Sangfroid (2,486 words)

Archetype Editing romantasy short story challenge entry.

WARNING: graphic sexual content and mild gore

Prompt elements:

Event: A masked ball. Object: A staircase. 2,500 word limit.

Tugging at the cravat around his neck, Chauncey swallowed thickly. He would have ripped the fine silk and lace from his neck in a fit of fury, feeling as if the fabric was choking him, if not for present company.

Regaining some semblance of self-control, he perambulated among the high society guests in attendance to keep his mind from going mad with obsessive thoughts of her.

Lord Chauncey Eldon Haddison III, the Fifth Earl of Reddington, was one of the most sought-after bachelors. Having reached the age of thirty-five, he was harangued by his mother that it was time to find a wife and continue the family name.

There was the yearly marriage market of mommas tarting-up and trotting out their mincing, moronic daughters, dangling them in front of him as if he were a fish and their simpering spawn the bait to hook him into matrimony.

The analogy was not far off, for he had often been called cold-blooded as a fish. From the age of twenty, he had turned his nose up at the plethora of debutantes paraded before him who tried entreating him to dance through their faux coy antics of dropped handkerchiefs, fainting spells, waving of their dance cards under his nose and other such courtship nonsense.

“Marriage leads to the death of pleasure,” he quoted with contempt, regarding his stance on being connubially joined.

No one had stirred his loins until she arrived this season: Madame Sable de Venous Fée.

Madame Fée arrived in London under a cloak of mystery in the middle of the night. She never accepted any callers during the day and only emerged after the sun had set, like the vampire moth (Calyptra thalictri) that he had pinned in a display case in his study.

He had met her at a ball held by his best friend, Lord Morris Malmount, The Sixth Viscount of Kirbston, his compatriot when it came to carousing, debauchery and all pursuits a gentleman never brags about to the fairer sex. Morris was also an equally desirable bachelor. All the families with daughters to be married off felt that he was equally desperately in need of a wife, like Chauncey, especially with their rather sizable annual incomes that would easily compensate for any lack of their moral character.

It was at Morris’ ball at Kirbston Manor that while sulking in a corner behind a potted palm, secretly sipping brandy from his monogram engraved silver flask, that he came across her.  She slunk into the dark corner, invading his sanctuary while glowing with a charismatic charm that instantly caught his attention.

Gazing coldly at the twirling couples on the dance floor that looked like pairs of apple blossom petals drifting on a Spring breeze, she sighed as if annoyed.

“Don’t you find these events to be a tedious bore?” she drawled with an insouciant air.

“It is tiresome,” he agreed with disdain. These events drew the same people year after year, circulating the same gossip with a different name, playing the same music, with only the fashions changing.

“Then why are you here?” she asked, tilting her chin up in a challenging manner with an arch of her brow.

It was when she looked him straight in the eye and snatched his flask from his hand without asking before taking a long pull of drink that he was ensnared. Her eyes were bluer than the great sapphire of Galveston, and her flawless skin that glowed with the iridescence of pearls. Her gown, however exquisite, was of little note for it did not remain on her body long after they took a carriage ride back to her residence where he spent the night experiencing pleasures that made all the whorehouses he and Morris frequented entirely forgettable.

The next morning when he woke, Madame Fée had already arisen before dawn, leaving a simple note.

Chauncey,

Affairs keep me occupied for a while. I will be at the Grand Royal Masked Ball next week. You asked of my noble line and background. All will be revealed when next we meet. The promise of your unwavering love sustains me until then.

Awaiting with great anticipation,

Sable

Now waiting at the ball, his skin itched with anticipation. His finger slipped inside his cravat and scratched at the two love bite marks she left on the side of his neck that had not yet healed since their encounter the week prior.

“Chauncey, old boy!” a voice called out across the grand foyer aglow with the golden light of candles. He recognized Morris hidden behind the silver and emerald mask that covered the upper portion of his face, matching his outfit of silver and green silk.

“You’re a life saver,” Chauncey said, snatching one of the two glasses of champagne out of his friend’s offering hand and downing it in one go. He readjusted his black leather mask adorned with rubies, matching his own outfit of black brocade and red silk.

