Celestine's fics (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} celescribbles) wrote,@ 2008-02-20 22:10:00 |
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One-Shot, Romilda/Blaise
Chocolate Soldier
Genre: Romance, Angst, Post-DH
Pairing : Romilda/Blaise
Rating: R
Warnings: sexual content and general immorality
Story Summary : He wanted to ask her when he’d see her again, and for a moment as she stood by the door, he had the distinct feeling she wanted to ask him the same thing. But in the end, she left as she always had, with only a tilt of her head and a last glance at him before walking out.
“Goodbye, Blaise.”
Author's Notes: another one for the Cocktail Challenge! Thanks to Anne and Liz. This is an unusual pairing and two very minor characters, that don't get much love in the fandom, so I was surprised at the positive response I got from it, and how interesting it was to write about them. I hope you all enjoy as well.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, feeling around for one of her stockings - it looked like a pale, gossamer ghost floating in her hand, but then fleshed out, stretched against the creamy skin of her leg. He watched as she slipped the stocking up her calf, her thigh, and then did the same with the other, standing up and giving him a perfect view of her buttocks, her back, and the messy mass of dark, glossy hair that tumbled down it. She rummaged around for her bra and he playfully grabbed it from the floor, dangling it up until she looked his way and made a lunge for it. He was laughing, but he was sleepy too, and his heart wasn’t really in it. In a few minutes, she’d leave, out the door and into the cold grey morning, in her black stiletto heels and her stark black coat. The sheen of glamour from the night before would be gone, washed off by the gloom of the early hours of the day, and he knew that when he saw her standing in his front hall, he would hardly recognise that warm, vibrant body that had moved against his just a few hours before.
Four times already, he thought, falling back against his pillow. The count was slowly but surely adding up. Where would it stop? At five? Six? When would they start to feel the need to see each other in the afternoon, in the morning, for breakfast, lunch or dinner? When would he actually feel the urge to send her an owl or call her through the Floo network? It was not something he had ever envisaged getting into this business, but he was starting to think the whole experience was bringing him more than he had bargained for.
“You should give me your Floo number,” he blurted out, not really knowing what he was saying and why.
She paused in the act of zipping up her skirt and looked up at him. Only a slight movement of her lips betrayed her surprise – her gaze was steady and intent, as always. Then she smiled – a small smile, one he’d seldom seen on her, and that seemed to clash somewhat with her strong jaw and bold eyebrows.
“Last night was really lovely,” she said.
Lovely. It was a quaint word, and it was completely wrong as a means of describing the time they’d spent together, grabbing whatever pleasure they could, hungrily and recklessly, with little regard to where and how they managed to do it. Nevertheless, he smiled at her, and his eyes followed her as she put on the rest of her clothes and made to go.
He wanted to ask her when he’d see her again, and for a moment as she stood by the door, he had the distinct feeling she wanted to ask him the same thing. But in the end, she left as she always had, with only a tilt of her head and a last glance at him before walking out.
“Goodbye, Blaise.”
*****************************
Two months earlier, Romilda Vane had walked in her boss’s office, holding a file, a Quick-Scribble quill and a cup of fresh Mandrake juice.
Elaine Flabble was the editor-in-chief of the Fortune Teller, one of the many magazines that had cropped up in the post-war editorial boom. Heavy criticism of the Daily Prophet and the demise of Rita Skeeter’s career, who had publicly slandered a revered war hero, left much room for new newspapers with fresh ideas. The Fortune Teller was a weekly scandal sheet with no political agenda of any kind – if it shocked and if it sold, it was good enough to print. This ruthless, free-for-all take on things was precisely what Romilda liked about it. For two years after leaving Hogwarts, she’d worked as a secretary at the Daily Prophet, where she didn’t do much else than answer owls and listen half-heartedly to lectures about the importance of work ethics and politics of the wizarding world. But Romilda had no interest for either of these things - she’d had enough exalted moral values to last a lifetime being in Gryffindor for seven years. She was young, ambitious and eager to sharpen her knives on real scoops. The Fortune Teller, in this respect, was a much greener, if slightly seedier, pasture.
“Good morning, Elaine,” she said, handing her the cup of Mandrake juice. “Thought you might want some – it’s piping hot.”
Elaine looked up at her from the stack of newspapers she was sifting through, half-amused and half-annoyed. “You’re here to talk to me about the Flamelle story again, aren’t you?”
Romilda smiled, but her eyes hardened. “If you don’t mind, of course.”
“I’m guessing that file you have isn’t just there to look pretty,” Elaine said. “I see you’ve been keeping busy.”
