Chapter Six

At breakfast we sat in Sebastian's kitchen and ate french toast. While we had been sleeping, the gods of weather had done their thing. It was a serious winter wonderland outside, so no one was going anywhere.

I looked down at my plate of artfully laid out food. The syrup had been drizzled on the plate in concentric circles along with a custard sauce and the streams had been pulled with a skewer to feather it outwards. There was a light dusting of cinnamon and powdered sugar on the top of everything. Yeah, I know there are hetero men who can cook, but they never bother making it look like something out of 'Bon Appetite' magazine.

"We should make some rules," said Sebastian, chewing thoughtfully.

Jean looked at him askance. "Aren't there enough rules in the world already?"

"True. But I think if we don't make some, we aren't going to last very long. There's too many feelings involved here. Don't call them rules if you don't want to; think of them as guidelines."

It was my turn to look at him doubtfully. "Sebastian – you want to set rules, fine. Just don't doll them up in patronizing monikers, ok? Anyway, I'm perfectly okay about having some rules."

"Okay, okay..." rules." Jean said, relenting. "Rules like what?"

Sebastian grabbed a sheet of writing paper and a pen from the telephone stand. I leaned over to see what he was writing. He was titling the page: 'Family Rules.' I'll admit it, I rolled my eyes.

"What got you thinking about this?" I asked Sebastian.

"Well, last night actually. I thought that I probably shouldn't have been so present while you guys were fucking. I don't mean not there, I just mean – well, you know. Not interfering."

"But people shouldn't feel left out, Sebastian," said Jean. "How long are we going to last if one of us feels ignored?"

Painstakingly and with much heated debate, we finally came up with a list. This is what it looked like:

Family Rules

"That's it?" I asked.

"I think that's about it," said Jean. He turned to Sebastian and said, sarcastically, "Are we finished making rules then?"

"So, why the monogamy? I would have thought it would go against your deeply held sense of entitlement to fuck anything that moves," I teased Sebastian. Actually, I didn't really know that much about Sebastian, but I'd heard he got around.

"Well, for one thing, I think it would complicate things. And there's also the disease factor," he replied. They were both reasonably sensible arguments. Then he blew it. "Anyway, the idea of either of you fucking someone else would just drive me up the wall right now."

Jean and I both stared at him in astonishment. "Why Mister Sebastian! I do believe you are admitting to being at the mercy of the green-eyed monster," marveled Jean.

I kept my mouth shut on this one. I had been horribly jealous of Sebastian. But it was interesting to me that he was the one insisting on the rule. I just didn't expect it of him and it reminded me how little I knew him really.

"I seem to recall just writing down something about not ganging up?" Sebastian was looking just a little uncomfortable. He stared us down for a moment and then gave it. "Okay – I'm jealous. I can't help it. I want you all to myself. I know it's disgusting, but there it is."

Jean got up from the kitchen table and straddled Sebastian's lap. "Oh, that's just the cutest thing!" he said, flinging his arms around him. He started showering him with kisses; it was Jean's specialty.

I decided to put the plates in the dishwasher – it seemed a good time to abide by rule number one.

- - -

I'm not going to say I have great gaping flaws in my personality, because I don't. I've got some minor ones that some people hate and others find endearing. On the whole, I have to credit my rather strange and now absent parents with doing a pretty good job – even if it was unconsciously.

If fact, of the three of us, I suspect I was the only one blessed with parents that would actually understand this current arrangement, and even applaud it. I knew for a fact that Jean's parents threw him out of the house, physically, when he came out to them. Sebastian's parents were dead, but had they been alive, chances were - if they were normal – they wouldn't be thrilled. Very few parents would have been.

But mine, that was another story. All my life, growing up, I'd been surrounded by people of "complicated" sexual orientation. My godmother, Auntie Pat (not a real aunt), was a lesbian journalist who looked almost identical to the portrait of one painted by the German Expressionist Otto Dix. My godfather was a choreographer for an all-nude review in London – very much the Grande Dame. My brother's godfather, a very close friend of the family, was a rather well-known writer with massive sex-guilt issues: he could only sleep with prostitutes. All in all, I had a very liberal upbringing and, from a very young age, was reared to believe that people are people. Sounds trite but it isn't; it was the most precious of gifts – I felt at home in the world, wherever I went and whomever I met.

Mostly, I was a reasonably stable person with few unpleasant faults. Perhaps a tad on the over-emotional side, maybe a tad idealistic, but my only true flaw was nosiness. So, after dealing with the dishes, I went on a sightseeing tour of Sebastian's massive domain. Honestly, I would have asked permission, but he and Jean were busy being exceedingly gooey with each other.

It was a complicated house, with passages in weird places, tiny narrow staircases leading to small and seemingly unused corridors. Everything creaked and felt slightly haunted. As if you might look in a room as see nothing, only to catch the glimpse of someone when you looked again.

Finally, I found a room on the second floor that must have been a library. Well, it still was – covered in books. But obviously Sebastian had taken it over as a kind of work area and there were dozens of plaster masks, in varying stages of adornment. They weren't like Venetian masks – decorated with feathers or sequins. These were entirely different. Each one had tiny cavorting figures, or emergent buds and leaves, or things that looked like a clutch of fish-eggs, sprouting from the forehead, cheeks, lips, temples. They were extraordinary. And the most startling thing of all was that all the masks – every single one – were exact molds of Sebastian's face. Hmm - talk about exploring your identity.

