[The next installment. Please let me know if any of this is unclear, or any of the references obscure to you, and I'll footnote them for you. Also, if you discuss what you think is going on, and what you HOPE is going on, I'd be delighted.]
Chapter Three
I showed Jack the small kitchen and the banquet kitchen, the breakfast dining room, luncheon dining room, dinner dining room, and banquet hall. That took care of the ground floor in the main wing, but he was looking a little bewildered at that point, so I cut the tour short and moved right to the main event, which was (of course) the master bedroom. Dear Reader, you really must try not to have an evil mind; I desired—at that time—only to show him my wardrobes, or closets as they're called today.
He was astonished by all my clothing; the many rows of tailcoats, the many columns of shirts. In truth I was fairly astonished by how well it had all kept. I turned up the gaslights in the room. He eyed them nervously.
"Aren't those…dangerous?"
"Safer than candles," I quite reasonably pointed out. He looked at me as one looks at someone who may be joking, when one isn't quite certain. Or perhaps I flatter myself and he was actually gazing upon me as one does upon a madman, in doubt whether he is dangerous. "Would you like to try some on?" I offered. He looked this way and that, clearly hunting for an excuse to refuse.
"Um," he said, "you're not my size."
"Ah, no matter," I replied. "I've had friends of all sizes, and provided many of them with better clothing than they owned themselves." He looked trapped, poor boy. He actually blanched when I brandished a cream-colored shirt with ruffles at the neck and sleeves.
"I can't wear that!" he exclaimed. I pretended to be startled by this.
"Whyever not? It's a very fine shirt, I assure you."
"It's got all those—" he waggled his fingers near his throat, making a face as if he'd just drunk a pint of vinegar. "If I wear that, I'll look like a—" then he flushed as he recalled that I was wearing just such a shirt, with even bigger ruffles.
"—gentleman?" I completed his sentence, pretending not to notice his tone or color. "Respectable young man?" He said nothing.
I waited, and did not change my expression as he slowly realized he could not avoid insulting me without trying on the shirt. (Well, Dear Reader, no doubt you or I could have invented some excuse, but he was inexperienced at dissembling, which indeed one might call a virtue—one I, fortunately, utterly lack.)
He struggled into the shirt. He was foiled by the frog fasteners; I assisted him. He was so caught up in his own imagined humiliation that he did not notice my excitement, which would, I'm afraid, have been quite visible had he chosen to look. The French cuffs hung loose; it took me a moment to realize that he was not merely fidgeting, but trying to figure out how to fasten them.
"No, wait," I said. "Here." I retrieved a pair of gold cufflinks studded with sapphires from a divided drawer. I fastened his cuffs with them. He looked at me doubtfully. He was clearly embarrassed to tears to be wearing this shirt, but he knew I was not one to deride him for it. "And I know just the suit to go with that," I said, searching among the hangers.
"Wait! Suit? What…?" he protested, but I was oblivious.
"Here we are," I said, displaying with a flourish the royal blue coat, trimmed with gold piping, and the matching trousers. He looked at the coat with horror, and the trousers with despair.
"But I—" he said, looking at the pants. Then he looked up at me, too flustered to speak, but red to the ears. Dear Reader, I was so excited that my heart would have been pounding loud enough for him to hear, if my heart still beat at all. As it was I was completely silent.
"Oh, I understand! Your modesty will not permit you to change your trousers before others. Very well, there's a screen over there. You may change behind it, and I give you my word as a gentleman that I will not attempt to see beyond it."
"But I—" he said again, and again stopped. Then he looked me, my face carefully drawn into a semblance of wide-eyed innocence…and firm insistance. He drooped a little. "OK," he said, and took the clothing behind the screen.
Dear Reader, I kept my word to him. I waited patiently until he struggled into the trousers. And I give you my word that I had not used any power beyond my charm and acting skills to get him to do anything, not to this point. It's always more interesting to keep something in reserve; not bending him to my will (with anything more than sheer force of personality) had another use, besides, as you'll see.
At length he came forth from behind the screen, dressed at last like a young gentleman. My eye had been right, the trousers fit him precisely, even a little too snugly. With a start I realized why he'd been so very reluctant to try on the trousers: he had no undergarments at all, at least none I would recognize as such. How did I know? Well, let us say that, had this been an earlier time, I would have assumed despite his hair that he was a young Hebrew gentleman, and leave it at that.
"Excellent!" I exclaimed. "At last you look respectable. Come here and see what a fine figure of a man you cut in proper clothing." And I led him to the triptych mirror.
Well, of course I appeared in it! Heavens, Dear Reader, what on Earth have you been thinking?
Before the mirror, he saw at last what I had seen: the gold piping reflected the splendor of his hair, and the royal blue of the coat tranformed his eyes into glittering jewels of sapphire and ice. The effect was…nearly terrifying. He was godlike. He stood staring, as if transfixed; he'd never seen himself look so splendid (in the purest sense of that term) before. I was silent while he stared; at length he found a way to express himself.
"Whoa," he said. I sighed inwardly. Not, as I said, a soul of articulate wit, but able to recognize an æsthetically pleasing collection of colors when he saw one. Or perhaps he was using the term in its equestrian sense, and was proclaiming himself to be brought up short by what he saw? Well, at any rate it was time to move on.
"Now do you see why I insisted?" I said. He nodded silently, still staring at himself in the mirror. "Does it all fit well?" Another nod. "Actually I find that sometimes there is a bit of extra fabric in the seat. Let me check," I said, and before he knew what was happening I had lifted one of the tails on the coat and brazenly run my hand up his hamstring and across the part of the garment I had referenced.
He jumped, of course, and flushed, but I could sense that he was not as displeased as he pretended; in fact I could observe with my plain vision that his body, at least, was responding positively! And what a body. Now that he wasn't wearing those terrible loose dungarees, I could see that he had very well shaped legs, and at their top, in the back…very well-shaped legs.
"No extra fabric there," I blithely remarked, ignoring his reaction. "What a study in contrasts we are. Come, let us stand side by side." After a moment he complied, and we stood as a pair, gazing at the pair in the mirror.
Perhaps I should disclose at this point that I am black-avised, with rather pale skin, and gray-green eyes. An Irish friend told me long ago that their color is called glas in the Irish language, and could not forbear from staring into them whenever we were together. Alas, he is long dead. But Jack and I stood side by side together, he several inches taller than I, looking like the personifications of amber and jet. I stood a little closer, until our thighs touched. He did not pull away. His thigh flexed a little; I flexed mine…and so, without words, we came to an understanding of how the night would go.
I turned to face him, and when he turned to me as well I pulled him close. He stared into my eyes, and I into his, until I thought I would drown and he suffocate. Nor did his eager mouth on mine improve my breathing—nor would have done, had I any breathing to improve. I ran my hands along his firm and ample posterior; I knew what to do with this one, oh yes indeed I did.
At length I pulled free. "There's one thing…I haven't shown you yet," I said, pretending to gasp for air.
"The bed," he answered, and smiled a smile so brilliant I feared it would scorch me, adding as it did shining ivory to the sapphire and gold.
"Quite," I gasped, and led him thence.
[Feedback actively solicited. What did you like, what didn't you like? What would you like to see more/less of? And what about...oh, wait, already did that joke.]
to deliver more. We can't let that bed turn into a vast tundra now can we 