Romilda dropped the file onto the desk. “One week’s research, all in here. Records of similar establishments through the ages, a bit of background information on the blokes who work there…”
“Impressive,” Elaine admitted, flipping through the file then closing it and sitting back in her chair, arms crossed. “But I don’t know, Vane… I’m still not convinced this is viable. I still think Kilenic would be better for the job.”
Romilda remained silent for a moment, as if she’d been expecting the blow, then seemed to regroup. “I’ll grant you that she has more experience than I do, but with all due respect, Elaine, Sylvana is more the type to cover the latest aristocratic wedding than an inside story on an escort bar.”
Elaine shrugged, but seemed to be considering the argument. “Kilenic has that… frustrated housewife appeal that might seem appropriate for that kind of place. You’re young and you’re attractive – why would someone like you go to an escort club?”
“Career girls have no time for romance, and they don’t mind paying for sex with a good-looking man,” she replied, with disarming naturalness. “It’s more convenient that way.”
Elaine took a sip of Mandrake juice and looked through the file again. “All right, Vane. You’ve got the job. Do this right and you might be running your own column before next year.”
Romilda grinned. “You won’t be disappointed.”
Whether she was talking to her editor-in-chief or to herself wasn’t quite clear.
*****************************
The first time she’d pushed past the door at Flamelle’s, a sober, nondescript building just off Diagon Alley, on the Muggle side of London, she immediately latched on to the more alluring details she would need for her article, already forming catchy sentences in her mind – the exclusive feminine atmosphere of the crimson carpeted hall, the soft music coming from the main room, the kindly hostesses directing the clients to their tables, and a glowing sign with black-and-white animated pictures of the escorts, the only thing that differentiated the establishment from a restaurant or a beauty salon.
Most of the patrons were older than she was, she noted, though definitely not housewives or old biddies looking for a good time. She had been right – Kilenic would’ve been as out of place here as a sheep at a thoroughbred stud. There was an atmosphere of cold hard cash and blank sexual appetite about the place that made it irreparably animal, despite the efforts of the hostesses, the tasteful decoration and the polished appearance of the escorts. Romilda herself was more partial to places where desire was unbridled and unapologetic – night-clubs or bars, with pounding music and drinks all around, and the knowledge that nothing would last beyond morning. She’d had her share of wild nights before. It was a nice change from having to trick the more virtuous students of a posh public school with drugged sweets just to get them to loosen their ties a bit.
She was recalling the incident, half-amused and half-horrified at her enterprising younger self, when a smiling hostess came up to her table to take her drink order.
“I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of seeing you here before,” she added in a friendly tone. “Perhaps you’d also enjoy some company for the evening. All the young men who work here are well-versed in many subjects of discussion, and eager to cater to our clients’ every need.”
If the price is right, of course, Romilda thought, irritated by the establishment’s candy-coating of a rather crass equation: paying for sex. The women here were no better than blokes paying for prostitutes. She wondered why they so desperately needed the illusion that they were.
“I’d rather share the evening with someone my own age,” she said, pretending to be flustered. “But just for a conversation. I’m not here for anything else.”
Not that she would’ve minded a good, solid shag, but an hour of company cost a fortune in Galleons already, and Elaine would kill her if she spent any more, seeing as the newspaper was covering the expense.
“I think I have just the person for you – he’s new to this establishment as well. He’s a big fan of the arts and a brilliant conversationalist. You’ll be blown away.”
Romilda nodded, eager for the hostess to leave so she could gather her thoughts. A few minutes later, she saw a tall, dark-skinned young man head her way, carrying two martinis. He was breathtakingly handsome, in a very dangerous sort of way. A smug smile, high cheekbones, lithe hands… When recognition hit her, she couldn’t help but flinch. He noticed. He stopped, just for a second, before sitting down in front of her. She watched him, suspecting this was the moment that the escort was supposed to start a casual conversation, subtly charming the patron with hopes that he could later entice her to pay for further services.
But there was no casual conversation to be had now. They knew each other. Vaguely, from afar, but it was enough.
Blaise Zabini set the two martinis down, then took a cigarette from a pack in his pocket, and offered her one wordlessly, lighting hers then his own with a silver lighter. He blew a billow of smoke from between his full lips and for all the world he looked amused.
“You’ve never done this before, have you?”
Romilda was surprised by the question. She half-expected him to make some catty remark about noble Gryffindors being subject to the crass needs of the flesh just like everyone else. But on second thought, all that was so long ago… Did it even have a meaning anymore? She supposed that if she had known that a former Hogwarts student was now an escort, she would’ve instantly thought of a Slytherin, but that just didn’t make sense. Most Slytherins she remembered were just as hell-bent on stuffy principles as Gryffindors, if not more. But Blaise Zabini, for all his haughtiness, was obviously not like the others. Using phenomenal good looks to swindle people out of their money was a family trade.
