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patricianandclerk · 5 years

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The Oblong Office

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A little bit after sunset, Rufus Drumknott enters Lord Vetinari’s office, stepping neatly over Wuffles, who is snoring quietly (the only reason Drumknott trusts that he won’t go for his ankle). It has been a relatively busy day, and he gently sets the evening clacks on the side table beside Lord Vetinari’s neatly organised desk.

“Three from the evening semaphore, my lord,” Drumknott says mildly, and he straightens up a few of the papers on Lord Vetinari’s bookshelf, ensuring they rest in perfect parallel to one another. “Would you like me to get you anything?”

Lord Vetinari is standing with his back to the office at large, looking out of his window. Judging by the way he holds his shoulders, his hands neatly held behind his back, he is one of his pensive moods, and it takes him a few moments before he answers the question. “No, Drumknott,” he murmurs quietly. “I require nothing.”

Drumknott turns on his heel, taking a step into the centre of the room, toward the door—

“Close the door, Drumknott.”

Drumknott freezes in his place, a ripple of mixed fear and excitement running down his spine, and he does his best to collect himself, inhaling delicately as he comes to the doorway, gently pushing the door closed with a quiet click. His hand hovers just beneath the handle, anticipating the next instruction, but not daring to act before he is ordered.

“Lock it, Drumknott,” Vetinari adds, and Drumknott shifts the key to the left: the familiar slot of the lock into place makes him exhale, his eyes fluttering shut.

This is not the first of these occasions. Certainly, this has happened before, and every time, Drumknott is overtaken by it, but it would be a lie to say there is a regularity to the happenstance: when it happens, Drumknott lets himself sink easily to Lord Vetinari’s will, but he knows it is not his place to ask for it.

Gods, how he wishes it were.

“Please, sit,” Vetinari says pleasantly, his voice sliding directly beneath Drumknott’s skin, and Drumknott moves toward the chair in front of Vetinari’s desk. “Ah ah. Come now, Drumknott. Sitting there, you would be ever so far away.”

Drumknott freezes, his brows knotting together. On the half-dozen previous occasions, he has seated himself directly here, in the chair facing his master’s desk, and now he glances about the room for another chair, despite knowing there are no others in the room. A single chair rests before his master’s desk for visitors to sit in, and he brings in more as necessarily, but—

Vetinari turns to give him a sideways glance, and Drumknott follows his calculating gaze to…

“Oh, my lord,” Drumknott whispers, his eyes widening, his tone more scandalised than perhaps he means it to be. “I couldn’t possibly.”

“Couldn’t you?” Vetinari asks. “What a shame. Please, then, unlock the door, and proceed about the day’s business.”

Drumknott feels himself swallow, and he lets his gaze flit back to Lord Vetinari’s seat. It is a high-backed chair of dark-coloured leather, shiny beneath the light from the candles, and with arms of dark-coloured wood, artfully carved and polished to a sheen. It’s an exceedingly expensive chair. It had been a (to Drumknott’s awareness, somewhat sardonic) gift from the Lady Margolotta. It isn’t the sort of chair that he feels he ought… sully.

But—

Nor does he want to leave. It has been some three months since the last occasion, and there is something oh-so-thrilling about these engagements, that leave Drumknott titillated and of high mood for weeks…

He takes a few steps past Lord Vetinari’s desk, toward his chair.

Lord Vetinari turns to regard him, retaining his hands behind his back, and his lips quirk into a small smile as Drumknott slides slowly to seat himself in Lord Vetinari’s chair. It feels too large for his body – he isn’t nearly so tall as Lord Vetinari is, and the chair is just a little too high off the ground for him, the toes of his perfectly-polished shoes brushing against the floor, but not his heels.

He meets Lord Vetinari’s gaze, taking in a shaky little breath between his lips, and he feels his tongue and mouth go dry as Lord Vetinari’s hand moves to the blind upon the window. The room becomes dark as he closes the blind, the skies hidden from view as they turn from bright blue to peach and deep, dark reds, and Vetinari’s posture remains straight-backed, his chin high.

