He flicked his tongue against my lips, and I opened my mouth to him. Our tongues were wet and made liquid sounds as they moved together, just at the same moment as the volume on the soundtrack went down. It sounded loud in the dark and I was sure people were looking at us, and I felt the hungry, open O of his mouth stretch into a smile against mine. The music swelled again, and he nibbled at my earlobe.
“I want you,” he whispered. “Take me to bed.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
I pulled my coat over my crotch as we slipped out the back of the theatre. We walked the short distance back to the hotel in silence, as if we both sensed that his assent was fragile and apt to be startled.
His frown had returned by the time we got back to my room, and I could see he was trying not to let the pain show in his face. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his hip. “Still not great with steps yet.”
“You know you don’t have to do this if you’re…”
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Please, Nathan. I want this. Take off your clothes. Let me look at you.”
He sat down on the end of the bed. I undressed in front of him, dropping my clothes on the floor. I couldn’t remember ever being self-conscious about being naked in front of him before. We used to hang around in the nude every chance we got, and sometimes, when I got out of bed for whatever reason, I’d make a show of myself. I’d bend too deep to retrieve my socks, or stretch out my spine and throw my arms in the air, and I would always feel his eyes on me. Sometimes his hand followed his gaze, tracing the line of my back, or – when he was feeling mischievous – his fingers would skate over the sensitive, tickly spots at the backs of my ribcage. He loved to look, and I loved to let him, but this hurt. Seeing the want in his eyes was painful.
His fingertips grazed the sides of my hips. I stepped closer and let him press his face into my belly. At first I thought it was his tongue, wet against my skin, but when he looked up he was crying. “I thought I’d never have this again,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I keep fucking crying.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes,” he said, and leaned back slightly on the bed, so I could see the bulge in his jeans. “Feel.”
I reached down and squeezed gently. He was hard behind his fly. Harder than me, even, because tears had never really been much of a turn on for me. “Can I undress you?” I said.
It was brutal. The big scar crawling up the side of his thigh and over his hip was a horror. For a moment I was afraid I was going to join him in tears, and I buried my face in his pubic hair.
But then he rose for me. His half erection thickened and swelled to pink-capped fullness, and it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. I loved his cock. The first one – besides my own – that I’d had the leisure and permission to explore thoroughly. I remember those lazy times when he used to lie with his legs open, indulging me as I fondled and tasted and played with him, until my explorations made him breathless and impatient. “Are you going to make me come?” he said, once. “Or do I have to fuck you?”
I’d had him inside me. Seven thick inches. I kissed the round pink head. My tongue knew every last detail of him – the tiny dimple in which the slit sat, the way his foreskin creased when it was pulled back, and the delicate little string of tissue where it attached, and where the gentlest touch could make him buck and swear and shiver.
He moaned as I swallowed him, arching almost far enough to make me gag as he wriggled out of his t-shirt, the only thing he was still wearing.
“Please,” he said. “I’ll come too fast. It’s been so long.”
I moved carefully up over him. His belly was harder than I remembered, and his upper arms were thick with new muscle. When we touched – full length, naked – we both exhaled with relief and joy, because he was right: I hadn’t thought I’d ever have this again, either. I pressed my face into his shoulder, rocking into him. He moaned again, a lovely, yearning sound, putting me in mind of his whole repertoire of sex noise, from tender coos to filthy snarls of pure need.
His lips found mine. He moved urgently beneath me as we kissed, then he tried to wrap a leg around me and winced. “Ow.”
“Slow down,” I said, rolling to the side so he could straighten up again. “It’s okay. There’s no rush.”
“I know. But I want you. I want you so much.”
“Shh.” I kissed his mouth and curled my fingers around him. He thrust, impatient, and I draped my leg across his knees to slow him down. “What was that you told me?” I said. “About that one Italian verb?”
He groaned deep in the back of his throat and looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“Conjugates backwards,” I said. “So it’s passive.”
“Piacere?”
“That’s the one. To be pleased by…”
Rob arched. “To be pleasing to,” he said, and moaned. “You need a prep…uh…a preposition.” He pulled me in for a kiss, panting already. “Why are we talking about grammar?”
“Because you need to be passive right now,” I whispered, against his lips. “Slow down. Let me please you.”
He made a soft, hungry mmm noise and kissed me. He was so hard in my hand, a hot little trickle of pre-come running down over the backs of my fingers. I wondered how long it had been for him, and with that came the thought of how much I’d always loved to watch him playing with himself. I used to make him masturbate over the phone, and told him to always train the screen on his face rather than his cock, because while I loved his cock I used to come like mad from watching his lips part and his eyes unfocus as he got hotter and more out of control.
But this was even better, because I got to touch, too. “That’s it, love,” I said. “Let go. This is for you. This is your treat.”
