by KJ Charles
“I tell you what, Pen,” he said.
“What?”
Mark bottled it. “I need another drink.”
When he got back from the bar, two gins in hand, Pen was leaning back, watching him. “All right, Mark. Tell me something.”
“What?”
“Something I should know. I don’t mean your mysterious secret business. I mean—I fly. You’ve seen me fly, and you said that was how I ought to look, and you were right. That’s me. Tell me something about you.”
Mark snorted. “Nothing to tell. I work. That’s about it.”
“You’re a private enquiry agent, though. Isn’t that interesting?”
“Not so much. It does well enough but it’s mostly finding lost dogs, lost letters, lost relatives, that sort of thing. I go through papers and ask questions. It’s not like your job. It’s not my life.”
“So what is?”
Mark wasn’t sure why that was so hard to answer. He knew what his friends’ lives were, at heart. Clem ran a lodging house and made it a home. Nathaniel was a crusader, always taking up a sword on someone’s behalf. The Jack and Knave was Phyllis’s pride and joy, along with all who sailed in her; Greg lived for the highly coloured passions he got from theatre and Phyllis alike. Whereas Mark…well, he just got on with things.
“I don’t know,” he said. “If you mean ideals, beliefs, I always thought my mother had enough of that for both of us. We had to leave Poland when I was a baby because of outstanding warrants, and she’s been gaoled a few times over here for affray and whatnot. She wants to bring down the rule of law; she’s as much a believer in her cause as any evangelical, only don’t tell her I said that. You can’t have two of those in a family and still pay the rent.”
“What about your father?”
“He was in gaol in Krakow when we left. I was only a scrap. Ma said he was meant to come and join us, but whether he changed his mind or never got out, I don’t know. It’s always been me and her.”
“And sometimes only you, if she was in gaol?”
Mark shrugged. “You know what it’s like.”
“Not really,” Pen said. “I always had Greta. So your mother has all the ideals, all the fire, and you don’t have any?”
“Ideals send you to gaol. I wanted food on the table, a roof over our heads. I like to get things done.”
“To be as efficient as anyone else.” Pen waved a hand at the people around them.
“If I was as efficient as this lot I’d be in trouble,” Mark said. “I’m a practical man, that’s the long and short of it. We can’t all fly.”
Pen’s eyes met his for a long moment, and Mark had the oddest feeling. Like Pen was seeing something, like he thought there was something Mark was missing.
He’d once gone to Margate as a boy, on the single occasion he could recall Ma giving them a holiday, and he still remembered what it had been like to run on the sands. It wasn’t right; it had been too giving, too soft under his feet, not there like solid earth when you needed it. The ground under his feet felt like that now.
“Anyway,” he said.
“Anyway.”
Mark took a deep breath, and a grip on his certainties. “Look, Pen. Have I done enough here? I mean, would you be ready to listen to me? Not now, but tomorrow?”
Pen’s jaw tightened a bit. He had a serious jawline. When he cut his hair and wiped off the paint, he’d be as conventionally good-looking as any man you could hope to find. The handsomest man in the House of Lords, Mark would bet. The thought wasn’t encouraging.
Stop it.
“Is that what this was, this evening?” Pen asked. “Doing enough?”
“Left to myself, no,” Mark said. “Left to myself…well. But—”
“Left to yourself what?”
Mark gave up. “Left to myself I’d tell you there’s a private room out back. Left to myself, I’d ask if you wanted to come back there and—” He grinned, and knew it would look crooked. “Let your hair down. I’d bloody love to see you let your hair down.”
Pen reached up and pulled out hairpins, one after another, letting the looped hair tumble over his back. He picked the chestnut mass up with both hands, shaking it out, settling it over his shoulders, letting it flow halfway down his chest. Mark didn’t have to look round to feel the stares from all over the room, but he couldn’t have looked round anyway; he couldn’t look away at all.
“There,” Pen said. “You only had to ask.”
“Oh Jesus.” Mark wanted to touch; he wanted to get his hand into Pen’s hair, wind it in the long glowing locks, pull him close. He wanted to see how Pen kissed, if he led or followed, where this could go.
It wasn’t right if Pen didn’t know the truth.