“Do you enjoy these little sessions of ours, Drumknott?” Vetinari asks, and he sounds amused, his good humour lingering on the air between them. Drumknott isn’t sure if he ought be embarrassed by it, if this is mockery – it doesn’t feel like mockery, to be sure, but that is beside the point. Lord Vetinari has a way of saying things in such a way that they needn’t sound like what they are.

“Yes, my lord,” Drumknott whispers.

“Good,” Lord Vetinari murmurs. “I do as well. Unbutton your shirt.” Drumknott’s hands rush to his chest, but Lord Vetinari tuts his disapproval, frowning and shaking his head slightly. “Now now, Drumknott, I had thought you’d know better by now. Slowly.”

Drumknott closes his eyes, biting on his lower lip, and he unbuttons his shirt, letting his fingers stray slowly down the line of buttons on the crisp, white linen he wears, bit by bit. He glances up for permission, and it is only when he receives the slight nod of the head granting him permission that he draws up the hem of the shirt from beneath his waistband, unbuttoning the final button and letting the shirt fall open.

There is a light dusting of dark hair on his chest, which is flat and not especially defined – Drumknott is not an especially thin man, but the slight curve to his belly and the weight in his thighs is hidden by the looseness of his clothes. His shirt is tailored, but his trousers and his jacket are designed to give him a boxy appearance, undistracting, unintrusive.

“Do you touch yourself often, Drumknott?” Vetinari asks.

He asks questions like that. Frankly, without apology, without shame. Questions that dig right underneath Drumknott’s cultivatedly calm demeanour and make his toes curl, make a hot flush seep up into his cheeks and colour them red.

“Not— not often, my lord,” Drumknott mutters falteringly.

“And how often, Drumknott, is not often?”

Drumknott swallows hard. “Every night, my lord.”

Lord Vetinari chuckles quietly, and it makes Drumknott thrill with shame, but the shame does not come for him on its lonesome. There is arousal twisted up in it, arousal and desire and want, and he aches for Lord Vetinari to touch him, to play with him. His gaze flits down to Lord Vetinari’s waist, to the skirt of his dusty robes, and he wonders what he might be like, underneath. “Curious,” he murmurs mildly. “Every night would meet the qualification of often for me. Touch your chest, Drumknott. Up and down, a light brush of your fingers, drag over the nipple… Very good. What do you think of?”

For a few moments, he concentrates only on the movements of his own fingers, of the way they drag up – the touch is featherlight, as it has been almost from the very beginning, since Lord Vetinari insisted it be that way. It encourages the tension to build, Lord Vetinari says; it encourages his excitement.

His excitement requires no encouragement.

“I don’t know, my lord,” Drumknott murmurs.

“Don’t lie to me, Drumknott,” Lord Vetinari says, boredom dripping from his voice, and Drumknott exhales as he brings his finger over one nipple, letting his head tip back against the cushion of the chair, his legs spreading a little farther apart. “You know what you think about, don’t you? You do keep track of your own thoughts, meticulously, with your internal filing system? Hmm?”

Another wave of humiliation washes over him, and he lets his fingers play over the sensitive flesh of his belly, tracing over his navel, his head tipping back against the chair behind him as he exhales.

“My lord,” Drumknott says uncomfortably, but Vetinari tuts quietly, and his disapproval so rankles. “You know what I think of, my lord. You always know what I’m thinking.”

Vetinari’s laugh is soft and serpentine, and Drumknott is aware of Vetinari’s movement across the room in a single second, because of the way it rings through his body: a shadow between light creeping past the blind and Drumknott; the sudden physicality of Vetinari’s presence before him; and best of all, Vetinari’s fingers brushing against his cheek, tipping his chin back so that Drumknott is forced to look directly up at him. Were Lord Vetinari any closer, he would be brushing the inside of Drumknott’s spread knees. Were he any closer, Drumknott’s chin would be brushing against his—

“You often anticipate my thoughts, Drumknott,” Vetinari whispers, and his voice drips down like honey. “Would you deny me the same proclivity?”

