All affairs thereafter followed smoothly. Jean began receiving occasional correspondences from the Grand Duke, which were mostly letters of invitation. Unlike the Crown Prince, who always summoned Jean to the Royal Palace, the Grand Duke was clandestine in his contact with Jean. He preferred the method of greeting or conversing as if in passing where many people were gathered. It became habitual for him to inquire after the tidings of this quarter, and as he listened to Jean’s ambiguous responses, he appeared deep in contemplation, as if he were calculating some matter within his mind. He waited patiently. He had been informed of the rumors that Montespan was encountering difficulties within the Royal Palace. However, hastiness was not a malady known to Jean and his brethren.
“Jean.”
Meanwhile, he had met the Crown Prince several more times. Once they had shared in bliss, the prince no longer concealed his desires. Their encounters on Wednesdays became more frequent, and whenever Jean made a visit to the Royal Palace, they engaged in intimacy. At times, they would meet outside of the palace—in a banquet, in a tea party, in a court meeting room, and in a dining hall. Other people were present, so the two maintained a discreet demeanor, concealing any hint of their intimacy, let alone engaging in it. Nevertheless, Maximillian took pleasure in Jean’s company in such circumstances. He appeared to be quite fond of his catamite.
Jean returned the fondness by procuring new clothing every time Maximillian attended a new gathering, and they were no less fancy than the justacorps that Jean had presented initially. And it transpired into rumors of the Crown Prince owing this young wealthy lord a tremendous amount of debt and that the financial dependency was quite severe. Jean had no cause to correct the hearsay, so he simply refrained from speaking of the matter.
“What thought do you have?”
Everything was happening as planned, sailing smoothly, and yet Jean was confounded. He stared at the man who had laid him on the bed the moment he entered the chamber. The prince had a pencil and a board in his hands, which had a sheet of paper on it. And every time his hand moved, the pencil made a rustling sound. Jean narrowed his eyes.
“Are you sketching again, Your Grace?”
“Aye.”
Of late, Maximillian had taken to seating Jean nearby or reclining him upon the bed to sketch his likeness briefly. Curiously, the portrait painting the prince had been laboring over had fallen into neglect. Jean lifted his hand and lightly pressed upon the board in Maximillian’s hand. He found his own face looking back at him. It was a face that had been crafted with numerous lines encountering and clashing with each other.
“...I have made a visit to the residence of the Grand Duke some days ago, Your Grace.”
Jean slowly removed his hand from the board. Hmm. Maximillian nodded indifferently. He was still occupied with moving his hand, etching the lines. Jean stared still at the prince’s face.
“And I saw the painting you have gifted to the Grand Duke.”
“Ah.”
A tone of neither affirmation nor denial followed. Maximillian did not stop his hand. Jean could not find the words to continue speaking. He himself could not be sure as to what he endeavored to confirm by speaking of the matter.
“I was told that you painted it yourself. Is that true, Your Grace?”
He was simply bothered by the penmanship of the signature.
On the day that Jean visited the Grand Duke, as soon as he returned home, he confirmed the correspondences he had received from his Petite Perle. The way the J was curved was particularly alike. Jean had ruminated the words and letters a thousand times and more, since he could not fail to notice the likeness. He attempted to quell the suspicion, telling himself that it was a cursive style of writing common among the nobles. However, the thought came back to him whenever it was about to slip away from Jean’s mind. And all this time, he had been experiencing a sensation akin to an obstruction lodged in his throat.
“Is this an interrogation?”
Maximillian asked, laughing. Jean kept silent. As his conviction that the two could not be one and the same diminished, Jean started to perceive Maximillian’s façades in a new light.
Meanwhile, Maximillian threw his pencil and board under the bed. Hmm? He asked back, his tone suggestive. Jean pulled the man’s face close to him instead of responding. Their lips touched, and Maximillian pushed out his tongue. Jean, as if serving the prince, sucked the piece of flesh. The Crown Prince before him was already bare in the lower half of his person, for half an hour earlier, they had been engaging in an act of intimacy when the prince had a sudden whim, claiming he must sketch. Jean lifted his torso while pulling the prince’s buttocks closer to him.
