Erotic short. A sailor visits a favourite brothel.
4k, rated E, cis M/M! Featuring some sex work, age difference, teasing, anal, some self esteem stuff, some degradation and humiliation! More with Paris, because he’s on my mind a lot of late, and I love him to pieces.
They make port just after sunset. It had made Ewan nervous as they’d come in, much of the crew still green and not always adroit sailing into any kind of narrow bay, let alone when the night had drawn in long and slow, the skies darkening from a plummy red to a deeper, denser purple, not as much light to see by as they’d come in, the seas not as sheltered by the bay in the wind as Ewan would have liked.
They’d been clumsy coming into port, but they’d anchored near enough to land that they could go ashore without much trouble. He’s bundled himself up in his coat, and had advised the other crew in no uncertain terms they’d not see him until morning, and not before.
A few of them had laughed, nudging one another and chattering quietly about him, but that sort of thing hasn’t bothered him before, and Ewan’s not about to let it start now. Some of the crew call him a cold fish, and that’s never bothered him none, either — a cold fish is what he is, a fair enough assessment, and if calling him that encourages the lads to leave him the fuck be when he needs leaving be, then that’s all for the best.
It’s a pleasantly warm night, temperate without too much humidity, and after two months at sea he’s relieved to be on land, to feel the ground steady and strong beneath his feet, unmoving, unshifting, unaffected by the rising winds and the passing swells of the ocean. He’s not a natural sailor and never has been, doesn’t think he ever will be — he’d first gone to sea at nineteen as a carpenter, had been press-ganged into it with a shilling dropped into his fucking tankard, because they’d been desperate for another lad working wood on the crew.
He barely even works wood himself these days, just coordinates the junior carpenters and keeps the young cunts from fighting over each other, has basically been doing half the boatswain’s duties since John Carter, their actual boatswain, had suffered that concussion six months past.
He’s due to leave, it seems to Ewan, to drop out of the fucking merchant service, and to be honest, he doesn’t understand why it’s not happened yet — if they were serving on a naval vessel, still, Ewan supposes that the matter would have been forced because too many people would want to dot the eyes and cross the Ts, but Carter’s put in a lot of loyal service, and he’s on very good terms with some of the ship’s investors.
It’s not like Ewan’s out for the man’s job, it’s not like he’s gunning for Carter’s extra pennies in salary, not when every fucking trip he gets a bit closer to handing in his resignation and finally trying to pursue his trade on land, but the man’s a mess these days, confused and out of it at times, sometimes acting drunk in the evening when he’s barely had more than a tot. His memory’s shot and he’s not got the head for schedules or the drills, not like he used to, and it’s a sad thing, but that’s life at fucking sea, isn’t it?
The brothel isn’t that busy just yet, will start to crowd with people in the next few hours, but all Ewan wants is a hot bath and a warm bed that’s on land, a real bed with space to stretch out his fucking legs rather than a tiny little berth or some moth-eaten fucking hammock.
Paris, beautiful creature that he is, is sitting aside from the rest of the boys and girls, paging through a book, and Ewan feels a shiver run through him at the way his eyes flit up and land on him, the way his gaze rests on Ewan as he crosses the room and puts his coins on the counter.
“I’ll take him,” says Paris, and Ewan nods to the madam, follows him up the stairs as Paris leads him up, his hips swaying, and Ewan lets himself look at Paris’ arse, the delicate swell of it under his linen trousers. There’s not much to the man — he’s thin and he’s willowy, although Ewan’s never been sure of that second word, because it implies a fragility that isn’t actually to be found in Paris’ frame or his personality. Slim though he might be, he’s deceptively strong. “There’s a bath already run.”
“Clean water?” asks Ewan.
“It’s warm water, which is the best you can hope for,” says Paris. “This is a brothel, Mr Jones. How clean do you expect?”
Of the boys available in town, and particularly in this brothel, Ewan would say that Paris is his favourite. He’s not alone in that, knows that Paris is particularly popular amongst a certain sort of man, a certain sort of sailor — a lot of the boys are cheerful young men, bright and smiling, laughing, teasing, are full of joy and a sort of warm, shining heat.