“I wouldn’t deny you anything, my lord,” Drumknott says hurriedly, and it is all he can not to press his cheek greedily into Lord Vetinari’s hand, not to take what touch will be allowed him when he so rarely indulges him, so rarely allows him that which he most desperately wants from him—

“I know that,” Vetinari murmurs (it sounds like praise), and he withdraws his hand. Once more, he takes a step back, and he watches Drumknott with absolute focus. “So tell me, Drumknott. What is it you think of?”

“You, my lord,” Drumknott whispers.

“Unfasten your trousers, Drumknott,” Lord Vetinari murmurs, and Drumknott carefully undoes the silver fastening on his belt, his fingers then moving to the buttons at the front of his trousers, undoing them carefully, little by little. He breathes a little shakily, and when he glances up to Lord Vetinari, he sees the other man smile. It’s a deadly smile, and it makes Drumknott’s skin thrill, makes his heart beat faster, makes him… “On your feet, Drumknott. Let down your trousers and your underclothes both.”

It’s a uniquely undignified position, sprawling back in his master’s chair, his legs spread, with his trousers about his ankles, his legs bare, his nether regions bared to the comfortably warm air of Lord Vetinari’s office, and he is sickly aware of the hard leather that sticks to his skin, aware of how his sweat must linger on it. He’ll have to clean it, afterward, he must – it’s such a good chair, and he cannot believe he’s being permitted to sitin it, let alone sully it with his desperate arousal, with his want.

“Drumknott, Drumknott,” Vetinari purrs, chuckling quietly, “you are allowing yourself to become distracted. Come now, tell me what you think of.”

“I told you, my lord,” Drumknott says plaintively: always, his fingers are playing back and forth over his chest, running in lines one way and then the next, and a prickly heat drags down toward his crotch, blood flowing down between his thighs, and he is hard, his prick rising to attention… “I think of you.”

“And how, pray, do you think of me?” Lord Vetinari asks. “Do you think of me here, in my office, reading meeting minutes, calculating my next move in Thud? Do you think of me patting Wuffles on the head, perhaps, or meeting with Commander Vimes?”

“No,” Drumknott mutters emphatically: he most certainly does not think of Lord Vetinari with Vimes at any point, not ever, although there is something seductive about considering him going about his everyday business, perhaps while Drumknott is in the room with him, bound in his place, pinned beneath some patented machinery made use of by the Seamstress’ Guild.

“Then pray, elucidate,” Lord Vetinari coaxes him quietly. “You may move your hand lower, Drumknott: touch your thighs. You do look a picture like this.”

Drumknott shivers.

“I think of you, my lord, as you— As you touch me.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” Drumknott’s hands ghost over the flesh of his thighs, and then he allows them to slide to touch the inside of them, playing at the sensitive skin that leads in toward the cleft of his buttocks, and he shudders, tipping his hips up and into the touch of his own hands, knowing he can’t deepen it without permission. His prick aches, like an itch he cannot scratch, and all he wants is to wrap his hand about it, feel it under his palm.

“And how do I touch you, Drumknott?”

“My lord,” Drumknott all but whines. Never before has Lord Vetinari required him to speak so much in one of these sessions, nor barely to speak at all, and it is so difficult to make his traitorous tongue function, to make himself speak.

“Drumknott,” Vetinari says lowly: it is not dissimilar to the indulgent way he scolds Wuffles when the dog turns his nose up at dog food or demands play at an inopportune time, and Drumknott has to bite down upon his lower lip to keep from moaning. “I am beginning to become impatient. Do you want for me to be impatient?”

“No,” Drumknott mutters. “No, my lord.”

“Then tell me how I touch you in these fantasies of yours.”

“You— You touch my… You touch me, instead of making me touch myself,” Drumknott whispers, falling over the words that he might get them out of his mouth all the quicker. “You touch my… You touch my chest, and the insides of my thighs, wrap your hand around my—”

A beat passes. Another follows.

