by Zack
Somewhat put out at the thought of being ripped off, Gil politely asked her where she had purchased such a remarkable bargain. “Vy, just here, my boy. Just here, fifteen years ago!”
The lights changed and Mike pulled away into the right turn past Waitrose and Habitat. They left the roar of the Finchley Road for the sudden Victorian quiet of Goldhurst Terrace, a plunge downhill to make a right onto Fairhazel Gardens, and then immediately left into Aberdare Gardens.
Home.
CHAPTER THREE
Satan’s Blood
Gil failed to repress a shiver as he followed Mike through the front door into the oh so familiar hallway of the ground-floor flat. It felt warm and dry and smelled faintly of cooking oil and … polish?
“I left the heating on high,” Mike said, as though he’d heard Gil’s thought. “Damp and all—”
“You been cleaning?”
Mike paused in the cracked-open doorway to the living room and half turned with a click of his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Got a lady wot does. Comes in once a week, vacuums, dusts, washes things—”
Gil lifted his nose and sniffed. “Polishes things?”
“That too.”
“And there’s another smell …?”
Mike pushed the wide paneled door fully open and went on into the living room.
“You haven’t got any work on today?”
“No. I managed to wangle it with the second. I’m not sure, but I think he might be a tad sweet on me. I’m only on for two weeks in any case and then I’ll have to look around for something else. It was mostly studio-bound and they’ve filmed a lot out and about in Buckinghamshire.”
Gil smiled. Buckin’m’sher. “What’s it about?”
“It’s about a bunch of song and dance artistes in Malaya after the war. A sort of vaudeville military comedy in the jungle, and—very daring—it has a gay main character. It sounds about as daft as your … what’s it now … Blade Runner?”
Gil jabbed Mike in the ribs as he followed through the doorway into the living room. Nothing had changed, except … “What? Did you do this?” He stared in amazement at the knee-high construction of fiberboard filling half the large room.
Mike planted hands on hips and beamed proudly. “While I was pining after you. It helped fill in the time, and anyway, the ceiling’s so high in here, this raised section makes it much cozier. There are two steps up at the front.
Gil saw there were, facing the French window, which gave him the impression he was entering a theater auditorium. That was the other smell, fiberboard glue.
“I was going to carpet it with those square tiles, but never got around to it … yet.”
And then Gil stared in amazement at the wide chimney breast on the side wall beyond the now-raised sofa where two massive black-and-white faces—his own and Mike’s, chin resting on Gil’s shoulder—smiled back. It was one of the photographs taken on the back lot at Cinecittà in Rome the previous summer.
Mike stood, hands on hips expectantly, almost a match for the pose on the wall. A lazy smile twitched on his lips.
“Christ! It’s huge.”
“If it’s too overpowering, I can take it down. Or hang it in the bedroom. But that would upset Will. I’m sure he likes to lounge on the sofa and wank off over you.”
That earned Mike another jab, in the stomach this time, and the assault turned amorous as they took each other around the waist and hugged. Gil felt Mike’s hot breath on his ear. “Do you want anything? To eat, or a cup of tea, or something stronger?”
Gil shook his head and luxuriated in the feeling of his hair brushing against Mike’s firm neck. “Something much stronger,” he whispered. “Take me in the bedroom and strip me. Make love to me, Mikey.”
“Can I undress as well?”
“If you insist.”
“I do, otherwise I might end up driving the zipper tab into your ass.”
“How long is it?”
“The zipper tab?”
“Yeah.”
“Bout an inch, I think.”
“Bit longer than your dick, then?”
“Not by much.”
“Prove it.”
“Fuck you!”
“I dare you.”
“I haven’t jacked off since I got back from L.A. … oh, well, maybe the once.”
“So you’re packing it. Is that what you’re telling me? Or have you forgotten how to do it?”
Gil wasn’t entirely sure how they’d moved from lounge to bedroom, but became aware of it when something hit him in the calves and he tumbled back onto the low bed with its firm Dunlopillo mattresses he remembered so well. Mike followed the push and pinned him down. The moment stretched into an eternity of locked eyes. Gil’s vision flickered from side to side as he tried to peer deep into his lover’s soul. And then with a start he realized Mike was crying. The tears welled large and fell without restraint on Gil’s cheeks.