“How can you tell?” she asked, intent on not losing her cool. The assignment was jinxed, but perhaps she could still dredge up some useful information for the article.
“They always send me over to the new girls, for some reason,” he explained. “I have those fine Hogwarts manners going for me – it makes them feel sophisticated. Not that I ever landed on someone who actually went to school around the same time as I did.”
“I was two years behind you,” she clarified, thinking he probably didn’t really know who she was. “Romilda Vane. No particular claim to fame.”
Unlike him, of course, her smile said. Everyone had heard the rumours about his mother. Blaise didn’t pick up the allusion, or if he did, he didn’t let it show.
“Oh, I remember you,” he said, locking eyes with her for a moment. “There weren’t many people I would’ve condescended to nail back then.”
The remark sent a thrill through her loins. He was good. Awfully good. Even though it was clear that he was lying, her mind was begging her to take it as the truth.
“And now you only condescend to nail someone who has enough Galleons,” she mused. “I guess things don’t change that much after all.”
Blaise shrugged and stubbed his cigarette out. “If you think I sleep with anyone who has the money, you’re mistaken,” he replied simply. “I never have sex with anyone I wouldn’t shag under other circumstances. The money is an added bonus.”
“Isn’t the point of this establishment to make as much Galleons as possible?” she asked, curious.
“The quality largely makes up for the quantity.”
Coming from anyone else, it would’ve sounded like a crass pick-up line, but the nonchalance and steadiness with which Blaise said it made it sound like a simple commercial truth, and Romilda was fully willing to believe that some clients would pay double for another night with him. There was something smooth and intense about him, and something profoundly disarming about his beauty. It was quite a rare experience, almost an epiphany of lust, to be able stare at such wondrously attractive features full in the face.
“Too bad I won’t be able to put that to the test myself,” she said, sipping on her drink, and starting to feel slightly shaky. “The money may be an added bonus, but I don’t have enough of it.”
Blaise wasn’t looking at her anymore, but staring into space. He stayed silent for a long, long time. Romilda glanced around at the other tables, where escorts were busy delighting their clients with elaborate conversation, compliments and charming attentions. And yet, she certainly didn’t feel cheated out of the money she was spending for the evening – just by sitting there in silence, Blaise was making her forget where she was and why she was there.
Keep focused, she told herself. That’s what escorts are paid to do. It’s all part of the same ploy. That’s what you’ll have to write about in your article.
Then Blaise got up from his chair and all thoughts of about the escort club, the article, the money and everything else flew from her mind.
“Come on,” he said. “My place isn’t far from here.”
*****************************
The second time she came, he realised that a part of him hadn’t expected to see her again.
Not that their first night together hadn’t been satisfying. In fact, Blaise had kept the memory of it for days, in his mind and his aching limbs. It hadn’t taken long for him to perceive in Romilda what he usually looked for in a woman – a greed to match his, unabashed and unreserved. One look at her – the fleshy mouth, the mess of black curls, the bold expression – and he had remembered a silly rumour from his school days, whispered around Slytherin, about a Gryffindor girl who spiked chocolate sweets to make love slaves out of boys. It had amused him back then, piqued his interest, perhaps even given his loins a stir. Funny thing that she should show up now, eager and willing to try some more adult shenanigans.
Eager and willing – the two words put together certainly seemed to give a good description of her. All night long, she had met every one of his impulses, every lusty notion with some of her own, with complete disregard for noise, sleep, energy or discomfort. Down on the tiled floor, and screaming. There was something almost furious about her. But it was good. More than good.
Mind-blowing, if he was perfectly honest with himself.
He had wished for her return without really believing in it, and now here she was, standing in the hall, looking as though she didn’t really know what she was doing there. She wanted to ask for him. She didn’t know if it could be done. Blaise smiled. With a slight nod, he let the hostess know he was on it. Never mind that Romilda hadn’t paid for his services, and wouldn’t start now. After the night they’d spent together, it made about as much sense as asking someone to put a coin into a slot to breathe the same air as you did.
“I didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” he told her when he arrived at her table. Two martinis and the smooth movement to light her cigarette – the routine was already setting in.
She set her chin on her curled fist and looked at him. “Neither did I, to be honest.”
They stayed in silence, neither of them wanting to talk, simply because there was nothing much to talk about.
“Would it look suspicious if you took me home right now?”
“Who said I was going to take you home again?”
For a second, a look of uncertainty crossed her face, but it didn’t last. Romilda wasn’t the kind of girl to look unsure, and no doubt her body was reminding her of last time. He took his time smoking his cigarette, watching with disinterest the other escorts in the bar trying to earn their pay. Of course he would take her home.
“Come on.”