Paris is not.
He’s haughty and superior by his nature, always has his nose in a book when he’s not entertaining a patron, but he doesn’t go out of his way to be like that, Ewan’s never thought. There’s a sort of masochistic attraction to him, to the cool way he conducts himself, to Paris’ easy sadism and the gentle degradation he’s capable of — it’s one thing, Ewan thinks, to hire a big man to fuck you hard and smack you about while he does it, but Paris’ sadism is a subtler, more cutting thing. The young man will ride your cock and touch you gently while eviscerating you with his eyes, not even saying anything, not even insulting you, just looking at you with that disgusted air —
He’s capable of it, anyway.
Ewan had asked him to dial it back, some years ago, and ever since, Paris has done so. He’s soft-spoken and even in his conduct with Ewan, and Ewan is entirely aware of how the evening will proceed from here, and that comforts him.
Paris is helping him strip out of his clothes, and once Ewan sinks into the bath, Paris will attend him help him bathe, then go with him to the bedroom Ewan’s paid for — after riding him in silence, Paris will leave him be, return to work, and Ewan will sleep.
“Do you like your work?” he asks as Paris undoes his trousers. His fingers are slim and artful, and his palms are extremely soft, despite the young man looking like he’s made of marble — he’s very unlike the boys that Ewan will occasionally fuck of the crew, although he doesn’t like to indulge himself too often in them, wouldn’t ever go up to any of them himself and approach them, make a fool of himself as some of the other men do with the young lads.
Ewan makes a fool of himself, that much is true, but he doesn’t do it chasing after the young boys, let alone trying to pressure any of them into accepting his attentions, or play at being lovers. It’s the ones that like men that he occasionally accepts, and they only come to him because he doesn’t seek them out to take out his frustrations or his pent-up energies on, because he’ll be quiet and tame while they suck him off or grind themselves against him.
Still, though, those lads he does order about, even if he’s not officially their boatswain, and he wouldn’t ask a lot of them honest questions about what they want out of life, or anything like that — he barely talks with most of them at all, and he knows they talk amongst themselves, the ones tended to men and the ones who aren’t particularly tended to men but want satisfaction or comfort or whatever else. He doesn’t need to say that fucking him or offering him a shag won’t do anything to lessen their workloads or get them a bigger tot of whiskey or a bigger portion at dinner.
If he asked what they did want, he doesn’t know that they’d tell the truth anyway — not because they expect to get something out of it, out of sucking his cock or crawling into his berth with him when he’s sleeping in one, but because he’s still above them in the pecking order, because they still might want to impress him, might care about impressing him.
Paris couldn’t give a fuck about impressing him, and he sure as fuck won’t bother lying about enjoying the work.
“No,” answers Paris blandly. Most of a brothel’s denizens will lie easy as breathing — for a lot of people, this level of blunt honesty would be an affectation, but Paris is such a straightforward man that Ewan almost wouldn’t be surprised if it had never occurred to him to lie. “Why, do you like yours?”
“I hate it.”
“I see,” says Paris, hanging up his shirt. “You’re a carpenter, aren’t you?”
“Mm.”
“Your love of board planks and nails grows thin?”
“My love for them is the same as ever. It’s the sea I don’t care for.”
“You’ve fallen out of love with the ocean, have you?”
“I was never in love with it. Haven’t I told you I was press-ganged?”
“Perhaps you have, perhaps you haven’t,” says Paris. “You can’t honestly believe I listen when you talk.” There’s a slightly heavy lid to Paris’ eyes when he speaks and a sort of curve to his beautiful lips that implies to Ewan that perhaps he had known, and that he does indeed listen. This sort of provocation, sly and biting, makes Ewan laugh, and Paris’ lips give the barest hint of smiles in reply as he bends to unlace Ewan’s boots.
“Are you like this with all your patrons?” he asks.