Or maybe it was, because at this point what difference would it make? Pen was going to be the earl whatever happened; Mark had laid out his desires and Pen had chosen to take them up. They could have one night before the coronet came crashing down on Pen’s head, surely.
He clenched his fist. “Pen. You are a sight for sore eyes—for kings, come to that, but I know something you don’t know and that’s not fair. Is it?”
“It’s fair if I say it is,” Pen said. “I told you before, I don’t want any secrets. I do want you to show me this back room of yours, though. Or are you the only one who gets to make decisions?”
“Bit of a leap in the dark, though?” Mark suggested, in a last gasp for decency.
Pen smiled, gloriously, a full, wide smile that lit his face and gave him a startling resemblance to Clem. “Mark. Leaping in the dark is what I do.”
“Oh yeah. So it is.” And he was a grown man and an earl and Mark couldn’t quite remember the point of this whole “duty” business. “All right. Just a second. Don’t go away.”
He was at the bar in three strides. Phyllis awaited him with a meaningful look. “Back room, is it?”
“Is there anyone in?”
“Not at the moment. Mark?” Phyllis hooked a finger in the neck of his shirt and leaned in. “You take care with that one, understand?”
“What’s it to you?” Mark felt a bit offended. He might not have company manners but he didn’t have to be told to respect a partner. Phyllis ought to know that; she’d tumbled him a few times in his early days at the Jack, once it had dawned on him that people came in all sorts of variations and he wasn’t much bothered which.
Phyllis gave him a narrow-eyed look, and released his shirt to point a finger at his nose. “You: penny plain.” She turned the finger to herself and used the other hand to point in Pen’s direction at the same time. “Us: tuppence coloured. Got it?”
“No.”
Phyllis sighed. “Just try to remember we’re not all as two-and-two-is-four as you are. Off you go, her with the hair’s waiting.”
Pen was indeed standing, giving Mark a quizzical, slightly nervous look. He returned a smile and, feeling a little nervous himself, led the way through to the back.
It wasn’t much of a room, in all honesty. Phyllis didn’t run a knocking-shop; this was simply a space for those who couldn’t be private at home, or who couldn’t wait. It was dark as a dungeon, with just the light from the fire now; that helped when there were a few people in here. Currently there was only him and Pen, and Pen’s eyes were very wide.
Mark found his way to the mantelpiece and lit the oil lamp, keeping it turned low. “It’s not exactly luxury, is it?”
“No.”
“Listen, if you’ve changed your mind—or if you change it any time—all you have to do is say, right? Door’s over there.”
“I haven’t changed my mind,” Pen said, but he didn’t move.
Mark came up to him, not quite sure what he was about. If there was one constant in his choice of partners, it was experience. He liked people who knew what they were doing, knew what they wanted, and could be relied on to make themselves clear: it saved a lot of trouble. Pen didn’t strike him as virginal, but he looked nervous all the same.
/> Tuppence coloured, Phyllis had said. Pen was fancy work.
“Can I touch your hair?”
Pen nodded. Mark reached out, gently pushing his fingers into the dark mass, combing through, feeling its weight. “That is beautiful. That…” He stroked the side of Pen’s face, very gently, with his thumb. “Gorgeous.”
Pen ran a light hand over Mark’s own short crop, which did nothing to disguise the fact that his hair was going at the temples. “I like this. It’s a lot more practical than mine.”
“Don’t cut yours,” Mark said, and then wished he hadn’t. Of course Pen would be cutting his hair. He’d cut his hair and wipe off the paint, don the robes, become the earl.
Pen was frowning. “Mark?”
“Nothing. Ah, fuck. Can I kiss you?”
Pen’s hand was on the back of his skull. He pulled Mark forward, and their lips met, and it felt as right as anything had in a long time. Pen’s lips were gentle, skin close-shaved with barely any prickle of stubble, hair long and lush, but his hands were big and powerful, and there was so much solid strength and bulk to him. All my favourite things in one place, Mark thought, and then stopped thinking because he had better things to do.