Once outside, they hastened their step, almost clumsy with hurry, stumbling on the cold asphalt across two streets. They weren’t touching or holding hands – as soon as they did touch, the whirlwind would engulf them again. Climbing the stairs, heavy with desire, then keys in the front door… He had barely closed it behind them when she was tearing off his coat, and her stiletto heels were scraping on the floor…
It was a race, a desperate, angry race to the bed, or anywhere else that would do on the way if the bed was too far, and a race to get naked, bare, wet, hard, ready, dizzy, biting, sucking, licking, and they stumbled somewhere next to the bedroom – on a carpet, with the bed in plain view, and Romilda’s legs were already winding themselves around his waist…
From the lust-laden fog of his mind, her name emerged – the rolling, thunderous syllable, then the smooth, delectable dip in the middle, and finally the bright, insolent end.
“Romilda… Romilda…” he croaked, pushing into her unceremoniously, again and again. She might have said his name, too. She might have cried it out – either his name or the white-hot fire that was consuming her from inside. But Blaise had his eyes open, and despite the eminent onslaught of pleasure threatening to flood his senses, he noticed, in the corner of her eye, a small tear disappearing into her hair.
*****************************
Four times already.
Romilda slowly walked down the stairs of the building and into the grey morning light, the coldness of the air contrasting with the warmth she was still feeling inside, like embers left over from the night before, only wanting to be fanned again.
But she couldn’t. She would have to stop. Despite Blaise’s laughter that morning – she didn’t think she’d ever heard him laugh - despite the sex, the fusion of their bodies, the love they made anywhere and anyway they wanted, despite the martinis and the cigarettes, the sparse words and the symphony of their cries, she would have to stop.
Her throat constricted at the thought, and she brushed away the beginning of a wetness from her eye. Elaine was getting impatient. The article had yet to be written. She couldn’t think straight anymore. He was an escort…
When they were together, there was only them, in the carpeted atmosphere of the club or in the intimacy of his flat, but when the morning came, it seemed to bring with it the indistinct shapes of all the other women he brought there for the same thing. She wondered if he groaned. She wondered if he bit into their shoulders, just before losing control of himself. She wondered if they left the money on the nightstand. She felt a wave of disgust so profound the whole city seemed to rock under her feet.
She would have to stop. There was no way around it.
*****************************
“About the article…”
Elaine seemed to be in a bad mood. It was only ten thirty and she had downed three cups of Mandrake juice already. She glared at Romilda from the other side of the desk and didn’t reply immediately, which was always a bad sign.
“Oh really? Do enlighten me.”
Romilda frowned, taken aback. Surely her boss couldn’t have guessed what was going on. Yet she didn’t seemed surprised by the fact Romilda was having second thoughts.
“I – well, it’s a complicated story, I -”
“Complicated? Oh, I wouldn’t call it that. A phenomenal waste of time and money, perhaps, but I suppose you couldn’t have known.”
Now Romilda was completely confused. What on earth was Elaine talking about?
“I don’t understand…”
“Come off it, Vane. You must’ve seen the newspaper stand this morning. The latest issue of Pegasus just came out.”
Pegasus was a rival magazine, though a bit more male-oriented, and was serious competition as far as scoops were concerned. Elaine reached into her drawer and flopped the latest issue on the desk.
Romilda leaned forward to take a closer look. One of the headlines read, Undercover escort: an inside look on the wizarding world’s sexual woes.
“New kid – the name’s Blaise Zabini,” Elaine explained. “He’s got a pen like a Diffindo spell. Bloody fantastic article.”
Romilda flipped through the pages feverishly, not understanding what she was hearing, not reading a single word she was seeing. He wasn’t what he said he was. She wasn’t what she’d said she was. And somewhere down the line, their bodies had uncovered the truth they’d been hiding from each other.
They were just the same.
“Well, there’s nothing to do but forget about this whole story. We’ll find something else for you to work on, is all, and make sure those bastards down at Pegasus don’t get the same – Vane? Vane, where are you going?”
But Romilda was already out the door.
*****************************
He wondered, lying on his bed, if she would ever seek him out, or if she would continue to attend the club at all. The mere thought of some of his pseudo-colleagues lighting a cigarette for her made him want to punch the wall.
He’d got congratulations from his boss for a job so well done, the promise of a monthly column, and admiring looks laced with jealousy from the others. Everything seemed to be handed to him on a silver platter, as it always had.
The war had been unkind to most Slytherins, but his mother had always been an equal opportunity seductress, and she had friends in high places at the Ministry who had always been on the winning side. Finding a position in one of the up-and-coming newspapers had been ridiculously easy. Convincing his boss to publish a story on the new escort club that had opened hadn’t taken long. And as for the rest, the reputation of his family had preceded him.