“I’m like I am, if that’s what you’re asking,” says Paris. “Many of my coworkers put on one act or other — I’ve never had patience for theatre or mummery, and see no value in pretending myself bubbly or cheerful, or tragic, or sweet. I am simply what I am, and if men don’t find they care for it, they might pay for another whore’s company.”
“I meant — Funny.”
“Men frequently tell me I’m funny.”
“I don’t know that they mean funny like I mean funny,” mutters Ewan, and Paris nudges him to step out of his boots and his trousers at the same time, which Ewan does, immediately going to the bath and stepping into it, sinking himself down into the hot water. He sighs with relief at the sudden heat against his skin — it’s steaming just slightly, not enough to burn, and while it’s not deep enough to fully submerge him, it comes halfway up his legs and up against his chest. It’s deeper than he’d be able to get in many other inns and rest houses around town, let alone elsewhere, and there’s an unspeakable relief in it, the way it ekes into his bones, his tired muscles, soothes them.
He feels like something’s unknotting or unfurling in him already, not just the tight and aching muscles of all his work the past few months, all the cramped sleep in berths or awkwardly crammed into hammocks, the stiffness in his increasingly old bones, but something deeper.
The reality of the night off has finally sunk in, and he knows he’s fucking safe: none of the crew know where he is, and any of them that would come to this brothel would come for their own business, not to bother him. He won’t have the purser nagging at him about keeping track of inventory, won’t have to pull himself out of his hard won bath or his bed later on to help Carter back into bed if he starts raving or seems confused, let alone take over his duties, won’t have to pull lads apart when they’re fighting, or check over a work schedule to make sure it’s actually fucking feasible with the men they’ve got.
He’s free and safe, even if just until he wakes in the morning and lopes back to the ship — they’ll be here in port for two or three days, and then —
God.
That makes the dread start to come back, and then Paris’ hands come to settle on his shoulders and it fades away like mist under bright sunlight: his thumbs press hard into Ewan’s naked shoulders, and Ewan groans quietly, tipping forward. This is just a tiny little room with a bath in, more of a cupboard than anything else — there’s three of these in a row, Ewan knows, tight and close to keep the warmth in when men bathe, with just enough space for a whore or two to crowd in around one in the bath.
“What do you want tonight?” asks Paris, pressing his fingers hard into the muscle and making Ewan gasp and shudder at the throbbing, hot pain he feels, followed by the incredible relief as Paris makes those knots of muscle untangle.
“This is a good start,” hisses Ewan, grabbing hold of his own knees and pressing his fingertips into the meat there, his eyes closing shut and his head tipped right forward.
“That’s no answer to the question, then,” says Paris coolly. “This, you already have.”
Ewan huffs out a laugh. “Sorry, lad. This, then bed. Just you riding me will suit me, and then to be left to sleep.”
“Will you need longer than an hour?”
“I’ll be surprised if I last more than ten minutes, to be honest.”
“Good,” says Paris, and Ewan smiles to himself. Another lad in another port might have wheedled for longer out of him, might have offered to tease and draw things out — Ewan’s paid for the bath and his night’s lodging, and only some of that money will go to Paris himself, rather than his spending more for the young man’s time direct. Another lad would want to milk Ewan for more — Paris will go downstairs once they’re done, read his book, and another man will pay for his time, or perhaps they won’t.
“Do you make the most out of the boys here?” asks Ewan, groaning when Paris starts to press and massage up and down his neck, making it feel warm and buttery smooth as it’s kneaded into submission.
“I don’t think so,” says Paris. “We don’t have a leader board or some such, and there’s no competition between us — and frankly, most whores are rather private in the specificities of their earnings, which is intelligent enough, it seems to me.”
“So you can’t be taken advantage of,” suggests Ewan, “by some pimp or other.”
“So we’re not sabotaged or robbed by our peers,” replies Paris succinctly. “I would say I’m above the middle of the road, but not the top earner. I make no effort to seek out new clientele nor to lobby for their attention, but my earnings are consistent because what I do is somewhat individual to me.”
