The french window stood slightly open. Air stole through it, redolent of new-mown lawns, and in this breeze Ray Doyle held still, letting it cool the sweat off his trembling limbs. He closed his eyes on the long sweep of garden, the trees and the river beyond, and breathed in, and in, and let it go. Again. To calm himself, before he hurt -

"Oh, God!" - and the cascade of sobs he could no longer hold, shaking his lungs empty. His spine stretched up out of a crucible of pain that used to be his pelvis and his hands convulsed on -

"Doyle, let it go!"

"I'm going to hurt you - "

"You're hurting me now - Jesus, man, don't make me wait - !"

No. Neither of them could wait. They had waited five years, in ignorance, and five hours longer in this hotel room breaking the terrible paralysis of awkwardness and disbelief. Bodie gave a short pained cry his partner could plainly read as a plea to get on with it, but hesitation and an over-solicitous use of KY lost Doyle the inch he had gained and he re-engaged, shuddering, taking his rigid cock in his hand to guide it on this unfamiliar turf. "Bodie, are you - "

"Fine, will you for godsake - "

The demand cut off in a groan. Doyle had never heard him make such a sound; it was deep, sweet, and as he let his hips move at last and bore into him forward and upward it broke into a fractured repetition of his name. Over and over. "Ray." Then - "Oh, sweetheart. Oh. Fuck me."

The endearment almost made it impossible. For one second love opened such broad wings in Doyle's chest that this shattering sex act became irrelevant and he wanted only to hold him or possibly die before anything changed. But when he glanced down he saw that his first thrust had taken him only halfway there, and the vision of his cock shoved tight and hard into Bodie's arse burned his mind clear. Bracing his hands against the table-top he pushed again, and at Bodie's breathless enquiries - "Is that all of you? Are you in me all the way?" - trying to twist round and see - let him have it to the root, with such violence as to leave him in no doubt. He loosed a yell and stood straight up, terrified by this, sweating with pain despite all the lube: Doyle could feel him cramping deep inside. He put his arms around him, embraced for a moment. "It's all right. It's all right. That's all of me, lover; I'll pull right back if you want."

Bodie thought: after all the anguish we've gone through to get you there. "No!" was all he could manage aloud, flesh contradicting him in expulsive waves he tried desperately to stop. But Doyle moved like a swimmer against the tide, held his position, thrust hard and bettered it, hot and solid, and suddenly it felt good to strain against him, channel fear and pain into the work. He heard his sounds of effort with embarrassment for a second then shot to a place where there was no sensation but the exquisite grind of his muscles around the obstruction, the sweaty, heart-pounding labour of bringing himself to climax. Wrenching from Doyle's arms he bent across the desk and grabbed for its far edge: thrust his hips back three, four, five times and suddenly went still.

Frightened, Doyle leaned close to him, tried to look into his face. His pupils were widely dilated, mouth slightly open as if on an inexpressible thought. Quickly Doyle wiped sweat from his brow, kissed the side of it, said his name, reached both hands down to his cock to try and draw him through whatever stasis or overload had paralysed him: gasped in pleasure and relief as the blood-gorged organ spent its load in a powerful white jet and went soft in his hands. But Bodie did not cry out until the spasm hit inside. Doyle felt it with exactitude: the deep, regular squeeze of his bowel wall breaking to a flutter, a series of contractions whose pitch coincided with the yell that finally tore from him. He was pumped dry of seed but his cock jumped as if he would shoot again and he burst into uninhibited sobbing.

Quickly, carefully, Doyle withdrew. He was desperate now for his own release but had loosed something here he had never thought to see: his resilient, hard-bitten colleague entirely undone. He picked him up off the desk, turned him in his arms and held him, grateful when he responded with a rib-crushing embrace and some inarticulate rags of a sentence. "What?" he encouraged, softly, and realised after a moment that it was an apology. "What in God's name for?"

"Not - waiting for you."

