Chapter Text
The thing was, the money was just too good.
Even at the beginning, when it was just cleaning, when Dimitri thought the Queen Anne-style house really was just a bed-and-breakfast, it was a generous wage.
It was too good to pass up. He could do the whole job outside of class hours, and the pay covered his textbooks and food, and would help a lot with the rent. Any money he didn't have to borrow was good.
He assumed the job would already be filled by how many tags had been taken from the flyer in the students' center, but he was pleasantly surprised when he called the number. A woman's voice answered, and after asking him his name, and his school, and his year, and a few questions about his schedule, she had him come to the house.
The interview was short. The owner was a middle-aged woman with a pleasant demeanor and an impressive facial scar. "A car accident when I was younger," she said, before he could think to ask. Like him, sort of. She told him to call her Sadie. She showed him around the house, verified that he could do laundry and make a bed, and hired him.
At the end of the first week, she paid him in cash. Maybe that should have seemed weird? Maybe the age of the money should have seemed weird? But it wasn't that weird. He probably should have been more weirded out by fact that the rooms needed cleaning despite the general lack of guests. But by the time he noticed it, he was used to it.
That was how it had all gone, hadn't it? Every step wasn't that weird, or was so small from the last one. All perfectly reasonable requests, everything worth at least trying. Always with clearly-stated encouragement to back out if he was uncomfortable. But. Also with compensation discussed frankly, like it was a fair price for anyone and not so much money that any college student would have to say, "Do I care about discomfort?"
Well, that was why he was here, in the end. Because he was going to cover half a semester's tuition with one night's work. Not because he loved it. Not because he was going to hold a whole room in the palm of his hand, desperate to approach him but forbidden to touch. Not because this was who he was now. Who he had always been? No, it was for the money.
(Lies. But he wasn't going to say no to the money.)
Mercedes leads him onto the stage, gently holding his hand. He's blindfolded - well, really they've just taped up the eye holes in his performing mask. But he can feel the heat of the lights, and he can hear the band growing quieter as the main event arrives. Mercedes whispers that he should open his robe a bit, and backs off somewhere behind him.
The robe is blue and silver, and made of some cool, silky material. Possibly actual silk - their supplies are strange. Dimitri loosens the belt slightly and lets the fabric fall from his shoulders to his elbows. He holds his arms apart and tilts his head - Well, isn't this what you came for?
There is a murmur from the crowd, but it's cut off by Yuri's voice, beautiful and commanding. "Greetings, gentlefolk and unsavories, and welcome on this final night of winter. You know the joke. He just came of age. His birthday was yesterday. He's never done any of this before. Well, if you're here you've probably seen the videos, so you know that last statement's a lie."
The audience laughs, and Yuri continues. "And he's twenty-one, so if that's too old for any of you perverts, don't let the door hit you on the way out." A beat. "Unless you're into that sort of thing. What I can tell you truly is that you're his first live in-person audience and he's never seen this chair before. Sorry, sorry." Dimitri can imagine Yuri's smile. "His throne."
(True. Technically true, although he'd felt it once in testing.)
"Now, we have attendants going around with tickets if you want to be entered into any of the drawings. I'll point especially at the drawing to play the role of Spring. One lucky winner will be allowed to touch, so consider what you'd be willing to contribute for the chance to put your hands or other body parts on the Winter Prince."
Dimitri puts his fingertips on his chin and draws them down his throat and chest. Someone whistles.
Yuri's voice comes more clearly - he must have turned to face Dimitri. "Well, Your Highness? Your kingdom is waiting."
Dimitri smirks, and drops the robe to the ground, and the crowd cheers.
It's not just the money.
============
Marianne had been much more aware than Dimitri that something strange was going on with his job. She brought it up back at the beginning, while they were having tea one afternoon in the residence dining room.
Marianne and Dimitri had joined the same living group during freshman year and bonded over similar mental health problems and a particularly terrible math class. They often sat together and drank tea or hot chocolate when they had a break between classes, like a fun little date. (But not really a date, because Dimitri was not going to ruin this friendship by hitting on his beautiful, kind, shy friend, with her small smiles and secret laughs and they were very good friends.)