“That must be a relief,” says Ewan, not really thinking about it, far more focused on the way that blood is pooling at his crotch, his cock coming to life and bobbing under the hot water as Paris begins to scrub with a sponge over his shoulders, his back, his chest. Each catch of the sponge over his nipples makes him shiver, the brushes past sending thrums of heat up and down his spine.
“A relief?” repeats Paris.
“You don’t have to fight with the others, I suppose,” says Ewan. “Most of the men that pay for your company only want you, or somebody who can act like you — you don’t have to work to be the most charming or the most funny or the best at comforting someone because that’s not what you do.”
“Yes,” agrees Paris.
He doesn’t say anything else, and Ewan smiles, letting himself relax under Paris’ hands and not keep on talking as he lets himself be washed and looked after. This is the bit he likes most, truth be told — the delicacy and care with which Paris undresses him and folds and hangs up his clothes, the efficiency with which Paris scrubs at him with a sponge, lathers a bit more soap into his hair, rinses it out. It’s a relief beyond measure to be able to put aside all those small inconveniences, those reminders of his physicality, of his need to function as a man.
The grime, ingrained dirt and old sweat and saltwater, comes off him and soaks into the water, turns it a sort of briny brown, and when he stands, Paris pours a jug of water he’d kept back from the bath to rinse him clean, showering him in it before Ewan steps out of the tub. After towelling himself off, he doesn’t dress to cross over to the bedroom allotted him for the night, and he notices a client with a young woman laugh on the stair as they go by, but it doesn’t bother him, doesn’t scandalise him.
“Are you often naked on your ship?” asks Paris, following after him after he’s rung the bell to let a maid know — or, rather than a maid, probably one of the working boys not currently working — to reset the bathroom.
“Sometimes,” says Ewan. “No sense being too shy in close quarters.”
He drops heavily onto the bed and groans at how beautifully fucking soft it is — it’s just a cheap brothel bed with an equally cheap mattress, but it’s a big enough bed for two men rather than one, and it’s warm and it smells faintly of lavender. He peels back the blanket and slides underneath it, and as he reclines back on the pillows — fuck, pillows, actual pillows, and two of them, at that — he looks over at Paris, his fingers slick with oil as he works them into himself.
Ewan’s cock is hard from the bath, but it’s harder at the sight of Paris clumsily pulling his blouse off over his head with his other hand, his trousers around his ankles. He lets his gaze rove over Paris’ flat belly, the pale expanse of his chest and his perfect, pink nipples, his navel so carefully sculpted he wouldn’t be surprised to hear one of the masters had carved it.
He really does look like someone’s made him, he’s so perfect to look at, his proportions beautiful and graceful, his muscles carefully toned and obvious to the eye, his hair always with just the right tousle to it, messy enough to show life, but still look beautiful.
He sets his trousers and blouse aside, having kicked off his slippers, and then he’s sliding into bed under the blanket that Ewan’s holding back for him, his hand enclosing Ewan’s where it’s wrapped around his cock. Ewan groans in quiet satisfaction as much at the sight as the sensation — the touch is pleasurable, but what really sinks into his gut and stays there, what makes his cock stand further to attention and jump with interest, is how Paris’ beautiful fingers look wrapped around it, making it seem all the fatter, all the more a blunt instrument.
His cock is quite unlike Paris’ own, which is rather like the rest of him — beautifully proportioned and almost too perfect to touch, although at the moment it’s mostly soft between Paris’ legs.
“Do you want to see me come?” asks Paris, his hand hovering over his cock.
“I won’t be awake long enough to satisfy you,” says Ewan. “Would you rather suck me?”
“No,” says Paris, lines himself up over Ewan’s hard cock, and sinks himself down.
Fuck, but it’s sublime. Ewan closes his eyes tightly, a sharp gasp cutting out of his throat, at the sudden heat and tightness of Paris enveloping him, at the slow descent of his beautiful arse down against Ewan’s thighs, swallowing his cock within him. Ewan’s perfectly sheathed inside him, utterly surrounded by him, and his hands hover in the air, not touching Paris’ hips right away.
