The first time. It had been the first time. At once far more important and far less terrible than his wild imaginings, as if all the worry and concern and anticipated pain at the loss of what could only laughingly be called innocence -- and then only innocence of a type for there where few people, he considered, less innocent than himself -- had all been without cause or substance. Needless.

The night had, in fact, only contained delight. A slow burning, soul-deep awareness of joy unimagined. A meeting of more than flesh. An acknowledgement of far more than passion.

Though there had been more of that than he expected.

Lazily, muscles trembling with overexertion, he reached out and with a certain amount of wonder, touched the fine beads of sweat that curved between the smooth, bite-reddened ripeness of Doyle's lip and the shadowy roughness of growing stubble. Doyle moved slightly, then his breathing deepened, warm and alive across Bodie's knuckles as he slept on.

Bodie smiled in secret, holding the pleasure of this moment to himself, resting his hand where it was, touched by his new love's breath.

---

He might have slept, but the world was unchanged when he opened his eyes. Doyle still lay, half curled towards him, the room was still in shadowed darkness.

It had all happened.

There was no space in him at all to be sorry.

Doyle he would worry about later.

Very slowly, he pulled the thin bed-cover away, peeling it away from Doyle's sun-browned, sleep-warmed skin; careful, so careful not to disturb, to waken.

As the cotton left him naked, Doyle slept on. Or appeared to. Bodie wasn't sure if the state was real or if Doyle was awake and pretending, playing along with Bodie's obvious wish to be the voyeur. Whatever. It didn't matter. The all-too-sharp green eyes were closed, the shrewd knowing that would have assessed this moment and held all their futures in the balance of sarcasm and smile, guarded isolation and warm acceptance was asleep. Naturally or in deception. It didn't matter. All that mattered was the unknown freedom to watch, to see, to appreciate and admit admiration and affection and delight. (Maybe more. Maybe.)

None of which would happen if the cloudy green eyes opened and the reality of Raymond Doyle was there.

But the dark lashes remained still. The cover slipped off the curve of tilted hip and Doyle was naked.

He had, at one time or another throughout the long night, touched and kissed every part of that skin. He knew the slight differences in its texture with all the precision of a scientific pioneer. Smooth at the jut of thin-skinned hip-bone, smoother where the back dipped into an elegant hollow before curving lushly outwards again, the skin there lightly haired, rough under his tongue, until it was smooth again, though darker, muskier, and he was inside, touching with his mouth and self the intimacy he had dreamed about, abasing himself to give pleasure in a way that he had never imagined.

Bodie shivered and remembered every inch of given skin, almost shuddered as he remembered the echoing flicker of Doyle's tongue as it searched and found in return an animal need that had bruised and scarred.

The marks were there before his eyes. On his own body as well.

All of it had been more than anything he had ever been given before. Ever. More than he had ever given.

Bodie felt his cock flex against his lax balls, the return, the idea even, of returning desire painful, hopeless. There was only energy left to gaze, to remember.

And acknowledge secretly that the body really was very beautiful.

Had he ever, even as a boy, a youth, a fever-driven man foreseen this? He assessed the moment, breath tight drawn, and realised that he could never have believed he would feel like this.

Perhaps couldn't believe that he did now.

Yet now was the moment he would have chosen to have Doyle cast in bronze, in gold, in mercury, in the quicksilver of his thoughts. Now, in the peace after the battle-scarred hours of their loving, after the long dance that might in another world have been called courtship, after the tenderness, the encompassing forgiveness that had been Doyle when it was all over, just as he had drifted without distrust or wariness or uneasiness into sleep.

Before the world returned with a rush of displaced dreams.

For this was everything that shouldn't be. Don't fuck your partner. That rule had been carved in flame a thousand years before. Don't. Cowley had merely set the words in granite. And granite would crumble in time. Though it had, in fact, only needed the lingering touch of Doyle's finger on his arm, that knowingness that occasionally sat behind the street-slick front that Doyle presented to the world, the sparks that flew in incandescence when they were alone, and no man-made rule mattered. Or God-made. They had walked through fire before and lived. This was no different. (A lie, but he didn't care.)

They had their own Gods anyway.

Bodie knew he was looking at his.

And if this one night was all that Doyle wanted?

Bodie shuddered, stricken by a sort of pain as he knew beyond doubt that Doyle had to feel the same. He had to. There had been no mis-reading of the words or actions, shown or imperfectly hidden. Had there?

Had there?

He flinched as Doyle awoke, slowly flexing his neck, opening his eyes and smiled. Bodie had seen a few smiles he would have killed for, but never before one he would willingly have died for.

There was nothing he could do but smile in return.

-- THE END --