No point in denying that there was something to be waited for: his unsatisfied hard-on was painfully crushed against Bodie's hip. He said, roughly, "Well, you didn't expect - perfect orchestration the first time out, did you?" He stroked the dark head on his shoulder. "Please don't cry, lover; please, not over - "

"It isn't over that." Bodie lifted his head, looked into his eyes, smiled and sobbed and caught his reddened lower lip between his teeth. "It's over - you, what you did to me - " He broke off and kissed him with clumsy sweetness and force. "What you made me feel."

Arousal-reddened mouth, waiting, lips parted. Doyle cupped both hands round the back of his skull and returned the kiss: Bodie's next sob sucked the breath from his lungs. Then his partner's tongue was in his throat so deep and hard that his gag-reflex tried to fire, and it was dreadful, beautiful, so sweet that his legs gave under him and his revved-up, frustrated system almost emptied his bladder. "Jesus, no!" A short scalding jet had escaped him: Bodie was holding him up but he disengaged frantically. "Bodie, lemme go for a minute; I've got to - " The pain of clamping down was too much. His vision clouded and he was only dimly conscious of being pushed in the direction of the bathroom. Pain, emotion, three sleepless nights and now this cataclysmic encounter with Bodie - the signals collided within him in a wave of faintness and nausea. "Get out of here," he ordered weakly, leaning over the toilet, hands going clammy on its rim. "I think I'm gonna be sick." He was not, but getting his head down seemed to exorcise the need, and the room stopped spinning as his circulation spared a little blood-flow from his groin. After a moment Bodie helped him straighten up, and he found an embarrassed half-smile and repeated, "Go. I've got to take a leak and I'll never get the plumbing sorted if you watch me."

A warm, strong hand slipped over his abdomen and squeezed hard. Doyle yelped and started to piss uncontrollably, grabbing at his belly-flat erection and shoving it down to direct the flow. No help for it once it had started: cursing Bodie soundly he leaned back against him and let it come in a hot torrent, unable to think of anything to do about Bodie's soft demand, "Let me hold you!" but comply, shuddering, first in mortification then a weird delight at the vision of his partner's hand on his cock. When he was done, Bodie said, "That was beautiful."

"It - it was?" Doyle asked doubtfully, and turned to see him grinning down on him, handsome face alight and a thoroughly resurrected hard-on standing straight and splendid between them. "Well, look what you did to me."

"My God." Other considerations suddenly dropped away, and Doyle swallowed and said with urgency, "My God, Bodie. I want - I want you. If you don't get me off now I think I'm gonna die."

The bathroom was a decent size and Bodie was grateful: they weren't going to get any further. He took time to snatch the KY off the shelf on their tangled, bruising journey to the floor but thought Doyle would give it up and come as they rolled and fought, lean hips pumping down onto him. Then he seemed to think better of it and sat up, eyes brilliant with question. "I want it in me. But I want to see your face. Can I - ?"

"Uh-huh," Bodie assented vaguely, subsiding flat on his back to the carpet at the guiding touch of Doyle's hands. Shaking, his partner knelt astride him, quickly uncapped the KY and rubbed a liberal handful over his cock in a caress Bodie thought he could stand a lot of but tried to edit his response to now. Next problem: the sight of Doyle slicking his own arse: and he gasped and said, "Get on with it before I - de-orchestrate us again."

"Okay," Doyle said, and smiled unsteadily. "Dunno if I can do this. Tip your hips up to me a bit - yes. God, yes, I can feel the - head of it. Did it feel like this to you - ?"

"Like what?" Bodie asked, faintly, biting his lips for control as Doyle's grasp closed on him and guided him up to the tight muscle ring.

"Terrifying - too much. Oh, I can't - "

"You can," Bodie said, reached for his hips and pushed him back and down. Doyle cried, "Don't!" even as his anus gaped to the intruder, then he grabbed Bodie's wrists and bore down in wild acceptance. At full engagement he fell forward, knelt for almost a minute in gasping silence with his head bowed and his whole body rapt in the sensation. Then appetite took over, the need to be released, and he got his balance and began a shy, scared movement. He was so tense the vice of muscle moving up and down Bodie's shaft broached the unbearable and he reached up to him, knowing he had obligatory service sit-ups to thank for the athleticism to do so. "Please. Mate. Gimme a minute." Doyle sat tremulously still, interrogating his face. "You're so tight. Must be hurting you." After a moment Doyle nodded admission, tears spilling. But he was starting to lose his erection with the pain and his muscles were screaming. Bodie stroked his sweat-damped hair. "Look. Ease up for a minute."

