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“Misha,” he whispered. And I heard everything
in that word. His relief at not being pushed away. His joy at
finally being allowed to touch me. His unspoken vow to please me,
and in doing so, so please himself.

He kissed me, hard enough to make my lips feel
bruised, whimpering as he did, his hand moving on my cock, stroking
me. Every touch, every sound, every kiss urging me to do more. To
be more. To
take
more. I sensed the urgency behind his
desire. The hunger within him to be claimed — not by just anyone,
but by me. To be used and celebrated for exactly what he was: a
being made to give pleasure. It may have been the Dollhouse at
work, but those longings were still his. He still felt them as
keenly as anybody. Maybe more so. Denying him the deep-rooted
pleasure of our shared passion didn’t hurt the Dollhouse. It only
hurt Ayo, and I wouldn’t do that again. Not if I could help
it.

Especially not when I wanted to make love to
him as badly as I did.

I fumbled at his clothes, pushing his pants
down enough to slide my hands into them, to squeeze the soft globes
of his ass, to nestle my fingers between them. Stroking. Searching,
until I found what I sought.

For the first time, he wasn’t ready. His
entrance wasn’t greased, and it made me a bit sad. Not for myself,
but because he’d been so sure I’d reject him. I caressed him there,
still kissing him, still lost in the sensation of his hand moving
on my cock.

“Misha,” he said again before falling to his
knees.

The shock of having him suddenly out of my
arms — out of reach of my lips — was immediately overridden by the
pleasure of his warm, wet mouth claiming my cock. I gasped,
reaching out to grab something — anything — to steady myself. To
stay on my feet. To keep from coming immediately. I’d had my cock
sucked before, but not like this. Not with this kind of intensity.
Whatever other men may or may not have done to me in the past was
quickly forgotten, lost forever to the sea of
mediocrity.

“Holy Goddess,” I breathed, trying to hold my
orgasm at bay. Trying to figure out exactly
what
he was
doing, exactly
how
it could be so much better than anything
I’d ever felt before. It was only his mouth, and my cock, and yet
it was so much more. It was inexplicable. Unnatural, but utterly
divine, and the pleasure was too intense to allow much thought.
Whatever the Dollhouse or his programming had taught him to do, it
was amazing. So good that I knew I’d never have the power to deny
him again. So good that I wondered if the entire world would
somehow be less spectacular than it had been before, once this
immediate pleasure had ended.

But it wasn’t what I wanted most. It wasn’t
him
, pliant and willing in my arms, his body pinned beneath
me as I claimed him. That was what I’d dreamed of, more times than
I dared admit. That was what I wanted with every fiber of my
being.

“Ayo,” I tried to say. Maybe I failed. But it
was enough. It was as if he could read my mind, or maybe he could
taste my true desire in my flesh.

He rose to his feet and kissed me again,
harder than before, whimpering urgently. I fumbled with his
clothes, clumsy in my haste, but his fingers were nimble and
steady, his movements sure and purpose-driven, as if he’d been
trained for this too — and maybe he had, but I no longer cared —
until we were skin-to-skin. He broke away only long enough to pull
a jar of salve from the drawer, and then he was back in my arms,
rubbing the oil onto my cock, kissing me, pulling me toward the
bed, lifting his knees to his shoulders, as I pushed him down onto
the mattress. I was frantic, desperate to feel him. To fuck him. To
make love to him. To claim him, and in turn be claimed.

I felt his soft fingers guiding me to his
entrance. He gripped me tight, pushing against me, and with a
sudden intensity that took my breath away, I slid
inside.

“Oh Goddess,” I moaned, and before I could
help myself, I grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled as I
thrust, as hard as I could, wanting to bury every inch of my length
in the tightness of his body.

He arched against me, moaning. A sound so deep
and so guttural, it sent shivers to my groin. I pulled out and
drove in again, pulling his head back so I could ravage his throat,
and he made that sound again. A sound of such intense pleasure, and
yet…

It wasn’t only pleasure.

