(part of Jane Carnall's "The Fox and the Wolf" Bodie/Cowley series)


Funerals were a part of the job, but they never grew any easier. Jesse Ilwain had been thirty-four.

The weather hadn't even had the courtesy to turn up appropriately grey. It was late in a warm summer afternoon, and the slanting sunlight only made it the more incongruous, how the clump of men and women in black huddled together by the side of the open grave as the preacher read, slowly, from the book of Job. That was the family, of course. The CI5 agents, here to witness the passing of one of their own, stood scattered on the other side of the grave, and Cowley to one side. The agents didn't huddle, didn't touch, as Ilwain's parents did, holding one another's hands and wiping tears from their eyes. Some looked uncomfortable in their suits; all were discreetly armed, even here. But their eyes glinted, dry and fierce, as they watched the box go into the earth, and listened stoically to the first clods thudding on its lid.

When the droning voice had ceased, Cowley went around and spoke to the Ilwains, a few brief words. Expressing his regrets. He hated this part of the job. "I'm sorry for your loss. Yes. A great loss to us all. A fine young man." His knee twinged a little, and he shifted his weight discreetly.

"At least he didn't suffer," Ilwain's sister was saying to her parents. They'd been told that, of course, and in this case it might even be true. A car wreck, he'd told them. Killed instantly, but a nasty mess, I'm afraid; a closed-coffin ceremony. It had to be closed, of course. The stab wound, in the back, wouldn't have shown; but nothing could disguise the look of a man who'd been under water for a week.

Ilwain dead, and with him any hope of penetrating the drugs ring that had been operating in the Midlands. If they'd spotted him, they'd be scrutinizing all of their contacts, far too closely to risk another agent under cover. He'd pulled the others out even before the body had been found. Redman, who'd been unable to back his partner up, hadn't even argued; a bad sign, that. He stood by the grave, cold-eyed; the other agents had ranged themselves around him in a scattering that looked random and wasn't, at all. Two weeks' leave, and Cowley knew he'd have to think hard about where to put him after that. Not the slap in the face of a desk in Records, but training, perhaps, or the B-squad for a while. He couldn't afford to lose both men, but he'd learned the hard way not to repartner a man too quickly.

And wasn't it a fine thing, he scolded himself, to be standing at a dead man's grave and thinking how best to use the one left alive? The Ilwains were thanking him, pressing his hand and saying how proud they were of their son, how proud Jesse had been of the work he'd been doing. He returned the grip automatically, suddenly tired. He'd been burying young men since he'd missed the chance to be buried young himself, it seemed.

The funeral group was fragmenting, now, the Ilwains saying a few words to a few agents they'd known and turning to make their slow way back to their cars, a clump of cousins and aunts and uncles around the couple and their daughter. There was a thread running tighter through the agents behind him, like a string pulled taut and then plucked. Released from the bonds of decorum, released from the grief of relatives who would never be told the full story, they were flexing their shoulders to settle holsters under their unaccustomed suit jackets, converging slightly on Redman. The minister might have meant Ilwain's family when he spoke of "the bereaved," but CI5 had its own unspoken understanding of such things. Cowley stood aside, watching them. In a moment he would nod and turn away to his car, and the rest of them would go off--together, Cowley expected. The squad showed a tense cohesion at these times, and doubtless some of them were only waiting for the boss to leave, along with the civilians. He supposed they'd take Redman back to his flat, where he could be put decently to bed at day's end. For himself, Cowley had the usual stack of paperwork to be gone through, waiting in his car. He'd bring it home and work through it over whatever Mrs. Adler had left him to eat.



Bodie stood at a parade rest he'd perfected by the time he was twenty through the sermon and the lowering of the coffin, Doyle to one side of him, Redman to the other. He hadn't known Ilwain well, but CI5 was small, and the A-squad smaller still; smaller with every funeral. Doyle moved toward him when the minister finally closed his book, and Bodie let himself slump imperceptibly as his partner came up.

Funerals were hell, and they never got any easier. Worst when they were like this, with Redman stonefaced and flat-eyed, and Doyle alive and breathing by Bodie's side. Bodie wasn't even on active status, supposed to be home recovering from concussion, but no CI5 agent missed a funeral if he could get there; few enough could, between the shifts they worked. Eight were here, besides Cowley and Redman.