“I did not think you would attend, since I know how you dislike these events,” Morris ribbed his friend.

“I’m only here because I anticipate someone to be in attendance,” he admitted, his mouth pulled into a sour moue, an unnameable craving pulsing through his humors.

“I did not think anyone could have you willingly attend one of these events, besides your friendship with me, which is the only reason I knew you came to mine.” Morris gave his friend a gentle nudge of his shoulder with his own.

Chauncey was close to wanting to rip off his friend’s arm from the casual jest and jostle, a strange fever in his veins and infecting his mind. But before he could snap at his friend, she finally arrived.

Standing by the balcony’s balustrade, she surveyed the grand foyer as an imperial royal would survey their domain from on high. She was aglow, in the colors of red, orange and gold and matching feathered mask, looking like a regal phoenix trooping among common dun sparrows who chirped insipidly.

Chauncey and Morris both stood there agog as Madame Fée descended the grand staircase with the grace of a swan gliding across a mirror still lake, leaving no wake behind.

Anxious, Chauncey rushed to greet her at the foot of the stairs. Morris dashed over with equal haste, staying right by his elbow.

“Ah, my entire reason for even bothering to attend this ghastly affair,” she greeted him. “Chauncey and Morris!”

When the two nobles looked at each other in slight confusion, realization dawning on both their faces, Madame Fée added in a tone that lacked all genuine surprise and sincerity, “Oh, do you two know each other? How droll.” She tittered coquettishly, but with a sultry undercurrent.

The men had shared and swapped purchased pleasure for the night, but this was the first time jealousy flared in either of their eyes for a woman.

“Now that I have found you both and are already acquainted, I see no other reason why we should bother staying. Shall we adjourn to my residence for the rest of the night?” she proposed, her suggestion ripe with the promise of sybaritic excesses to come.

Madame Fée lead the way with Chauncey and Morris following behind like two wolves who had suddenly been tamed into faithful lap dogs that were eager to obey.

A susurration of whispers arose over the scandalous prospect that three of the most vaunted attendees were leaving immediately at the beginning of the ball, not even bothering to make one social turn around the ballroom.

In her carriage, both men took turns hungrily ravaging her mouth and neck, thrusting their tongues possessively, her kisses more addictive than opium.

Once back at her manor, a trail of clothes was left like breadcrumbs from the front door to the private back garden.

As Madame Fée stepped out into the garden lit by the full moon, she was nude. Her skin shone as if dusted with powdered gold. Chauncey and Morris, now also nude, followed as she beckoned them to follow her to the heart of her garden.

A large circular raised dais made of gleaming white marble was encircled by Doric marble columns and arches of moonflowers capturing the intense moonlight, looking like small moons themselves upon the multitude of twisting vines. It was a scene worthy of the most holy of Greek rights. In the center was a large square flat altar in the middle. There was a large cushion atop of the altar’s surface, turning into a bed, a la belle étoile.

Madam Fée hopped up on the altar and reached out a hand towards her pair of lovers.

“Come, let us give honor to the moon and make love under its glorious light.”

The two men climbed up onto the marble altar and none held back. Mouths devoured, hands fisted hair, and moans rang out into the star-filled night.

If one was not feasting between her legs, the other had her mouth filled with his cock as he shoved it down her greedy throat.

Chauncey was the first, laying betwixt her milky supple thighs before plunging his cock into her slickness. Sable arched up off the altar, throwing her head back and crying out in pleasure.

Quickly, she flipped Chauncey over with strength and ease he did not think she was capable of. With a nonverbal cue, Morris was bid to slide behind her as she wantonly rode Chauncey’s turgid length.

“Yes,” she purred as Morris pressed the head of his cock to her anus before he slowly guided it in.

It was the first time Chauncey and Morris had been in the same woman at the same time, and it was intoxicating.

Sitting up, as Sable rode his cock, feeling Morris’s member rub against his with only the thin wall of her flesh separating them, he feverishly kissed his enthralling lover.