And then there was her. If she read the article, she would never forgive him for being written off as part of the mass of “callused career girls with cold-hard Galleons to spend any which way.”
No, she wouldn’t seek him out. And he would never see her again. He wouldn’t hear the scraping of her heels on the floor, the soft plop of her coat on the sofa, or smell her perfume… He closed his eyes, giving to the tricks his imagination was playing on him…
“You left your door unlocked.”
It was a dream, there was no other way. Blaise felt his face fall perfectly still just as his heart started thumping erratically against his chest.
She was standing next to his bed, holding an issue of Pegasus in her hand, and amazingly, incomprehensibly, she was smiling. A true smile, a smile that told of her boldness, her recklessness, her warmth, and the rough, intoxicating playfulness of her kisses.
“Come on,” she said, taking his hand and laughing, while he was still too dumbfounded and glad and grateful to speak. “Come on! You’re taking me out tonight. You and I have a lot to talk about.”
Four times already, he thought, falling back against his pillow. The count was slowly but surely adding up. Where would it stop? At five? Six? When would they start to feel the need to see each other in the afternoon, in the morning, for breakfast, lunch or dinner? When would he actually feel the urge to send her an owl or call her through the Floo network? It was not something he had ever envisaged getting into this business, but he was starting to think the whole experience was bringing him more than he had bargained for.
“You should give me your Floo number,” he blurted out, not really knowing what he was saying and why.
She paused in the act of zipping up her skirt and looked up at him. Only a slight movement of her lips betrayed her surprise – her gaze was steady and intent, as always. Then she smiled – a small smile, one he’d seldom seen on her, and that seemed to clash somewhat with her strong jaw and bold eyebrows.
“Last night was really lovely,” she said.
Lovely. It was a quaint word, and it was completely wrong as a means of describing the time they’d spent together, grabbing whatever pleasure they could, hungrily and recklessly, with little regard to where and how they managed to do it. Nevertheless, he smiled at her, and his eyes followed her as she put on the rest of her clothes and made to go.
He wanted to ask her when he’d see her again, and for a moment as she stood by the door, he had the distinct feeling she wanted to ask him the same thing. But in the end, she left as she always had, with only a tilt of her head and a last glance at him before walking out.
“Goodbye, Blaise.”
Two months earlier, Romilda Vane had walked in her boss’s office, holding a file, a Quick-Scribble quill and a cup of fresh Mandrake juice.
Elaine Flabble was the editor-in-chief of the Fortune Teller, one of the many magazines that had cropped up in the post-war editorial boom. Heavy criticism of the Daily Prophet and the demise of Rita Skeeter’s career, who had publicly slandered a revered war hero, left much room for new newspapers with fresh ideas. The Fortune Teller was a weekly scandal sheet with no political agenda of any kind – if it shocked and if it sold, it was good enough to print. This ruthless, free-for-all take on things was precisely what Romilda liked about it. For two years after leaving Hogwarts, she’d worked as a secretary at the Daily Prophet, where she didn’t do much else than answer owls and listen half-heartedly to lectures about the importance of work ethics and politics of the wizarding world. But Romilda had no interest for either of these things - she’d had enough exalted moral values to last a lifetime being in Gryffindor for seven years. She was young, ambitious and eager to sharpen her knives on real scoops. The Fortune Teller, in this respect, was a much greener, if slightly seedier, pasture.
“Good morning, Elaine,” she said, handing her the cup of Mandrake juice. “Thought you might want some – it’s piping hot.”
Elaine looked up at her from the stack of newspapers she was sifting through, half-amused and half-annoyed. “You’re here to talk to me about the Flamelle story again, aren’t you?”
Romilda smiled, but her eyes hardened. “If you don’t mind, of course.”
“I’m guessing that file you have isn’t just there to look pretty,” Elaine said. “I see you’ve been keeping busy.”
Romilda dropped the file onto the desk. “One week’s research, all in here. Records of similar establishments through the ages, a bit of background information on the blokes who work there…”
“Impressive,” Elaine admitted, flipping through the file then closing it and sitting back in her chair, arms crossed. “But I don’t know, Vane… I’m still not convinced this is viable. I still think Kilenic would be better for the job.”
Romilda remained silent for a moment, as if she’d been expecting the blow, then seemed to regroup. “I’ll grant you that she has more experience than I do, but with all due respect, Elaine, Sylvana is more the type to cover the latest aristocratic wedding than an inside story on an escort bar.”
Elaine shrugged, but seemed to be considering the argument. “Kilenic has that… frustrated housewife appeal that might seem appropriate for that kind of place. You’re young and you’re attractive – why would someone like you go to an escort club?”
“Career girls have no time for romance, and they don’t mind paying for sex with a good-looking man,” she replied, with disarming naturalness. “It’s more convenient that way.”
