Work Text:
Lucius had just finished leaving—the smell of his sweet cologne and musky sweat still clinging to the rumpled sheets, the upholstered sofa, the gaudy hotel carpet—when two sharp knocks sounded on the door.
Still naked, Severus rose from the bed with a groan, his lips swollen, his buttocks stretched and sore, the ghost sensation of what they’d done aching between his cheeks as he carefully slipped on a bathrobe and strolled to the door.
“Did you forget something?” he drawled as he opened it.
But it wasn’t the steel-grey eyes of Lucius Malfoy that met his. These were icy blue, colder than the Arctic, sharper than glass, framed by thick, pale lashes.
A woman with blonde hair pinned behind her head in a tight bun, her thin lips painted red, her long nose slightly upturned, stared at him with a look of disgust.
“It seems my husband has forgotten many things,” said the woman, “his taste, to start.”
This wasn’t the first time an embittered spouse had shown up at Severus’s door. Rolling his eyes, Severus made to shut it again, but before it could close, an umbrella wedged itself inside.
Then the woman pushed against the wood, just enough to meet his gaze. “How much for an hour?”
“I’m not taking any more clients tonight.”
“I simply want to talk. And I’ll pay more than your normal rate. Name a price.”
“A thousand.”
The woman barked out a laugh. “I doubt you’re worth half of that, but I’ll give you five hundred nonetheless.”
“Seven hundred.”
She gave him a hard look, gritting her teeth. “Fine. Now let me in.”
*
“Well?” asked Severus as he sat on the edge of the dishevelled bed. “Go on. Talk.”
The woman took off her coat, draping it over a chair, to reveal a forest-green, form-fitted dress that hugged her chest and thighs and fell just below her knees. She crossed her arms and leaned against the desk.
“How long has he been coming to you?”
Severus gave her a long look, then said, “All information is confidential—and no, it cannot be bought.”
“Don’t pretend to have a code of honour,” she spat. “Not when you suck the pickled cocks of filthy men too disgusting to have it done for free.”
“Is that how you’d describe your husband?” Severus asked calmly.
She looked down at her shiny heels. “No.” She tapped them together—once, twice—then looked back up again, one of her brows arched. “But I suppose he is grossly greedy, isn’t he?”
Suddenly, Severus’s attention was drawn to the scattered clothes around the room—the clothes Lucius had hastily peeled off him. He wished to put them back on.
Instead, he said, “My earlier statement still stands… Now, is that all you wanted?”
The woman surveyed Severus—his long, lanky hair, the sliver of bare chest peeking out from his robe, his thin legs, pale and covered in dark hair. “Perhaps you can show me what you won’t dare say.”
“Show you what, exactly?”
“I want to see what he sees,” she said in a harsh whisper, before hardening her voice, “Take off your robe.”
“You said you only wanted to talk.”
“That was before I knew you wouldn’t. So I can either leave here free of charge, or you can do as I say and I’ll pay you the amount we agreed on.”
Severus glared up at her, thick black lashes lining his obsidian eyes, and untied his robe, letting it pool on either side of his waist. Between his legs, nestled atop wiry black curls, rested his flaccid cock.
The woman’s thin lips parted slightly, and her porcelain skin flushed a shade darker.
“Show me what you do: how you serve your clients, how they use you. Surely you don’t simply sit there like a discarded rag.”
Severus rose from the bed and, standing in front of her, slowly turned to display his broad back, his leanly muscled thighs and calves, his fleshy—still pink from being slapped—arse cheeks.
She gulped.
He knelt before her and said, “I suck on their pickled cocks like a thirsty man dying for salt.” He brought his hand to his mouth, fingers curled as though grasping a man’s length, then bobbed his head up and down, all while keeping his dark gaze fixed on the woman’s widening eyes.
Her face went red and her body squirmed as though an icy droplet had trickled down her back.
“I’d better go,” she rushed, turning away. She grabbed her wallet, pulled out several notes, and placed them on the desk. “Seven hundred, as promised.”
Then she fled without her coat.
*
She came back for the fur monstrosity two days later. Severus had hidden it in the small hotel-room closet. He handed it over on a bulky wooden hanger.
“Thanks,” she murmured, holding it against her chest, not yet slipping it on. “I’ve thought of a question I presume you can safely answer.”
Severus nodded, gesturing for her to continue.
“What sort of clients do you serve? Demographically speaking.”
“Anyone who can afford it and is willing to abide by my rules.” He paused before listing off, “No violence. No degradation. No barebacking.”
“I see. Women, too, then?”
He nodded slowly. “Correct. Though I will admit, I don’t have many female clients.”
With a small twitch of her lips, she said, “I can change that. I’d like to book an appointment.”
*
Her name was Lyra, she said, but from the way her body unnaturally stilled as she rolled her tongue to say it, Severus knew she was lying.
Nevertheless, he’d call her by the pseudonym. For he knew better than anyone the freedom one felt behind a mask. After all, 'Call me Adam,' he’d told her.
And now she sat on his neatly made bed, legs crossed beneath a silk slip dress, straps straining against the weight of her breasts.
“How is this supposed to start? Shouldn’t you be seducing me?”
