Mariposa

And indeed there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

~T.S Eliot "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

He sat erect in the center of the bed, with the covers arranged around his waist like the petals of a flower. His posture was impeccable; his spine was as straight as a calla stalk, but not tense. His shoulders did not strain backwards awkwardly; he held the position with the easy grace of one who has long grown used to it. His legs were tucked underneath him in the traditional, modest fashion. In his lap lay his folded hands, delicate and tapered. They were soft hands, pale hands; the hands of one who lived a leisurely lifestyle.

He was more woman than man in his elegant splendor, and more doll than woman. His lips were painted a striking cherry red; small, plump, and perfect. His complexion was porcelain, so white that it obviated the need for powder to lighten his face. A hint of blush, very subtle, brought out the shape of his cheekbones. It was a hue that matched the color of his long pink hair, which was drawn up into a luxurious coil and pinned into submission by an array of lacquered, gilded hair ornaments. A kimono with a simple pattern wrapped his slender body, but the obi was undone and the front of it hung tantalizingly loose over his narrow shoulders. The mix between modesty and seduction was artful, a skill cultured by the House for decades; this was no common whorehouse with gaudily painted prostitutes and vulgar merchandize. The House specialized in offering quality wares to its clientele. Not quite up to the level of a geisha house, but very close.

Most unusual about him, right after the fact he was male, was that he was blindfolded. The most expressive things about him, his eyes, were covered up by a white cloth that wrapped around his head. It lent him an air of increased vulnerability; he was blind to his fate. But this did not seem to perturb him, as if this too was common practice. As if he was accustomed to his imposed blindness. And so he waited. Calm, lovely, even a little proud in his quiet expectation. Rare dignity in an undignified line of work.

He did not have long to wait. His client arrived shortly, striding in with an aura of cocky confidence. Though he could not see his face, he could imagine the supercilious smirk that would doubtlessly twist his lips unpleasantly. He'd known his type before; arrogant and crude. It usually carried over into their sex. The effeminate man mentally braced himself as he sensed the other's weight on the bed and managed not to let the disgust show on his face as he felt long fingers slide down his cheek. Calloused fingers- a swordsman. They tilted his head so that he faced him, catching on his tender skin like sandpaper.

"They tell me you're male. I find that hard to believe; I've seen sluts uglier than you."

His voice was deep, velveted by his amusement. Szayel did not respond to his comment, nor did he react when the man reached into his kimono and felt up his chest with those calloused hands of his. It was tellingly flat. The client withdrew with a half chuckle.

"Shit. I guess you are. Not that it matters any. I'm bored, and in the mood for something new."

Such was the case with most of those he serviced. He was a novelty, an experimental toy. This attitude was nothing new to him. He sat dispassionately as his customer removed his clothes, only stirring when the sound of rustling cloth ceased and he again felt hands on his body. They stripped down the kimono so that it puddled around his waist and pulled out the hair ornaments one by one until his long tresses uncoiled and fell like a pink mantle around his shoulders. One of the man's hands tangled in his hair while he forced him down onto the bed. Szayel submitted willingly, allowing his tongue to enter when he kissed him and encouraging him to explore. He arched when the man's caresses became more urgent, choreographing his responses to cater to his demonstrated tastes.

It was hardly an amorous experience. There was no passion involved in this line of work, only the feigned love and affected fits of ecstasy. It was not his job to seek pleasure, only awaken it in others. So when he sensed the man wanted to go further but was unsure how to proceed, he coyly ducked between his legs and licked up the inside of his thigh, questioning. The man inhaled sharply at the sensation, then fisted a hand in his hair and dragged him closer. He complied, wincing slightly as his scalp protested the rough treatment, and took the tip of his cock into his mouth. He worked his way down the shaft, tongue coaxing skillfully until he felt it grow rigid in his mouth. The prostitute tasted salt, felt a trickle of fluid seep from the tip down his throat. The man was close, but not quite there yet. He sucked more insistently.

The larger man groaned and thrust into his mouth, taking up the dominant role again. Szayel shuddered slightly but did not gag as he felt the client's length jammed down his throat. Though he felt like he was suffocating, he knew this was only psychological. He could still breath; it was only an irrational panic that choked him. Instinct. His throat burned as the thrusts came harder and faster; the delicate skin felt as though it was being rubbed raw. Beneath the white blindfold, his eyes teared up, and if they'd been open, his vision would be blurry.

