dreadful_kinks | Prompt Post 1

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Dorian Gray sat in his portrait-hung drawing room, curtains pulled back so he could watch the snow outside. Bach's Goldberg Variations played on the gramophone; opera was very well for inspiring passion, but sometimes it was more important to be soothed than roused, and the Goldberg Variations did very well for that; after all, they'd been written to help Bach's insomniac patron sleep.

His reverie was interrupted by a footman proffering a card on a silver salver. "A Doctor Victor Frankenstein is asking for you, sir. He says you don't know him, but hopes you'll see him anyway. Shall I tell him you're not at home?"

"You know me better than that, Charles," Dorian said. "An unknown quantity? Show him in, please."

The young man who entered might have been very attractive, with his milky-pale skin and arresting blue eyes, had those eyes not been swollen and red-rimmed with weariness and haunted with pain, and had he not been shivering and twitching. He was gripping a satchel, his knuckles white. It must be very important to him if he wouldn't let Charles take it, Dorian thought. He rose to greet him. "Doctor Frankenstein. I'm delighted to meet you. Won't you sit down?"

The doctor perched on the edge of a leather armchair, still shivering, though the room was warmed by a well-stoked fire in the grate. "Thank you for seeing me." The politeness sounded forced. Dorian was intrigued. What was the cause of this young man's pain?

"Not at all," he said. "Would you care for something to drink? Perhaps mulled wine, or hot punch - I know it's old-fashioned, but you seem to have taken a chill."

Dr. Frankenstein shook his head. "I never touch alcohol."

"Some tea, then," Dorian suggested.

"Thank you."

Dorian rang the bell, and, when the servant arrived, asked for tea. "And some of the fruitcake, I think - no, that's soaked in rum, it had better be something else. I leave it to Cook's discretion." The servant nodded and went away.

"What brings you here, Doctor?" Dorian asked, when it was clear that the young man wasn't going to volunteer anything.

"It concerns Miss Vanessa Ives," Frankenstein said.

"Ah. How is she?" Dorian asked. "Our evening together ended rather awkwardly, and she's not been at home to me since then. Nor did she answer my note. I hate to think she's angry at me, but that would be better than if she were unwell."

"Unwell." Frankenstein's laugh was bitter. "I suppose you could call it that."

"I'm sorry to hear it," Dorian said. "Not dangerously so, I hope?"

"That depends on what you consider dangerous," Frankenstein said. "And to whom."

"I'm not concerned for myself," Dorian said. "I never get ill."

Frankenstein shook his head. "It's not an infection. She's...very much not herself. I had thought...well. I'm told that you were the last person she spent time with before this change in her condition. Is there anything you could tell me that might have some bearing on it?"

"As I don't know the details of her condition, I don't know how to answer that," Dorian said. "What do you hope I can tell you?"

The doctor's face set in a truculent expression. "To be perfectly honest, Mr. Gray, she has been suffering from attacks of acute hysteria, with all signs pointing to an origin in some sort of psychosexual trauma, and her derangement resulting from the subsequent guilt and shame. She has, during her periods of greatest distress, made a number of lurid comments and accusations of everyone surrounding her. Sir Malcolm Murray, who, as I understand it, has been standing in place of a father to her for some time now, and has known her since her girlhood, was unable to provide me with any details of her sexual history. In short, I would very much like to know if she was ill-treated at your hands."

Dorian frowned. "You're not lacking in audacity, Doctor, to come to my house and make such a suggestion to me. I might even call it an accusation. I'm not in the habit of divulging the details of my private life, especially when another's reputation might be harmed by it. However, if Miss Ives is so afflicted, I share your concern for her, so I will be equally honest. We were intimate, by our mutual consent, until she evinced some distress and left with no further word. I was very much puzzled by it myself, and hoped that I could learn what caused her distress and make whatever amends she required. If there's trauma at the root of her disturbance, it happened before I met her."

"I was afraid of that," Frankenstein said.

