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'Turn zis vay, please, only your face.'
William did as instructed, tilting his chin up.
'Ah, good, good! Ze light is perfect zere. Be still, please, zis shot is to be crisp and steady. Now, Sacharissa, vould you be kind enough to place your hand—just zo.' Otto's face was obscured by the iconograph as he looked through it. 'Villiam, take a breath—good, hold it gently, does vonders for ze angle of ze chest—' Click.
It had started out innocently enough, William thought. Sacharissa had asked Otto if he might be willing to take a Certain Sort of Iconograph of her, you know, for her and William's anniversary. A private thing, a secret thing, you understand. Completely silent imps would need to be acquired so the mood would not be disrupted by their usual commentary, it's all very hush-hush, something a bit... devious. And that had gone very well. Sacharissa acquired a very interesting pair of boots, which she found she rather liked.
Then, through the kind of conversational byways that are traveled when getting your breath back and looking at the ceiling, William had asked Sacharissa if she might like some pictures like that of him. Her wholehearted response had surprised him, and the next day William had asked Otto how they ought to go about it. And that had gone very well, too. A corset had been involved, which William found he rather liked.
But these concepts, rather like wizards at an annual luncheon, have a tendency to expand the longer you entertain them. William found himself thinking in terms of illumination and costuming, catching Sacharissa sideways in the morning light and thinking, wouldn't it be gorgeous if she were done up like one of those ancient Ephebian women, the sort who usually came with an urn? And Sacharissa began slipping William little tantalizing notes, marking pages of plain-covers catalogues from Quirm with paper flags and leaving them on his desk.
And then, one evening over dinner, Sacharissa asked, 'I wonder if Otto would like to iconograph both of us together?'
That had been where it stopped being so innocent, William realized as Otto came over to help reposition them. Otto's hands were comfortably cool as he placed them here and there, turning things, lifting others, smoothing over surfaces. Spidery-long fingers, the kind that some people associated with pianists but for the life of him William had never seen a pianist look that... spooky, with the glass-like nails and how the color blended to a darker grey at the fingertips.
Spooky, yes, unnerving and very clearly not human... but that didn't mean William didn't like them.
'If you vere to straddle his hips, next,' Otto was saying to Sacharissa, very professionally and without even a hint of eyebrow-raising suggestiveness, 'I believe zat vould be very pretty, vhat do you szink?'
'Oh,' said Sacharissa, and William noticed a familiar, behind-closed-doors tone in her low voice. 'Yes, I agree. Good call, Otto.' She got up and stretched.
'Villiam, on your back for zese next shots, if you please?'
Getting comfortable on the wide chaise-lounge, William looked between his wife and Otto. When Otto was checking his light meter*, Sacharissa sighed quietly and bit her lip, watching him work, brows upturned. That was new—wait, was that new? Not really, William admitted. He'd seen her look at Otto that way before, when she thought no one could catch her at it. Only she had been wearing more clothes at the time, which seemed to make all the difference. If your expression is one of only a handful of things you wore, it made more of a statement.
She turned her gaze on her husband, then, and smiled, eyes flicking along the length of his body, laid out bare in the slightly-pink light that Otto favored for these shoots. Sacharissa mouthed, Is this still okay?
He nodded emphatically. It was becoming even more okay by the minute.
William was surprised at himself. His mind went an awful lot of places when he didn't keep it in check. Sacharissa was, to him, the most beautiful woman in the world simply because she was herself, and Otto was... hmm. Otto was wiry and charming, and alluring in a washed-out way. True, he was fussy, made terrible jokes, and could talk your ear off about the comparative benefits of various lenses and cross-breeds of imp, but honestly those were some of William's favorite things about him. And the way Otto's hands moved, gods, and the way he looked at William through half-closed eyes and smirked sometimes, like a drowsy panther...
William had Been Up At School, and when you were born into a certain class, education came with connotations. You learned a great many things at school that weren't in any textbook: how to manipulate the balance of power or slip under it entirely, how to negotiate, how to find your proper place in the world and, most importantly, survive—or that was the idea, anyway. Some boys clung to specific... experiences and carried them on into adult life, but the vast majority were expected to grow out of it. Lads will be lads, and all that, but once they become men they are expected to be unwaveringly, unquestionably manly. When your uniform no longer fit, when the all-encompassing slang no longer slid easily into conversation, you laid it all away in a trunk of memories and that was that; maybe you wore the old school tie, to signal to your fellow Old Hugglestonians that you had been there, you had trod those hallowed halls, warmed those benches, cleaned those bogs with your toothbrush, and were therefore trustworthy, after a fashion.