"No - Bodie, I want you to fuck me - "

Bodie bit back a moan of desire at hearing it so plainly put and kissed what he could reach of him. "I know. Try stopping me. But we're going to have to - loosen you up a bit first, okay? Okay?" Doyle was nodding mute agreement and together they managed the withdrawal. Bodie said, helping him up off the floor, "More'n one way to skin this cat, you know," and was relieved when he laughed. He glanced across the room and confirmed the presence against the far of a plain, armrest-free, upright chair. Yes. Possible, with a little determination. He took Doyle's wrist and led him unprotesting to stand in front of the chair, into which he lowered himself, smiling, spreading his legs to let his partner see the full stretch his inexperience had not been able to accommodate. "Christ, you're massive," Doyle said with helpless candour.

"You're not so bad yourself."

"Yes, but - "

But there was a size differential. Bodie's grin acknowledged it, wickedly. He said, "And you thought it was just me sunny personality. Oh, it's gonna be all yours in just a minute. Turn around, sunshine."

Doyle did not think he could, but Bodie's hands closed on his hips and left him no option. For a moment he did not think he could bear it: it was terrible, not be able to see him, to be standing alone and so exposed: he was embarrassed, and afraid - then a well-slicked finger rimmed his arse and slipped easily inside. "Oh, Jesus."

"Was that a critical review? Spread your legs a bit. Yes, that's it. Oh, you're a lovely sight."

Something else Doyle was not sure about - but he could not bring himself to care, not now. Bodie's finger moved inside him, probing, warm, easy. It pressed up against the front wall of his bowel and Doyle suddenly shouted out, bent over in spasm, clutching at his knees to stay upright. His cock spilled a thin clear liquid. "What the hell - what the hell is that - ?"

"G-spot?" Bodie suggested, well pleased by this development, but stopping the particular squeeze. "Your prostate, I think. Better leave it alone for the moment; I don't want to lose you. Relax. Breathe. You ready for a bit more?"

More was another finger, carefully inserted, brought to lie close to the first. This too Doyle could manage. It was soothing, delicious. He put his hands down and handled himself, slowly, in sensual joy, keeping up the caress when he felt his anus stretched for the next insertion. "That's it," Bodie whispered. "Good lad; keep it open." The fingertip worked his entrance, easing the muscle, teasing, until Doyle felt he needed the extra width inside him and bore back cautiously to find it. Bodie stifled a moan and stretched the third finger up into him, up past the second joint and in to the knuckles. He moved his arm a little, fucking him gently, pressing his thumb into his cleft. "Okay. You got all of that? Not hurting?"

"Uh-uh," Doyle responded, tranced. He thought Bodie could probably shove his fist inside him right now. He thought he would like that. The only thing he would like more was that big ready cock. Seeming to read his mind, Bodie spread his fingers and slipped slowly out of him, keeping him wide all the way. "You can take it now. No wider than that. Deeper, though." He turned him round, and saw him purged of all his fear and tension: his face a mask of concentration and desire. He found he did not have to prompt him to straddle the chair, take strong hold of the back of it and mount him; he moved like he did this every day of his life. Bodie reached both hands round him to part his buttocks and angle him right, slid down a little in the chair and felt his cock slip into what felt like a hot wet hungry mouth. He gasped as it ate him painlessly, deeper and deeper, Doyle simply letting gravity bring him down until his arse was pressed to his partner's thighs and they were cleaved tight together. More tears came but he was smiling past them now, smiling and watching Bodie as if his life depended on it. "You're okay," Bodie whispered to him, "you're there. Oh Christ, Ray."

For long moments he sat with him in his lap; it was enough. He stroked the flat belly, the line of otter-coloured hair that ran from his navel to the curls at his crotch, lightly teased his shaft until he shook his head and cried, "Don't!", the shock waves rippling through his arse. "Don't make me come."

"You need to."