“Mike …?”
He raised his hands to grip Mike’s head in front of his oh so nibbleable ears.
Mike sniffed. “Sorry. It’s just … Oh, Gil, I thought I’d never see you again here, stretched out on our bed. The one we bought together.”
Gil strained against Mike’s hands and raised his head until he could kiss the lips above him gently. Then he forced Mike’s head sideways and did what he wanted to do. His teeth closed gently on the left lobe, and he nibbled the ear, licked at the small silver stud, the one he’d replaced in California after Mike had gone without it for the long months of their parting. Mike snuffled and clenched his shoulders. Gil knew his hair tickled the sensitive skin on the side of Mike’s neck, and shook his head rapidly.
Mike snuffled into a laugh. He broke back slightly, turned his head, and planted his lips firmly against Gil’s.
Gil pressed back as solidly. Suddenly, Mike collapsed over him and they rolled sideways, kissing, and feeling each other through rain-damp clothes. After minutes of snogging like teenage kids, Mike abruptly shoved himself up to his knees and began unbuckling Gil’s jeans belt. Gil shuffled back until his head rested on a pillow under the covering duvet and lay supine so Mike could do as he wished.
“You’re over-dressed,” Mike muttered as he freed the belt from the front loops and yanked the top button of Gil’s Levi’s open—501s, so the other well-worn buttons popped open in a run. He didn’t wait but thrust a rough hand inside the gaping fly to grab hold of Gil’s cock which pushed stiffly against the cotton of his dark blue briefs.
Momentarily, Gil hesitated. He’d been flying for hours. “I ought to have a shower—”
“You daft bugger. You’re getting fucked, showered or not.” Gil watched as Mike pulled his dick free, bent over, and dropped his mouth over the cock head. Mike slurped noisily, and then glanced up with a sly grin. “Mmmm, you taste fine the way you are, Gil Graham.”
Moments later, Gil’s sneakers were off his feet and his jeans lay crumpled on the carpet. Next, the long-sleeved shirt joined the collapsed tubing of the jeans, quickly followed by the blue briefs. And Gil lay naked, other than for his socks, which it appeared Mike intended him keeping on.
Gil smiled up lazily and stretched languorously on the bed. Faster than he would have believed possible, Mike divested himself and knelt “bollock naked” beside him. He wasted no time in grabbing Gil’s aching dick again and sucking it for long moments. Behind closed eyes Gil allowed himself to dissolve happily into the sensation of his lover’s tongue wiping up and down his shaft and curling wetly around his bell-shaped cock head. After a while, Mike straightened up and reached to the bedside table. “Here, you have a go on this.” He handed Gil a small bottle of poppers. “While I get busy with this.”
The cap came off and he slapped a good sized gloop of KY (“I really splashed out—no spit today in celebration …”) on the fingers of his right hand. Some went on his jutting cut cock, the rest between Gil’s thighs and up into his crack. He gave a slight gasp at the jelly’s coolness as Mike worked it
up into his ass, all the while pulling on his dick with his left hand. He gripped Gil with greasy hands firmly below the middle of each thigh and pulled as he knelt on the carpet beside the bed. Gil found himself with his butt hanging off the edge of the bed, legs straight out either side of Mike’s waist. As if it had been designed for the purpose, the height of the mattress above the floor just fitted, so that Gil’s asshole slid neatly onto Mike’s waiting cock. After a quick bit of knee juggling for position, Mike thrust home, his bucking hips clamped between Gil’s thighs.
With each withdrawal Gil relaxed and when Mike pushed into him again, he scissored his thighs in time with Mike’s rhythm. He felt deliciously helpless, half on, half off the bed, rocked back with the force of Mike pumping into him. Oh, the feeling of being possessed, of being filled with love made real by physical friction. Sinews like torsion wires under the skin corded Mike’s neck with his effort and Gil wanted desperately to raise his head to slap his tongue against them, but the position Mike had him in kept his upper body glued to the mattress. The harder Mike fucked, the farther back he leaned, the better to push his cock deeper into Gil.