William had fagged for one of the prefects, a dull boy two years older who was good at sport and bad at table manners and who had, to William's surprise, been gentle and kind when the study door was closed behind them. The boy's nickname—for school nicknames were inevitable, and rarely flattering—was Mandibles, owing to an unfortunate development of the lower jaw. William spent quite a few peaceful evenings polishing Mandibles' boots and answering questions about their Latatian revision, gossiping about the latest wrongdoings of their rival house, occasionally wondering what girls were like, and frequently 'practicing' for when they met some. The sort of practice that was meant to stay in those poky, dark studies, rigid dormitory beds, and locker rooms; the things you were supposed to shrug off after the leaving ceremony, as if they were somehow property of the school alone as much as the desks and the blackboards.
William had never forgotten. He hadn't done anything about it, other than a lot of thinking. After awhile, even just thinking about it started to feel too risky. Gods knew what Sacharissa would think of him. It was probably just as bad as what he thought of himself.
Well, what was she thinking now? She nodded her head to one side in Otto's direction and waggled her eyebrows at her husband.
What? William mouthed at her, making sure Otto was still busy with the light meter.
Sacharissa subtly pointed at a Rather Interested portion of William's anatomy.
William frowned and pointed at her, as if to say, No, this is obviously your doing.
Sacharissa shook her head and jerked a thumb in Otto's direction, smirking.
William shook his head too, jabbing his index finger at her instead.
'Vhy all zese gestures, please?' said Otto, having checked and adjusted several switches and dials.
'Er,' said William. 'Nothing.'
'We often gesture for no reason,' said Sacharissa with a touch of sarcasm, trying to goad William into telling the whole truth.
'I hadn't noticed,' said Otto, looking amused.
Sacharissa carried on while William hid behind a throw pillow. 'Yes, it's a regular thing. A couple thing, if you will. Lots of waving the arms.'
'I see.' Otto shrugged. 'And here I vas szinking it vas a secret conversation about me.'
William dared peek out from behind the pillow, and the smoldering look Otto gave him could have melted something—not his heart, William insisted, because he generally avoided cliches. If not his heart, then maybe some rather stiff caramels.
Was it the pink lighting? Did it just... do this to people, make them come apart at the seams like this, and William was the only person who hadn't known about it until now?
Otto smiled, and his sharp teeth glinted in the traitorous light. 'Sacharissa, if you could climb on him now, please?'
'Gladly,' she replied, getting back up onto the chaise-lounge and dragging the pillow away from her husband's face. 'Let yourself misbehave a little,' she whispered as she got into position, guided by Otto's cool hands on her back.
William looked up at his wife, her perfect breasts shadowed in the half-light. He loved how her dark areolae were soft and raised, like little cushions for the pearls of her nipples. Sacharissa knew this, knew that all she had to do to mesmerize him was to give him a peek, and she had been known more than once to threaten, during an argument that wasn't going her way, Listen to reason, William, or so help me I will get a tit out!
'Good, arch your back like zat,' said Otto, tracing his fingers down Sacharissa's spine. 'Ve must show with ze lines zat you vant him. Zis line says zat clearly.'
Sacharissa kissed William, then, pressing her chest to his, one hand weaving into his hair, the other on the scrolling armrest behind his head.
'Perfect!' said Otto, dashing back behind the iconograph. 'Just move as it strikes you. Now is ze time for ze action shots.'
William let himself shift under her, pressing his hips up, unable to help it, delighting in how she broke their kiss solely to gasp at the sensation of him sliding against her. She rested her forehead on his for a moment, humming with pleasure as she rolled her hips forward and back, once, twice, the iconograph clicking away in the background, and William groaned.
'Zat's it,' Otto said softly, admiringly, as he moved the tripod a little to the right and quickly adjusted the settings, turning dials without even looking at them. 'Good. Beautiful expression, Villiam, you like zis, don't you?'
William made an incoherent noise as Sacharissa arched back up away from him and did a nigh-magical shimmy with her hips that settled her slick quim perfectly against the underside of his cock, gently pinning it to his abdomen with her weight. She ran her fingernails down his chest, making him hiss between his teeth and squirm beneath her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the magnification lenses folding out of the front of the iconograph as Otto zoomed in on the score-marks Sacharissa left on William's skin.
'You are qvite skilled at teasink him, Sacharissa,' said Otto. 'Vhat does he like best? I vant to capture zat.'
Sacharissa gave William a wicked look before she pinched both of his nipples firmly and pulled.
The keening sound that William made didn't seem real even as he heard it, himself, it was so needy, did he really make noises like that? He hadn't thought about it all that much before, but now that they had an observer, now that Otto was there with them, William wanted to sound nice, look handsome, and—he hoped against hope—strike some chord in Otto with all that, the way Otto's sultry expression and the curl of his fingers made William ache in a way he had thought couldn't possibly be welcome.