It was pain.

In the throes of my passion, I’d wrapped my
fingers in his hair. In my fervor to be inside of him, I’d pulled.
I’d triggered his pain/pleasure response.

And suddenly I had a moment of
doubt.

“Why are you stopping?” he groaned in
frustration. “Misha, please!”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“For fuck sake, Misha! I don’t care if you do!
Holy Goddess, it all feels so good. Please don’t stop
now!”

And to prove his point, he bore down on me
again. He arched his back. He pushed against my arms so that my
fingers tugged again on his unruly curls.

“Yes,” he whimpered. “Like that.” He did it
again, pushing against me. His whimper became a moan. “Say it,” he
whispered. “Oh Goddess, Misha, I need you to say it.”

“Not yet.”

“Then keep going. Please keep
going.”

But all my nobility — if that was ever what it
was — disappeared like smoke from a chimney caught in the swift
ocean breeze. He was so frantic. So desperate. So responsive to
everything I did. Every thrust. Every tug on his hair. Every flick
of my tongue against the pale smooth flesh of his neck. He was in
ecstasy, and I followed him there, making love to him in a way I’d
never done with anybody, one moment lost in my own pleasure, the
next intent only in giving some back. Everything else fell away —
the boat, the room, the rocking of the sea. The Dollhouse,
Deliphine, Donato. Everything was forgotten. Insubstantial.
Irrelevant. There was only Ayo, his slender body, writhing in my
arms, his soft, smooth skin against my palms. His eyes, looking up
at me, so bright and clear.

And his mouth.

He no longer tasted of tears. His kiss-bruised
lips were swollen into a natural pout and he tasted sweeter than
ever. Like perfection. Like something unearthly, fallen from the
heavens. Like one of the stars, come to life.

I shuddered, gripping him tight, as my
pleasure gave way to the urgency of orgasm. I gasped, straining to
hold it back, but in vain. I cried out as it tore through
me.

“Say it,” he whispered — or maybe he yelled —
but either way, I obeyed.

“Verezhny
.” I barely managed to gasp it
out as I thrust into him again, lost in the intensity of my
orgasm.

In the intensity of
him
.

The stars and the heavens and the sea could
not compare to this simple slave who lay panting in my arms. Now
that my orgasm had subsided, I began to worry about having used his
pain trigger, but when I looked into his eyes, I saw no hint of
shame. No shadow of the self-loathing that always filled him after
Donato made use of him. I saw nothing but unabashed joy.

“Misha,” he said, smiling up at me. “Stop
worrying. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

I laughed at my apparent transparency, but
quickly sobered again. “You’ll tell me if I do, right? You know
that you’re allowed to tell me no. Or to tell me to stop. You
know—”

“I won’t have to.”

“But you can. Especially if—”

“Shut up.” He pulled me down, laughing as he
did. “Shut up and kiss me.”

I did, stowing my unease away to deal with
later. For now, I was too shaken by the strength of what we’d done,
and the simple joy I saw shining back at me from his
eyes.

We eventually disengaged and took a few
minutes to clean up. I noticed he made use of the salve again
afterward. He tried to do be discreet, but I knew without asking
that he’d prepared himself. That he was ready for me again,
whenever I decided to take him.

The knowledge aroused me. And yet, my response
troubled me too. He wasn’t my slave or my whore. It wasn’t his duty
to be ready for me like we both had been for Donato.

And yet, wasn’t it his decision to make?
Certainly he knew that. Would telling him not to do it be as bad as
what I’d done before, denying him what he wanted most out of some
misguided sense of nobility?

We emerged onto the deck of the yacht, Ayo
still buttoning is shirt. The sun lingered half in, half out of the
sea on the horizon, throwing blinding rays of orange into the
western sky. It was still hot out, but a cool breeze drifted over
the sea, lifting my hair from my forehead, cooling the back of my
neck. Over that distant point lay Davlova. I wondered what I’d find
when we got there.