Pen’s lips were parted, moving just a bit. Mark felt the flicker of tongue and opened to it, felt Pen’s hand slide down his back and urge him closer. Mark let his own fingers roam, feeling the muscle of Pen’s back and shoulders curve pliantly under his touch. Christ, he’d be magnificent with his shirt off. Mark wanted to see that, but he was in no hurry at all, because Pen’s lips were moving against his in a long, slow dance, body to body, face to face, breath mingling with breath.
Pen had one hand on the small of Mark’s back, not quite going lower; the other was rubbing over his scalp, sending pleasurable shudders through him. Mark curved his fingers over Pen’s hip and wished he could do more, but he’d need a hundred hands to touch Pen as much as he wanted to right now.
Pen swayed against him, pressing closer, and they both inhaled sharply as Pen’s hard arousal bumped Mark’s groin.
Mark pulled his mouth away and tugged Pen’s hip closer to make up, rubbing against hard flesh, enjoying and resenting the friction of cloth between them. “God. Pen…”
“Yes?” Pen asked, a bit breathlessly.
Mark wasn’t sure. Part of him—a large part, where most of his blood seemed to be heading—wanted to tug at Pen’s buttons, get everything off and his mouth on. That was what you came to the back room for, right?
“Penny plain, tuppence coloured,” he muttered.
“What?”
Mark made himself step back a few inches, his prick objecting to the loss of contact, and lifted his fingers to Pen’s face. His lips, wet now and as red from kissing as they had been from paint; his eyes, wide and questioning and still with a flicker of that wolf-wariness; his solid jaw. Mark traced it carefully with his thumb. “Is there anything I ought to know?”
“Like what?”
In for a penny. “Like…how you like to be touched. What you like to be called. Are you a woman.”
Pen went very still. “Because I wear paint?”
Shit. “Because you’ve got a hell of a pair of shoulders and you don’t like them,” Mark said. “If you wanted to look like the biggest bloke in the room, you could, but you don’t. I’m not saying what I think; I don’t think anything particular. I’m just asking if there’s anything you want me to know. If you’re a woman, or you want me to talk that way—”
Pen’s hands had stayed where they were as Mark spoke, as if he’d forgotten about them. He withdrew them now, leaving Mark feeling rather bare. “Then what? What difference does it make? Do you treat me differently, or want something different from me?”
He could have not asked, Mark thought somewhat sourly. Bloody Phyllis and her advice. “I want to do things the way you want them done. That’s it. Pen, mate, I like men, I like women, and I’m not here to tell anyone which they are. I like men who wear dresses, and women who strap on extra bits, and—I just like people, see? I’d say I’m not fussy, if that didn’t sound rude under the circumstances.” Pen didn’t crack a smile. Mark sighed. “Look, I’m a plain man. I don’t have a clue how it works not to feel like what you look like, and I wouldn’t put on a dress for anyone’s money. So if you want me to use the right words, or keep away from certain bits—or to get the hell away from you, seeing as that’s what you look like right now—”
Pen held up a hand, smoothing his intimidating scowl away. “Give me a moment?”
Mark shut his trap, watching. Pen’s lips moved as though he was practising saying something in his head. “All right. I see what you meant. I…don’t like people making assumptions.”
“I was trying not to.”
“I know, and that’s, uh, nice, but it’s not…Ugh. Look, since you ask: I’m not a woman.”
“Right, fair enough,” Mark said, cursing Phyllis internally. “I only thought—”
“I haven’t finished. I’m not a woman, but that doesn’t make me a man either.”
“Right. What?”
Pen’s eyes hooded. “You heard.”
Clearly this was going to be a bit more complicated than Mark had thought. “Yeah, I heard. Just not sure I take your meaning. So that’s like…” He didn’t have a clue what that might be like.
“Sometimes I feel like eye paint and frock coats,” Pen said, with a touch of something like defiance. “Sometimes I feel like silk and not shaving. Sometimes I feel like none of me is right, and sometimes I feel like it all is. And mostly, I don’t want to be treated as Pen with strapping great shoulders, or as ‘pretty Penny, isn’t she a little dear.’ I don’t see why there’s only two choices, as if unless I behave like a man then I must want to be a woman. I’d hate to put on a satin dress every night and have everyone call me she almost as much as you would. Except some nights, now and again, it would be lovely. If I chose. Do you see, even a bit?”