Elaine took a sip of Mandrake juice and looked through the file again. “All right, Vane. You’ve got the job. Do this right and you might be running your own column before next year.”
Romilda grinned. “You won’t be disappointed.”
Whether she was talking to her editor-in-chief or to herself wasn’t quite clear.
The first time she’d pushed past the door at Flamelle’s, a sober, nondescript building just off Diagon Alley, on the Muggle side of London, she immediately latched on to the more alluring details she would need for her article, already forming catchy sentences in her mind – the exclusive feminine atmosphere of the crimson carpeted hall, the soft music coming from the main room, the kindly hostesses directing the clients to their tables, and a glowing sign with black-and-white animated pictures of the escorts, the only thing that differentiated the establishment from a restaurant or a beauty salon.
Most of the patrons were older than she was, she noted, though definitely not housewives or old biddies looking for a good time. She had been right – Kilenic would’ve been as out of place here as a sheep at a thoroughbred stud. There was an atmosphere of cold hard cash and blank sexual appetite about the place that made it irreparably animal, despite the efforts of the hostesses, the tasteful decoration and the polished appearance of the escorts. Romilda herself was more partial to places where desire was unbridled and unapologetic – night-clubs or bars, with pounding music and drinks all around, and the knowledge that nothing would last beyond morning. She’d had her share of wild nights before. It was a nice change from having to trick the more virtuous students of a posh public school with drugged sweets just to get them to loosen their ties a bit.
She was recalling the incident, half-amused and half-horrified at her enterprising younger self, when a smiling hostess came up to her table to take her drink order.
“I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of seeing you here before,” she added in a friendly tone. “Perhaps you’d also enjoy some company for the evening. All the young men who work here are well-versed in many subjects of discussion, and eager to cater to our clients’ every need.”
If the price is right, of course, Romilda thought, irritated by the establishment’s candy-coating of a rather crass equation: paying for sex. The women here were no better than blokes paying for prostitutes. She wondered why they so desperately needed the illusion that they were.
“I’d rather share the evening with someone my own age,” she said, pretending to be flustered. “But just for a conversation. I’m not here for anything else.”
Not that she would’ve minded a good, solid shag, but an hour of company cost a fortune in Galleons already, and Elaine would kill her if she spent any more, seeing as the newspaper was covering the expense.
“I think I have just the person for you – he’s new to this establishment as well. He’s a big fan of the arts and a brilliant conversationalist. You’ll be blown away.”
Romilda nodded, eager for the hostess to leave so she could gather her thoughts. A few minutes later, she saw a tall, dark-skinned young man head her way, carrying two martinis. He was breathtakingly handsome, in a very dangerous sort of way. A smug smile, high cheekbones, lithe hands… When recognition hit her, she couldn’t help but flinch. He noticed. He stopped, just for a second, before sitting down in front of her. She watched him, suspecting this was the moment that the escort was supposed to start a casual conversation, subtly charming the patron with hopes that he could later entice her to pay for further services.
But there was no casual conversation to be had now. They knew each other. Vaguely, from afar, but it was enough.
Blaise Zabini set the two martinis down, then took a cigarette from a pack in his pocket, and offered her one wordlessly, lighting hers then his own with a silver lighter. He blew a billow of smoke from between his full lips and for all the world he looked amused.
“You’ve never done this before, have you?”
Romilda was surprised by the question. She half-expected him to make some catty remark about noble Gryffindors being subject to the crass needs of the flesh just like everyone else. But on second thought, all that was so long ago… Did it even have a meaning anymore? She supposed that if she had known that a former Hogwarts student was now an escort, she would’ve instantly thought of a Slytherin, but that just didn’t make sense. Most Slytherins she remembered were just as hell-bent on stuffy principles as Gryffindors, if not more. But Blaise Zabini, for all his haughtiness, was obviously not like the others. Using phenomenal good looks to swindle people out of their money was a family trade.
“How can you tell?” she asked, intent on not losing her cool. The assignment was jinxed, but perhaps she could still dredge up some useful information for the article.
“They always send me over to the new girls, for some reason,” he explained. “I have those fine Hogwarts manners going for me – it makes them feel sophisticated. Not that I ever landed on someone who actually went to school around the same time as I did.”
“I was two years behind you,” she clarified, thinking he probably didn’t really know who she was. “Romilda Vane. No particular claim to fame.”
Unlike him, of course, her smile said. Everyone had heard the rumours about his mother. Blaise didn’t pick up the allusion, or if he did, he didn’t let it show.
“Oh, I remember you,” he said, locking eyes with her for a moment. “There weren’t many people I would’ve condescended to nail back then.”
The remark sent a thrill through her loins. He was good. Awfully good. Even though it was clear that he was lying, her mind was begging her to take it as the truth.