My hand was dry. When I went to raise it to my mouth he turned frantic right away. “No-oo, don’t stop touching my dick,” he said, all in a breathy rush that turned me up another notch. I spat quickly in my palm and when I grasped him again everything was slick and smooth and his hips came up off the bed. “Kiss me,” he said, and he came like that, moaning into my open mouth, his tongue stabbing at mine. He seemed to come for a long time, one of those long, pulsy orgasms that come out in slow spurts and take you out at the knees. “Christ,” he said, as his body went slack on the bed. “Oh sweet fucking Jesus.”
I folded his thighs tight together, harvesting the sticky drops from his belly. The first time I’d ever done this I’d been amazed by how good it felt, but that was nothing compared to how it felt now. I pushed my cock into the hot space at the tops of his thighs. The underside of his balls jostled against me as I fucked him, and I don’t think I could have stopped even if I’d wanted to. “I love you,” he said, still panting.
“I love you, too.” He was glowing and had that half-dazed look that used to drive me insane over the phone, because he always looked as though he couldn’t believe the pleasure he’d just experienced. And that was enough to finish me. He knew it, too, because he squeezed his legs tighter together, making me cry out as I came.
I kissed his pink, gasping lips. “Am I pleasing to you?” I said.
Rob wound his arms around my neck. “Sì,” he said. “Mi piaci.”
He was flushed with triumph. So much for separate rooms. After a sticky, giggly clean-up he curled up against my chest, and we lay there in snuggled peace. A spatter of rain hit the window, and then the heavens opened. I glanced at the clock. If we’d stayed for the end of the film we would have been out in that, but here we were, warm and naked and absolutely contented.
“It’s pissing down out there,” I said.
“Mm. Welcome to the secret of why the Emerald Isle is emerald.”
I buried my nose in his hair. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s really a secret.”
He stifled a yawn and cuddled closer. I thought of that first night on the boat, and the thunder rumbling over the river while
we made love. “It was raining the first time we did this,” I said. “Do you remember?”
“No.”
“No?”
Rob tilted his head and peered at me from under his lashes. “Wasn’t really paying much attention to the weather,” he said. “To tell you the truth.”
He stretched against me. He was lying half on his side, one leg resting on mine. “Are you okay? Lying like that?”
“Hmm. I might be stiff later. But it’s worth it.” His fingers tugged gently at my chest hair. “I like this, by the way.”
It took me a second to realise what he was referring to. “You do?”
“Mmhm. Waxed nipples always look wrong to me. Like they’re not comfortable about being denuded. You know – like when you clip your cat for the summer and it looks all skinny and confused about it.”
I didn’t know. At all. “You are wonderfully weird. You know that, don’t you?”
He smiled and kissed my chest. “Are you going to shave it off again?”
“I don’t know. I had topless scenes as Valmont. I didn’t want reviewers commenting on my lack of personal grooming on top of everything else.”
Rob giggle-snorted. “They don’t do that.”
“They might. Some of them are very mean.”
“And did any of them mention your baby smooth tits?”
“They did not.”
“Well, then,” he said, as if he’d made a point of great profundity. He pushed his thigh higher between mine and I drew him closer. You couldn’t have pushed a postage stamp between us in that moment, and that was just the way I liked it.
“I read them all,” he said.
“What?”
“Your reviews. First one I made Orla read it first to make sure it was okay. I don’t think I could have stood it if they were bad.”
I laughed, but I related. Simply summoning the nerve to read that first review had left me queasy and hyperventilating. Even now the only thing than stuck in my head was a throwaway line from a Spectator review where I’d been described as ‘occasionally soap-operatic.’ Praises washed over actors, but we remembered every criticism word for word.
“You know the best review I ever had?” I said. “The one that kept me going through all the others? It was the five star Yelp review you wrote on my left buttock.”
He peeked up at me again. “Actually it was both buttocks,” he said, rolling over onto his back. “I ran out of room.”
I turned onto my side, scanning his face for signs of discomfort as he straightened his legs.
“You’re not going to have a weird moment of clarity about that, are you?” I said.
He frowned.
“You’re not going to realise that it was kind of cringey and then leave me to drown?”
Rob picked up the thread of the conversation, and laughed. “No. Of course not.”
“Really? Because you said it was like that with first boyfriends sometimes.”
“You’re not my first boyfriend.”
“No, but you’re mine.” I leaned down and kissed him, nuzzling the end of my nose against his. “And did you just admit that I’m your boyfriend?”
He blushed. “Yes,” he said. “Although we’re going to have to be long-distance. At least for a while.”
“I can live with that,” I said. “Besides, you’re a filthy texter.”
He bit his lip, all mischief. “So are you,” he said, his hand curled around the nape of my neck. “I’m sure we’ll come up with lots of ways to have sex when we’re apart.”
“I’m sure we will, too. I have faith in your ability to get creative in a crisis.”
“We can Skype,” he said, the light in his eyes turning dark and soft and naughty. “And then there are toys…”
“Toys?” We hadn’t got that far before, but I was willing to have a go. I ran a hand down his body and found that absence had not only made the heart grow fonder, but it had had a pronounced effect on other parts of his anatomy as well.