“Around your…?” Vetinari prompts, and Drumknott wriggles in his seat, dragging his fingernails over his thighs and heaving in a gasp.

“My lord, please,” Drumknott begs. “Let me touch myself.”

“You are touching yourself, Drumknott.”

“I hate it when you lean on technicalities, my lord.”

“No, Drumknott, I don’t believe that you do,” Vetinari replies, sounding amused. “How do I touch you?”

“You touch my… My member, my lord. Your hands are…” Drumknott feels himself trail off, and his gaze flits to Lord Vetinari’s slender, strong hands. He can play the harpsichord, Drumknott knows, and he can throw knives, do complicated Klatchian puzzles, and he’s even heard Corporal Nobbs say that Lord Vetinari can juggle. They are skilled hands, supremely skilled hands, and he aches as much for their touch as he does his own. “I crave the touch of your hands, my lord.”

“Is that all?” Vetinari asks quietly, his voice slow and deliberate. “I make use only of my hands?”

Drumknott swallows, pressing his face against the back of the chair and shifting in the seat. A flurry of images passes over the inside of his eyes, one fantasy after another: Drumknott on his back, Vetinari’s fingers in his mouth and one thigh pressed between his legs; Drumknott pinned up against the wall, Vetinari’s hand around his throat, the other splayed on Drumknott’s belly, the hardness of his erection beneath his robe pressed up against Drumknott’s backside; Vetinari bending Drumknott over his desk and having him, buggering him so hard that he—

“No, my lord,” Drumknott mumbles. “You do— I fantasize about you doing many things to me. I fantasize about… about your hands, your body. Sometimes I bring myself off to the idea of… of being secreted beneath your desk, my mouth on your…”

He cannot bring himself to say it, but certainly, he’s imagined it time and time again. He has imagined the hardwood of the office floor beneath his bent knees, has imagined the warmth of Lord Vetinari’s knees beneath his palms, imagined his mouth put to work, imagined the taste of it: musk and salt and weight on his tongue. Of course, he would have to move Wuffles’ basket elsewhere, but nonetheless…

He’s never attempted such an act before, not with anybody. He’s fumbled in dark closets with women, and just once with another man, another clerk, but never… Never that. He wants to. Gods, he yearns for it, but there is a sense of faith keeping him tethered to his position in Lord Vetinari’s office, hoping that his master will summon him into his office and do this, make him touch himself under Lord Vetinari’s careful watch, under his instruction. To seek out another man would feel like a betrayal of sorts: it would feel dishonest, perhaps, it would be almost like infidelity.

Even before the first time Vetinari summoned Drumknott to his office and watched him touch himself to completion, it had felt like infidelity. A lover would distract him from his work, from his filing system, would make him less efficient…

“How indecent,” Lord Vetinari murmurs. “You may touch your member, Drumknott.”

Drumknott wraps his hand around his prick, squeezing as he drags it up over the hard shaft, dragging his thumb over the head and then dragging it back down, rolling back his foreskin in a smooth, careful movement.

“I find myself curious,” Vetinari murmurs, his voice quiet, a whisper on the air that makes Drumknott shiver: his hips stutter, canting up and into his hand, thrusting into his tightly held fist. “Do you imagine merely your mouth on my member, Drumknott, or do you imagine the reverse?”

“What? No, my lord,” Drumknott says hurriedly, letting himself go. “No, no, that would be… Inappropriate, no, I could never— No.” Silence reigns for a moment, and he glances up at Lord Vetinari’s expression.

Nothing shows in the colour of his eyes nor the shape of his mouth, but his head is tilted a half-inch to the left, a subtle change in angle plain in his chin, his jaw. He is studying Drumknott, analysing him, considering him so carefully that Drumknott feels as if he could shatter beneath the attention – shatter, or crumble, or explode.

“Why should that be inappropriate?” Vetinari asks in a whisper.