“You are quite docile these days.”
Maximillian said, as he removed his lips from Jean’s, grabbing him by the jaw. Their eyes locked, and Jean could see his own blue eyes nestled in Maximillian’s ashen orbs. Unaware of his own actions, Jean found himself pulling the prince closer to himself. The man’s member touched his stomach, but it bothered him not.
“Your Grace.”
Rather, the touch brought on lust so excessive that his nethers began to throb. None of the repulsion Jean had anticipated after joining the prince in bed had found him, nor the self-abhorrence he had expected.
“Nothing, Your Grace.”
And Jean knew the reason. He needed not ask himself.
It was not because of the pleasure that came to him upon entering the prince’s body. If it were as simple a reason, he would loathe himself, for he would be naught more than a beast, and he would loathe this man more for having a person as such of the devil himself. Hence, what troubled Jean was the confusion in his heart.
“What troubles you?”
Maximillian whispered. Jean did not respond but lightly bit the man’s neck.
It was not an affair he could confirm with certainty. The solitary proof Jean possessed resided in the signature upon the painting adorning the Grand Duke’s abode, alongside Maximillian’s knowledge of his past as a catamite. Meanwhile, Jean possessed ample reasons to refute Maximillian’s identity as the Little Pearl.
Firstly, as Jean had told himself again and again, the Little Pearl was in support of the revolution, an idea that did not align with the Crown Prince Maximillian Joachim. Secondly, Maximillian spoke in a manner that could not possibly be the Pearl. Unlike the Pearl, whose depth of knowledge and vastness of wisdom were evident in every letter of their correspondence, Maximillian lived a life of depravity, marked by base indulgence and infernal pursuits.
Lastly, if Maximillian were truly the Little Pearl, there would be no reason for him to behave in the manner he did now. He need not even summon forth Jean’s past to lure him to the Royal Palace. All he needed was to unveil his identity, and Jean would hasten to his side, eager to be his devoted servant. No resentment nor repulsion would have arisen within Jean upon the prince’s request for intimacy. On the contrary, he would have willingly bared himself naked on the prince’s bed and licked his patron’s member. The man needed not be one of such beauty; he needed not be the Crown Prince; merely being the Petite Perle would have been sufficient to urge Jean eagerly.
Therefore, Jean knew that concluding that Maximillian was the Little Pearl was not sound. He knew it, yet—
“Your person is cold, Your Grace.”
This strange puzzlement could not seem to be silenced. Jean whispered, feeling the touch on his member. It was different from before when he was able to put out this eerie fire ablaze inside him by simply thinking it couldn’t be possible. It was enough to think that this wretched man could not be that godly person.
“Is it?”
Yet, how was it that Jean was so disoriented? The confusion seemed to have spread across the entirety of his person, like a poison taken without caution.
“Might it also be cold within me as well?”
Maximillian whispered words that even harlots in the streets would not dare say. Jean felt the tip of his member touch the narrow opening buried deep inside the man’s posterior. He supported the prince’s back, holding it, and bit the chest before him lightly. He heard a lazy moan. The prince wrapped his arms around Jean’s head, and Jean slid down slowly. He pressed his tongue against the flat chest, biting and sucking the flesh as he did. Soon, from the tip of the prince’s member leaked clear fluid.
“What has, ah... prompted your recent docile behavior?”
Maximillian mumbled while swallowing Jean whole with his hole. Jean smirked. Instead of responding, he pulled the prince toward him and pushed himself in deeper. Maximillian let out a cry, and soon enough, he began moving on his own. Jean could hear the squelching sound of wet skin coming in contact. He grabbed and squeezed the prince’s buttocks. Maximillian kissed his face here and there, intoxicated from the deed of passion. And Jean let him. He was of no mind to refuse, of no heart to refuse. He simply reveled in the kisses that graced his face.
“Maximillian.”
It was not because the man was Maximillian Joachim. Rather, what was moving Jean’s heart was the faint yet tenacious doubt that the man before his eyes could be more than the man called the crown prince.