“And now you only condescend to nail someone who has enough Galleons,” she mused. “I guess things don’t change that much after all.”
Blaise shrugged and stubbed his cigarette out. “If you think I sleep with anyone who has the money, you’re mistaken,” he replied simply. “I never have sex with anyone I wouldn’t shag under other circumstances. The money is an added bonus.”
“Isn’t the point of this establishment to make as much Galleons as possible?” she asked, curious.
“The quality largely makes up for the quantity.”
Coming from anyone else, it would’ve sounded like a crass pick-up line, but the nonchalance and steadiness with which Blaise said it made it sound like a simple commercial truth, and Romilda was fully willing to believe that some clients would pay double for another night with him. There was something smooth and intense about him, and something profoundly disarming about his beauty. It was quite a rare experience, almost an epiphany of lust, to be able stare at such wondrously attractive features full in the face.
“Too bad I won’t be able to put that to the test myself,” she said, sipping on her drink, and starting to feel slightly shaky. “The money may be an added bonus, but I don’t have enough of it.”
Blaise wasn’t looking at her anymore, but staring into space. He stayed silent for a long, long time. Romilda glanced around at the other tables, where escorts were busy delighting their clients with elaborate conversation, compliments and charming attentions. And yet, she certainly didn’t feel cheated out of the money she was spending for the evening – just by sitting there in silence, Blaise was making her forget where she was and why she was there.
Keep focused, she told herself. That’s what escorts are paid to do. It’s all part of the same ploy. That’s what you’ll have to write about in your article.
Then Blaise got up from his chair and all thoughts of about the escort club, the article, the money and everything else flew from her mind.
“Come on,” he said. “My place isn’t far from here.”
The second time she came, he realised that a part of him hadn’t expected to see her again.
Not that their first night together hadn’t been satisfying. In fact, Blaise had kept the memory of it for days, in his mind and his aching limbs. It hadn’t taken long for him to perceive in Romilda what he usually looked for in a woman – a greed to match his, unabashed and unreserved. One look at her – the fleshy mouth, the mess of black curls, the bold expression – and he had remembered a silly rumour from his school days, whispered around Slytherin, about a Gryffindor girl who spiked chocolate sweets to make love slaves out of boys. It had amused him back then, piqued his interest, perhaps even given his loins a stir. Funny thing that she should show up now, eager and willing to try some more adult shenanigans.
Eager and willing – the two words put together certainly seemed to give a good description of her. All night long, she had met every one of his impulses, every lusty notion with some of her own, with complete disregard for noise, sleep, energy or discomfort. Down on the tiled floor, and screaming. There was something almost furious about her. But it was good. More than good.
Mind-blowing, if he was perfectly honest with himself.
He had wished for her return without really believing in it, and now here she was, standing in the hall, looking as though she didn’t really know what she was doing there. She wanted to ask for him. She didn’t know if it could be done. Blaise smiled. With a slight nod, he let the hostess know he was on it. Never mind that Romilda hadn’t paid for his services, and wouldn’t start now. After the night they’d spent together, it made about as much sense as asking someone to put a coin into a slot to breathe the same air as you did.
“I didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” he told her when he arrived at her table. Two martinis and the smooth movement to light her cigarette – the routine was already setting in.
She set her chin on her curled fist and looked at him. “Neither did I, to be honest.”
They stayed in silence, neither of them wanting to talk, simply because there was nothing much to talk about.
“Would it look suspicious if you took me home right now?”
“Who said I was going to take you home again?”
For a second, a look of uncertainty crossed her face, but it didn’t last. Romilda wasn’t the kind of girl to look unsure, and no doubt her body was reminding her of last time. He took his time smoking his cigarette, watching with disinterest the other escorts in the bar trying to earn their pay. Of course he would take her home.
“Come on.”
Once outside, they hastened their step, almost clumsy with hurry, stumbling on the cold asphalt across two streets. They weren’t touching or holding hands – as soon as they did touch, the whirlwind would engulf them again. Climbing the stairs, heavy with desire, then keys in the front door… He had barely closed it behind them when she was tearing off his coat, and her stiletto heels were scraping on the floor…
It was a race, a desperate, angry race to the bed, or anywhere else that would do on the way if the bed was too far, and a race to get naked, bare, wet, hard, ready, dizzy, biting, sucking, licking, and they stumbled somewhere next to the bedroom – on a carpet, with the bed in plain view, and Romilda’s legs were already winding themselves around his waist…
From the lust-laden fog of his mind, her name emerged – the rolling, thunderous syllable, then the smooth, delectable dip in the middle, and finally the bright, insolent end.