“You’re worrying again,” Ayo said. His unruly
curls stuck out every which way. A couple of them hung in front of
his eyes.

“I suppose I am.”

“I thought at first it was new, but now I
think maybe you always worried this much. I just didn’t realize it
because of everything else that was going on.”

I chuckled. Ayo had an uncanny knack for
knowing strange things. When we’d waited together to entertain
Donato, Ayo’d always known when our master was coming for us. He’d
always been able to warn me before Donato burst into the room. Now
that Donato was gone and the Dollhouse’s horrible hook had been
removed from his brain, it seemed I’d become the victim of that
inexplicable perception.

I brushed his hair out of his face, noticing
as I did the sudden darkness in his eyes.

“What is it?” I asked.

He gnawed his lip thoughtfully. “I’m worried
about something too.”

“Oh? What?”

“I worry there’s nothing I can give you except
sex.”

“Ayo—”

“No, don’t start telling me I don’t need to
worry, or that I’m wrong. You’ve given up everything for me. You
lost Donato, and your job, your friends, and your city. And what do
you have in exchange?”

“You.”

“Yes, but what good am I? I don’t have any
money. I don’t have any skills other than sex. The only thing I can
possibly give you is my body, and now you’ve had that, I worry it
won’t be enough.”

I took his hand and pulled him into my arms.
“That’s not how it works. It’s not about trading
things.”

He pursed his lips in frustration. He looked
so young, and so childishly upset, I laughed out loud. I’d only
seen that expression on his face a couple of times, the first when
I’d asked him about swimming.

And suddenly, it all became clear. I gazed out
at the water, burning red in the dying light of the setting
sun.

“There is something you can do for me.
Something that would mean the world to me.”

His eyes were bright with hope.
“Anything.”

“Teach me to swim.”

He laughed in disbelief. “Is that all? Do you
mean it?”

“Yes.” Up until now, floating in the sea had
been the greatest gift anyone had ever given me. Now, Ayo could top
that. Ayo could give me something far, far greater. “Will you do
it?”

He smiled, rising on his toes to kiss me. “I’d
love to.”

We stayed there for three perfect days,
bobbing upon the sea, as if the rest of the world no longer
existed. Every moment not spent sleeping, eating, or making love,
was spent swimming. It was easier than I thought it would be. I was
clumsy at it. I’d never have Ayo’s natural grace in the water, but
I learned to float, and then to paddle. Slowly and awkwardly, I
conquered the sea. More important than that, the cool water and
salty breeze refreshed me — recreated me — washing away the stink
of Deliphine, the taint of the Dollhouse, the worries about what
we’d find in Davlova. More importantly, they quenched the fire of
doubt in my heart. They put my mind at ease.

Ayo was radiantly, blissfully happy. That was
enough for me.

Davlova appeared as a dark spot on the
horizon, like a beacon calling me home. My heart leapt at the
sight, excitement warring with dread. I scrutinized her as we drew
nearer with a mixed sense of relief and regret. I was coming home,
back to the city that had birthed me and raised me. Back to the
only home I’d ever known. She’d been a harsh mistress, and I hadn’t
thought I loved her, but as we drew nearer — as the extent of the
damage became clear — I began to mourn. Any majesty she’d once held
was gone, burned away in the flames of the revolution. Her scarred
remains were a vulgar interruption in the sparkling expanse of the
sea.

I raked my gaze over her, searching for a
landmark I knew. Upper Davlova and the wall were visible, but
almost unrecognizable, the stark white stone stained black with
soot, barely discernible amid the charred skeletons of
buildings.

For the first time, I began to wonder what
exactly I intended to do now that I was home. Somehow, I’d held the
image in my head of returning to the theatre and finding Anzhéla
there, sitting behind her desk as usual. But now, staring at the
hulking remains of Lower Davlova, I realized it might not be so
simple.