Giving Chauncey a wicked grin before turning to give Morris an equally feral grin, she grabbed them both by the backs of their heads, pushing their faces closer together while still fucking her, until their faces met.

The idea of kissing Morris would have normally been an abhorrent thought to Chauncey, but in the intensity of the moment, it seemed natural. If luxuriating in the rapturous pleasure of sin truly was damnation, he and Morris were already set to go to Hell before tonight.

As they kissed, with Sable impaled on both their cocks, they rocked in time until she began chanting in some language Chauncey could not tell if it was Welsh or Greek, possibly a combination of the two.

As she came, her snug holes griping and quivering around their members still rock hard and deep inside of her, her fairy wings popped out from her back, the veins made of gold filagree, and the panes clear as if made of crystalline glass.

Chauncey and Morris both came with a roar, not caring if neighbors overheard their licentious shouts of orgasmic joy.

“I promised you both I would tell you who I was and where I came from,” Madame Fée announced as the two men both collapsed upon the altar with exhaustion.

His heart thundering against his chest, reveling in post orgasmic bliss, he stared dumbfounded as his lover flexed her wings. He looked to Morris, who appeared to be equally gobsmacked with the fact that their mutual lover was a fairy.

“I am Queen Sable, ruler of the Night Court of the Fae. And I have come to London in search of my consort, who would be my King.” Kneeling between the two men, she stroked both their chests delicately with the pads of her fingertips.

Her touch alone made both their cocks rise once more to attention, their bodies not needing rest when her body was demanding more, as if joining with her had imbued them with preternatural stamina. If anything, their desire for her was even more inflamed than before.

Seeking to find any flesh to devour, Chauncey did not hesitate when he dove toward his friend and began hungrily sucking Morris’ cock; Sable took Chauncey’s rigid member into her mouth; finishing with Morris shoving his face between Sable’s leg’s eagerly lapping the cum dripping out of her holes, suckling her clit, while groaning with delight from his friend’s attentions to him. Chauncey was a novice prodigy at sucking cock. The daisy-chain of pleasures continued until they all came once more.

For the third round that quickly followed, Sable invited Chauncey between her legs to fuck her once more. Then with a nod of her head, Morris slid up behind his friend, his finger teasing his anus before sliding his cock into Chauncey’s tight virgin hole.

Chauncey should have been mortified his best friend was buggering him, but he cared not, the pleasure of having his prostate stroked and his tight sphincter stretched, while Sable’s tight quim milked and massages his cock was beyond euphoric. It was the most intense pleasure he ever experienced.

Just as he came with a hoarse cry, his balls seizing and his eyes rolling up into his head, Morris drew a blade across Chauncey’s neck.

Chauncey’s semen and blood flowed freely, simultaneously.

As he lay there, on his back as he bled out, Sable latched himself onto his neck and drank his crimson life force up with the gusto of a sailor given free ale after being away at sea for months.

Taking the silver dagger from Morris’ hand, Sable bid him, “Drink, and become my consort!”

Sable sliced her hand, and Morris drank the black blood that gushed from her palm.

As she smiled down at him, Chauncey finally saw her fangs, the same ones that pierced his neck the week prior, her eyes now completely black, devoid of any blue or white.

In the light of the full moon, Chauncey watched as Morris transformed, wings with veins of silver and panes of green sprouting from his back, fangs extending down from his eye teeth and his eyes now devoid of any soul, all black like hers.

“Sorry, mate,” Morris apologized without any remorse. “Had you met Sable before me, you would have been chosen. But a sacrifice had to be made.”

“You said he was cold blooded, Morris,” Sable joked sardonically. “I’d say his was the hottest I ever tasted.”

As Chauncey began fading from consciousness, slipping closer to death, he saw a shimmering portal at the edge of the raised temple dais emerge. His lover and best friend walked through into her kingdom beyond.

It was ironic he was called cold blooded, when Morris had murdered him in cold blood.

Still delirious from the sweet poison of Sable’s kisses that had intoxicated him, he tried to laugh but found he could not.

As the moon watched dispassionately from overhead, Chauncey felt his body chill, and his blood finally turned cold in his veins as his heart stopped beating.