His customer only let up when a hot flood spilled down his throat, and he gagged on the salty cum. Through sheer force of will, he swallowed the fluid rather than spit it back up, and even then a small line dribbled from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away as the other man paused to watch him recover.

"They told me something else about you. They say you're mute. Is that true?"

The amused tone was back, though this time his voice was colored with desire. Though he was demonstrating a brief display of self-restraint, he would not be long in getting back to what he'd paid for. The prostitute nodded silently, confirming this fact, and the other man laughed.

"I wonder abut that," he remarked, then shoved him down on the mattress. He straddled his hips, bending over him to nip at his skin. The mute man moved into every one of his touches, even when they became rough. The nips became bites, and his grip turned bruising. Szayel endured the treatment, never letting the pain show on his face. When his customer pulled him between his thighs again, he took up the work with no less skill than before. But this time, the other man's objective was different. He pushed him away, down on his back again. The prostitute let go, a strand of saliva joining his mouth to the other's hardened member, but it broke as he was shoved roughly backwards.

The entry was crude and unpracticed. That it was his first time with this kind of sex was painfully clear, even if Szayel hadn't known beforehand. Despite his stoicism, he couldn't help the quiet gasp that escaped his painted lips. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, and his mouth twisted down into a grimace. As if testing whether he was truly mute, the bigger man thrust deeply into him. A silent scream tore from his lips, and the client fastened his mouth over his. He hardly registered how his teeth cut into his lip; the agony that raked at him from the inside was crippling and caused all other hurts to fade in contrast. Only when the man finally struck his pleasure point did he find asylum, and he clung to that sensation frantically. Mercifully, his partner had taken note of the response and adjusted his motion to hit that spot. Szayel arched his body up to meet him, straining into his touch with a needy desperation, and lost himself in the euphoric heat.

The afterglow didn't last long. Lying on the bed, the weight of all his aches paralyzed his body. His nerves were spent; he did not even tremble from exhaustion, only lay there absolutely still. The cloth of his blindfold was crusted to his eyelids by the saline tears that had welled up earlier. He was again doll-like, cast aside like a broken toy. His porcelain skin was marred by red welts and bore the faint purple shadows of bruises that surfaced shyly in the shape of finger marks. His hair was tousled and knotted, and his lower lip sported a swelling cut, which his cherry paint obscured. His body was covered with a fine sheen of sweat and clammy to the touch, lacking the heat that their coupling had drawn up earlier.

At the edge of the bed, his client pulled on his clothes and prepared himself to leave. However, when he'd finished dressing, he did not exit the room. Instead, he shifted to lean over Szayel, his rough hands stroking his jaw.

"So you really are dumb, or an accomplished actor. And if you were the latter, you wouldn't be here."

He could hear him smirk, his tone insufferably arrogant, but he did not rise to the other man's bait. Only gazed past closed eyelids to a world that did not exist, losing himself in a landscape of clear blue skies and sunlight.

"Well, that's not really important. It's hard to believe you are a man; you act like every other whore I've known. In the end, you're just as weak as any female," the man finished, his tone derisive. He left then with the rustling of cloth, and his absence left a void in the room, as if all the life had fled with his departure. It probably had. There was nothing living in that room; it borrowed vitality from its guests, and when they left, that energy dissipated. All that remained was a hollow vacuum. It made Szayel all the more aware of his own emptiness, lying shattered on the bed. He could not rightly be called alive anymore, for after years of this ritual, he too had become a part of the room. Just another pretty ornament.

After what seemed an age, he managed to summon the will to drag himself upright. It was not strength he showed in sitting up, only the weary hardiness of habit. Though every movement cost him greatly now, the pain would fade, and indeed it had already begun to. The mottled bruises would yellow and heal by midmorning the next day, and the throbbing ache in his lower back would subside to a dull hurt by the end of the evening. Drawing his kimono up around his thin shoulders like a cloak, he slipped out of the room like a ghost. The blindfold he left abandoned on the bed.

He almost made it down the halls to the baths unseen, but was spotted by another who was returning from bathing herself.

"Shizuka!"

He paused, hearing the name the House had bestowed upon him in lieu of knowing his real name. Which was well enough; they all took on false names in this place, whether because they wished to keep their real names private and thus own something no one else could lay claim to, or because they deemed their given names too plain. Umeko was this woman's name, he remembered. Elegant and feminine, with a hint of childish sweetness. A good name. It was a name that sold.

"Shizuka, are you alright?"

