Master of Pleasure

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Lesson One

  Lesson Two

  Lesson Three

  Lesson Four

  Lesson Five

  Lesson Six

  Lesson Seven

  Lesson Eight

  Lesson Nine

  Lesson Ten

  Lesson Eleven

  Lesson Twelve

  Epilogue

  New Release Alert

  MASTER OF PLEASURE

  by Delilah Marvelle

  Copyright © 2014 by Delilah Marvelle

  Delilah Marvelle Productions, LLC All rights reserved.

  ISBN-10: 1-939912-03-2

  ISBN-13: 978-1-939912-03-9

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s crazy imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and nothing to worry about.

  Book design © Delilah Marvelle.

  Cover design © Seductive Designs.

  Cover Photo © Jenn LeBlanc.

  Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted

  in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  To the Kinksters who kindly took aside this Vanilla Girl and entrusted me with a glimpse into their private world.

  Your intelligence, humor, and laughter, along with the need to redefine my flavor of ‘normal’, made this book possible.

  The Abbey of Lagrasse, France

  Spring of 1819

  After the National Assembly methodically beheaded every last Maurist monk residing within the vast stone walls of the monastery, thereby confiscating their sizable property during the French Revolution so the government could pay its debts, a new order of men overtook the abbey and re-arranged the altars. These stern, overly-educated French luminaries weren’t ordained by any one church, but rather by a private Christian organization which believed sex, and its endless array of sins, needed to be eradicated from the beating heart of humanity.

  Despite being a Christian and a bonafide virgin, there was no doubt Malcolm Gregory Thayer had over-indulged in his fair share of sin by going against the word of the Lord. He had never been one to turn his cheek. In fact, he liked defending himself and others to the point of making cheeks, noses and mouths bleed. It was the only way to guarantee real justice, given hell was reserved solely for those who were dead.

  Malcolm also worshipped and idolized false gods: women. He attended charity events for the sole purpose of watching them dance and would always wait for their skirts to lift just enough to reveal the silk stocking of an ankle that made his breath catch and his face flush. Sometimes, when he was feeling particularly roguish, he’d wake up early and sneak glances at the scullery maid whenever she scrubbed the floors because she had sizable breasts that jiggled. He had even cornered, grabbed and forcibly kissed the bishop’s daughter during a garden party because he thought she was beyond delectable.

  It was the worst idea he’d ever had.

  These were his sins. And while they were incredibly viable sins worthy of a full confession, after living at Lagrasse for close to a year, he came to realize how exceedingly holy he was in comparison to the young men around him. Not even three tables to his left in the vast dining hall of the monastery sat seventeen-year-old Rafael Antonio Alfaro.

  Rafael was the son of a wealthy Spanish merchant who made a vast fortune importing silks out of India. He was handsome, witty and could quote the poetry of Cadalso in three different languages.

  Unfortunately, that was the extent of his good breeding. Rafael was nothing more than a maggot who brutally sodomized an eight-year-old boy he lured into his carriage back in Madrid. Because Rafael was far too rich to be sentenced for any crime, and far too sane to be confined to bedlam, his father opted to seek out ‘religious’ intervention by the internationally renowned Monsieur Bissette in southern France. Once a month, when it was allowed, Rafael wrote lengthy, apologetic letters to his parents, insisting he was a changed soul who found God and would never touch another boy again. It was laughable. Because everyone knew he still breathed out the name of his eight-year-old victim when masturbating in the privy late at night.

  Malcolm was proud to say he had beaten the piss out of Rafael twice. Once for ripping out a page of his prayer book and the other time just because Malcolm felt like it.

  The display of loathsome characters did not end there. Rafael was only one of sixty-nine sexual deviants, ranging in age from ten to twenty, who had been sent to Lagrasse by their wealthy families in an effort to unveil a truer connection to God.

  And yes, Malcolm was one of them.

  As part of their spiritual journey, it was imperative to understand the physical one. From the moment of their arrival, they were each assigned to labor on fourteen hundred acres of land where they toiled every morning and every afternoon, whether it was snowing, raining or the sun was hot enough to peel off one’s skin.

  After a long day of tanning leather, gardening and digging out boulders from the clay, they would gather in the library for lectures and spend their evenings silently reading from their prayer books. For those who didn’t follow orders (and there were quite a few), a strap made of two pieces of leather with metal sewn between the halves, danced across their bare backs until blood filled their boots.

  In Malcolm’s opinion, grouping together so many depraved young men under one slate roof on the quiet hillside of the country was not a very good idea. It allowed too many souls to fester into something worse. He himself was barely hanging by a short twine. He’d never really considered himself normal. While he enjoyed the fact that he was far, far away from his brother, who only magnified the problem, it was coming at a very high price.

  The din of male voices and the clattering of spoons against bowls reminded Malcolm he only had forty minutes to eat. Using the sleeve of his linen shirt to wipe the table clean, he settled into a chair set in the far corner of the dining hall. He always sat alone. Unlike the rest of the boys who congregated together during meals, he’d never cultivated any friends. Why would he? Most of these degenerates were looking for more than friendship. They wanted coitus.

