Nudity had never bothered him. He knew by now that it was proscribed among the Veretian nobility. But even if Veretian customs had concerned him, everything that there was to see had been seen, very publicly. He unpinned his garments and let them fall. He was unsure what the point of this was. Unless this feeling was the point.
‘Undress me,’ said Laurent.
The feeling intensified. He ignored it, and stepped forward.
The foreign clothing gave him pause. Laurent extended a coolly peremptory hand, palm up, indicating a starting point. The tight little lacings on the underside of Laurent’s wrist continued about halfway up his arm, and were of the same dark blue as the garment. Untying them took several minutes; the laces were small, complicated and tight, and he must pull each one individually through its hole, feeling the drag of the tie against the material of the eyelet.
Laurent lowered one arm, trailing laces, and extended the other.
In Akielos, clothing was simple and minimal, with a focus on the aesthetics of the body. By contrast, Veretian clothing was concealing, and seemed designed to frustrate and impede, its complexity serving no obvious purpose other than to make disrobing difficult. The methodical ritual of unlacing made Damen wonder, scornfully, if Veretian lovers suspended their passion for a half hour in order to disrobe. Perhaps everything that happened in this country was deliberate and bloodless, including love making. But no, he remembered the carnality of the ring. The pets had dressed differently, offering ease of access, and the red-haired pet had unlaced only that part of his master’s clothing that was required for his purpose.
When all the various lacings were untied, he drew the garment off; it was revealed to be an outer layer only. Beneath it was a simple white shirt (also laced), which had not previously been visible. Shirt, pants, boots. Damen hesitated.
Golden brows arched. ‘Am I here to wait on the modesty of a servant?’
So he knelt. The boots must be taken off; the pants were next. Damen stepped back when it was done. The shirt (now unlaced) had slipped slightly, exposing a shoulder. Laurent reached behind himself and drew it off. He was wearing nothing else.
Damen’s flinty dislike of Laurent forestalled his usual reaction to a well-shaped body. If not for that, he might have experienced a moment of difficulty.
For Laurent was all of a piece: his body had the same impossible grace as his face. He was lighter built than Damen, but his body wasn’t boyish. Instead, he possessed the beautifully proportioned musculature of a young man on the new cusp of adulthood, made for athletics, or statuary. And he was fair. So fair, skin as fair as a young girl’s, smooth and unmarked, with a glimmer of gold trailing down from his navel.
In this over-clothed society Damen might have expected Laurent to display some self-consciousness, but Laurent seemed as coolly immodest about his nudity as he was about everything else. He stood much like a young god before whom a priest was about to make an offering.
‘Wash me.’
Damen had never performed a servile task before in his life, but he supposed that this one would not overwhelm either his pride or his comprehension. By now he knew the customs of the baths. But he felt a sense of subtle satisfaction from Laurent, and a corresponding internal resistance. It was an uncomfortably i
ntimate form of attendance; he was not restrained, and they were alone, one man serving another.
All the appurtenances had been carefully laid out: a fat-bellied silver pitcher, soft cloths, and bottles of oil and frothy liquid soap, made from clear spun glass, their stoppers capped in silver. The one that Damen picked up depicted a vine heavy with grapes. He felt their contours under his fingers as he unstopped the little bottle with a tug against the resistant suction. He filled the silver pitcher. Laurent presented his back.
Laurent’s very fine skin, when Damen poured water over it, was like white pearl. His body under the slick soap was nowhere soft or yielding, but taut like an elegantly sprung bow. Damen supposed that Laurent partook of those refined sports that courtiers sometimes indulged in, and which the other participants would allow him, being their prince, to win.
He continued from shoulders to lower back. The spill of water wet his own chest and thighs, where it ran in rivulets, leaving behind suspended droplets that glimmered and threatened at any moment to trail suddenly downwards. The water was hot when it pulsed up from the ground, and hot when he poured it from the silver pitcher. The air was hot.
He was conscious of it. He was conscious of the rise and fall of his chest, of his breathing, of more than that. He remembered that in Akielos he had been washed by a slave with yellow hair. Her colouring had matched Laurent’s so closely they might have been twinned. She had been far less disagreeable. She had closed the distance of inches and pressed her body against his. He remembered her fingers curling around him, her nipples soft as bruised fruit where they pressed into his chest. A pulse beat in his neck.
It was a poor time to lose control of his thoughts. He had now progressed far enough in his undertaking that he encountered curves. They were firm under his hands, and the soap made everything slippery. He looked down, and the wash cloth slowed. The hothouse atmosphere of the baths only increased the impression of sensuality, and despite himself, Damen felt the first hardening between his legs.
There was a change in the quality of the air, his desire suddenly tangible in the thick humidity of the room.
‘Don’t be presumptuous,’ said Laurent, coldly.
‘Too late, sweetheart,’ said Damen.
Laurent turned, and with calm precision unleashed a backhanded blow that had easily enough force to bloody a mouth, but Damen had had quite enough of being hit, and he caught Laurent’s wrist before the blow connected.
They were motionless like that for a moment. Damen looked down into Laurent’s face, the fair skin a little heat-flushed, the yellow hair wet at the tips, and under those golden lashes the arctic blue eyes, and when Laurent made a little spasming motion to free himself, he felt his grip on Laurent’s wrist tighten.
Damen let his gaze wander downwards—wet from chest to taut abdomen—and further. It was really a very, very nice body, but the cold outrage was genuine. Laurent was not even a little amorous, Damen noted; that part of him, quite as sweetly made as the rest, was quiescent.
He felt the tension hit Laurent’s body, though the tone didn’t change overmuch from its usual drawl. ‘But my voice has broken. That was the only prerequisite, wasn’t it?’
Damen released his grip, as though burned. A moment later, the blow he had thwarted landed, harder than he could have imagined, smashing across his mouth.
‘Get him out of here,’ said Laurent. It was no louder than his speaking voice, but the doors swung open. Not even out of earshot. Damen felt hands on him as he was pulled roughly backwards.
‘Put him on the cross. Wait for me to arrive.’