But Otto took the iconograph off the tripod and knelt beside the chaise-lounge, sitting back on his heels and hunching a little to achieve the correct angle for a shot of Sacharissa's unrelenting grip.
'Please don't be shy,' Otto told William, taking a moment to stroke William's hair. 'I vant to hear you, vant to see zis.'
William was practically sobbing now as Sacharissa gave a deft little twist, and he realized that Otto might not know that he wasn't in pain, not really.
''S good,' he managed to whimper.
'Get a shot of his face right now,' said Sacharissa, 'he looks so desperate!'
Otto obliged.
William didn't have room to move his arms, now, the right one pressed against the back of the lounge, the left too close to the iconograph; if he moved he might bash it with his elbow and ruin the lens. But he was happy to be bound in that way, to let Sacharissa—and Otto, the both of them, gods—decide who moved where, and when.
'Villiam,' said Otto.
'Nnmmyes?' William noised as Sacharissa raised up on her knees a little and snapped her hips forward once, only once, gods, barely touching him but he could still feel the heat of her, so close, what torment!
Otto had the iconograph fastidiously cradled in his lap now as he knelt, his free hand stroking Sacharissa's thigh as she tilted her hips and leaned forward, and he drew so close to whisper that William deliriously thought he could hear the fangs. 'Have you been a vicked boy, Villiam?'
Sacharissa squirmed down onto her husband's cock, sheathing it fully inside her, and William's trapped hands clawed at the upholstery beneath him, making helpless shapes.
'He has,' said Sacharissa, her voice dark and rough round the edges like it always was when she took something as deep as she could. 'He's got a crush on you and didn't even tell me.'
William tried to offer an explanation, but Sacharissa slid two fingers between his lips to keep him busy. William sucked, quite happily; he always felt better with something in his mouth.
'A crush, hmm?' said Otto, sounding mock-scandalized. 'Vhat do you mean, a crush?'
'Frankly, he makes moon-eyes at you all the time,' Sacharissa explained, and it sounded planned, had she meant to say this all along? 'And he wants to fuck you.'
William shook his head, giving her a pleading look, dark blush creeping up his neck and down his chest from his embarrassment. But oh, he was glad she had said it so he didn't have to.
'My, my,' Otto sighed, so close he could have kissed him if William's mouth was not otherwise occupied. 'I don't know if zat is qvite right, is it, Villiam?'
'You know, he's right,' Sacharissa joined in, finally moving again, rocking her hips in that particular way she had, riding him so that every thrust would hit that spot inside her that made her shiver and pulse around him. 'You don't really want to fuck Otto, do you?'
William made a pleading noise around her fingers, pressing against them with his tongue, and she knew it was meant to be encouragement.
'I think,' she said, expression very nearly dangerous, 'that you want dear Otto to fuck you.'
His hands scrabbled at the cushion of the chaise-lounge, nails making little zipping sounds against the velvet, and he squeezed his eyes shut, too overwhelmed. He whimpered.
William knew very little Uberwaldean, only enough to know when he was being insulted, and he had no experience whatsoever with High Uberwaldean, so he did not understand what Otto said to him next. He caught words like schöne, and drängen, and köstlich. They were solid words, solid as a fortress, growled softly with the sort of hunger William had never heard in Otto's voice before.
Sacharissa took her fingers from his mouth so she could better brace herself and really put her back into riding him hard. Once free to vocalize, the sound William made was a long moan broken up by gasps and little yelping cries as his wife bore down on his cock. And with such gentleness it made William want to weep, made William want to beg for more, more, please, gods, it's yours, please, now, Otto drew one cool fingertip down William's jugular. This simple action filled William with terrible imaginings: Otto holding him down, turning his head to one side and then the fangs, those distracting weapons that nestled in Otto's charming smile, piercing William's neck, not caring about the oaths anymore, only wanting him, more of him, inside and out, consuming —
'Good boy,' Otto purred, here and now. 'Ve vill take good care of you.'
Soon Sacharissa was coming, and she was a woman with vocal powers that could put an auctioneer to shame, her orgasm starting as a juddering moan and arching up into a wail that William could feel buzzing in his bones. And when she relaxed, glowing, humming a sleepy-warm hum of contentment, she did not climb off. She kept William snugly inside her, and he could feel every little fluttering pulse around him.