  No, thank you. Not now. Not ever. Not with them. Not with women. Not with anyone. Sex only turned people into mouth-foaming lunatics. Which he wasn’t.

  Bringing his hands together in formal prayer, Malcolm closed his eyes and whispered, “I thank thee, Lord, for this simple bounty and eat it knowing there are others who have far less. Please grant me the strength to survive these upcoming weeks so I may finally rejoin humanity in the manner I deserve and not kill my only brother whom I love so very much. Amen.”

  He opened his eyes and picked up his wooden spoon, mixing the oily, overcooked vegetables in his bowl. Scooping up the discolored sludge, he carefully pushed it into his mouth and paused. It sat like mud that had been urinated into. He grimaced and chewed the slimy vegetables, using his tongue to push away pieces that kept sticking to his teeth.

  While everyone around him dined on mutton and burnt potatoes slathered in curdling gravy, his meals consisted of something far worse: old stew scraped out of the bottom of a cauldron. He had pummeled one of the boys for trying to suffocate a cat from the village. The cat couldn’t very well serve as a witness and none of the other boys claimed to have seen it (even though they had). It resulted in Malcolm having his meals reduced and getting whipped.

  He hated Lagrasse. He couldn’t
even rescue a cat without getting punished for it.

  A piece of bread bounced onto his secluded table, falling into the sizable crack snaking through the wood. Malcolm’s gaze darted to the left to see who had thrown it.

  Rafael grinned and swept back curling, dark hair from his eyes. “It is for you,” he called out in French, his Spanish accent marring his words. “The cat told me to thank you for your heroics. He said, ‘Meow.’”

  Malcolm flicked the bread off the table and jabbed the spoon at that head. “Keep at it, Spaniard, and I will take your head and paint every last stone in this monastery red. I still have three weeks to do it.”

  “Then do it.” Shoving more bread into his mouth, Rafael smirked and said in between hearty chews, “Whatever happened to your face, dearest? You never told me. It makes me want to lick you from chin to forehead. Let me.”

  Malcolm shifted his scarred jaw, loathing the way Rafael always tried to rile him. Monsieur Bissette had warned Malcolm that if he started another fight, more than the leather strap would descend. It wasn’t worth it. In twenty-one days, he was set to go home. Which was going to be a whole other mess. “Unless you want to swallow every last one of your crooked teeth and shite them out for weeks, turn around and find another face to lick.”

  “You are a prude and you bore me.” Rafael gave him a withering look, no longer conveying an interest. “I prefer younger boys anyway. Younger boys who…” He paused, his eyes veering to a youth who sat quietly reading the Bible at the only table whose wooden surface was covered with a white linen cloth. Delicately tracing a stubby finger along the seam of his shirt, Rafael lowered his chin and keenly observed the boy.

  That was quick. Malcolm shook his head and glanced at the dark-skinned youth who had arrived days earlier. He knew very little about the newcomer, except that he was Persian, spoke various languages and was so intent on learning the Christian way he was always reading the Bible.

  This Persian was not the typical resident.

  Aside from the unprecedented fact that Bissette’s strap still hadn’t touched his brown skin, the youth wasn’t mandated to labor and could wear whatever clothing he pleased. The Persian therefore did nothing but read the Bible while roaming the monastery in flowing silk garments that resembled Turkish robes. The rest of them were forced to not only dig out boulders from the clay ground at every hour, but wear rough wool trousers and a barely passable linen shirt.

  It created a few disgruntled boys. Not that anyone bothered the Persian. He was usually surrounded by massive, dark-skinned servants in turbans who kept everyone away by merely crossing their arms over their chests.

  For some reason, the young Persian sat alone today. There were no servants.

  Rafael eyed the entrance hall where the luminaries were stationed, leaned over and whispered something to those at his table. The whispers intently escalated until one by one, the younger boys at the table sighed, got up and paged through their Bibles as they grudgingly went over to the luminaries with what appeared to be questions about a particular verse.

  Apparently, Rafael was getting ready to lick.

  Bastard. Now he felt responsible. Malcolm let out an exasperated breath. While he never looked for trouble, he never walked away from it, either. Grabbing his meal and spoon off the table, he trudged over to the newcomer.

  Setting his wooden bowl onto the linen cloth, Malcolm pulled out the straight-backed chair and sat. The adolescent sitting across from him was actually pleasant-looking, with well-defined European and Arabic features that had yet to grow rugged and manly.

  No wonder Rafael was interested.

  Malcolm cleared his throat, trying to be social. “How are you?” He said it in French. It was the only common language everyone in the abbey shared. “What verse are you reading?”

  The Persian glanced up from the Bible, his dark eyes fierce and penetrating. “I wish to be alone,” he tossed out in French. “I am here to think and to pray. Nothing more. Leave.”

  Malcolm wanted to oblige. He really did. For all he knew the youth had been committed for molesting camels in the desert. But it wasn’t in Malcolm’s nature to abandon anyone in need. Especially when they didn’t realize they were in need.

  Digging his spoon into the stew, Malcolm started eating again. “Where are your servants? The ones who usually follow you around?” He chewed. “Why are they not with you today?”