Any further discussion was interrupted by the arrival of a parlourmaid with a tea trolley, bearing an elegant Georgian silver service, porcelain cups and saucers, and a tray of iced cakes. Dorian dismissed her with a nod of his head, and poured the tea, quirking his mouth when the doctor requested four lumps of sugar. He offered him the cakes. "Do take as many as you'd like." Frankenstein immediately put three on his plate, and made the first one vanish in two bites.
"It seems to me that you're not well, Doctor," Dorian suggested. "Shivering, craving sugar...I know the signs of opiate withdrawal when I see them. Are you trying to break a dependence, or are you simply lacking another dose?"

Frankenstein stiffened. "Neither," he said. "I merely thought it inadvisable to address such a delicate subject while under any intoxicating influence."

"You've addressed it," Dorian said. "For whatever help it's been. May I suggest you address your needs now? Watching you twitch and shake is hardly an edifying spectacle."

Frankenstein glared at Dorian, but set down his teacup and dug in his bag, bringing out a syringe and a vial. He made no apology as he rolled up his sleeve and tightened a leather strap around his arm. Dorian watched, impassively.

"That's better," he said, when the doctor had put his equipment away. "Let me pour you another cup of tea. If you don't mind my asking," Dorian continued, "did any of Miss Ives' lurid accusations involve me?"

"They did," Frankenstein said, tilting his head back. "Though not of any behavior concerning her. She suggested you'd 'been intimate', as you put it -" his voice was mocking - "with our acquaintance Mr. Chandler."

Dorian raised his eyebrows. "Whatever else she may be, she's perceptive. I hadn't spoken of that to anyone, and I wouldn't have expected Mr. Chandler to have done so, either." He smiled disarmingly, though it was wasted on Dr. Frankenstein, who'd closed his eyes. "I only confirm it in the hope that knowing how much of what she's said is true and how much mere delusion will help you to make her well again. I really am concerned for her. I like her very much."

"I like her too, when she's lucid," Frankenstein said. "The trouble is that she can slip so quickly from lucidity into one of her episodes. One moment, she's thanking me for my care of her, and the next, she's staring like a snake about to strike and telling everyone within earshot that I'm a virgin."

Dorian's smile grew feral. "And are you?"

Frankenstein snorted. "You said it yourself: she's perceptive. Not that I can see why it should matter."

"And you said it yourself: her attacks are caused by something of a sexual nature. It's hardly surprising that she makes sexual comments about anyone around her during them." Dorian looked directly at Frankenstein, focusing all his attention on the young man. "Does it matter to you?"

Frankenstein stared back for a moment, then dropped his eyes. "I don't know. Maybe."

Dorian chuckled. "In my experience, that usually means 'yes'. Were you planning to do anything about it?"

"Like what?"

"I should think that would be obvious. It's hardly difficult to hire a whore."

The doctor shuddered. "No thank you, Mr. Gray. Syphilis, gonorrhea, half a dozen other diseases - as a medical man, I know the risks I'd be taking."

"There are preventative measures a man can take," Dorian pointed out. "Surely, as a medical man, you're aware of prophylactics. And I think if we're to continue this discussion, you might as well call me Dorian."

"Victor," the doctor said automatically. "Yes, I'm aware of them. The idea holds no appeal for me. Prophylactics or prostitutes. I'm afraid that my love of poetry has left me with unrealistic expectations." He finished his tea, setting the cup down in the saucer with a loud click. "And, even if I were to seek out the services of a prostitute, I wouldn't hire a woman."

Dorian narrowed his eyes. "I see. I begin to wonder if your motives in visiting me were quite as high-minded as you led me to believe, Doctor."

"Victor," Frankenstein repeated, irritably. "Are you suggesting I came here intending to seduce you?"

Dorian laughed. "My dear Victor, I don't think you're capable of seducing so much as a bolster. But you might have been hoping I would seduce you. If what Vanessa had said about Ethan proved to be true." He deliberately used his most recent lovers' Christian names, abandoning the polite fiction of formality, wondering if Victor would notice.

Victor looked away. "And if I had?"

Dorian leaned over and took Victor's hand. "Then I might suggest that storming in and accusing me of assaulting a lady is not the best way to go about it."

"What would be the best way?"

Dorian schooled his face to careful neutrality. "You could try asking."