"Why do they have you cleaning the rooms in the early evening?" she asked him. "I thought hotels had checkout at ten or eleven."
He stared into his tea. "I don't know. She said I could come by after classes when she hired me."
"And the guests don't mind having to get out of their rooms for you to clean? Some of them have to be there."
"Actually ..." What he was about to say hadn't seemed weird until just now, and that worried him slightly. "I've never seen anybody there except the manager."
Marianne frowned. "Then why are you cleaning the rooms every day?"
Dimitri took a sip of tea just to gain a few seconds to think. "But the rooms need cleaning. Stuff's been moved around. The sheets are, ah, they need cleaning. The beds have been slept in." And sometimes he found lost articles of clothing. And once there was blood on the bedsheets, although not "someone was murdered here" amounts.
They were both silent for a minute. Dimitri's brain unhelpfully supplied, "Sexy ghost inn?" but it wasn't worth saying out loud.
Marianne eventually asked, "You told me it was a bed and breakfast. What was its name again?"
"Uh, Chamomile and Lace."
They stared at each other. Then Marianne put a hand in front of her mouth and burst into giggles.
"Dimitri ... are you cleaning a sex club?"
============
There is a story to the show, about the Prince and the kingdom of eternal winter. Upstairs, where the non-VIPs are, there's a similar show playing out via song and dance. Someone with the same mask but who has professional ballet experience is at the center of that show, and Dimitri wonders if the people upstairs know it's not him. That must be where Marianne and Claude and Hilda are, right? This show was invite-only.
Down here, in the semi-darkness, Yuri narrates the story of the Winter Prince and his sacrifice.
"Once upon a time, there was a small kingdom where winter settled in and never left. The spirits of snow and ice, of wind and darkness, blanketed the land, and the people did not know whether they would freeze first, or starve.
"The Prince of the kingdom, who loved his people dearly and wanted to see them safe and warm and most importantly, alive, sought out the spirits and struck a bargain with them. If he could remain seated upon his throne, alone, for the entire night, they would depart his kingdom.
"The Prince secured from them a further stipulation that they would not touch him directly, lest the wind rip him from the chair and render the entire ordeal meaningless. The spirits agreed, because they liked a bit of fun and had no intention of honoring their deal anyway."
Mercedes hands Dimitri a ring gag. He's meant to be heard. Dimitri holds the ring up to his mouth, licks his tongue around the cold metal circle. Someone cheers. (Perhaps in a sense it is the Winter Prince who does all this; Dimitri tries to keep some separation in his mind between the two. But anyway.) Then he fits the gag into his mouth and buckles it behind his head.
Mercedes takes his hands again and leads him to the chair. He's already wearing wrist and ankle cuffs, to make the setup easier. They're beautiful, some kind of blue fake leather decorated with silver snowflakes.
The chair is ... well, as Yuri said he hasn't actually seen it. But he knows that it's not really a chair so much as it is a machine that you can sit on. There's a small backrest, enough that he has something to lean back on. There are metal loops where he can be tied in. And there's the cock attached to the seat, which is what he'll be riding for an indeterminate amount of time tonight.
Mercedes helps him find his position, bringing his hands to the backrest so he can hold onto it. Then she steps behind him and guides his hips down.
He's prepared for this as much as possible. They did a test run two days ago but he didn't have to look attractive then. He fingered himself open half an hour ago and he and the dildo are both slick but it still feels enormous. He stops to breathe with the tip barely inside.
Mercedes is very gently pulling him down. "Just relax. Let me help you."
He tries to say, "Let me adjust first," but he gets as far as "ehhhh" and remembers he can't talk. Mercedes can't really pull him down against his will, but she exerts a steady force with both her hands and her voice. He sighs and slowly works his way down towards the seat.
