In The Dark There Are No Strangers

by edgesofmylips

Summary:

I had thought he wouldn't request me again. After all there's many differences between the whores and myself. But his appetite seems to come back and I'm sent into the devil's den once more.

Only this time there's not as much softness as before, but it's not quite cold as others seem to say it is. Maybe this is what I needed, maybe I'm doing the one thing I've been warned against. I'm getting away with myself. Losing my head. All senses falling to this role I'm playing.

For him.

There are many things we aren't told about as women in this world. So much is kept from us or spoken about in ways of being vague. 

One of the most important that I have found after having my first encounter with the devil himself is that women make good friends, especially when talking about a single man. 

It makes me wonder if jealousy is truly a thing or if it's society's way of keeping us apart. 

"He either gets too much into it or isn't even there at all." Louisa says, the sound of droplets of water hitting the basin as she rings out her wash cloth echoes in the small wash room down in the servants quarters of the hotel.

"Bends you over any surface and keeps his eyes off of you." Susie says as she slips out of her underthings, tossing them into the clothing hamper for the items I'll be laundering tonight. 

It's been a week since Thomas Shelby stayed here. A week since he had me.

"No talking afterwards" Helen says, lighting up a cigarette regardless of how many times she has been chastised for doing so. But none of us with tattle. 

We're a pact. A close knit group of women who experience things. 

Who knew I would experience things.

And yet I don't give much away. I haven't told them how he made love to someone else with me, but they all already know it. He's done much the same with them.

"Grace must have been a woman with a golden cunt." Zosia says as she pulls on her lingerie, such delicate silk and lace. 

"That's not right to speak of her that way." I find myself saying, to which it causes every single one to turn and look at me. Then they all starting belting out in laughter.

"She's precious." Zosia says as they all begin to round on me, their hands going to my hair, pinching my cheeks. It's all meant in good fun, I know, but it makes me feel ignorant all the same.

"Too good for this life." Helen sighs.

"At least she only had to do it once." Louisa nods, then gathers all the laundry for me that had been left on the floor and places it into the hamper.

I laugh too, because I don't want to ruin this. Whatever it is. My hands going to the cart. "I feel bad for him though, you know?"

"Oh yes." Zosia says with a delicate touch to her voice, her beautiful dark eyes look over at me and it's no wonder she's the most popular one here, the most commonly requested. Even one look from her sends my heart thumping. I can't imagine what men feel. "We all feel sorry for them all, Ivy. But getting attached only leads to problems, issues that could get you out of work."

"There's no use losing your head, love." Helen echoes the same sentiment. 

"I'm not." I assure them, but as soon as I begin to wheel the hamper out, the manager of the women comes into the room and looks at everyone.

"Ivy." Her eyes narrow to me, looking at the uniform I'm wearing. "You've been requested."

"I'm not-" I begin but am cut off.

"By Mr Shelby once more. You'll wear your...own clothing. He mentioned a wool dress?" She says and turns on her heels.

The women begin to whistle and make all sorts of a commotion. 

Before I know it, I'm being pulled towards the mirror.

I've never worn makeup before, not once in my life, and all of a sudden all of their hands begin to apply it and do up my hair.

I feel like someone else when I stand outside of his designated room, my hands fumbling with the fabric of my dress, trying to smooth it down best I can. I'm so engrossed in the task that I don't notice he's opening the door until the light floods out and shines across my shoes. A warm color, all yellows and muted tone. 

Hesitantly my eyes meet his and I can see the distaste in them instantly. He moves out of the way and allows me into the room, so I go in, one step at a time.

"Washroom is to the right." He says. But I hesitate, not sure what he means. "I thought you were a cleaning maid?"

"I am" I say in a hurry, as if to defend myself. I'm not a liar. I am many things, but never once have I lied. 

"If you're not serving other men, don't come to me looking like a whore. Go wash off the lipstick and everything else on your face." He commands and I move quickly towards the washroom, closing the door behind me.

We do have running water here. Plumbing, piping, there's many ways to say it but I've never grown used to it. Having been raised in a small village there are some things that are difficult to adjust to. 

I always feel like the pipes are alive, I can hear them groaning as I turn the knob at the washing basin. The water comes out dark at first because of the source the hotel uses, then it runs clearer and I take a cloth in hand. Once it's soaked and built up with suds, I begin to scrub at the makeup on my skin.