Sometimes, Paris lets him, even brings Ewan’s hands up to touch his hips, or his nipples, his arse, but those are the nights where Ewan is more awake and frankly, more alive, when Paris will be riding him for long enough to chase his own orgasm — now, he grasps at Ewan’s wrists and pins them either side of his head with that deceptive strength of his, making him moan. His hips jerk up automatically, and Paris hums as he shifts his position, bracing his knees on the bed before beginning to rock down onto him.
“Fuck, you’re perfect,” Ewan moans, and Paris looks down at him with his cold eyes, his smirking lips, as he rolls his hips down against him. He doesn’t lean in to kiss Ewan, but then, Ewan hasn’t asked him to, and doesn’t usually — it’s more than enough to feel Paris’ body on top of his, Paris’ heat, and to be able to look at him, the figure he cuts in the scant light still filtering in from outside and the candle on the bedside table. The light from the flames lick over his body, casting fine shadows over its shape, the hollow between his pectoral muscles, the shadow at his navel, the shadows on the underside of his perfectly sculpted jaw and his graceful neck as he tips his head back and sighs.
He might not be fully hard, but that isn’t to say he doesn’t find some sort of pleasure or satisfaction in this, grinding himself down — his cock is halfway to erection now, and Ewan stares at it hungrily, wanting to hold it in his mouth and feel it swell, to thicken on his tongue and between his lips.
Tomorrow morning, maybe, if Paris has the time and the inclination.
“You’re pathetic,” says Paris, and Ewan’s whole body jerks as if he’s been struck by lightning; a broken moan chokes out of his throat and his hands clench into fists where his wrists are pinned by Paris’ grip.
“Oh, God,” Ewan moans.
“Pathetic,” repeats Paris, his lips shifting into more of a smirk, his cherry lips shining red and glossy in the dim light. “Are you grateful to touch me, Mr Jones? That I allow you the privilege?”
“Yes, yes,” whimpers Ewan, his cheeks burning with heat, his cock throbbing, and fuck, fuck, but he would have come quickly without this particular came — with it, his balls are already drawn up tight and suddenly his cock is jerking, Paris clenching tight around him as he laughs.
It’s a beautiful laugh.
“Do you enjoy this?” asks Ewan, feeling a little dizzy, as if wind is rushing in his ears.
“Your cock inside me?” asks Paris.
“You could have cock from anybody you wanted,” says Ewan. “No, the — the degradation? The insults?”
“Oh,” says Paris, and his smile now is quite unlike what Ewan usually sees of him: it’s almost innocent, sweet, bright, has a delicacy to it. It’s a simple, uncomplicated smile. “Yes,” he decides, and eases himself from Ewan’s lap.
Ewan lies there, spent and wrung dry, and looks blearily at Paris comes back over with a cloth, wiping his cock clean, and then tucks the blanket over him. It’s an amusingly tender gesture from a man not inclined to tenderness, and it makes Ewan laugh, like it does every time he visits.
“Have you need of anything else?” asks Paris.
“I’ve been given everything I wanted, my every need attended to,” mumbles Ewan. “You are sublimity and perfection.”
“I know,” says Paris, as humble as he ever is, and he slips from the room with no farewell nor “good night” — Ewan turns himself over, collapsing further into the pillows, and sleeps easily and blissfully.
* * *
He wakes in the morning to sun shining through the curtain, and Paris, naked and beautiful, setting a mug of hot cocoa and a plate of bread and cheese on his bedside table.
“On the house?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.
“The usual fee,” retorts Paris. “That I brought it before you asked? You might enjoy that grace on the house.”
“I love you as I’ve never loved anybody,” says Ewan, sleep-drunk and uninhibited.
“I hear that often,” says Paris. “As many whores do.”
“But I mean it.”
“They all mean it,” Paris replies. “That you’ll love me as you won’t another man is no reflection on me at all, Mr Jones. On you, however?”
It’s far too devastating a truth for so early in the morning, and Ewan blinks sleepily in its wake, staring after Paris as he slips out again. Helplessly, he laughs, rubbing at his eyes, and grasps for the cocoa.
He’ll pay on the way out.
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