Otto took her picture, and there was a dreamy sigh as he lowered the iconograph again. 'Zo beautiful,' he said, and rose to his knees, tilting his chin up. William watched as his wife kissed Otto, kissed him unhurriedly and deeply, kissed him until William could feel her tensing around him again, so eager she couldn't disguise it even if she had wanted to.
This was better than anything, William decided, this moment, Sacharissa's thighs wrapped around him, Otto's disquieting fingers skimming along William's abdomen and lower, Otto's narrow thumb slipping between Sacharissa's labia and rubbing her clit in little circles even as she trembled around William's cock. Watching them kiss, knowing there was no need to worry anymore, knowing he didn't have to lie, everything felt Right.
Sacharissa and Otto broke apart, and as if they had given each other some sign, Sacharissa slowly got off of William and perched on the end of the chaise-lounge, smiling at him.
'Are you having fun?' she asked.
What William said was not 'yes', it was a garbled sound that wasn't made of words at all, really. So he smiled back at his wife, eyes full of hope and thankfulness, and nodded.
'Good boy,' said Sacharissa. 'Otto's going to lick you clean now, aren't you, Otto?'
'Mm-hmm.'
William felt dizzy at the very thought , but then Otto was swapping places with Sacharissa and getting comfortable kneeling between William's legs, and Sacharissa was saying, 'Is this set up how you want it?' and Otto told her, 'Just point and shoot,' and William knew that meant he truly trusted her, letting her handle his iconograph.
He caught Otto's gaze. There was a reddish glimmer there, somewhere in the depth of his pupils, and William thought, yes, this is Otto, and dear gods do I want him, but this is also a predator.
And I want the predator, too.
William tried his best to be still, tried not to look over at Sacharissa taking pictures of them, tried to believe this was really happening. And then Otto smiled, and there was such unspoken danger in that smile, danger that would never touch William with a ten-foot pole but not for lack of him begging for it with every line of his body.
Otto was very good with his mouth. Every lick and kiss was perfectly placed to make William buck beneath him, and Otto held his gaze the whole time, strangely unblinking like he was sometimes, dark eyes seeing right through William and telling him it was all right to want this, to enjoy this to the fullest.
'Put your lips round him,' said Sacharissa from behind the iconograph. Click. 'Take him deeper,' she said after a few moments. 'Gods, you two are gorgeous.' Click.
And then Otto began to suck, and it was perfect , and William wondered in a distant way whether vampires had more of an ability to do that as a species or if Otto was just especially skilled.
'That's it, Otto,' said Sacharissa, a little breathlessly. 'You've waited so long, haven't you, darling? Now it's yours. Devour it.'
It felt to William like Otto was venting all his hunger and frustration into this, everything he gave up when he took the ribbon, and—now William properly realized—wanting him , maybe even all this time. What could have happened if only William had known?
Sacharissa snapped her fingers, with an authority that made her husband's hips twitch. ' Focus , William. Give Otto feedback. Tell him things.'
He fought for clarity, and worried he would struggle for something to say, but as soon as he opened his mouth words assembled themselves. 'You're so distracting sometimes I pretend that I'm reading but I'm really just watching you, it's just the way your hands move, I can't not look, they're so long and beautiful and I wanted them on me before I realized what I wanted, I want them inside me, I need you.'
Click.
'I love the way you look at her, like she's your goddess, because that's how I look at her, even when we're fighting that's what I'm thinking, that she's perfect and I ought to worship her with everything I have. You understand and watching you two was... I don't know what it was like. Home. It felt right and good and I want this to be what we have now, I want you, both of you, I want to watch you together and be together the three of us at once and, gods, Otto, gods , do you ever need to take a breath?'
Otto hummed around him and the hum became a low, wicked laugh, and William's eyes flickered, threatening to roll back in his head from the pleasure. And just for an instant, just there, as William thrust up into Otto's eager mouth, he felt the tiniest little sting, the edge of one of the fangs—
William's vision went white and sparkling, and he felt Otto swallowing, and heard a final click of a picture being taken, and the iconograph was placed on a nearby end table.
There was not really enough room for three people to pile onto the chaise-lounge, but they managed it eventually, a tangle of arms, legs draped over legs.
'Why are you still dressed?' William asked Otto, and with what seemed like far more bravery than the immediate past events had taken, he kissed Otto on the temple.
Otto tutted. 'I am on ze clock, Villiam. Ve have been doing a shoot, after all.'
'Ah. Any chance of you punching out for the evening?'
Otto snuggled down comfortably between William and Sacharissa, unperturbed by pointy elbows and where William's foot was by necessity tucked under Otto's leg. 'I am qvite happy vhere I am for ze time beingk, szank you.'
'Me too,' murmured Sacharissa against Otto's neck.
I suppose that makes three of us , thought William.