Disclaimer: It's all mine except for the poem, which is by Robert Browning.
Althea stood slightly hidden in the ivy covered niche and watched him. She had just stepped out of the door behind her and was slowly finishing buttoning up her heavy wool frock coat to block out the wind. Her cap was already pulled down over her head, allowing only a few wisps of silky black hair to escape its confinement and her plum colored scarf had been wrapped around her nose and ears before putting on the coat and going out the door. It was a bitterly cold day and the wind swirled bits of snow across the pavement. She drew on the soft rabbit fur lined leather gloves as she continued to watch the man across the street.
She had had her eye on him for quite a while, following him through the clubs and salons had become a personal pleasure. Althea liked to watch people who interested her. To her knowledge, he had never noticed her silently pursuing him. Did he have any idea what she wanted? She didn't know.
From the street, anyone who might catch a glance of her at this moment would only see a slight figure mostly wrapped in black with a line of her face peeking out from under her hat, the pale skin glowing briefly before disappearing back underneath cloth. Her body blended in with the shadows well enough to pass most peoples notice, that's how Althea preferred it. Most, even looking at her in full daylight would probably not be able to tell her gender at all.
She didn't know why she had become so fascinated with him. Perhaps it was how his long blonde hair seemed to flow behind him when he danced, or the way he held his cigarette as he talked to someone about some book or another. His clothing was always impeccably put together, even when he was only wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Some people just had that certain something about them that allowed them the illusion of perfection; he was certainly one of them.
Maybe it was how the sweat dripped down his aristocratically slanted cheekbones after some physical activity, or even the way he would scream ecstatically as someone stood behind him, leaving long red marks on his beautifully rounded ass. Althea had often imagined how her own handprint would look decorating that most admirable canvas. But no, that wasn't it either.
Althea decided it was the way he came with the ability of being barely touched at all, to be brought with words softly caressing him. The crowd she ran with was not into gentleness. Usually someone like him did whatever anyone told him, which usually required a great deal of hands on action. In her world, he was a slave, but something made him distinctly other at the same time, some casual element that distinctly changed the circumstances. She had been stalking him for quite some time.
She had finally learned the secret. The way to make him try to scream his pleasure and become more satisfyingly helpless than in any other situation, to make him beg and plead for his master to allow him that final satisfying moment. Today she was going to make him her own, hers' to have as she pleased, to do with as she wanted. His slender form would forever grace her life, a beautiful doll to dance as she desired.
Althea began to casually move across the street and down the walk when he started his own saunter down and away from where she stood protected from the wind. She admired his lean form moving gracefully through the crowd. She had never wanted anything so permanent before. Usually those Althea found at her night haunts were enough to keep her pleased for the evening and left her un-desirous of anything further.
She realized with pleasure that he was making his way toward a particularly conducive place for what she had in mind. The grate he disappeared through led to one of the more exclusive clubs in London. Here would be a place for a perfect seduction, while at the same time ensuring that her claim was publicly staked.
He still hadn't noticed her following him.
She followed him in, briefly pausing in the foyer to admire a painting of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a particularly appropriate piece for the moment. Her eyes followed him across the room and through another door that she knew led to a private room.
The doorkeeper stood in his imposing place near a tall mahogany bar, casually keeping an eye on the different activities going on around him. If he had a name, no one knew it, they only knew that he had always been there as the doorkeeper. Some even believed that he had been there since the club had opened in the Victorian era; he had that timeless, ageless quality about him. There were not very many others here today, it was still too early, his gaze circled lazily around the room. Althea allowed herself to drift over to him.
Pausing next to him, still studying the door that the one she yearned for had disappeared through, she asked, "Is he alone today?" The doorkeeper didn't blink and answered immediately without qualm, "Yes." So easy and simple then, after so many months of observation, of course the doorkeeper had probably watched her watching him for as long as she had been about it. Not much passed his notice.
She slipped him some pound notes in gratitude and then made her way to the doorway. Pausing briefly with her still gloved hand on the doorknob, she took a deep breath and firmly pushed it open. She stepped through.
Thomas. His name was Thomas, and he was about to become hers. Under the coat her blood began to boil at this near culmination of her long chase.
His back was to her again. She admired the way his neck peeked through his long braided hair. She closed and locked the door behind her, leaning casually against the wall, watching him sit in the simple wooden chair in front a warmly dancing fire in an otherwise fairly bare room.
"I've been waiting for you." His smooth voice broke the silence, he still hadn't turned around. She was pleased. She hadn't been expecting that, but in the end it pleased her more than having been hunting unsuspecting prey, obviously he had been aware of her presence.
He spoke again, "Althea...," almost purring, as if testing her name on his tongue, throwing it into the open. Goosebumps broke out across her skin under all the layers as he spoke.
She continued to lean against the doorframe, but began to recite softly, pitching her low voice so that it would shiver across his skin, muffled as it was by her scarf and tantalize him as much as the sound of her name from his mouth had teased her.
"The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
and did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break."
His still frame became even stiller at her soft words. She moved a couple of stealthy steps closer across the room, making herself loom slightly nearer than before but still not within enough distance to touch him. She continued with the words, making them rise and fall in time with the music of the poem.
"When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