Gil began to thrash his head left and right. He reached down to begin jacking himself but Mike knocked his hand aside. Gil watched through slitted eyes as Mike grasped his cock and began to rub it up and down furiously. “Oh, fuck me, Mike. Oh. I’m gonna come.” And a second later he did. At the first jolt, Mike fell forward over his pumping hand and Gil sensed the powerful orgasm flower deep inside his rectum. Gil’s mind blinked out with the lustful urgency of his own release flowing copiously between Mike’s gripping fingers, and the warmth of Mike’s fountain inside him.
As the tumult started to subside to an inner glow of contentment, Mike manhandled Gil fully back onto the bed and then flopped down and laid his head on Gil’s stomach, one arm flung companionably across his lover’s lower chest, the other tucked under his thighs. He licked at the spunk which spilled from his fingers into Gil’s belly button. He blew a loud raspberry against the slippery skin, then glanced up and gave Gil one of his irrepressible smiles. The sigh of contentment heralded a kiss—belly button, sternum, left nipple, right, crook of the neck, point of the chin … lips. Gil tasted a residue of his own orgasm there, smiled, and responded with an eagerness borne of the dissipated fear which had dogged him since boarding the flight at LAX.
“Glad to be back?” Mike wiggled his dark brows to elicit the answer.
“Oh yes. I can’t wait to start work on something. When can we go to Waitrose shopping? Will we go to town this evening? Paradise, or just a quiet beer at the Nellie Dean—”
“Enough! You need a nap. Get over the jet lag first. Then we’ll see.”
“I’m too worked up to sleep, Mike.”
“Try it, for a bit.”
Gil lay back with a muttered protest and fell instantly into a deep slumber.
* * *
Mike ran a hand across his brow to push a lock of hair from his eyes and stared at Gil in a sense of healing wonder. Asleep, with his shining hair fallen unkempt across his brow, Gil looked more like an innocent child than a man almost grown. He watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, the nearest nipple like a small cherry begging a lick. But he restrained himself, afraid of waking Gil. Mike’s heart swelled with emotion so strongly it robbed him of breath. He lost count of time as he watched like a guardian over his beautiful lover.
Perhaps an hour passed before he stirred and carefully got off the bed to dress without disturbing Gil. He went out to the sitting room and started to unpack the few things Gil had brought with him in the old suitcase. Some pairs of socks, underwear plain and slinky, boxers and briefs, the old cut-off jeans, his so-called dress jacket and pants—the ones he’d worn when he entertained a Swiss businessman as an “escort” in Rome—a couple of shirts, and …
Oh ho, what have we here?
He lifted out the professionally bound mimeographed volume. With its neatly cut, round-cornered, rectangular window in the thicker brown cover, he recognized it immediately as a movie script.
He really has been writing stuff …
It felt sneaky to have a look, but he couldn’t resist. blood of satan, the front page read. Before he knew it, he was about thirty pages in.
SCENE 15 DAY INT. GILLEIS’ COTTAGE
Eric and Gilleis are talking.
GILLEIS: I know. If only there were a way that the power of invocation could pass out of his hands. I’ve had to wait for sixteen years until Kevin was of the age necessary for Satan’s purpose, and now to be robbed of my share because your father has apparently become senile is infuriating. [He wheels on Eric accusingly.] Because of his drunkenness we have missed five Sabbats this year.
ERIC: I know that. But what can we do?
GILLEIS: It could work if we had control over Kevin the way your father does. It must be a trick of his eyes. I’ve seen magicians do it sometimes to fool peasants at a fair. Then Kevin would be our tool.
ERIC: And my father?
GILLEIS: He would no longer be necessary, would he? [with irritation]
ERIC: Fools’ dreams priest. If all else contrived to work how would I be sure of calling forth Sa— Our master? Father has always kept the ceremony secret. Do you know the invocation?
