soon as he sees him, down on his knees and sucking Burr's cock like it's a dear and welcomed friend. Burr has him over the table in the dining room, and later Alexander fucks him, hot with the power of it, the clench of Burr's hole around his cock.
There is a pattern to it. Alexander takes customers as he always has -- he does not reduce it for Burr, but he does spend less time in the brothel. He finds that Burr isn't disgusted when Alexander comes to him fresh from a good fucking. In fact, Burr seems to take some kind of feral enjoyment from finding another man's seed on him, and so Alexander does it again, letting Burr find out with his questing, inquisitive fingers when Alexander arrives already wet and used. Burr always fucks him better. It wasn't just the heat that made him enjoy it. He blooms under Burr's attentions, every time.
It's hard to pinpoint when he realizes that the herbs didn't work. He just starts being sick more often, and it's concentrated in the mornings. He thinks it's a lingering malaise, but then he finds that his nipples have grown incredibly, unbelievably sensitive, to the point where a client pinching them tight causes him to reflexively slap the hands away. And he has nosebleeds. And he thinks about strange foods with an odd and focused preoccupation.
So he avoids staying the night at Burr's, once he starts to understand what's happening to him. Once he slips away after Burr went to sleep, but the look in Burr's eyes the next time they meet is unbearable. He has no excuses. He lets himself be persuaded, and even though his nightmares persist (sometimes waking him with little pathetic whimpers still on his lips) he stays. He does his best to hide the nausea, rising early and vomiting somewhere he can't be seen, then creeping back in and waking Burr with a mouth on his cock, something that explains the raspy voice.
Burr catches him in the library reading about incarnations, repeats. A book about those particularly comes as the next gift, and Alexander weeps over it.
Burr brings him to a party. Shows him off, arm around his waist, obvious enough that Alexander is a whore. Alexander plays it up and allows himself to be displayed, but when an attorney, forty years or so old, starts showing off about the recent case he argued in New York district court, sneeringly dismissing the omega that he was defending, Alexander's temper flares and he eviscerates the man's argument right in front of everyone, complete with case law citations. Afterward, the man looks like he genuinely would rather have had Alexander cut off his testicles in public. When Burr extracts him, and they are outside, Alexander humiliatingly starts crying, ugly sobs that come from nowhere and feel ripped from the heart of him.
Alexander receives no less than six cards from gentlemen, as well as one couple and one widowed lady, at that party, asking about his availability. Alexander is careful not to refuse Burr, but once or twice Burr's inquiries come up dry, when Alexander is off eating a lady's cunt while her husband pleasures himself in Alexander's ass. He is starting to gain the reputation he craves, as a high-paid courtesan, discreet and beautiful and gifted.
But he hoards every gift Burr gives him. Doesn't sell any of it, not the silver ring, not anything. He is possessive about the things, petty, sharp-edged. He is not sweet and kind with Burr, either, not always; he is often prickly, picking fights, arguing. He loves arguing. It has been so long since he had an intellectual match, and he craves it all the time. And sometimes Burr infuriates him. Once, at a party, after -- well, not after an argument, because Burr refused to argue, and that was what made Alexander angry -- a permanently sweaty and portly man, an enemy of Burr's, approaches Alexander and asks how much to make him leave mid-party or leave with someone else. Alexander names an exorbitant price, and a check for that full amount is placed in his hand within ten minutes, and Alexander is out the door on an elderly gentleman's arm another five minutes after that. (It's actually not an unpleasant night; the man is a widower and quite deaf, but asks quite politely if he can try Alexander's ass and finger his cunt, as he never had that particular hole on his late wife, and Alexander finds himself providing tender companionship to a man who hasn't had it in years.)
He can't keep the pregnancy from Burr for long. Of course Burr notices, eventually, that Alexander's bony edges have started to soften. Alexander doesn't really try to hide it, but he doesn't say a word about it, either.