Page 5 of The Housebreaker's Assistant
“And you, Caius,” Greer said, handing his hat and coat to the man. “And how is Sadler treating you these days?”
“Master is as good to me as I could ever hope for,” Caius answered with an adoring grin, folding Greer’s coat over his arm.
“I’ll be sure to tell him you’re fulfilling your duties beautifully when I see him,” Greer winked, walking on through the front hall as if he lived there.
In many ways, he did. The Zagreus Den was one of his favorite places in London. He’d earned his membership a few years ago by helping Brutus and Titus acquire certain documentation that enabled them to blackmail a Mr. Westmoreland, who owned several workhouses around London. Greer had broken into the man’s house and stolen correspondence and receipts that showed the man was pocketing far more than his fair share of the government funds provided to the workhouses.
In return for keeping that information quiet, Titus, who acquired most of the Den’s young sirens and was known on the streets as the Snatcher, had blanket permission to inspect the young men consigned to those workhouses and to take whichever of them he deemed fit for the Den without question or repercussions.
Greer spotted one of the Den’s newer acquisitions before he reached the banquet hall that made up one side of the house toward the back.
“Good evening, sir,” Erastos said, bowing low as Greer approached.
“Hello, Erastos,” Greer treated him to a grin, sweeping a look over the young man’s pretty form.
Like all the boys of the Den, Erastos was dressed in a Greek-style toga made of fine material. It was draped in a way that left little to the imagination, and Greer knew from experience such togas could be removed or pushed aside so that men like him could easily access the forbidden fruit beneath the soft folds of linen.
Greer let himself indulge in looking for a moment. Erastos had been thrown into the workhouse a year ago after being caught on the streets of Whitechapel. From what Greer understood, the lad had been orphaned some time before that and did not fare well in the same world where Penny flourished. He’d been nothing but skin and bones, all hope sucked out of him, when Titus had found him behind the workhouse walls.
Now, however, he was plump and glowing. He held his body easily, like someone thoroughly taken care of, and if Greer remembered correctly, he’d been studying mathematics at the Den’s school.
He would make a brilliant and talented possession for some scientifically minded man one day.
Penny would look delicious dressed in the togas of The Zagreus Den’s boys. The thought slipped into Greer’s brain with as much saucy insistence as Penny would have invaded his pockets. What Greer wouldn’t do to see his wily street thief scrubbed clean and flaunting skin while kneeling at his feet during one of the Den’s bacchanals.
The fantasy was so potent that it stirred his groin. He had to clear his throat to remind himself that Penny was unlikely to ever cross the Den’s doorstep. His red-headed friend had too much pride to be one of the Den’s boys at any rate.
“It sounds as though festivities are already underway,” he said to Erastos, a burr in his throat.
Erastos peeked up at him, cheeks flushed, as if he thought perhaps he had been the one to make Greer’s blood race. “Yes, sir,” he said, eyeing Greer hopefully. “There will be dancing tonight and entertainments after.”
Which meant the dancers would all end up bouncing on the balls of their audience before the music ended.
“My favorite sort of entertainment,” he said, cupping the side of Erastos’s face and swiping his thumb across the young man’s lips. “You’ll dance for me, won’t you?”
“I’ll do anything for you, sir,” Erastos answered, voice husky.
Greer chuckled and patted the young man’s face before moving on down the hall. “I look forward to it,” he said, winking for good measure.
Erastos was a sweet lad. All of the boys of The Zagreus Den were. Titus was an expert in the art of finding biddable young men with a hunger for cock who were blissfully happy to give up their freedom in exchange for a lifetime of tender care. Most of the young men they found only spent a year or two at the Den before entering private ownership or asking for their freedom, which they were given with only one requirement, that they never breathe a word about The Zagreus Den to anyone for the rest of their lives. During the time the lads spent in the care of the Den, any and all members were encouraged to enjoy them to the fullest. It was considered good practice for them and great fun for everyone.
Again, Greer’s thoughts flew back to Penny as he entered the warm, bustling banquet hall, where the night’s feast was stillunderway. Penny seemed to love teaching the younger boys of London’s streets his trade. Greer couldn’t blame him. Crime was survival when you’d been born with nothing, not even a name in some cases.
He knew that more than most.
“Ah, Greer, you’re here,” Brutus greeted him, rising from the head table, where he’d been seated with a new boy that Greer had yet to meet on his lap.
That young man—everyone at the Den referred to them as boys, but they were all older than twenty, in most cases—looked overwhelmed and wary, which told Greer he’d been there for a very short time indeed. He wore one of the Den’s togas, but it was draped much more modestly, and when Brutus stood to greet him, Greer noted with a laugh that the new boy still wore his drawers.
“You requested my presence tonight specifically,” Greer said as he shook Brutus’s hand. “How could I refuse an offer such as that?”
“No one can refuse a summons by The Zagreus Den,” one of the club’s newer members, a photographer by the name of Jonathan Moorgate said, somewhat sullenly, as he watched Greer and Brutus greet each other.
Greer knew Jonathan’s story. They were already well on their way to being friends. Greer found Jonathan’s uncomfortable attitude toward the Den and its activities to be hilarious. It was rich for a man who had made his living producing pornography to be squeamish about the Den’s purpose, but Jonathan still had old habits and beliefs to shed, though he was adapting more quickly than he cared to let on.
“Are you saying you aren’t happy here?” he teased Jonathan once he let go of Brutus’s hand and circled around the end of the table so he could shake Titus’s hand as well. “Charlie certainly looks happy.”
Charlie was Jonathan’s boy, a young man he’d plucked off the street for pornographic purposes, but with whom he’d quickly fallen in love. He knelt beside the cushion Jonathan sat on, his head resting in Jonathan’s lap. Charlie had a hazy smile on his face and his eyes were half closed, as though he’d fallen asleep and only partially woken up when Greer arrived. He was the very picture of bliss.