"Not yet. Not yet."

"Okay, lover." Letting his cock alone Bodie ran lube-sticky fingers up his ribs and planed their tips across his nipples, hard; heard Doyle give a stifled yelp as they contracted. "Feels good?"

"Oh - yes. Why does it - ? God, I don't care, just do it harder. I - oh, hurt me. Hurt me there."

Reluctant to hurt him anywhere but deeply aroused by the demand, knowing the value of pain when pleasure began to shake the foundations of reason, Bodie crushed the blood-flushed flesh between his fingers and thumb, flattened it out until he felt the ribs beneath and squeezed tight again. Doyle moaned and threw his head back; thrust his pelvis hard into Bodie's lap. Bodie felt the heat and the pulse of his balls, felt him on the first rung of a ladder that led to one place only and allowed for no retreat. "Yes. Move like that again." Stopping the maddening caress of his nipples, wanting him to concentrate on what was happening inside him, he reached to help him take some of his weight on his thighs and stand up until a couple of inches of his shaft pulled down out of him. "Okay. Now back here. Hard." Doyle cried out as he slammed back down, feeling the penetration afresh. Together they repeated the withdrawal and re-entry, and Doyle felt descend on him a savage need for movement, friction, hung onto the back of the chair and began to ride his shaft with increasing force and speed. Whipcord muscle stood on his thighs and arms and Bodie let him take it all over, unable to think about anything now but the wild beauty of him and the climax starting to build at the base of his spine.

Thrusting every second now. Doyle felt his leg-muscles only as blocks of numb heat. Suddenly he crashed to a halt and said, almost calmly, "I'm going to come."

Bodie looked up at him, poised, quivering like a drawn bow. Veins were throbbing in his neck, on his temples, the bright flush of arousal painting his chest between the collar-bones. "Yes," he choked out. "Please. Come now." And Doyle spread himself, pushed his thighs as far apart as he could, pressed slowly down and down onto him, a long abrading groan tearing out of his throat. But his cock remained rigid, a few drops of pre-come fluid spilling down its side and nothing more. Bodie reached forward and put both arms tight round him, rocking him on his shaft. "Oh, come on, sweetheart. You gotta let it go." Rocking harder, back and forth: "Come on. Come." He wanted to himself now, very much, so much he was starting to feel sick, and he helplessly pumped his hips up under Doyle, writhing for the contact. But this finally seemed to start to shake his partner free: sweat broke on him in a great wave and he said, hoarsely, "Bodie, tell me what you're feeling!"

Words, now? But looking up into the dilated hazel eyes Bodie saw that he meant it, and somehow managed, "I'm close. On the edge. Move a little and I'll - "

"Yes." Doyle did move, minutely, the tightness of their lock making it a deep exquisite grind. "Keep talking."

"I'm going to come. Like fireworks. Right up into you, oh, move!"

"Talk. Tell me when it starts, when you start to come." The tiny movements deeper now, the earthquake-tremor of nowhere further to go.

"You want me to tell you - "

"Yes. And look at me."

Bodie felt his back start to arch. His hips pushed forward and up, wrenching something in his sacrum. Yet somehow, somehow, he was still in command of himself and of speech: held the explosion like white lightning in the root of his cock and said, "Now. It's now. I'm there, I'm coming, oh Christ Ray - !"

Doyle felt something like a hot water-cannon high inside, something like the same thing start to leave him. For a wild moment he couldn't sort out the sensations and hallucinated his partner's semen ripping out the front of him: screamed voicelessly. His head whipped from side to side. His bowels contorted and sent ring after rippling ring of orgasm down from under his gut: he took hold of his cock and clasped it while the torrent finally came, and Bodie's hands on top of his own, guiding the rush and the flow and the final draining onto his stomach, rubbing it ecstatically up onto his broad chest as he thrashed beneath Doyle a last time, shouted wildly and lay still.

The dark head bowed down to his shoulder, the body's only movement the heave of slowing breath. Gently, gently, Bodie eased his hips back and felt his spent shaft slip out of him in a rush of wetness. Doyle winced as the head left him and Bodie caressed him, remembering the eviscerating pull he had felt when his partner had withdrawn from him. "Okay, love. Over now." He held him straddled over his lap, hands moving strongly up and down his back. "You made it, sunshine. You were incredible."