Victor took a deep breath. "Dorian Gray, would you take me to bed and relieve me of my virginity?"

Dorian's face lit with a smile of startlingly innocent delight. "It would be a pleasure," he said. "But I think there are a few matters we ought to discuss first."

"Like what?" Victor's impatience was palpable.

"First of all, there's the matter of the morphine. I wouldn't want us to do anything that you'd regret after the intoxication wore off."

Victor made a harsh noise that might have been intended for a laugh. "My addiction is such that I'm in better possession of my faculties with the morphine than without. You remarked upon it yourself. I assure you, I'm entirely competent to decide what I wish to do with my own body." He looked into Dorian's eyes, his directness the opposite of coquetry, but somehow provoking Dorian to a similar arousal. "Or with yours."

Now it was Dorian who had to lower his eyes to keep his composure. There was an intensity in Victor's ice-blue gaze that was as disturbing as it was arousing. This might prove to be a very interesting evening after all. "I'll take your word for it," he said. "There remains the question of what, exactly, you consider sufficient to render you no longer a virgin."

"I-" Victor hesitated.

"It's not entirely simple, is it?" Dorian said, not unkindly. "With a woman, it's simple; you fuck her, and that's that. But with another man...is it merely the act of reaching climax? Do mouths count, but not hands? Or will it not be real to you until you've fucked me, or been fucked?" He spread his hands. "I will be guided completely by your wishes in this. Only tell me what they are."

Another unnerving, direct stare. "I want to fuck you."

Dorian rose, a glint of humor in his eyes. "Then let's go upstairs. There's no need to complicate your first time with worrying about whether you're going to fall off the sofa."

Victor stood, and followed Dorian up the stairs.

It was odd, Dorian reflected, as he and Victor entered his bedroom. There was no romance about this, and very little seduction; it almost had the feeling of a commercial transaction, but with himself in the role of the whore. Well, he'd volunteered for it. He looked over to where Victor was undressing, and had to stifle a laugh. "A Jaeger suit? Really?"

Victor looked cross. "Wearing wool next to the skin is healthful." He glanced pointedly at Dorian's underdrawers. "Unlike silk, which chills the skin."

"You might as well wear a hair shirt," Dorian said. "And I'm not the least bit chilled. Come and see." He held out his arms.

Victor shuffled awkwardly out of his trousers, which had fallen around his ankles, and stepped into Dorian's embrace, still wearing the maligned garment. Dorian pulled him close, ignoring the scratchiness, and lowered his head to brush Victor's lips in a soft, undemanding kiss. He met with neither resistance nor reaction, so he tried another one, a little firmer this time. Victor breathed in deeply, and he closed his eyes, his lips parting. He's never kissed anyone before, Dorian realized. He brought his hand to the side of Victor's face, tracing his thumb over Victor's cheekbone in a gentle caress, alternating brief kisses with nibbling at Victor's lips and then, finally, as Victor's mouth began to respond with movements of its own, a delicate flick with the tip of his tongue.

Victor gasped, and Dorian felt his cock twitch under the layer of knitted wool. He stroked Victor's cheek, smoothing his hair back away from it. "Shh," he murmured. "It's nice, isn't it?" He lowered his other hand to the small of Victor's back and drew him closer. Victor tipped his head back, his eyes unfocused and dreamy. Dorian looked closer. Pupils down to pinpoints, but no, the doctor wasn't a bit affected by the morphine coursing through his veins, or at least Dorian was sure he would swear that if you had the nerve to ask. Dorian was no stranger to narcotics, though he'd rarely indulged now for some years. He wished, briefly, that he were introducing Victor to the pleasures of the body without opiates' rather insulating effects, but he would do the best with things as they were. He bent his head again and kissed Victor's open mouth, sucking gently, letting Victor's tongue drift against his. Victor moaned at that, a quiet sound but one that sent a thrill along Dorian's spine; yes, Doctor, there are mysteries of the body you're just beginning to learn. Victor's hands settled lightly on Dorian's hips, and, still kissing, Dorian shifted his hands to the buttons of Victor's union suit.

(continued)

Edited (earlier was placeholder) Date: 2014-06-28 07:27 pm (UTC)