Yuri's telling the crowd about the machine and its various intimidating settings. Dimitri is only half listening; the blood's rushing in his ears and he needs to focus on breathing. He can already tell this is not the same cock they used for the test run. Dimitri hopes Yuri's description is an exaggeration. He's perfectly capable of acting like he's being railed to within an inch of his life. He doesn't need to literally experience it.
Finally his ass hits the chair and he drops his head forward and pants. He's already drooling, but that's too low on the list of concerns to matter. He knows that in a minute he'll go from what is inside me?! to all right, move already, but the transition is always a little nerve-wracking.
Yuri's narration gently rolls over him again.
"The Prince knew the spirits would try all manner of tricks to entice or frighten him into standing, so he had his servants bind him to the throne. He also had them cover his eyes so that he could not see whatever horrors the spirits would conjure. And then they left, and he was alone.
"But not for long, because soon he heard the wicked laughter of snow and ice, of wind and darkness, and the throne room was filled with vicious cheers."
There's silence, and Yuri says, "Well? It looks like our Winter Prince is having some trouble and we've barely started. Let's encourage him!"
Dimitri snaps his head up as a round of raucous applause starts. His face goes hot, but at least the mask will partially hide his blush.
He hears Mercedes close to his ear. "They love you. You're going to be fine." She rubs his hands as she brings them down and clips the cuffs to the chair. His arms are slightly behind him so his chest is on full display, but not so far back as to strain him. And he can grip the edges of the seat from here, which is good.
She bends one of his legs, then the other, and locks them into place as well. The position - knees raised and legs spread - pushes him into the backrest. Anybody who wants to get a good look at his cock (which is, hopefully, everyone here) is in luck. If he lifts himself off the chair at all they'll have a perfect view of the dildo disappearing into his ass.
He still feels a bit of shame, but he's so turned on by thoughts of the audience's desire that it doesn't matter. All those people looking, wishing it was their hands holding him down, their cock driving into him. Their fingers holding his mouth open while his spit drips down his chin onto his chest. And none of them are allowed to touch.
Well, one person would be. But Dimitri would be imagining someone else.
He feels something around his waist. Mercedes is putting a belt on him? It feels like the same material as the cuffs. He hears a chain moving and feels a brief tug at the back, but it doesn't keep pulling.
"Now our Prince is no coward," Yuri says, "but we don't want him running away. Darling Prince, lift yourself up and show these good people how much you can move."
Oh. Oh that's ... of course. He pushes himself up on his hands, and he can only get his ass up a few inches before the chain is taut. Realistically, this isn't a problem, since if he actually got all the way off the dildo while it was moving he'd probably hurt himself. But it's a little frightening knowing how thoroughly trapped he is.
"As you can see, he has the choice between straining his arms and being very fucked, or resting and being extremely fucked. But either way he isn't going anywhere until we are done with him." Scattered laughter. "And aren't you all very hungry?" More cheers.
Dimitri lowers himself back down with a groan. How is he going to manage this? He's already so hard it's on the edge of painful.
Someone's ruffling his hair - he thinks it's Mercedes at first but it turns out to be Yuri. "Any last words, Winter Prince?"
Dimitri whimpers, and it's much louder than he expects; Yuri must be holding the microphone to his mouth.
"I think he's hoping you'll save him, Blue Rose!" More laughter. "But that's enough foreplay for anyone, hm? Let's get this started for real."
Yuri switches back to his narrator voice. "As the Prince began his long night, he learned quickly that he had made a mistake. Because while the spirits had promised not to touch him directly, they had made no such agreements about. his. throne."
There's a humming sound below him, and the dildo starts vibrating. Dimitri gasps; it's a bit of an act, but the audience won't know anything's changed otherwise.
"Now if I were a kind man, I'd let him warm up with some pleasant vibrations. Mercedes, was he good for you?"
"Oh, yes, Yuri. He was a very good boy." Dimitri whimpers again. The vibrations feel good but they're already a lot.
"I'm happy to hear it." A beat. Dimitri knows what must be coming but that doesn't help him. "Pity I'm not kind."