Slowly, Doyle raised his head and sat up. His face was wet with tears and when he tried to speak his voice cracked. Bodie took hold of him and somehow levered them both to their feet. "Come to bed with me," he said, and it was so belated, so ironically apt when all either had strength to do there was sleep, that they broke into wild laughter.

The bed was wide, cotton sheets cool on feeling-fretted skin. They fell into it together, Doyle managing to put a hand down for the quilt. Both struggled, to stay aware, to mark with some kind of attention this moment of being flesh-to-flesh naked in bed together, and managed almost thirty seconds, using that time to slot together limbs that seemed to know imagination-worn tracks of embrace; cool arse to warm belly; arm under head, round ribs, pulling tight; a kiss that miscarried and connected with the pillow.

---

Bodie woke late, in a pool of sunlight, disoriented. He slipped a hand down over the sheet to feel the fat but undemanding hard-on caused by the fullness of his bladder and wondered if the whole thing had been some elaborate, muscle-wrenching wet dream. Then Doyle stretched and sighed in the bed beside him, and rolling up on one elbow Bodie stared down at his naked back and remembered. A smile tugged the corners of his mouth. Doyle was flat on his stomach, the dip and the arc of his spine pale and lovely in the sun, breath coming regular, a little fast, like a cat's. Desire and mischief lit Bodie's eyes and gently, so as not to wake him, he edged out of the bed, lower back protesting where he had strained to get them both where they were going last night.

In the bathroom he let his aching bladder drain as quietly as he could, washed his hands and went softly back with the KY clasped and warming in one of them. From the end of the bed the view was fine: Doyle had spread his legs and the sheet was down round his thighs. Feeling his cock stir more definitely, Bodie lay down beside him again and put the lightest hand onto his balls. Doyle stirred at the touch, stretched a little and opened his legs, but showed no sign of waking, and taking the sensual move as invitation, Bodie covered his middle finger in the lubricant and laid its tip to his anus. This provoked a deep-throated noise and a small accepting shove up against him, and Bodie went in, slowly, seeking the little raise that covered his prostate and whose stimulation had nearly knocked him off his feet the night before. Ah, there. Carefully, carefully, he exerted a little pressure, a little more, and began a firm precise rub.

Doyle woke up with his cock spearing the mattress and a storm of ecstasy moving in his arse. He got his head off the pillow: heard: "Morning," in an amused, impossible voice, tried to lift off the shattering pressure then fell back onto it groaning. "Lift up," Bodie said conversationally, hooking an arm under his hips to help him, fluttering the finger inside him mercilessly over the ridge of flesh he could feel so clearly now. Quickly he pushed a towel beneath him and laid him back down; watched with satisfaction Doyle thrust and thrust against it and come on the third stroke, hands convulsing on one pillow, pulling another against his mouth to muffle a frank scream. Bodie stayed where he was until the last spasm had rolled down over his finger and withdrew to observe the effects of his work. They were very beautiful: Doyle at length lifting a stunned face to look at him. "Morning," he repeated. "I see you're not always such a challenge to get off as you were last night."

"Just - remind me of your name again - ?"

Bodie grinned and leaned to kiss him. "It'll come back to you." A light tap on the door made Doyle start violently and reach for the sheet, but Bodie unfolded nonchalantly from the bed and shrugged into a dressing-gown. "Don't worry, it's just breakfast." He part-opened the door with smiling calm and rolled a trolley through it from the corridor, saying to somebody Doyle couldn't see, "Yeah, on my account. Okay. Thanks very much." The door closed again and he pushed the trolley up to the bed.

"Breakfast," Doyle echoed, aware that his throat was sore with yelling and his mind post-coitally fogged. "Aren't we going down?"

"What, you want to put on a shirt and tie and make polite conversation with me for the benefit of the waiters?"

"No, but - all this - " He watched his partner uncovering a big fragrant coffee-pot and what looked like a no-holds-barred English breakfast. "Must be pretty expensive."

