LINKDING

Armand rubbed his fingers together, an anxious, urgent motion. Then adjusted his pants over his crotch. Louis noticed, and wondered if it meant that Armand needed to piss, too; he’d had a drink, hadn’t he? More than one? Louis let them walk past two likely alleys – he really did need to relieve himself, but he didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to pause this easy flow of conversation.

Armand is a eunuch.

Rashid has been impertinent.

Paris, cigarette burns.

Louis presses a soft kiss to his lips, pats Armand’s cheek with his palm when he tries to linger. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” “No, Maître.” “Stop that. Sometimes you can just listen.” Louis knows it will happen before he says it. It’s why he says it. The serene blankness on Armand’s face momentarily replaced with a flash of immense hurt. The first stumble in the rhythm of his hand. “Alright,” Armand answers, barely audible. -- Louis brings home a boy, Armand cleans up a mess.

Louis and Armand play pretend.

*Louis in his head. Behind his eye. In his skull. Fingers deep in the orange, splitting the membrane, fingering the juicy flesh. Spread, he says, and Arun’s mind makes room for him.* Loumand. Lobotomy. Kink.

Armand, getting clean.

“No, what?” he asks, returning promptly to layering bruises atop Armand’s skin. No, maître, Armand thinks. He gasps at the feeling of Louis breaking open his blood vessels, pulling and sucking hard without drinking, just for the pleasure of seeing a mark. “Out loud,” Louis demands. “No, maître,” Armand whispers. The laughter that ricochets through Santiago’s mind is so loud that Armand hears it without even trying.

Daniel watches Rashid go to Louis' room and he can't get the thought out of his head. Louis has made sure of it.

“Because you made me wait for you, fifteen minutes, outside the goddamn Frick, in the cold, you are going to choose what I use to hit you. I am not picking for you. Then clothes off, on your knees.”

This is the purpose for which he was made: to be loved so wholly and completely. To be loved from the inside out, from his delicate throat right down to his guts.

Once, when the movers Armand hired had damaged some of Louis’s keepsakes, Louis had thrown him into the wall of their New York penthouse. Then Louis had snapped every one of Armand’s ribs, the slow pressure from one finger at a time, and made him count each break. Louis made him count until he could count no further, until his mind was empty of anything but agony and his mouth could no longer form words, and then Louis had kissed him, and told him he had done enough. It had been exquisite. It had been the closest to being alive that he had ever felt.

My darling Louis was so delicate, when he described where I first approached him, all those years ago in Paris. A park. Other people would say it was a cottage. A tearoom, a beat, a cruising place. A tasse, a lieu de drague.

Incredible. Armand, well-known non-vampire-creator, feeling so acutely his own physical resilience as a loss. The connection between his slapping a younger boy and altering Louis' memories and the fantasy of his own helplessness. The mouth soaping scene!! Louis knowing he needs to hold off the laughter, Armand being impressed that there's a weird and horrible punishment he didn't even know about... and gorgeous language, atmosphere.

*Louis undoes his belt slowly, savoring the hiss of leather through his belt-loops, the metal rattle and click. He’s always liked to sit back on his heels and watch a man unbuckle, himself: big broad hands, the smell of leather, the simple, elegant menace of the act.*

*“Maitre please, no,” Armand whined out loud, just as his mind murmured, yes, Louis, do your worst.*

In-between the interview with Louis, Armand tells Daniel his story. Absolutely astounding writing.

Threatening to burn you alive before fucking you with excessive eye contact in missionary. Awesome guy.

Supremely fucked-up Dubai dubcon, absolutely perfect