In the mirror I look alright. I'm not notably beautiful or striking and the makeup doesn't help with that either. No movie star or whore here, I don't look like one. Not with their beautiful faces and eyes that are sultry. I'm just...plain. Usual. 

If anyone would see me on the street mixed in with others, I wouldn't really stand out. I'm basic. 

Forgettable. 

Once my skin is clear of any makeup, I head out of the washroom and see that he's already started on the bottle of whiskey. It's close to half gone somehow. Maybe he had started before I arrived.

"Come 'ere" He says, with his hand motioning for me to go to him and so I do. He turns to me, takes his hands and tilts my down to where I am staring at his shoes. His hands then go to my hair, gently pulling out all of the pins and items used to make my updo. "When I request you moving forward, you'll come to me without all of this. No hairstyles, no makeup, nothing that is unnatural to." When I don't speak, he clears his throat. "Do you understand?"

"I do." I say, my eyes still on his shoes. They are shiny, dark and polished. The laces are tied so specifically, so nicely. Then my eyes travel to my own shoes. All worn and scuffed, they used to be beige but have somehow turned into a color more akin to mud overtime. Darkened and not at all like the required shoes I wear in the hotel, the ones with my uniform. 

Maybe he gets off on my lack of...good clothes, good shoes, makeup, money, experience. Everything all melded together making some heady aroma that brings him into a rut like an animal? 

No. It couldn't be that. He's not hard. At least from what I can tell just looking. 

But I daren't touch him. That's not my place. Not yet. The last thing I need is to upset the customer who buys one of the best rooms the hotel has to offer, frequents the hotel regularly for dinners, drinking, and well fucking. 

He still wears his wedding band.

I see it glint as his hand comes down to guide my face back up and then he's leaning in, pressing his lips to my forehead. "You'll come to me as you, not some doll they parade around because they think you're my favorite."

"Am I?" I ask, feeling my head swim as his lips make their way down to my own, kissing my flushing face on their way. When he doesn't answer, when his tongue licks at the seam of my lips, I open my mouth to ask again but I can't, his tongue is inside my mouth and I melt against him. 

My body relaxing against his own, in his arms and I feel like maybe I can forget everything I lack once more. I can ignore the itchy wool on my skin, the irritated flesh of my face but the intensive washing, the worn shoes that needed replaced years ago.

"You're not wearing perfume" He states, his mouth moving to my neck and I tilt my head for better access.

"No." I confirm.

"Why not?" He asks and maybe I've made a mistake, maybe he wanted me to smell like her.

"The lady came to collect it." I admit.

"When?" He asks and his fingers make their way to the buttons of my dress, slowly getting each one out of their lips.

"Three days ago." 

He pulls back and there's something in his eyes for just a second, so short I almost didn't catch it. A look that says he had hoped they wouldn't, that for some reason he wished no one would come to collect it and that the perfume would remain.

He needs his wife, tonight is a night more difficult than others. That's why the whiskey is half gone, that's why there's a coldness to his tone but not to his actions. That's why-

"What else do you do?" He asks, getting my dress to the floor. He's rewarded...or well greeted I should say because the time of underthings I wear once more is not silk or lace, it's boring. A simple girdle, a simple set of stockings. It's only now that I realize as he stands back to look at my body that I have a few holes in my stockings, I have a few seams fraying in my underthings. I want to cry. I really do.

"I'm just a maid." I say, my voice sounds more sad than it should. He catches it too because then I'm back in his arms and his face is buried in my hair, his hands touching and grabbing places on my body that would have the nuns who raised me long ago send me to the punishment box in record time.

"Your not just a maid." He says, lifting one of my legs and hooking it at his hip, then he grinds himself against me and I can feel he's half hard. Not quite there, but almost.

"I'm a whore for you." I admit.

"You are." He says and then his fingers slip underneath the fabric covering my womanhood, his fingers finding my folds and parting them to rub, to feel, to explore and I moan. My face pressing to his shoulder, hiding. 

When his hands leave me, they go to my underthings and get me stark naked before him. But he doesn't move to undo his own clothing, so I reach to help him out of them, only to have my hands swatted away. He grips me behind my thighs and hoists me up onto the table holding the whiskey. His strong hands parting my legs so that he can get between them. 