Bodie poured them both coffee and handed his to him, expression suddenly softening with affection at the sight of his disarray. "Oh, very reasonable, considering. Come on, shift that towel. It's okay, it's one of ours! Sit up and eat."

One of ours. Obeying him, discovering in the process that he was ravenous, Doyle thought about the subtle evolution by which their daily belongings had become shared. Books, jumpers, towels. He looked up at Bodie, amused, and his partner grabbed his plate and the newspaper and came to sit next to him in the bed, putting an arm round his shoulders. "Domestic enough for you?"

"I could use a little domesticity. Last night was pretty wild, Bodie."

"I know." He sobered, hearing the faint tremor in Doyle's voice. "Did we go too fast, sunshine?"

"Oh - " He smiled. "No complaints. I'd've gone faster if you hadn't been there keeping me sane." He picked up a quarter of tomato and offered it to the generous mouth which gave a lascivious twitch and opened slowly to take it. "You going to read that paper, or what?" Another quarter: and this time Doyle felt his fingers caught, warmly sucked, with astonishing results not far south. He shifted, not entirely sure he wanted Bodie to see how turned on the gesture had made him. But somehow the plates were slipping off the bed along with the newspaper, walls and ceiling changing places to Doyle's red-dazzled vision. He let Bodie move on top of him with dreamy elation, bearing him sideways to stretch over the mattress. His weight was hot, solid, dark eyes fixing on his with love and purpose. He undid his dressing gown and Doyle reached to open it, moaning in pleasure as their naked shafts touched and pressed tight. This was not going to be complicated - or prolonged, Doyle realised, sinking his fingers into Bodie's arse as it began to buck down on him. "Don't wait!" he ordered him as he reached the edge and tried to hang back. "I don't want you to." He opened his legs, felt Bodie's cock lift hard and high between them, felt the man begin to move again and a sudden cry shake him. "It's okay!" He held his Bodie's arse between his hands, pulled him up and forward, and Bodie clamped tight to him and finished violently on his belly. He had time for some vague concern about the bed-linen: then Bodie had wrenched from his embrace and was sliding down his body, kissing, sucking, pulling first one nipple into his mouth and then the other, tonguing his navel - he jolted and gasped and tried to twist away - and before the trickles of semen could roll down Doyle's sides was licking them away, quick and determined as a bear with a cub.

The bear had his cock in its mouth. Blindly Doyle interrogated the ceiling, flung his legs wide, bit down on a handful of sheet. Involuntarily his hips came up and drove his cock deep in Bodie's throat, and Bodie struggled to keep it there, on his knees on the carpet. He retched helplessly but held him by the buttocks beyond retreat, heaved again, but somehow provided he was not actually sick even this was erotic, the push against another barrier: the weight on the root of his tongue blocking his airway - red hazed his vision and hot salt poured down his throat. When the flow eased, the pressure did too, and he sucked in air, feeling Doyle's hands go into his armpits and lift, hearing the shaken, beloved voice: "What the fuck did you think you were doing? Come up here, come here." Kissing the scalding tears off his cheeks, finding the quilt to pull over them. The scent of him -

Darkness.

---

It was early evening, a luminous city haze settling blue over the skyline. Doyle picked up their holdalls as Bodie brought the car around and trotted down the portico steps to meet him. He didn't pull off from the kerb straight away, and Doyle followed his gaze, back up to the bright-lit windows. After a moment Doyle asked, softly, "D'you think we did everything?"

Bodie regarded him, expression unfathomable. "I don't know," he said, and added after a short tense pause, "Why? Was that it?"

"I thought - I thought you might want it to be."

"God, Ray, why?"

"Well - you took all the trouble of booking us that lovely room, I - oh, I dunno, Bodie, I thought you might want it to begin and end there."

"No point in asking you back to my place then." He waited until Doyle got the message and smiled. He looked pleasantly exhausted, showered and freshly shaved. "I booked us that room so we could see what there was for us - without the phone ringing or your damn cat jumping on us or anybody having to do the washing up."

"It's not my damn cat," Doyle said, happily. "But if you're serious about the invitation, I'd better stop off and feed her."