“It— I…” He isn’t certain. But he knows that he cannot imagine it: Drumknott can imagine a thousand things, but he can’t imagine that, cannot imagine Lord Vetinari on his knees nor imagine him bending down over him on a bed or on the desk, nor can he even imagine his own body in some state of suspension, at the right height… There is something debasing in it, some unnatural shift of their proper dynamic, of what ought be. He might as well try to imagine an act between them where Drumknott is the controlling party – he might as well try to imagine the Disc revolving about the sun, instead of the other way around. “I don’t know, my lord.”

“No,” Lord Vetinari says musingly. “I suppose that you don’t. Twist your hand to the side, Drumknott, when you replace your hand.”

Drumknott brings his hand back, and he twists his wrist, lets out a shuddering moan that he does his best to muffle against his shoulder. He keeps touching himself, keeps thrusting himself into his palm and feeling twitch and pulse of his cock in his hands, feels its little movements, and he can feel the tension building up in his belly, the slow coil of his orgasm, drawing up within him like the tightening of a bowstring.

“My— My lord,” he hisses out, gasping as he does so. “My lord, I need—”

“You may, Drumknott,” Vetinari says graciously, giving him the permission he lacks the focus to ask for, and Drumknott heaves in a gasp between his teeth as his hips stutter again, up and into his hand, feels his sac tighten up, feels himself—

He grits his teeth to keep from moaning too loudly, and when Vetinari’s hand grasps tightly at his chin, forcing Drumknott to look into his gaze, it hits Drumknott with the force of an explosion: he gasps and chokes and feels himself come, ropes of white wetting the back of his hand and his belly, staining the edge of his shirt.

But none gets on Lord Vetinari – Drumknott thanks whatever gods there are for small mercies.

For a long moment, he remains in his place, breathing heavily, as Vetinari’s death grip on his jaw relaxes somewhat, and draws away from his skin: still, Drumknott looks up and into his master’s piercing gaze, his lips parted. His chest is rising and falling. He feels so warm and flushed with pleasure, his head back against the chair, and he almost wishes he might lie down and sleep for a little while.

“Would you ever touch me, my lord?” Drumknott asks finally, unable to prevent the question from slithering past his lips, and Vetinari arches one expectant eyebrow in the face of Drumknott’s disrespect, his belligerence.

Vetinari’s thumb taps his chin: it ripples through Drumknott’s very core like an earthquake through a crowded home.

“There, Drumknott,” he whispers. “I touched you.”

Drumknott swallows.

“Get dressed,” Vetinari says, carelessly throwing the order over his shoulder as he steps toward the window, raising the blind. Drumknott watches him, lingering in the chair as Vetinari replaces his hands behind his back, looking out over Ankh-Morpork. “And bring me the file on Spectral Fortescue.”

Drumknott steels himself for a moment, and then he reaches for a handkerchief, but Vetinari turns to glance at him, his gaze flitting to the cloth. Drumknott freezes, holding it loosely in his hand.

He sets it back into his pocket, and slowly sets about rebuttoning his shirt, fastening back his trousers. He can feel the sickly stickiness of his spend on his skin, and humiliation mingles with the glow of satisfaction from his orgasm, the two feelings at odds with one another, and yet…

“Thank you, my lord,” Drumknott says softly as he stands to his feet, turning back and wiping the seat of the chair down with his handkerchief. He will have to get it cleaned, of that he is quite certain. “I will bring you the file forthwith.”

“Thank you, Drumknott,” Vetinari says, and then adds, airily, almost as if he doesn’t think about it (although Drumknott knows he thinks about absolutely everything, that he calculates everything), “I do enjoy these little conversations of ours.”

Drumknott feels as if he is walking upon clouds, and he feels himself beam.

“Yes, my lord,” he murmurs, ignoring the discomfort, the humiliation, the uncertainty, ignoring all of it: he thinks only of Lord Vetinari and his approval linked inextricably to his current glow of satisfaction. “Thank you, my lord.”

Drumknott unlocks the door, and steps out into the corridor.

Alone in his office, he imagines Havelock Vetinari smiling.

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