Severus stood an arm’s width away. “I don’t yet know why you’re here. Or what you desire.”
“I want to know what it’s like to be one of them,” she said, her eyes darkening. “To be a man of power.”
Severus took a step closer. “Direct me, then, as you did the other day. Demand that I do exactly what you want in exactly the way you want it. And I’ll seduce you with my submission.”
“Take off your clothes.”
Severus made a show of unbuckling his belt, unbuttoning his shirt, kicking off his shoes, removing each of the layers he’d been wearing.
“Kneel.”
When his bare knees met the carpet, Lyra climbed off the bed and walked around his naked body.
“Can I touch you?” she whispered.
Severus’s lips quirked. “Men of power don’t ask.”
“Well, they should,” she muttered. She ran her fingers through his hair and gently pushed down on his head. “Start at my feet, then kiss your way up.”
Severus did as she said, mouthing at her calves, behind her knees, her inner thighs, leaving her milky-white skin flushed and shining.
She sat down before he reached her groin. “Look at me,” she said as she opened her legs. “I want to see you use your tongue.”
And he did. Chills ran up her body as he stared into her eyes and lapped at her cunt.
“Fuck!” Her back curled on instinct and she whined. “I understand now,” she breathed between pants. “I understand why he pays you.”
*
Unlike her husband—who made his appointments sporadically, asking Severus to make time for him at a moment’s notice—Lyra was consistent. She met with him every Thursday at half past eight, after she put her son to sleep.
“Lucius and I have separate chambers,” she said once. They lay on their sides, facing each other, her bare chest uncovered except for the shiny blonde strands of hair falling down her neck and grazing her nipples. “I doubt he’s even noticed my absence.”
Severus gently stroked her skin, slowly running the backs of his fingers down her curves.
“I notice you,” he said. “You’re quite a sight to behold.”
She gave him a small smile, teetering on sardonic. “I’m glad to hear my money hasn’t gone to waste.”
*
Lyra seemed to stay longer each week, their time spent having sex becoming dwarfed by the hours they chatted or watched television.
One night, after ordering room service, they switched on the twenty-four-inch screen and landed on an old film. A woman riding the Tube dropped her purse, which was quickly retrieved by a handsome man with a charming smile. As he returned it to her, their hands touched, and the woman gazed up at him with round, sparkling eyes, her lips parted in a soft gasp.
“Ugh,” Lyra groaned, changing the channel. “I refuse to allow the insensibilities of patriarchal propaganda to tarnish my time with you.”
And now the hushed sounds of a ragged man sitting around a fire, cooking a skewered rabbit, filled the room.
“If only life were so simple,” she sighed.
Severus glanced over to look at her instead. She scooped up a spoonful of tiramisu and groaned around the metal.
“Would you trade your glamorous life to sleep on hard ground, sheltered by a roof crafted by your own hands?”
She took a drink of champagne—poured from the most expensive bottle on the menu—before answering. “No. But it would be nice to live in a world where men wanted for so little.”
Severus barked out a genuine laugh. When he quieted, he said, “Perhaps some women are sore losers complaining the game wasn’t fair.”
Lyra’s face slowly turned to him, her gaze sharp. “Don’t be daft,” she said, but noticing his quirked lips, her expression softened. “If I’ve learnt anything through this affair, it’s that there have never been any real rules. Only power—and those without the means to buy it.”
*
Several months later, Lyra finally asked the question Severus had been dreading—the one several clients asked on the first night: “Why do you do this line of work?”
Severus raised a brow. “That’s a question a man of power wouldn’t care to ask, much less know the answer to.”
“Well, I’m done pretending, and I’m asking as the person who pays you to be my friend.”
He snorted. “I like sex, and I’m good at it.” Then, deciding to give her an additional truth, he added, “It also helps pay for my schooling.”
“You’re going to university?” Her eyes widened. “What are you studying?”
“Chemistry.”
She laughed. “Between people? In bed?”
Severus rolled his eyes. “Is that all you think about?” And even though it was unnecessary—to prove himself—he corrected her, “No. Between particles. Everywhere.”
A bead of cream from the pudding Lyra was eating had landed on her bottom lip as she laughed. Severus wondered if she would have liked him to lick it off. He didn’t.
“Will you be listing this job on your CV?” she asked with a smirk.
“Perhaps now I should,” he murmured, mostly to himself. “I can say I balanced equations.” If, of course, one included strained marriages.
*
When Lyra made to leave, she gave Severus a hug and kissed both of his cheeks. But then she paused to look at him a moment longer.
Her hair was once again pulled back into a bun, her heavy coat draped around her shoulders. “You know, if you don’t want to do this anymore, I could help you.”
Severus shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m keen on maintaining my independence. I’m sure you can understand.”
As she went home to her family, Severus climbed back into bed alone.
What he hadn’t told her was that he adored several of his clients too much to quit: the timid man riddled with scars; the retired headmaster begging to be called a ‘good boy’; the insatiable politician with a fetish for secrets; and finally, the politician’s wife, who wanted a taste of the power she didn’t believe she could claim anywhere else.
She had called Severus—no, Adam—her friend.
Outside the walls of the hotel room, none of them would have looked at Severus twice.