“Is the sex monster back in business?” I said, wrapping my fingers around him.
Rob made a soft sound in the back of his throat, his eyes fluttering shut with pleasure. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re beautiful,” I said. “And that you need to be in my mouth. Right now.”
He moaned quietly as I slid beneath the covers, kissing my way down his body. I kissed the scar once more, the cup of his belly button, the twin hills of his hip bones. He thrust up to meet my mouth and I ran my tongue along the length of him, licking him like an ice-cream cone. Oh, he loved this, and I knew he’d missed getting it, almost as much as I’d missed giving it.
“You still want to go to the museum tomorrow?” I asked, teasing.
His fingers twined into my hair. He wasn’t about to let me go in a hurry. “Let’s put a pin in that,” he said, making me smile about what tomorrow would bring. He arched up once more, warm and hard and whole. And mine.
Epilogue
Rob
I forgot how to sleep in London.
My grandmother used to say a body could get used to anything, and I thought it was one of those random things that old people said out of habit. Words that had lost their meaning over time, like letters on a headstone worn down by the weather.
That was until my body had to start getting used to things. Things like the deep ache in the core of my thigh, or the creaky feeling in my hip when it rains. I had to get used to thinking about moving my feet, where before I had simply moved them. The very first time I stood up without thinking about it was like hearing a tune I hadn’t heard since the dimmest, earliest memories of infancy. My brain and my body had all but forgotten that they used to do this all the time.
In the same way I forgot how to sleep in the city. Last night was too noisy, and the sky wasn’t dark enough, and besides, Nathan was there. We blinked at each other across the pillows like little kids trying to hold their eyes open, but he closed his eyes between breaths, and the next time I said his name he didn’t answer.
I lie awake beside him, listening to the whine and judder of railway lines. He sleeps right through it. It’s a lullaby to him, since he’s used to it. I know I’ll suffer from lack of sleep later, but at the same time I know that if I want to go to bed in the afternoon he’ll be delighted of a chance to jump in with me. We used to do that a lot, when he worked late hours at the bar. Lazy afternoons spent wearing nothing but smiles, his fingers in my hair and me running my toes up and down the back of his calf.
Simon is moving about in the kitchen. I didn’t see him last night, because he was working, so I get up. May as well get the inevitable awkwardness over with.
It was always going to be weird seeing him again, and not just because of our previous relationship. As soon as I stick my head around the kitchen door it hits me: all my previous memories of Simon have become muted, cancelled out by the blaring memory of pain. I remember him telling me to lie still, because the ambulance was on its way, but it couldn’t come fast enough. “Kill me,” I said. “Please. Let me die. I can’t take this much pain.”
He stands in the sunlit kitchen, yawning at the glowing innards of the pop up toaster. The back of his hair sticks up at the exact same angle as Nathan’s. There are differences – scars, freckles, the way the hair on Nathan’s shins has been worn away by tight jeans, while Simon’s hasn’t – but the similarities are still striking.
“You want some toast?” he says, without looking up, then he turns his head and sees me standing there like a ghost.
“Oh,” he says. “Good lord. It’s you.”
“It’s me. Back from the dead.”
He comes over and looks me up and down. For a moment I think he’s going to hug me, but instead he just reaches out and squeezes my upper arm. “You look well,” he said, and although he doesn’t get physical I can see he’s pleased to see me. Especially in one piece. “How’s it all going?”
“Stiff,” I said. “But I’m hobbling along. Hip’s still
a bit achy when it rains.” Or when I’ve spent the night with my legs in the air, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“Well, considering what you’ve been through…”
“I know.”
It’s hanging in the air, still. That day of blood and horror and the unforgettable sensation of the ends of broken bones moving against each other. There’s even a medical word for it – crepitus – and while it sounds horrible, it’s still not nearly as horrible as it feels. Simon turns cautious, the way he often does when someone in the room is about to have an emotion, and seeks refuge in breakfast.
“Did you say you wanted toast? I’ve got Marmite.”
“No. No, thanks. Nathan makes me brush my teeth three times after eating Marmite. He won’t go near me otherwise.”
“I’m always baffled by that,” says Simon. “I can’t believe I have the same DNA as a filthy Marmite hater. Just goes to show, you can’t completely rule out nurture.” He reaches for the kettle. “Tea?”
“Please.”
He takes out a third cup, for Nathan. It’s gone quiet again and I have no idea what to say, at least in the way of small talk. So I get straight into the big stuff instead.
“I never got the chance to thank you,” I say.
Simon looks skittish. “For what? I didn’t do anything.”
“No, you did.” I still remember his face, dark against the late summer sky, looking down at me. If he was frightened he was determined not to show it. “I read a lot about spinal injuries after…after what happened. And it turns out that the care a patient gets immediately in the wake of the injury? That can make the difference between walking again or not.”
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