Petyr popped his thumb into his mouth, sucking off the remnants of whatever crumb or juice had been left behind after making up Sansa’s goodie bag. In an instant, his appetite had shifted from the peach between Sansa’s legs to the spread of food he’d ordered in her interest. He didn’t feel guilty. Not when he heard her slip from the bed onto the floor, not when her footsteps padded across the plush carpet to stand behind him, not when her hands smoothed up his back and around his midsection in an affectation of a lover’s intimate embrace. The bag crinkled in his grasp as he rolled it up, plopping it atop the cart, and shifting just in time to waylay roving hands as they sought to pry beneath the waistband of his pants. For half a second he thought about letting her continue. She felt warm and soft pressed against him. She was pliant and willing – more than willing. He knew how good she would feel, all of the little sounds she would make. He knew she’d pour herself into him, he knew that her desperation to forget would make her perform even better. He knew she would be wild, unbridled, different than all the other times. Part of him, oh, part of him wanted very much to let her seek sanctuary in him. But he knew better.
“Stop.”
That was clear enough, wasn’t it? It left little to be deciphered, little to be interpreted. Stop. Her grasp on him loosened as he turned, navigating her arms as though he were some dancer caught in a pirouette, one of her wrists shackled in his fingers. “You’re not staying here.” It wasn’t angry, it was simply firm, concise, no hidden warnings concealed by a tone that told her I’m no longer interested. All clichés and tropes of men fleeing from anything even remotely resembling something meaningful aside, what had changed in the last handful of seconds that had put him so suddenly off of her? Fingers uncurled from her wrist, freeing her, and a too-amiable smile appeared on his face. “I hate sharing a bed.” Hadn’t they shared a bed before? In the train coming back from the Capitol? Without event that evening had passed, no tossing and turning, no fits of snoring, no night terrors shrieking out to awake one or the other. They had coexisted in that cabin just fine. More than fine. It was a poor excuse, then, though perhaps merciful all the same. All the more irritating to a girl who loathed the idea of mercy.
“Anyway,” he continued, “that’s not rest.” The smile veered wry. “Getting fucked isn’t resting. And you do need to rest. Because tomorrow you’ll be doing a lot of that – getting fucked. And he’s not gonna want some tired old nag with dark circles under her eyes. He’s gonna want some spry spring filly all ready to go, again…and again…and again.” Petyr lifted a hand, captured her chin between the pads of thumb and fore. He made her look at him, his gaze taking on a condescending tilt as it washed over her face. “You can come see me after if you want.” It wandered down the slope of her nose, settling on her lips. “You can tell me all about it. Every vulgar detail. And maybe if you’re not too sore…” There, he released her chin, the tip of his pointer finger dragging down her jawline.
“Nah. I’m not much for sloppy seconds.”
She didn’t want kindness. She didn’t want mercy. Nor did she desire cruelty – but it was cruelty which the mentor knew would scatter the rabble from his porch and send the flame-haired girl back to her own room. They were all the same. Easy to provoke, easy to bait and control with one emotion or another; it was just a matter of finding out which emotion was best to use. Sansa Stark: pride, anger, attachment.
She left, as any reasonable girl would have done. Petyr scavenged through the remnants of the food, more than scavenged the contents of his mini bar, and wrapped himself up in that bed she’d wanted to share. The next day was more of the same, although he knew it would be prudent of him to make some sort of an appearance at the gala which had been set aside for Sansa to make good on her debt to Lapworth. Not for Sansa’s sake, but for the client; it was he who’d struck the bargain, after all, and he who would make certain the encounter was worth every ounce of riches Lapworth had liquidated in order to purchase his auburn prize a life-saving parachute.
* * * * *
“Is she a virgin, do you think?” Lapworth slowly stirred a neon pink cocktail with a decadently spiraled swizzle stick.
Baelish shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his mouth taking on the curve of a frown as he followed Lapworth’s gaze across the room to where Sansa stood, surrounded by a throng of sycophants, dressed in nude-colored fabric that made her look as though she was clad in nothing but glittering stars – just as Lapworth’s dossier had requested. “Maybe.”
Lapworth’s mouth began to purse before stretching into a grisly smile, his jowls rippling as he broke into a deep, throaty chuckle, laughing as though Baelish had just told a good joke. “It’s no true matter, but I am curious,” the word lilts through the air like some sort of song. “She seems so fragile. How much will she be able to take? I am quite robust, you know.”
Baelish smiled a thin smile.
The fat sod continued for the better part of an hour, regaling Petyr with tales of his former conquests, gesticulating ever more flamboyantly with each new woman. Lapworth’s hands were utterly bereft of any sort of wrinkle, replaced instead by that sort of queasy stretched-out look one gets after too many surgeries; Baelish found himself wondering why he had bothered to give himself child-like hands while leaving his face a sagging mess. After Lapworth had slurped down four or five of the candied drinks, he excused himself to the lavatory, and Baelish took the opportunity to find Sansa.
“A word?” It was a smile too charming for one of Baelish’s ilk, but it was enough to cut through the fog of crooning. At the small of Sansa’s back she’d be able to feel the pressure of his touch. “Very quick, I promise.” The group surrounding her tittered and flapped, more like a gaggle of birds than a cluster of people, and Baelish led Sansa away, towards a corner of the room which had been carved out to resemble some tropical grotto, a shimmer of water gliding elegantly down a rocky wall surrounded by waxy fronds.
“He’s about primed,” Baelish said, skimming a finger through the stream of water, sending little droplets flying every which way. She knew who he meant. “How do you feel?”