---

His flat, when he opened the door, struck him coldly, and his neighbour's tabby queen jumped down off the sofa and ran to him yelling soft imprecations, seeming to share the feeling. "Sorry, Violet. Didn't mean to abandon you." The cat trailed him round the kitchen as he cleaned out her litter tray and opened a tin for her, then forgot his existence in favour of dinner. Doyle found clean underwear in the dryer then went through to his bedroom for a change of shirt.

Unusually, the image in his mirror stopped him short. His eyes were brilliant, mouth swollen and a little bruised. He stared for almost a minute before realising he was searching for whatever it was in that too-pale, lifeworn face that had made his partner want to screw him for 24 hours straight and invite him home afterwards for more. No. He could not see it. Suddenly he laughed at himself and gave up; examined the image of the dim-lit rooms behind him instead. Strange, functional place. He slept here and that was about it. There were books and a few pictures but somehow it wasn't convincing, not as a home. Not in the light of a much better offer, put to him on the kerb outside five minutes ago. He hadn't been able to answer: too much too soon. But why did he live here? His few off-duty hours were spent mainly with Bodie. He ate out, more often than not, and if they had paperwork they tended to spread it out on the kitchen table in Bodie's comfortable flat. He supposed that at least it was convenient for Violet.

A thud in the corridor outside interrupted his none-too-coherent chain of thought, and the lights went on in his neighbour's flat like a last denial. Scooping up his visitor, he followed the sounds of arrival and unpacking, tapping lightly on the open door. "Jan?"

She straightened up from unfastening an enormous rucksack. "Oh, hi, Ray." Smiling, she came and took the cat from him. "Thanks for looking after her. God, you look whipped. She been keeping you up?"

"Uh - no. Not her."

"Oh." Smile broadening. "Well, I know how much good it'll do me to ask. D'you want some coffee?"

"No thanks. I'm - on my way out. I'll go get Violet's things for you."

"Thanks a lot. Don't suppose you've seen any sign of Vita?"

"No, sorry." He stood looking at Jan. She was slender and seemed suddenly painfully young to him. He wanted to ask her: is it very difficult? Day by day? How do you get by? Do you tell people, or wait for them to ask?

Will I have the courage, to live as you do?

"Ray? Is something the matter?"

He shook himself. "No. I - er, have you heard from Elizabeth?"

"Yes." And Doyle could have tanned in the glow that came off her. Answer to all the unaskable questions. "She's coming home this weekend."

---

Bodie opened the door for him but did not put on the lights. He followed him silently through into the hall. All Doyle could see of him was the glimmer of his eyes - then he was slammed back against the door, skull impacting loudly. Instantly Bodie stopped the attack, murmuring, "Oh shit," looking anxiously into his face - but Doyle, in whom the strangest passivity had taken hold, shook his head and said, "I'm okay." More carefully, Bodie thudded him back against the woodwork again; bent to kiss him and pulled away before their lips brushed. He reached down and placed a warm hand on Doyle's groin, slowly closed his grasp, and felt him try to come erect beneath his palm and the constricting denim. "Tell me what you want, Doyle."

Doyle. He had used nothing but "Ray" and endearments since unfastening his shirt the night before. There was a snap of authority in the use of his working-week title that made Doyle suspect he knew, perfectly well. He was shocked at himself all over again: at his hunger, after such recent satiation, and the method, luridly daubed across his imagination, by which he needed his partner to ease it. "Bodie, I don't know where this is coming from."

"Apologise for it and I'll knock the living crap out of you."

You do know. Oh, God. "I - I'm sorry - "

He was down on his knees on the floor, staring at the hallway's nice Persian rug. The rug. He had made Bodie buy it, on the Portobello Road, sometime last year. Because he spent so much time there and was sick of looking at the lino. Because at some point he would be slapped down onto it with his head spinning and his erection trying to pop his button-fly Levi's - ?