Bodie urgently wanted a drink, the more so because, in the wake of a concussion, he couldn't have one. The squad would take Redman back to his place and pour whatever he had down him, let him do whatever he needed and never remind him of it, whether it was throw up, pass out, or burst into tears. 'Til death do us join, but it was never that easy. When Rabin had swung the length of plank into the back of Bodie's head, the last thing he'd seen had been Doyle, two paces ahead and not even realizing yet that Rabin had doubled back behind them. He'd woken in hospital, searching for his partner even before he was fully conscious. Doyle had been just outside, arguing with the nurse who wouldn't let him in. When he came through the door, whole and angry and relieved, Bodie felt tension leave him like a gasp.

The family were going now, and Doyle was waiting by his side like a counterweight, as the squad pulled itself together around Redman. At every New Year party, they toasted the names of any agents who'd died that year. The roll call was sometimes raucous, sometimes solemn; but it was the funeral wakes that pulled them together again around the gap in the lineup, the space the dead man--or woman, they'd be calling Lorne this year as well--left behind. If he couldn't have a drink, if he hadn't known Ilwain well enough to have any stories of him to tell, he could at least sit and listen to the others, soak in the knowledge of Doyle alive and his own headache receding, and see his partner home if he got plastered with the rest.

Cowley had gone over to shake Ilwain's father's hand, and, as Bodie was about to fall in beside Doyle, he saw Cowley's eyes pass over his agents as he turned away from the clump of mourners toward his car. His cool gaze caught Bodie's for a moment, a pause so slight Bodie wasn't even sure he'd meant it.

It had been over a week since he'd been home with Cowley last. He'd had a night in hospital after the run-in with Rabin, and before that there'd been a political flap of some kind that kept Cowley busy every evening. And before that, he'd been out to dinner with Inger, and he'd already left the house when Cowley called. Nine days of the precise voice calling him by number, watching him across the battered desk, with Doyle hovering next to him and Kirsty in the outer office. Abruptly he missed Cowley fiercely, wanted the wiry arms around him, the eyes holding his; but not now. Not with Doyle looking at him expectantly, and the others already beginning to move toward their cars. Redman's walk was a little less steady, and Carter was carefully, wordlessly pacing him.

He'd never said no to Cowley, unless they were in the middle of a fight. It made Doyle angry, he knew that; Doyle thought he hopped when Cowley said "frog." But it wasn't like that. They had so little time; was it unfair of him to want all he could get?

Was it unfair of Cowley?

He stood unmoving as Cowley came up to him and stopped. "How's the head, 3.7?"

"OK, sir. Aches a little."

Cowley eyed him briefly. Bodie could feel, without looking, Doyle's vaguely hostile stare at them both.

"Put your leave to good use, 3.7. Finish The Nine Tailors; you'll appreciate it."

That meant come over tonight. Two weeks ago Bodie had started on Cowley's shelf of Dorothy Sayers mysteries, while Cowley read the nightly stack of files; he'd worked his way through the Kipling.

"Yes, sir," he answered after a moment. What else could he say?

Doyle, lips pressed together, was dragging him toward the car. He climbed in and didn't say anything as Doyle drove off, too fast, following the rest of the agents toward Redman's flat. But after a minute Doyle spoke, without looking at him.

"You're not staying, I take it."

There was an ache in Bodie's chest, a hollow that made him want to touch his partner; but that would be a mistake. And besides, Doyle was right. He wasn't. "For a while, Ray. I wouldn't walk out on Redman." Or you.

"Yeah, right." The gearshift was wrenched with a force that was tightly absent from Doyle's voice. He didn't say anything else, though, until the car was parked and Bodie was reaching to unbuckle his safety belt.

"One of those days that thick skull of yours might not be so lucky."

Bodie sighed, untangled himself, and turned to look at his partner. Doyle was watching him with an expression both angry and pleading. There was too much that Bodie wanted to say; the words crowded his head, and most of them he shouldn't even be thinking, let alone saying to his partner on the day of a CI5 funeral. Either of us could be dead tomorrow, Ray, do you think I don't know that? and I don't want to go, I need to be with you, and I have to go, he wants me. Cowley wants me. He'd never quite gotten used to believing that Cowley loved him. Wanted him, yes; Bodie knew, objectively, that he was attractive. But that Cowley liked him, was genuinely interested in him--that could still make Bodie's chest fill with stunned pride. That he could make Cowley smile. The times when Cowley had simply talked with him, had wanted Bodie's help in scrutinizing some tangled problem, had paused to deliberate, carefully, over a suggestion Bodie had made, gave Bodie a feeling matched only by the first time he had come in Cowley's arms.