  The Persian hesitated. “I gave them a day of religious rest. Why?”

  “Religious rest on a Friday? What calendar are you on?”

  “It is Joma’a. Muslims pray on Fridays.”

  Oh. Malcolm swallowed what was in his mouth. “I don’t mean to be a nuisance to you or your religion, but Rafael has taken a keen interest in you, which is never good. If there is any trouble, I will break his legs, then his arms and if there is time, you can do the rest. Agreed?”

  The youth edged the Bible closer to himself, covering the large ruby ring on his finger. “I am trying to learn the Christian way.”

  Malcolm rolled his eyes. “Do you honestly think a good Christian would let people take advantage of other people? As I like to say, God is great and merciful but He still sent a flood. Otherwise, who would take Him seriously? No one.” He shoved another spoonful of stew into his mouth and chewed more enthusiastically. It was nice talking to someone. “I hear you speak English. Do you?”

  Those pinched features softened. “Yes. I do,” the boy replied in clipped English to demonstrate. “I was raised in Persia, but my mother grew up in Wiltshire after her family fled France during the revolution. Mother and Grand-pére were the only ones in their family to survive. Although the title was revoked, Grand-pére still goes by the name of Vicomte de Chastain. He has grown incredibly popular in England given what he survived at the hands of the National Assembly and has become very involved in politics. Everyone in London knows him.”

  Startled at the irony of their meeting, Malcolm stared. “Even I know him. Your grandfather goes to our church. He ties red ribbons around eight candles every Sunday.”

  The boy sat up, eyes widening. “That is indeed Grand-pére. He had three brothers, one sister, two cousins, and two uncles who were all guillotined during the revolution. Red ribbons around candles is how he honors them. My mother, who was fifteen at the time it happened, remembers just as much and does the same.”

  Malcolm hesitated. “How did your mother end up marrying a Persian?”

  “My father was always fascinated by Western culture. He was visiting London when he met my mother. Allah only knows what she saw in him, but she gave up her entire way of life to be with him. The two are disgustingly obsessed with each other.” The boy eyed him. “Might I ask what happened to your face?”

  The face, the face. Always the face. The only good that ever came of his ear-to-jaw scar was it prevented him from looking exactly like his brother. “My birth was a little rough.” Malcolm kept eating.

  Leaning into the table, the Persian quieted his voice. “How so? What happened?”

  Sometimes, Malcolm wanted to make up stories about it. He was tired of repeating the same tale over and over to anyone who asked. Unfortunately, he wasn’t much of a liar. “There were two of us in my mother’s womb, and given her labor wasn’t progressing, the doctor used more force than was necessary. Most of the damage you see was caused by an infection after the forceps sliced my face. For some reason, God was gracious enough to grant me the strength to live. It’s been an unexpected blessing that distinguishes me from my brother. He and I are identical in every way. Even our voices are the same. It’s annoying.” Picking up his wooden spoon, Malcolm started eating again trying not to think about his brother. “So what do you think of our Bible? I see you reading it all the time.”

  The Persian sighed and drifted his fingers across the Latin text. “There is much here I do not understand. What is Christianity’s view about sexual relations outside of matrimony? Is it permitted?”

  Malcolm almost choked on
the vegetables he was trying to swallow. He glanced toward the luminaries on the other side of the dining hall who were still occupied. “What in Satan’s name is wrong with you? Are you trying to get us both whipped?”

  The Persian flushed. “No. I…”

  “If it were permitted, my friend, the church would have its own brothel and charge us all admission. No. It’s not permitted. A true Christian awaits the blessing of a marriage by God.”

  “Are you certain? Because unlike our Qur’an, which is very specific about condemning such acts, this Bible of yours does not appear to condemn premarital relations at all. It merely speaks to sexual immorality, which is an incredibly broad term.”

  Malcolm gave him a withering look. “Oh, I see. Apparently, you’re looking for an excuse to indulge. That is certainly your right, given you’re a Muslim, but I was raised better.”

  “So you do not question your church or its beliefs? You simply accept what is written?”

  Malcolm lowered his chin. “What I accept and what I believe are two different things. Let there be no doubt in that.”

  Those dark eyes brightened. “Ah. So you have doubts about your Christian faith?”

  “All the time.” Malcolm made sure there wasn’t a luminary in sight. “This never leaves the table, but I firmly believe the church is part of a conspiracy to control world population. After all, the more people there are, the less they can control.”

  The Persian sat up. “Fascinating. Where is your proof?”

  “In plain sight.” Malcolm gestured to the open Bible. “In the Old Testament, for example, polygamy was the foundation of our culture. Exodus clearly states a man can marry an infinite amount of women without any limitation as long as he could provide for them, and yet in the New Testament it suddenly proclaims a man of the church can only have one wife. It’s a conspiracy to control how we, as humans, reproduce. How do I know this? Because Jesus himself stated he upheld the Old Testament in its true form, which, obviously, would have included polygamy.” Malcolm leaned into the table. “Pages are missing, my friend. Missing. But what do I know? I’m only a follower.”