Not what I had in mind -

But he had had it somewhere; this need. Always. A powerful fist closed on his shirt-collar and hauled him to his feet. Bodie saw the trace of blood at the corner of his mouth and for a moment stopped everything, dropped back into his familiar role and interrogated Doyle's face with urgent concern. Doyle evaded his eyes, the signal clear. Bodie murmured, "Okay," and deliberately, carefully, slapped him down again, a flathanded blow that left Doyle in no doubt of his seriousness. He propped himself on hands and knees, gasping, not sure he could get up again. But it was not necessary: here would do, since Bodie was unbuckling his belt and hauling his jeans and jockeys down over his hips. The leather slipped free of its loops with a slithering hiss and a second later cracked hard across his back: he gave a great start and cried out. A burning band flared across his skin. He dropped his head and levered his weight down onto his elbows. "God!" Pain and humiliation rushed through him, followed by a marrow-deep wish, instantly granted, to feel the belt again. Again. Again.

Bodie stood over him, softly panting. He watched the four red weals coming up across Doyle's spine and ribs. There were tears in his eyes and a terrible question at his heart concerning what the hell they both thought they were doing. But if he had loved Doyle over the past five years, he had been bitterly angry with him, too. Doyle took risks with himself, pushed his health and his stamina until Bodie wondered if he actually wanted his life simplified or terminated by physical collapse. Something they never talked about. But Bodie had ordered him sometimes, ordered or asked and on one occasion begged him, to wait, to slow up, to keep his stupid head down, and been ignored - "Damn you, what the hell are you trying to make me do?"

On the carpet in front of him, Doyle put his face in his hands and sobbed, and Bodie wrapped the belt's buckle-end more firmly round his fist and let him have it.

When the beating found his arse at last Doyle loosed a howl and brokenly cursed him. His cock had gone limp, unnoticed: something more urgent happening inside. Bodie straightened up, mouth dry, and made careful aim, each cracking blow a little closer to his testicles. Doyle's skin was up in ridges where he had been, red-white stripes. Suddenly tossing the belt aside, Bodie knelt behind him and ran a hard caress down over the freshest of them, one buttock then the other, and that broke his silence. Listening with satisfaction, Bodie grabbed the nearest holdall and threw everything out of it until he found the KY, then uncapped it and unceremoniously pushed the metal opening into Doyle's arse. Doyle shuddered and cried out as he squeezed the tube, feeling the lube go cold and deep. Then Bodie shoved down his pants and ploughed into him, to the root on the first stroke. For a second Doyle was aware of his own sounds and worried about the neighbours - then there was nothing but inthrust and withdrawal, nothing but the shattering impossible pleasure of being fucked in the arse, violently now, Bodie's hands squeezing wildfire pain from the beltmarks up and down his back. The impact of his pelvis would have knocked him flat but Bodie wanted him where he was: took hold of his hipbones and rammed home again and again. The welts seemed to grow hot, the rest of him icy: in the dark he would glow like a tiger, he thought, very vaguely, orgasm coming, his anus folding in on itself then dragging back, in and back, unendurable -

"Jesus Christ Bodie!"

A darkness had fallen, too sweet for a faint. They were in Bodie's living room, somehow; he was somehow on his knees between Bodie's legs. Bodie was sprawled in an armchair in a pool of orange street-light: putting Doyle to suck on his cock like a child. Half-conscious, he began, the instinct older than his sexuality. He felt the man's hips lift in a long slow heave under his hands and mouth and leaned down deeper, feeling with his tongue the pulse of the big vein on his underside. Moaning, Bodie took handfuls of his hair, tugging lightly, letting go. "Get me off," he ordered, hoarsely, and being so commanded brought Doyle back from the brink: he clasped Bodie's arse in his hands and lifted with his next thrust, waiting with profound new excitement to know how it would feel to have him come in his mouth. But they were both exhausted and Bodie was straining hard after the release he had attained so easily over the preceding hours: his back arched and his effort miscarried. Half-suffocated, Doyle worked harder, tonguing him, reaching underneath him to rub the skin around his anus. The next peak hit and Bodie sat suddenly forward in the chair and leaned to embrace him, releasing the faintest disbelieving cry. Clamped to him, eyes squeezed tight, Doyle opened his throat and let in the future.

-- THE END --

circa February 2001