One, in particular, stood out. The decorations around the face were definitely rococo. Tiny figures of 18th Century ladies in French court attire draped themselves over the contours of the sides of the face. Each of their tiny faces was unique – some of them masked, some with flirtatious beauty marks. Each costume was also unique, and painstakingly detailed. The mask was finished, I guessed. It was gorgeously painted in opalescent pinks, mauves and aquas – billowing furbelows picked out in a dark gold. I couldn't believe Sebastian would actually produce anything with so many colours in it. It had to be someone else's work. Bending down to look closer at the intricate texture of the of the tiny figure's skirts, I got the shock of my life. Beneath the skirt was a penis. I checked each of the others; all were exposed, but of differing genders. There were an awful lot of hermaphrodites, too.

"You've discovered another of my secrets."

I jolted up so fast and yelped so loud, you'd have thought I'd been bitten.

"Holy shit, you scared me!" I squawked. I'd sauntered through the house to the constant sound of wooden floorboards creaking and door-hinges whining. I couldn't believe anyone could have come into the room so quietly. The fright had left me twitching and dry-mouthed. Suddenly I felt horribly guilty for having poked around. I started stuttering, talking a mile a minute.

"Who does these? They're amazing! The colours are wow – I don't know how they got the colours like this. And the detail! It's so detailed. Just amazing and a little kinky too. Who's making them? I thought you said you lived alone. I love this one, with all the French Louis Quatorze decoration – it's very intricate...""

"It's Quinze actually," said Sebastian, dryly.

Now I felt caught and stupid. "Oh, sorry - Quinze, then." It wasn't like there was *that* much difference, I thought huffily. The residual fear made me defensive. "So who makes them?"

"I do." He walked over to the work table where they were all laid out in neat rows. "Don't look so surprised. It's insulting," he teased. "I said I didn't work for a living, I didn't say I did nothing."

"You did actually...""

Sebastian waved his hand and dismissed the inconsistency. "Oh, well, whatever." He wrapped his arms around my waist and pushed himself against me, which forced me to look up, way up. "And anyway, haven't you ever read the story of Bluebeard, Shira-kins? Don't you know it's dangerous to go snooping around the castle?" It was over-dramatically delivered, but I'm a sucker for fiction. I think he got the response he was looking for.

I licked my lips nervously and stared at his shirt button. "Well, you guys were busy, and I was bored. I didn't think you'd mind." The fact that he was taking obvious pleasure in my discomfort didn't escape me – I just didn't know what to do about it.

"Anything could happen - absolutely anything." he said in a whispered voice, bending so his lips were against my ear. "It's not safe for a little girl to be wandering around in here. You might get lost and never be found. Or you could meet someone with nefarious intentions, someone who might take advantage of your size and sensibilities." He was overemphasizing every single consonant, but especially the ones that made him sound like an obscene snake.

I did what any sensible person would do; I attempted a diversion. "Where's Jean?" I squeaked.

"Mmm, little red riding hood, you sure are looking good..."" He crept slender fingers under the oversized sweater I'd borrowed off him and was wearing as a dress, and slithered them down the back of my panties. "I could eat you all up. Would you like that?"

Even before I had formally met Sebastian through Jean, I'd had a sense that he was something of a manipulator. My instincts told me that, if I let him get me all hot and bothered, he was very likely to just back off and laugh at my predicament. On the other hand, if I refused to play along, I suspected he would accuse me of being a spoil-sport. I had no real evidence for my suspicions - just a gut thing. There was only one way to win at this and it was to beat him at his own game. The problem was, I wasn't much of a strategic thinker when rattled. So, I made a concerted effort to calm myself down.

I looked up at him from under my lashes and affected my very best little red riding hood voice. "Oh, I wouldn't like that one little bit, Mister Sebastian. I might get stuck half-way down your throat and choke you like a chicken bone." Then, for good effect, I wriggled against him. It gratified me no end to see his eyes shift faintly and pause for a moment before returning the banter.

He decided to respond with physical strength. He hauled me up and plopped me down on the table top, spreading my legs with his hips. The masks rattled and jiggled. "Careful," I warned slyly. "You don't want to break anything."

"Whatever gave you that idea, little Shira? I want to break lots of things," he responded, sliding his hands down the outside of my bare thighs.

"What a nasty destructive streak you have, Sebastian. Now why might that be? Don't you know you catch more flies with sugar?" Now that I was getting into the swing of this, it was kind of fun.

"I've heard that is the case," he said, rocking his hips against me, moving his hands up under the sweater to cover my tits. "But they don't struggle and scream with that approach. Where's the joy in that?" He had my nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. Slowly he increased the pressure on them till I felt my eyes start to water. It was time to rethink my strategy.

"Oh..." so that's what you're after, is it?" I was trying desperately to keep the pain out of my voice. I wrapped my legs around his hips and locked them at the ankles. "Well, then we find ourselves at something of an impasse, don't we? Since I want the same thing from you." Sebastian was wearing a loose pair of sweats, the kind that tie up in front. I pulled the knot apart, shoved my hand down the front and grasped his cock tight. He made a very satisfying little 'eep'. I smiled up at him serenely, but the grip was vice-like.

He was hard and getting harder by the second. It actually made me loose my hold a little. Bastard, I thought. My nipples were throbbing now and I wasn't sure how long I could last before I cried uncle. It was an odd time to be thanking my Tai Chi master, but I suddenly remembered the whole thing about bending like a reed in the wind. I let go of my death grin and started to gently stroke his cock.

"Damn, Shira," he said, easing off on my nipples. "You are good at this game!"

I sniggered. "Tai Chi," I replied enigmatically. I found the spot right under the head of his cock and rubbed it with my thumb. "Now, what were you saying about breaking things?"

"I'm genuinely surprised. You little minx! I wouldn't have guessed you had it in you, Shira-kins." He bent down and kissed me quickly on the lips. "I do so like you - much more than I thought I would."