They stared at each other, silently, for another long moment; then Doyle got out of the car. Bodie followed him inside.

The gathering was stiffly tense at first. There was a pattern, a shape, to wakes like these, and Bodie had grown to know it too well over the years. They started out silent and uncomfortable, none of them wanting to speak first, and all of them wary of Redman's shock, not knowing what he needed. After a while Carter said something, retold a joke Ilwain had told her once, and they all watched Redman to see how he'd take it; if this was to be a morbidly funny remembrance, or grimly mournful. But the bleak look on his face slipped slightly, almost unwillingly, and someone filled his glass again.

Hours later they had all, except Bodie, had considerably more to drink, and Ilwain had been memorialized in accounts of everything from his black belt in judo to improbably obscene details of his sex life. Redman had told them, haltingly, how his partner had held his head while he vomited, the first time he'd shot someone at close range. It never went into the report. Tears were slipping down his face when he'd finished, and Carter pressed his hand.

Bodie had listened, poured drinks and joined in when he could, but as the time went by he felt himself more and more distant from the rest. They were half-cut, Redman especially, and the web was being rewoven among them; knitting Redman back into their midst and all of them to each other. Except him; he sat with them, listened and refilled glasses with alcohol he couldn't drink, but he couldn't let them pull him in. Surreptitiously he checked his watch, and realized that it was time he left. Cowley would be waiting.

He'd been surreptitious, but Doyle had seen. As he got up, Doyle strafed him with a glare, and then looked angrily away. Jax was just coming out of Redman's kitchen with a plate of bread and cheese; he put it down on the coffee table among the clutter of glasses and looked at Bodie curiously. "Bathroom's through there," he said, pointing.

"No. I'm-- I've got to be going," Bodie said.

That got almost everyone's attention. No one said anything; but faces turned to him with questioning surprise. "My head," said Bodie, and gestured vaguely. "Sorry. I wish I could stay."

Jax looked surprised, then puzzled; a couple of the others frowned. Doyle wasn't looking at him at all. Bodie leaned over Redman, couldn't think of anything to say, and finally punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Sorry," he said again, to all of them.



He wasn't sure why he had invited Bodie home that night. He hadn't been planning to; the timing was bad to begin with, and with the funeral in the afternoon he had more than the usual workload to get through that evening. He supposed that Bodie had been planning to spend the evening with the others; he understood that it was an unofficial tradition, at least among the A-squad. But it had been a long time, and somehow he never got used to missing Bodie. He'd been almost surprised to hear himself issue the invitation, and more so when Bodie agreed.

Bodie turned up on his doorstep at quarter past nine, looking tense. He hung his jacket up and sat down in the chair by the bookshelves without a word, and Cowley didn't say anything either, except to suggest that he make a pot of tea. Bodie pushed himself up again and went into the kitchen. Cowley watched him move, and felt himself tighten involuntarily. Bodie was so damned goodlooking. He looked at his own hands opening the next folder: lined and spotted, and he laid them flat on the desk. Bodie didn't seem to want to talk, and he didn't know what to say to him; but sometimes they didn't need to talk.

And sometimes they did. "How is Redman?"

Bodie came back into the sitting room with two mugs, steaming slightly. He put one down on the desk, among the papers. "Drunk," he said shortly.

No surprise, there. "The squad's with him, then?"

"Yeah. Left them there; they'll be at it all night, I should think."

But Bodie had left them, and come to him. It wasn't right, wasn't fair of him to make Bodie choose like that; he was sorry he'd done it, but at the same time he was poignantly glad of the choice Bodie had made. He wasn't sure if Bodie was, though; and if Bodie was angry, well, he had the right.

Bodie was watching him, not drinking his tea. After a moment he shrugged slightly and went over to the armchair again, grabbing a book from the shelves. The Nine Tailors. Cowley went back to the file.

He worked for another half hour, until the news came on, and Bodie got up to join him on the sofa, watching it. Halfway through the program Bodie's arm was around his shoulder, and he began stroking the skin of Cowley's neck, slowly and lightly. The touch sent chills along Cowley's spine and into his groin. You're fifty-eight years old, man, he told himself, get a grip on yourself; but he had no idea what the last few items were about.