Like a candle flame caught up in a torrential downpour, the remnants of her arousal guttered out with that single, staccato syllable. Stop. Sansa unwound her arms, stepped back in concert with his turn, gathering up every tendril of proffered intimacy and packing it away. For one terrible moment a girl’s mind intervened: Baelish never gave you that key. He only wanted you here to talk. You’ve changed. You’re different. Terrible. One of them now. Nothing less fantastic could explain that vacillation between consent and denial, desire and disdain. Pain twisted delicate features into a mask of hurt so impenetrable that surely for a breath Petyr would fear an outburst of tears. To her credit, however, Sansa plumbed the depths of her pride; brushing aside his refusal as though it were a reasonable possibility, she carefully smoothed every line, rearranging her expression back to something resembling ambivalence.
Baelish’s directive would have served well enough to banish the girl. It was a choice she sought and a choice he refused to make. She had never forced him into the act, though certainly she had cajoled; nothing in their prior encounters warranted how callously he reminded Sansa of her mistake. Yet sometime between her arrival and her final proposition she had left a sensitive underbelly exposed, one painfully suited to the sharpened talons of a man all too aware of his advantage. Fingers capture her before she could back away, wishing only to leave, to flee, a wounded animal who must wait for the sanctuary of its den to lick inflicted wounds. If they failed to suffice then Petyr would neither find satisfaction in their salting. As he spoke Sansa retreated, in mind if not in the flesh, her eyes glazing over, faceted sapphire losing its remarkable depth. A similar look predominated the later hours of parties on her victory tour; when the guests lingered overlong and her thoughts turned to another pair of families, another district that would teeter on starvation’s edge because of her success, her attentions slowly lost their youthful gleam.
Now it vanished in one pulse of her heart, punctuated by the subtle twitch of her chin away from covetous fingers. Gathering her coat took but a moment. Petyr’s key remained pointedly upon the desk where she had set it. So too did the bundle of food, any pretense of kindness ignored under the weight of more recent sentiments. If Baelish expected a farewell, even of the most cursory nature, he would find himself disappointed. Waiting at the door long enough to assure herself no one roamed the halls nearby, Sansa slipped out as wordlessly as she had come, with nary a glance behind.
Her team arrived promptly the next morning, just as an Avox cleared away a scattering of breakfast dishes. Though Tatty said nothing her appraising stare was clear; she took in the bed sheets rumpled only on one side, a pillow arranged vertically amongst the mess as if in her sleep Sansa desired a companion. The Victor had slept without interruption, her room perfectly dark, perfectly silent unless one arranged otherwise, but there lingered about her a faintly haggard air. Her team tutted for a moment yet seemed content to ascribe such a state to last night’s raucous gathering. You’ll get used to it, they crowed. Give yourself a few more days, then you’ll never know how you managed without it!
Unlike her first soiree Baelish never stopped in. Neither would have the team, if not for Lapworth’s promised attendance that evening. Where with any other a minor slip here or there could be overlooked, her date with the ludicrously wealthy — and ludicrously corpulent — donor required flawless execution. It seemed a shame, she thought, to waste such a stunning gown on him. Then again Sansa knew of no one who might appreciate it in the way she desired; after the encounter in his suite, she doubted that Baelish would ever again feature as a sexual figure in her life. Even as she admitted to herself that fact, Sansa evaluated her reflection; six hands fluttered about like drunken magpies, glittering trinkets placed here and there in rapid succession. He would like its hem and neckline, she decided, and the way it clung to every blossoming curve. Yet she suspected that most of all he would enjoy its suggestion, the promise of nudity without actually providing naked flesh for the casual observer’s pleasure.
The perfect dress for a voyeur.
It came as no surprise, then, that Sansa fought her way through more than an hour of compliments and questions, dozens of voices crying out at the brilliance of her stylists before she could reach that coveted central placement in the room. Her host had taken a frenzied approach to their theme — one corner resembled a fairy tale grotto, replete with frolicking mermaids in a pool; another hosted an exotic desert scene painted in jeweled tones; a third recalled an arctic tundra, its snow a tumbling avalanche of diamonds guarded over by petite sprites. Sansa caught no more than glimpses of decor, forever hemmed in by admirers. Hands unclaimed by bodies extended drinks towards her; remembering Baelish’s advice, she took no more than a sip or two before setting them back on a passing tray.
Lapworth remained nowhere to be seen. Petyr, however…
In marked opposition to that last party she would appear notably unimpressed with his arrival. But how could he tell? An exclamation of great warmth greeted him, the girl beaming with grateful acknowledgement, her lips pressing an affectionate kiss to the air several inches beside one cheek. With a sly wink she named him a liar, prone to keeping his poor tribute bogged down in trivialities half the night if she couldn’t escape. Everyone laughed heartily, though never before had Petyr carried a reputation of bureaucratic monotony. It was enough for them to slip away, Sansa mindful of his touch, angling herself away from it, promising a timely flight from his hold to those behind her.
Beside a gurgling waterfall, all that slipped away.
“Spry.” No shimmer in cobalt depths suggested his comments from before had overnight transformed themselves into a private jape. One arm crossed over the other. Sansa had bargained for him to come along, to help. Her need to socialize, however, had dropped precipitously. “Is there something else?” she prompted. “I read over every page, just like you said.” A water droplet arched from the display to one forearm, where the girl flicked it away, back into the pool. Her eyes remained fixated on that faint, crystalline sheen. “I’m sorry Petyr, but unless there’s something new, discussion really isn’t going to make matters go any more smoothly…”