Shizuka. Quiet. How well his name suited him, he thought bitterly. He, who could not speak. But he wasn't nearly so resentful anymore. That acrid emotion had seeped out of him over the years, leaving mostly apathy. To Umeko he nodded, his eyes swiveling away from her guiltily at the lie. He was not alright; none of them were alright. She wasn't fooled by his answer for an instant, but didn't press further. She understood the situation, all too well. It was a frequent occupational hazard. Her face conveyed the empathy she felt even while she dipped her head and continued on her way without comment of a backward look. Comfort was only offered in passing glances and in words. They all knew each would have to deal with their troubles privately and keep the suffering off their faces. Ever professional and masters of lying they were. Especially to themselves.

Alone at last, he slid into the heated water of the baths, inhaling the fragrant steam with a sigh of relief. The heat was a balm to his pains, soothing away the persistent throb of his abused body. In the back of his mind, he knew he should shower and scrub his skin clean before he entered the tub, but he could not bring himself to leave and do so. And he wasn't the only one to have ever fed this reluctance, when circumstance allowed for it.

It seemed that he found himself in such circumstances more often than the others. If he was fortunate, he'd have a few days off to recover before he was called again. He'd lounge. Bathe. Enjoy the idle privileges that this lifestyle offered when one was not immediately occupied. Watch the marks that darkened his skin like some terrible rotting disease lighten and finally disappear entirely, leaving his body again a clean white slate on the surface.

He shivered at the thought, began to scrub until his pale skin was rubbed as raw as his throat, and still he could not rid himself of the dirty feeling that persisted underneath. Closing his eyes, he let himself sink further into the water, taking solace in the languid warmth that surrounded him. His silence, Shizuka, was an irrevocable part of him. Stronger perhaps than the other identity he clung to feebly. The formative years of his life had been spent as Shizuka, to the point where he thought of himself not of Szayel, but as Shizuka most of the time.

Szayel. He hugged his knees and retreated to the safety of his mind. Szayel… who was he? A child of ten, bright eyed and insatiably curious with a clear, high voice. Not him… not him. His eyes were covered by cloth, his curiosity stifled and jaded by wordly experience, his voice locked away. He could not rightfully call himself Szayel, yet…

The knowledge that these past eight years did not constitute the whole of his existence was a heady thing. He was more than the paint on his face and the pretty baubles in his hair. Some part of him was unmanufactured; genuine. There was yet a spark of life in him that did not belong to that room. It was a foolish hope he clung to, a foolish dream he entertained that the sum of his life accounted to more than being an absurdly lovely whore.

Szayel hummed to himself, gazed into the distance until he found again his fabricated world of blue skies and sunshine, and allowed his memories to reclaim him.

Author's Notes:

So, here we have my fourth published story, and the third multichapter fic. By this point, I've realized the willpower to type comes and goes sporadically while my muse does not, and so it is very likely chapters for all three will take quite some time to upload. This fic actually has two written chapters and a third that is nearly complete that I wrote a month ago, but lacked the energy to type up. You have insomnia to thank for its presence here on . (Everyone say it: Thank you insomnia.)

As I mentioned in the summary, this is set in a land similar to feudal Japan. However, because there will be cultural inconsistencies due to the fact I am a lazy American, I've decided to go ahead and say that up front. I know the inconsistencies I make, but I can't be bothered to change them. For the sake of plot, odd eye/hair color is in fact not odd and perfectly acceptable. A Western name like Szayel isn't unusual at all, never mind the fact no one else (except canon characters) have them. And magical creatures, like youkai, do exist in this universe. Yes, this is the epitome of a "hole filled plot" so I'll just get that unpleasantness out of the way right now.

As for the plot itself... it came to me in a dream. Granted, it originally took place in a European setting, but the essence of it is the same. Therefore, I go into this story doing what I never have before; I do not know how it will end, and the bulk of it I've already thought up. So, if it pleases you, join me for the ride. Though it begins in a whorehouse, the story itself is not a dark one. Or it shouldn't be. We'll see how it ends once we get there. Oh, and go check out the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S Eliot if you have some time. I took some liberties with the first line, as I cut out a few between that one and the rest of the stanza, but it is a marvelous poem. I had trouble just selecting one part to represent this fic.

With any luck, my OTP will leave me be after this. *w* I've got other pairings and oneshots I want to write... R&R as always; I will love you forever and send you a long rambly reply. x_x. Unless you tell me not to. *Mutters*

~Tinari