Dimitri screams as the cock thrusts into him.
============
One morning, Marianne asked Dimitri how his job was going. They were grabbing a quick breakfast before heading to campus. Claude was the only other person in the dining room, huddled over a bowl of cereal and an organic chemistry textbook at another table. He was likely having dinner, or possibly lunch - Claude's schedule couldn't be measured by petty human devices like clocks or calendars.
"Have you seen any actual guests yet?" she asked him.
"Yes, finally," he replied. "Actually, a couple. Younger than I expected; I sort of assumed this would be an old people vacation thing."
There had been something weird, or familiar, or weirdly familiar, about the couple walking down the hall, although he'd only seen them from the back. They were two blonde people, and the woman reminded him a little bit of his friend Ingrid from high school? But no matter. There were people in the house sometimes.
Marianne grimaced. "I hope the owner's doing this as a retirement hobby and not because she needs the money. One room booked over how many days over - how many rooms is it?"
Dimitri thought. "Six or eight. Maybe ten?"
"How do you not know?"
Dimitri turned. Claude was staring at them. "Hm?"
"Isn't your job to clean the bedrooms? How do you not know how many rooms it is?"
Dimitri gestured with his hands, trying to indicate the structure of the house. "Well, I just sort of clean until I'm done. There are the rooms on the first floor past the sitting room, and everything on the second floor hallway, and the room in the attic tower. And, um ..." He waved a hand in a circle. "The, um, the other bit. I don't know how to describe it."
Marianne and Claude were both looking at him with skepticism.
He shrugged, a little embarrassed. "I can make a circuit through the house and when I get back to the office I'm done. I zone out and listen to music; I don't think about it too hard while I'm there." He did get lost occasionally, he supposed.
Claude raised an eyebrow. "This seems like an implausibly large house, but whatever. I'm not an architect."
After the next time he went to work, Dimitri reported that it was, in fact, eight bedrooms.
(The time after that, there were nine, but he thought, "Ah, I must have miscounted before," and didn't ponder further.)
(The time after that, it was six, but he was no longer counting.)
============
Sadie had a cup of tea and some cookies waiting for him every time he came by the house, black tea with cream and sugar. It wasn't his favorite sort; he was really an herbal tea sort of person. But it vaguely reminded him of drinking tea when visiting his nana as a small child, and that was a pleasant nostalgia. The cookies were usually cinnamon. He couldn't taste anything except a bit of the sweetness, but they smelled good and the thought was nice.
The tea was always warm. It was always warm, even to the last sip, which was a neat trick however she managed it. Maybe the cups were more insulated than they looked.
There was something fundamentally motherly about Sadie. She asked him about his day, and he found himself telling her about his problems with a surprising frankness. He was no longer sure his major was a good idea for him personally, but then what would happen to his father's company? The expectation was that Dimitri would take over once he knew how ... But if he switched to something he liked better, who would keep it running? On the other hand, it wasn't clear the company would still exist by the time he graduated, with the way his uncle seemed to be mismanaging it. Either way, how was he ever going to pay back his student loans?
And sometimes he talked about Marianne, and how his mind would not let go of his crush despite everything.
"Oh, that's a dilemma," Sadie said. She nibbled a cookie. "And you say the two of you are such good friends. Mm, I think you're doing the right thing. If she was interested in you that way, you'd know. And she's not interested in you that way, is she?"
Dimitri sighed. "I guess not."
"Don't worry about it too much, Dimitri. You have a whole life of adventures ahead of you. But ... if you have money worries, there are more things I could have you do around the House? Come back when you're done cleaning for the day and I'll give you more tea and we can talk about it."
(Things Dimitri did not think about until much later: Whenever she said it, she always capitalized the word "House.")
============
Sadie had almost been apologetic, when she explained what she meant by "more things." She thought he knew. They used the house as a set. The day shoots were before he arrived, and the night shoots after he left.
"It's porn. They make porn there," he told Marianne.
