Thor's untouched seconds were no better than Thor's sloppy seconds, and so in the first moment the slave was offered to him, Loki had every intention of turning the gift down. But two more things happened, before he could release the words:
"I don't understand the purpose of this," grumbled Thor, who had a different woman on his arm every night he wanted one, and seemed never to feel any concern that they might actually desire something or someone else above him--
And the slave looked up, wild hair half-covering wilder eyes. He was like no one on Asgard; unlike all of them, he seemed to see Loki. He reeked of some strange sorcery, perhaps or perhaps not also the sorcery responsible for creating his shining left arm. He was something interesting. He was something new, when there had been nothing but the same old grievances and the same old plots for so long.
"Unlike my dear brother, I do understand the purpose," Loki said. "I'll have him."
*
As well as reeking of sorcery, the slave also just plain reeked. Loki attempted to have him washed, only for him to resist the servants. If he'd resisted slightly less violently, it would have been an amusement. As it was, it was a liability, an invitation for Loki's father to take an interest in what his younger son was doing. So Loki dismissed them, then walked the slave from the stables over to the baths.
"Strip," Loki said.
The slave did.
"Get in," Loki said. "Don't get out again until you're clean."
As the slave had objected to being hosed down like a horse, this should have been sufficient. But although he waded in willingly enough, naked and gloriously formed, he didn't reach for the soap, but merely stood there, waist-deep in the water.
"Haven't you ever bathed yourself before?" Loki asked.
After a long moment, the slave, who Loki had previously come to think might be mute, said, "Not for a long time. And never anywhere like this."
He looked at if he wished to say something more, then set his jaw, his face settling into a stubborn sullenness Loki was to see rather a lot of in the months to come.
"What else?" Loki asked. And, when the slave chose to settle into the sullenness rather than say whatever it was: "Answer me."
"...And I don't want to get it wrong."
"I see."
"I know what they gave me to you for, and it's not--it's different than what I was doing, before. No one really gave me any pointers."
For the first time, but not the last, Loki was tempted to ask, 'And did you prefer what you were doing before?' But he held his tongue, just as he always had when it occurred to him to wonder if his lovers might have preferred someone else, instead.
"Then I'll have to show you." For the first time, but not the last, Loki felt a surge of arousal. Here was a lover who existed only to please him, and all Loki had to do was teach him how. No political ramifications, nor personal ones. Neither appearances nor his own performance or reputation as a lover mattered, not to this creature that was his and his alone.
He removed his own clothing, with more haste than he'd ever have allowed himself with anyone else, and stepped down into the water.
"Come here," he said, and the slave did, and allowed himself to be lathered, and then rinsed, and then lathered again. By the time the last of the grime was scrubbed away, Loki, at least, was hard.
The slave wasn't shy, at least. He made no attempt to hide what he was looking at, nor twist away to hide his own cock, just beginning to grow.
"You know what you're here for," Loki murmured, running his hands down the slave's ribs. "Do you know how to please a man?"
"'Course. I am a man."
"So you've been with other men before," Loki pressed, disappointed though he'd never been before. He'd liked the idea of being the one to break him in, of the slave having no experience save that which Loki allowed him--
"Uh. Not exactly." The slave flushed. Less shyness than embarrassment, Loki decided; perhaps he didn't like appearing inexperienced any more than Loki himself did. "I'm a fast learner, though."
Loki had touched the slave everywhere, but had not yet been touched in return. Now, he took the slave's hand, and pressed it to his own hard cock. "Touch me. Just as you'd touch yourself."
He didn't expect to come this way. Intended to guide the slave over to the shelf, bend him over and have him against it, taking his pleasure however roughly he wished to. This was meant to be the diversion before the feast, merely...
Yet after a mere handful of strokes, Loki felt his orgasm beginning to build. In any other circumstance, he'd have found some excuse to back away, to regain control of himself. In this one, he remembered there were no appearances, no reputation to uphold, and came with a groan less muffled than any other he'd ever dared loose.
"Told you so," the slave said, flushed again, but so much more beautifully this time, wild-eyed not with fear but with something Loki thought just might be lust. It almost had to be real, clear as it was that he'd had no training as a pleasure slave (despite everything his former owner had claimed when presenting him to a prince; Loki would be having words with him, the next time he brought goods in trade).
Loki lay his hands on the slave's waist, backed him up to the bath's side. "That you did," he murmured. "Jump up here."
The slave did so. His legs spread easily when Loki pushed them apart. "What--what are you doing?"
There were several ways Loki might have answered this. He chose the easy way, no longer having to pretend he liked having a cock in his mouth even an iota less than he truly did.
He probably shouldn't have allowed the slave to dig his fingers into his hair, something no other lover would have dared, an insolence no classically-trained concubine would ever even have conceived of. But it was exciting as all the rest, somehow, and so Loki focused on his initial goal: to lick and suck and gag down as much of the slave's cock as he could, and make him come even more quickly than Loki had.
It wasn't long at all until the slave's thighs tensed around him, and he emptied into Loki's mouth. An unexpectedly bitter flood, an even greater insolence.
Loki swallowed the slave's seed without deciding to; then, before he knew he meant to ask, said, "Did you like that?"
'Where anyone else would have immediately said yes, and praised all of Loki's features along with his virility, the slave hesitated.
"Answer. Me."
"Yeah. I liked it a lot. I'm not too crazy about this whole slave thing, though. It's a little too much like--it's not what I'd have chosen for myself."
Loki, who had never before conceived that slaves might have an opinion about their state of servitude, did not conceive of it now, either. Instead, he found he believed the slave's claim to have liked it, the first such claim he'd ever found credence in, if only because this slave did not seem quite artful enough to lie, nor half as impressed with his position as he ought to have been.
Greatly cheered, by the afterglow among other things, Loki emerged dripping from the bath, and admired the slave's form as he followed.
"Dry yourself. Then put on one of these robes," he said, already making plans for what they'd do next, once they were in his suites where no one could interrupt them. "Don't even look at those old rags or you'll have to bathe again."
"I don't think that's how dirt works," the slave said.
Loki had thought he'd fuck him, next. Now, he knew it was going to be something else.
After all, there really had to be a better use for that mouth.