GILLEIS: He snatched the parchment from me at the moment of reading. I haven’t seen it since. He may have destroyed it. [Eric paces in frustration.]
ERIC: Then there is no way. We shall be damned with Father’s failure—
GILLEIS: Then at least make sure he’s fit for tonight’s Sabbat. Seeing how like her mother the Lady Mary is seems to have unhinged him further. And what about Sir John and his men?
ERIC: I’ll deal with them. As for Sir John he’s used to an early bed and after today’s hunting I doubt he will wake. In fact he’s probably asleep in your chapel right now. [Gilleis starts in alarm.]
GILLEIS:What’s he doing in there?
ERIC: I should have thought that obvious. He wished to pray. [Eric guffaws, but Gilleis grows anxious and angry.]
GILLEIS: You fool! He may spot something amiss!
He rushes out.
CUT TO:
SCENE 16 DAY INT. CHAPEL
Sir John is walking slowly back up the aisle …
“Hey! You’re not supposed to be reading that!”
Mike looked up guiltily. “I was unpacking and came across it. You don’t really mind, do you? It sounds pretty good.”
Wearing only the briefs which had been unceremoniously torn off him earlier, Gil stepped up and wrapped his arms around Mike’s neck where he sat at the round dining table in the French window. “You think so?”
“Mm.”
“Jeff thought it wasn’t too bad for a … what he call me? A typo.”
Mike laughed shortly. “You mean tyro.” He wriggled around to kiss Gil on the side of his sleepy mouth. “How does it go on?”
“You’re bored of it already.”
“No.”
“Oh it’s all about possession by the Devil, horrible deaths, all the windows in the church blowing in, that sort of thing.”
Mike turned to the last page …
SCENE 187 DAY, EXT, COUNTRYSIDE
It is early morning and the light is not strong. Ralf drives a rickety cart along a country track. Beside him sit Mary and Alys. Alys stares ahead on the verge of madness.
MARY: Did it really happen? [After a few seconds Ralf sighs.]
RALF: No, my Lady. It wasn’t a dream. But it’s all over now. The evil is buried under Caragnac Castle and there it will remain until the end of time. [He turns and briefly pats her arm.]
RALF: It’s all over now. The Caragnac secret died with Kevin — it can never happen again …
[Mary smiles in agreement. We see her hand go down to her belly and rub it softly … her pregnant belly …]
CLOSE SHOT ALYS: Alys sees the movement and starts fully aware. She stares down at Mary’s belly. Horror lights in her eyes.
BI
G CLOSE SHOT: of the staring eyes.
FADE TO BLACK WITH LOUD MUSIC STING.
“Spooky!”
Gil punched Mike’s arm. “You’re making fun.”
“No, I’m not. Why don’t you have a word with Jim at the Union? I bet he’ll know someone who’ll give it a read.”
“You reckon?”
Mike bounced to his feet, took Gil by the arms and swirled him around in a mock waltz. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, my ol’ ballin buddy.”
“Put me down, you idiot.” Gil laughed and worked free of the grip, but not before Mike deftly dropped a hand to cup his cock and balls. Gil fell against him.
“That Gilleis character, is he you?”
“Fuck no, it’s just a nice medieval name. Though I kinda had you in mind for the part of Satan.”
“In that case I’ll drag you off to Paradise—”
Gil looked purposely obtuse. “Paradise? Doesn’t the Devil have all the best tunes?”
“Frivolous boy! It’d better not be a late night, though. I’ll have to be on location at the crack of dawn. Actually much earlier. Christ it doesn’t get light till nearly eight.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Bar with a Bite
Coming up from the sweaty Underground, the freezing cold of Leicester Square came as a severe shock. Months of living in Los Angeles have spoiled me, Gil thought. The brisk breeze pouring out of Coventry Street didn’t help, so it was with relief he followed Mike through the doors of Paradise and into the familiar long entry way. The blast of heat emanating from the double doors at the end which gave access to the wide stairs down to the depths of the massive club almost knocked him over.