Marianne was playing Animal Crossing on the big television in the basement. She had wanted to show Dimitri the latest additions to her home. Dimitri didn't have the patience to decorate very well, but he liked seeing what she did. Her island was covered in carefully-cultivated hybrid flowers, and was terraformed to look like a beautiful park. (No, she had told him, she did not know why she was able to keep her island pristine, but her real-life room was a disaster.)
"Oh!" said Marianne. "I was so close with 'sex club' but not quite." She walked her avatar from the "blue" bedroom to the "cute animals" bedroom.
"I like your outfit," Dimitri said. "Did you make the pattern yourself?"
"I did! Um, I'm glad you like it. Are you going to keep the job?"
"Ah, yes. Well, you see - she's giving me a raise to help disinfect and maintain their supplies." There was no reason to be embarrassed. This was a perfectly reasonable job.
Marianne turned to look at him, eyes wide. Then a grin spread across her face. "You, Dimitri Blaiddyd, are cleaning the sex toys for a porn studio?"
Dimitri crossed his arms and stared very hard at the floor. "It was a fifteen percent raise. That's a lot. Also I'm not as innocent as everyone likes to pretend. Just because I'm not Sylvain doesn't mean I don't know what a ... what a butt plug looks like what is that?"
The basement of Marianne's home was ... creepy, with skeletons, and some kind of stone altar? And a blood-spatter pattern?
"That's the occult basement where we ritually sacrifice the bad villagers. I, um, I've been talking a lot with Dr. Eisner about my darker feelings, and I thought maybe it would be good to have a fake place to think about them. The attic's a torture chamber."
"Oh. That's creative! I haven't given Dr. Eisner any more details about my job. I don't have a good reason. Maybe I'm afraid they'll ask me a question and I'll realize I need to quit?"
He also had extremely not brought up the most recent conversation he'd had with Sadie. About how one of the things they did was toy reviews. And how they were looking for someone who wasn't jaded by experience to do some of them.
"Do you need to quit? Or think you need to?" Marianne put the controller in her lap and regarded him seriously.
"I ... hope not. Cleaning is calm work, and the money is good. Maybe I'm afraid it's too good to be true?" Maybe he already knew he was going to say yes to Sadie's offer and he definitely didn't want to discuss that.
Marianne shrugged. "I think it's fun that you're a porn janitor."
"Oh goddess, please never say that phrase again."
============
now. the last night of winter.
He comes too quickly the first time. He's supposed to pace himself. Yuri does his best to help; at least twice he tells the audience he's turning the machine up and turns it down instead. Dimitri still shakes like he's going to crack open.
The audience is eating it up. Everyone's here to watch their Winter Prince melt into a trembling puddle. But that doesn't mean he's supposed to do it immediately. There's an art to this.
Dimitri had underestimated the effect the crowd was going to have on him. That's his problem. This was the bit they couldn't duplicate during the test run. There's a room full of people here to watch him come, and he wants to please them.
He pushes himself up slightly so they have a better view. The cock is relentless, like only a machine could be. It's incredible. He's tried several toys that have made him think, "I've never been so turned on before," but this is in a class by itself.
With his current position, it's hitting his prostate and what he should do is move so he can last longer. What he does do is lean into it and moan, not one of the sounds he's been carefully tossing off but an uncontrolled wild noise.
He knows this is stupid, that they won't turn the machine off once he comes and it is going to be a bad time, but he needs to be fucked harder right now. He drops back onto the chair, pushes himself up, drops again.
His climax is overwhelming. Sparks dance behind his eyelids, his toes curl, and the sound he makes is like a howl. Waves of pleasure shake his body as he clenches around the toy, as come pulses out of him and splatters his stomach.
But he's right that they won't turn the machine off. Yuri doesn't even turn it down, the fiend. And it is too much turn it down. Yuri has to hear the way his voice rises in pitch even if no words come out. Too much too much - Dimitri jerks his arms and legs but the cuffs are securely held and please it's too much!
He just barely makes out Yuri saying, "Who wants to place a bet on how long it is till he's hard again?"