“Romilda… Romilda…” he croaked, pushing into her unceremoniously, again and again. She might have said his name, too. She might have cried it out – either his name or the white-hot fire that was consuming her from inside. But Blaise had his eyes open, and despite the eminent onslaught of pleasure threatening to flood his senses, he noticed, in the corner of her eye, a small tear disappearing into her hair.
Four times already.
Romilda slowly walked down the stairs of the building and into the grey morning light, the coldness of the air contrasting with the warmth she was still feeling inside, like embers left over from the night before, only wanting to be fanned again.
But she couldn’t. She would have to stop. Despite Blaise’s laughter that morning – she didn’t think she’d ever heard him laugh - despite the sex, the fusion of their bodies, the love they made anywhere and anyway they wanted, despite the martinis and the cigarettes, the sparse words and the symphony of their cries, she would have to stop.
Her throat constricted at the thought, and she brushed away the beginning of a wetness from her eye. Elaine was getting impatient. The article had yet to be written. She couldn’t think straight anymore. He was an escort…
When they were together, there was only them, in the carpeted atmosphere of the club or in the intimacy of his flat, but when the morning came, it seemed to bring with it the indistinct shapes of all the other women he brought there for the same thing. She wondered if he groaned. She wondered if he bit into their shoulders, just before losing control of himself. She wondered if they left the money on the nightstand. She felt a wave of disgust so profound the whole city seemed to rock under her feet.
She would have to stop. There was no way around it.
“About the article…”
Elaine seemed to be in a bad mood. It was only ten thirty and she had downed three cups of Mandrake juice already. She glared at Romilda from the other side of the desk and didn’t reply immediately, which was always a bad sign.
“Oh really? Do enlighten me.”
Romilda frowned, taken aback. Surely her boss couldn’t have guessed what was going on. Yet she didn’t seemed surprised by the fact Romilda was having second thoughts.
“I – well, it’s a complicated story, I -”
“Complicated? Oh, I wouldn’t call it that. A phenomenal waste of time and money, perhaps, but I suppose you couldn’t have known.”
Now Romilda was completely confused. What on earth was Elaine talking about?
“I don’t understand…”
“Come off it, Vane. You must’ve seen the newspaper stand this morning. The latest issue of Pegasus just came out.”
Pegasus was a rival magazine, though a bit more male-oriented, and was serious competition as far as scoops were concerned. Elaine reached into her drawer and flopped the latest issue on the desk.
Romilda leaned forward to take a closer look. One of the headlines read, Undercover escort: an inside look on the wizarding world’s sexual woes.
“New kid – the name’s Blaise Zabini,” Elaine explained. “He’s got a pen like a Diffindo spell. Bloody fantastic article.”
Romilda flipped through the pages feverishly, not understanding what she was hearing, not reading a single word she was seeing. He wasn’t what he said he was. She wasn’t what she’d said she was. And somewhere down the line, their bodies had uncovered the truth they’d been hiding from each other.
They were just the same.
“Well, there’s nothing to do but forget about this whole story. We’ll find something else for you to work on, is all, and make sure those bastards down at Pegasus don’t get the same – Vane? Vane, where are you going?”
But Romilda was already out the door.
He wondered, lying on his bed, if she would ever seek him out, or if she would continue to attend the club at all. The mere thought of some of his pseudo-colleagues lighting a cigarette for her made him want to punch the wall.
He’d got congratulations from his boss for a job so well done, the promise of a monthly column, and admiring looks laced with jealousy from the others. Everything seemed to be handed to him on a silver platter, as it always had.
The war had been unkind to most Slytherins, but his mother had always been an equal opportunity seductress, and she had friends in high places at the Ministry who had always been on the winning side. Finding a position in one of the up-and-coming newspapers had been ridiculously easy. Convincing his boss to publish a story on the new escort club that had opened hadn’t taken long. And as for the rest, the reputation of his family had preceded him.
And then there was her. If she read the article, she would never forgive him for being written off as part of the mass of “callused career girls with cold-hard Galleons to spend any which way.”
No, she wouldn’t seek him out. And he would never see her again. He wouldn’t hear the scraping of her heels on the floor, the soft plop of her coat on the sofa, or smell her perfume… He closed his eyes, giving to the tricks his imagination was playing on him…
“You left your door unlocked.”
It was a dream, there was no other way. Blaise felt his face fall perfectly still just as his heart started thumping erratically against his chest.
She was standing next to his bed, holding an issue of Pegasus in her hand, and amazingly, incomprehensibly, she was smiling. A true smile, a smile that told of her boldness, her recklessness, her warmth, and the rough, intoxicating playfulness of her kisses.
“Come on,” she said, taking his hand and laughing, while he was still too dumbfounded and glad and grateful to speak. “Come on! You’re taking me out tonight. You and I have a lot to talk about.”