He pours a glass of whiskey, so full it almost spills over the rim. Then he downs it in two gulps, hissing when the burn happens in his throat. I don't prefer the smell of the whiskey, but for some reason when his lips find mine again, it tastes good on his tongue. 

We kiss for a bit, deep, hungry. His hands on my thighs until they move to his own trousers, he gets them open enough to pull himself free. When I glance down, he lets me look.

He's aroused to full length now, his hand fisting it slow and languid as I watch. My own finger moving to slip up the underside of it and he makes some strangled noise when I do it, even worse when my finger slips to the sensitive leaking tip of his cock.

He's ready, but I'm not sure how ready I am. Though it may not matter. Not tonight. Tonight maybe he just wants to get off. 

I look up at his face and adjust myself, tilting my hips a little to give him better access but he doesn't enter me, not yet. His free hand parts my folds and then he rubs himself against me. 

Oh. This is new. This is strange. 

The heated flesh, the glide of it. I begin to rock my hips with the pace of his own and we breathe together. Slowly at first, our eyes oddly locked on one another. 

Does he see me? Or her? I can't tell but his lips part and when he moans, I let out a needy sound and I feel sinful. I feel what society wants me to feel. Up here in a hotel room with a man I hardly know aside from stories and one encounter. With a man who is said to be the devil himself.

Am I a lamb led to slaughter? 

Am I some soul he's corrupting?

No... I decide. I'm not. I'm different.

I'm the ivy that grows on the devil's den, that rises up along the stone, the windows, protecting what is inside. 

My hands go to him, pulling his face towards mine and I kiss him through my orgasm. My body jolting and riding out the pleasure like waves and yet that doesn't stop my assault to his mouth and lips. 

He groans and I can feel his hand leave me, grip my waist and his other is surely still around himself as I feel him push into me. 

My legs wrap around him, hooked at the ankles as he begins to thrust into me.

"Fuck" He hisses out, his hips driving himself so deep into me that I cry out the first time, but after a few times I get used to the sensation, I get aroused by it. My fingers grip his shoulder blades, nails digging into the skin. 

I wonder if he'll have marks, do I want to leave them? 

He's frantic, I can tell his mind is leaving me as he begins to mutter her name against my neck, his mouth kissing along it and my shoulder. His hand comes up to fondle my breast, thumb swiping over the nipple, rolling it until it's hardened. 

I moan for him, natural in the way only I know how because if I were to try and fake it as the whores have told me to do, I worry he will know. He will find out. He will no longer give me this reprieve from who I am, of what I know I'll never have.

For this moment I have him and as his thrusts become more frequent, as his grunts begin to spill from his lips... I bask in that knowledge. 

It's not until he gets going too much that I hear the whiskey bottle tip over, that I feel whiskey coating my ass and my thighs, that I hear him groan but he doesn't stop until he spills himself inside me. 

It takes a moment for him to pull out this time. But he eventually does and helps me down onto my feet.

I can feel his release dripping out of me and down my thighs, I watch as he puts himself away as if it's that easy. Fucking and forgetting. Will I spend the night tonight? I doubt it. We didn't fuck on the bed. At least I wasn't bent over. 

Turning, I head to the bathroom and grab a towel. I turn the knob again and listen as the plumbing gurgles and makes noise, dampening the towel in the flow and then turning it off.

Once I'm back he watches as I clean up the spilled whiskey on the table, then as I get down on all fours to clean up the spilled whiskey on the hardwood. 

"You look good like that." He says.

Did he actually compliment me? Is that a compliment? Or something sexual I should ignore? Should I move my hips and tease him? That doesn't feel like me and so I try to ignore it.

But he comes to stand in front of me, bending down he reaches out and tilts my face upwards towards his. "Stay the night."

It's not a question, but a command and so I nod in acknowledgement. It'll be much like the night before, I am sure. Where he sleeps and I sleep. But at least I'll be sleeping in a bed with a good mattress and I'll be warm. 

I'll be someone else. 

"Come 'ere." He says and I stand to my feet, going to him and let myself fall back into this sinful fantasy of being someone he does want. Someone else. 

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of Ivy & the Devil