An Easy Job

A/N - There are four chapters to this ficlet, all already written and beta\'d by the incomparable Kate. I was jokking about the lemons comment by the way, kids. I wrote this because I thought it would be fun and I was right!.

Thanks to my reviewers - deblovesdragon, Klebkat, Tesa, FadingSlowly, Shteffi, Shagsthe dustmop, Droxy (LOL), dave gerecke (Sorry), OxKing, influenza 1918, Hlen, Deeble, Zenia, Kate!, Alisha and Aprilgrey


Chapter 2 – A Small Obsession

Severus woke to the unfamiliar but very agreeable awareness of a warm body pressed up against him. It had been many years since he had woken so pleasantly and he reveled in the sensation while it lasted.

He had blushed bright red at Albus’ insistence that he come to this brothel but the old man was being proved omniscient again, for last night was precisely what he had needed. Though where Madam Nell had found such an educated and intelligent witch as the nameless woman who shared his bed was something that baffled him. She was British, so she had to have attended Hogwarts, but surely he would have remembered this girl, as beautiful as she was and with the talent for potions she displayed.

She stirred in her sleep and his arousal began to make itself known. He checked the small elegant clock on the wall and calculated that he still had several hours left to enjoy her favors. He turned over and studied the elegant high cheekbones and the fall of raven’s wing black hair that spread out over the pillows. Her lips were still red and swollen from his kisses and her hair was tangled and sweat-soaked. She looked like a woman who had been thoroughly loved and the sight made him moan in need.

With one hand he began to trace her body under the sheets, watching her breath quicken and her eyes flutter open. He was watching her eyes particularly; if she was truly adverse to his touch it would be there while she was half-asleep, before she could slip the mask back on.

Her eyes met his and a small smile spread across her face. Her gaze was welcoming and he released a tiny breath. Whoever she was, she didn’t abhor him. That knowledge eased his conscience. He knew that he was ugly and hateful; he knew that most of his former students were terrified of him. He had seen the looks in women’s eyes when he was around and the disgust and revulsion he had observed in them all had made him reluctant to force himself on any woman.

She reached up a hand and ran it along his cheek, feeling the slight roughness of the stubble. Then she surprised him utterly by pulling him down to kiss her. Her lips were warm and moist; they felt like rose petals against his own. There was so much softness in her -- in the way her body, so warm and pliant, melded against his own, in the hands that wound their way through his hair. He had needed softness so badly and had been denied it for so long that he wanted to drown in it now.

“Now.” She demanded, seemingly echoing his thoughts, as she ran a hand along the length of his hardening cock. That one word, so powerfully whispered into his ear, sent him over the edge and he pushed her onto her back and mounted her with no further thought but to get back inside of her and feel again the way he had before.

She was hot, wet, and perf He He was positive that he would be unable to hold out long, but she wrapped her legs around him and tilted her hips in such a way as to slow his thrusting and turn it into long slow strokes.
It was incredible, the feeling of being inside her -- the smooth rhythm that developed between them, the slow build up to the inevitable release, the sounds she made as she clutched his shoulders, the way her neck arched and her mouth opened as she gasped and shifted below him. He didn’t want it to end and yet if he didn’t find his release soon he would go mad.

She clenched hard around him, her body spasming as she achieved her own climax and he hit that point when light exploded behind his eyes, emptying his soul into her and feeling it received. He fell from the heights and landed on the bed beside her, his eyes drinking in the sight of her tousled hair and warm flushed skin.
He wrapped himself around her and fell asleep again, feeling at peace and relaxed in a way he hadn’t in so very long.


She was watching him again, the way his chest rose and fell asbreabreathed, the way his hair brushed across his face and caught against the moistness of his lips. How had she ever thought him unattractive? Greasy, big-nosed, all the derogatory comments of cruel childhood rushed through her mind and she felt shame mounting in her.

Had he been cruel? Yes, he had been brutal to her, but look at him now -- look at how very fragile, how terribly vulnerable he was. What a difference between the inner and outer man. Had she but known when she had been a child what tenderness lay beneath the façade, she would have done all in her power to seek him out. She ran a painted nail across his brow, in awe of the intensity of his passion. Had she only known years ago what she had learned in the last six hours, many things would have been different.

She reached for him, wanting him but she forced her hand back to her side. This man was not her lover, he was a john. She had no right to ask for more from him, that was his right. She doubted that he would object -- he had shown no reluctance before -- but she needed to keep the realities of the situation in mind.
She watched him sleep until his time was up and then gently woke him with a kiss.


Severus woke slowly and reluctantly. He had been dreaming something wonderful but his awareness caught on the warmth that was spreadihrouhrough him. He kissed the woman back. She was a very good kisser and he felt a deep and powerful longing stirring in him. It was more than just the physical desire that had driven him here in the first place; it was far more painful than that.

He looked up into the gray eyes that had burned with passion a short time ago and that now held a fleeting wistfulness that was gone before he could be sure he had ever really seen it. He followed her eyes to the clock on the wall and felt a hollow ache starting up in his chest. He wanted to protest, he wanted to stay here in this sheltered bower where he had found the first true peacesleesleep he had had in years.

Pride made him rise and cast cleansing charms and then dress. Pride made him bow to her in thanks for her time and pride propelled him out the door and back onto the street. Pride kept his back rigid and his eyes dry. Pride sent him home and pride prevented him from returning to Heaven’s Gate.

Not even pride, though, could erase the memories of eight hours in which he had fallen in love with a nameless stranger.

Albus had commented on his improved appearance with a cheerful leer and Severus had answered him civilly. Minerva had rolled her eyes at the antics of men, but neither of them had seen the small fracture, invisible to the naked eye, that now stretched across his heart.

He returned to work, to teaching ungrateful larvae important facts that they would forget ten minutes after they left his tutelage. He swooped and stalked and snarled as was expected of him, but sometimes the memory of a pair of gray eyes would rise up in his mind and he would deduct fewer points and be somewhat less harsh.

No one, not even Albus who knew him better than anyone, knew that in his heart he harbored a secret obsession. No one knew that in his dreams he imagined himself missed. In his dreams, he pretended that she had loved him too.