The program was scarcely over when Bodie leaned forward and switched the set off. He turned to Cowley with a look that was at once intense and shuttered. "Come on. Come upstairs."

Cowley barely had time to fold his clothes and put them on the chair before Bodie's arms came around him from behind and he was pulled back against the other man's naked body, Bodie's erection hard against his backside. He turned in the tight grip with some difficulty; Bodie was wide-eyed, breathing heavily. "What is it?"

"Nothing. I just--" and Bodie broke off and kissed him, hard. Cowley returned it, his tongue in Bodie's mouth, and the younger man shuddered in his arms and brought them both onto the bed. He was obviously aroused, very much so, and Cowley wondered at it even as he rubbed himself against Bodie, waiting for his slower reactions to catch up to his lover's.

Flattering, and disconcerting, for Bodie to be this eager. He often was; and Cowley still wasn't used to it. "What would you like?" Bodie's hands were at his groin, urging him to stiffness; he reached down and stroked Bodie's nipple, then his cock, feeling him gasp and shudder again. He smiled. "Shall I suck you?" He remembered, vividly, Bodie's shout as he came, and the taste of him in his mouth.

But Bodie shook his head against Cowley's neck and stayed where he was, face tucked against him, hands moving roughly. Cowley groaned and pushed into them. There was something Bodie wasn't telling him, he could tell that without trying; but if Bodie didn't want to talk about it, he wouldn't pry. Bodie had a right to his privacy; and, too, if Bodie was angry at him for forcing the choice he'd made that evening, he didn't need to hear it. He knew what he'd done, and, God help him, he couldn't regret it.

Then Bodie pushed away and slid down the length of his body, mouth trailing across his stomach and onto his cock. Cowley gasped with the warm, wet shock of envelopment, and thrust helplessly. Good, so good, and he cradled Bodie's skull lightly, Bodie's hair like feathers against his fingers as his head moved. Arousal was pulsing through him now, Bodie's tongue strong and soft and insistent; he spread his legs further as Bodie pushed against them, running his fingers along the runnel of flesh at the base of Cowley's balls, and then clutching his buttocks in a grip almost painfully tight. Cowley squirmed and pushed up into Bodie's mouth.

Then Bodie's fingers moved again, and the heat climbing through his body abruptly stilled.

Bodie had gone motionless, too, but he didn't look up. His head was still bent under Cowley's palm, but his finger against Cowley's anus pushed again, harder, and Cowley felt the first intrusion. "Bodie..."

Bodie raised his head a little, and Cowley felt himself slip from his mouth. "Be quiet," Bodie muttered, not harshly, but with a kind of desperation. "Please... I want to--be inside you. Please." He still hadn't looked up.

Be inside him. Cowley had--been inside Bodie--fucked him--four times, over the five months since Bodie had first talked him into doing it. There was no question that Bodie liked it. Loved it, even, his breath quickening from the first touch of a greased finger, once coming without even a hand at his groin, only Cowley moving hard within him. But there were aspects of the act that Cowley carefully avoided thinking about, and he always washed, after. That Bodie liked it, he accepted. That Bodie might want to do it to him had never occurred to him.

It should have, though. Rubbing against each other like teenagers, using their hands--it couldn't be enough for Bodie. And he wasn't very good with his mouth, he supposed, though he liked going down on Bodie. He liked fucking him well enough, though not with the urgency that was in Bodie's voice. And if Bodie wanted him--this lined face and crippled body and old man's hands--

As Bodie pushed his legs still farther apart he flinched, abruptly and painfully embarrassed. There was the smell; once he and Bodie had briefly sucked each other, and with his nose between Bodie's buttocks he'd had to hold his breath until he could shift position again. There was what he'd seen once on himself as he stepped into the shower afterward, his gorge rising as he looked away again. He could let Bodie fuck him, but he hated to have Bodie touching him, seeing him there.

Bodie had already made a long arm for the Vaseline left in the bedside cabinet from the last time, three weeks before, and opened the jar. Cowley held himself motionless through sheer will as the clammy stuff was smeared into him. Bodie was murmuring something, half-muffled against him, but he couldn't hear what it was; and anyway Bodie soon took his cock into his mouth again. The finger slid into him with that strange gut-churning feeling he'd only had at his yearly physical, when the doctor would mutter something about the prostate and pull on one rubber glove. The jelly was mucous and slimy, oozing out of him as the finger twisted. He cringed, without moving.