“I don’t know if I see, but I’m listening,” Mark said. “So…you’re not like Phyllis, fair enough. And I know a couple of blokes who just like to wear dresses, but that’s not what you mean either, is it?”
“No.”
“All right. So, if you’re not a man or a woman, what do I call you?” Pen’s face clouded thunderously; Mark held up his hand. “Serious question, mate. If there’s a word I don’t know, teach me it.”
“There isn’t a word. Or if there is, I don’t know it. I’m me, that’s all. I’m Pen Starling, and I can’t be anything else.”
That’s what you think. “Well, you’re doing a good job of it,” Mark said. “You’re the best Pen Starling I’ve met by a long chalk. So you’re saying, the right clothes isn’t a suit, and it isn’t a dress either. It’s a trapeze costume. No, a whole set of trapeze costumes. Is that right?”
Pen’s lips parted slightly. “More or less. Sort of. Yes.”
“Unless you feel like something else.”
A slight curve to those lips now. “Yes.”
Mark owned three more or less identical sets of coats and trousers, distinguished from one another only by age and wear. He never thought about what he put on: it went without saying. Penny plain indeed. He wanted to ask what all this meant in terms of fucking, but he’d probably asked too much already. Pen could talk more if, or when, he wanted to. Till then…
“Fair enough. All right, Pen, just Pen.” Mark stepped forward to bring them almost back together, and Pen didn’t shift away. “What do you feel like right now?”
Pen’s lips closed over his finger end and he sucked, sending sparks along Mark’s nerves, then let go. “I like kissing.”
“Kissing is good,” Mark assured him. Pen’s hands came up to cup his face and bring it close, their lips met again, and it was every bit as good as before. Better, in fact, as Pen’s fingers dug in, and the pressure of his lips was that much harder. He felt hungry now. Certain. Mark got his arm round Pen’s waist and—what the hell—dropped his hand to grab t
he firm, taut arse. Pen made a “mmph” noise into his mouth that didn’t sound disapproving, and wound a powerful leg round Mark’s, kisses eager, hungry, pushing maybe more than he realised. Mark liked women who showed their hunger; he wasn’t familiar with forcefulness from men, but Pen…
Pen was Pen, and Mark braced himself to stand solid, take the pressure and meet it without shoving back. If he paid attention, he might even get some of Pen’s wants into his own unimaginative head instead of barracking him with questions. So he went with Pen’s movements, body to body, mouth to mouth. Meeting and matching, getting his hand into that glorious hair, and having to avoid yanking it when he felt Pen’s fingers slip over the buttons of his trousers. He was hard as a barber’s pole, and even through the cloth the touch of Pen’s hand was exquisite, sending shivery pleasure through him.
He pulled his mouth away from Pen’s, brought it along his jaw and up to his earlobe, felt him shudder. “What would you like?”
Pen’s fingers closed on the hard line of Mark’s cock, making him inhale hard. “Can we keep kissing? Only—” He pushed a little, an indication more than anything. Mark realised he was being urged backward, stepped back accordingly, and ended up with his shoulders against the chilly plaster of the wall. Pen was leaning heavily against him, their mouths locked, legs entwined, hips bumping and rubbing, like he didn’t mind the idea of firing his shot with them both still fully dressed. Mark, not being seventeen any more, was pretty sure they could do better than that, if he got his hand or mouth to Pen’s prick—
Or maybe this was what you did with a hard-on that didn’t suit whatever was in your head.
If all it cost Mark was a damp walk home and feeling like an idiot youth, Pen could have what he wanted and welcome. Mark went with it, frotting back against Pen, pulling him close, keeping his hand firmly arseward. Pen’s body curved to him, with a pliancy belied by the strength of his thighs and the frantic, eager movements of his mouth, and Mark gave himself up to the sensation of pressure, the rub and friction of cloth that kept his flesh from Pen’s, the pleasure he could feel shivering through his partner. Pen’s breath was coming harder, the movement of his hands and flexing of his fingers telling Mark everything he needed to know, and he felt the shudders and gasps as Pen bucked and finally slumped against him. Mark got his arm round Pen’s waist, half holding him up, feeling the blood pound in his own unsatisfied prick.