Bodie pulled his finger out, to Cowley's intense but short-lived relief; he pushed two in again, and what felt like still more Vaseline. Cowley's erection wavered, but he managed to keep it, Bodie pulling at him with lips and tongue; that felt good, but he was queasily distracted. Then the fingers left him again, and the mouth, and Bodie was lying by his side, breath coming quickly. Waiting.

"I can't kneel, Bodie," he said harshly. He might have been able to; his knee was actually not bad at all today. But he didn't know how hard this would be, and he couldn't bear the humiliation of crumpling under Bodie's weight. He knew exactly how damaged he was; he didn't have to rub it in both their faces. Bodie put a hand on his chest, and Cowley tensed before he registered that there was no jelly or--anything else--on the fingers. It had been the other hand.

"I know," Bodie answered, and that was almost worse than the risk of collapsing. "Lie on your side." He pushed Cowley to roll over with his back to him, and pressed up against him from behind; one thigh pushed Cowley's top leg, the bad one, forward and slid between. Cowley steeled himself, and felt Bodie's hand pulling his buttocks apart, and the first imperious shove against his anus.



The need had swamped Bodie, halfway through the book he hadn't been reading, watching Cowley ignore him for the files. Doyle's glare, and Jax's incomprehension--he'd practically spat in the squad's face, and now Cowley wasn't even looking at him. Sat watching the bloody news--lies, damned lies, and statistics, the lot of it--with his face straight ahead, even after Bodie'd begun caressing his neck. Bodie was angry, and afraid. Doyle and Cowley, the two people in the world he could least afford to be angry at; but the alternative seemed to be to leave, to cut himself off from both, and he couldn't do that. Quite simply, he couldn't; he felt too cut off already: from his partner and the squad for Cowley and now from Cowley because--he didn't know why. The need was physical, he couldn't speak it, and he was drowning in it. He nearly dragged Cowley up the stairs.

Mine. The word was in his mind as he went down on Cowley, felt more than heard the other man's hissing breath as he took him in. At first he'd thought he'd want Cowley to fuck him; the weight of the other man's body on him, in him, a welcome reassurance. But quite suddenly he didn't want to be reassured. He wanted to force Cowley's attention, to make him recognize that Bodie was here. He wanted--Jesus--to stake a claim. Of all the ridiculous, insane, impossible fantasies.

Cowley didn't say anything as Bodie got him ready; was tensely silent. Bodie didn't want to think about that. With one part of his mind he knew he could be risking something too valuable even to think about, but the rest of him didn't care; the more afraid he was that he was making a bad mistake, the more fiercely he walled the thought away. He needed this. Needed Cowley tight around him--God, he'd be tight--in his arms and his cock and his grasp. Oh, Jesus...

He was shaking as he pushed in, as slowly as he could, Cowley's body almost painfully constricted around him. God. Cowley'd never done it with Mark Barrett, he'd said so, and Bodie would bet that he hadn't done much of anything, maybe nothing at all, since Mark had died. But with Bodie, now. Bodie gritted his teeth, gasping, holding still and halfway in, half buried in heat that was stripping him raw, one hand clenched on the flesh of Cowley's hip. "George..."

"It's all right, Bodie." He couldn't see Cowley's face, but the voice that answered him was level and calm. He half expected it to call him by number. "Go on."

No--but he couldn't stop himself from finishing the thrust, his grip on Cowley's hip holding him still as he pressed deep. He stayed there a moment, shaking; then pulled out a little and went in again, and then he couldn't stop. Cowley was silent, and he reached around, fumbling for his cock, only to have his hand batted away; then Cowley took it again and laced their fingers, pulled their joined hands up against his own chest. Bodie squeezed them together, hugged Cowley hard to himself and slid, almost sobbing, over the edge of orgasm, coming in sharp bursts that stabbed at him as he struggled to get deeper still, fighting the harsh solidity of his own flesh and aware, in the midst of it all, of Cowley saying his name.



It hadn't been as bad as he'd half-expected. His erection dwindled with the first gouging thrust, but aside from the stretching that was almost pain it wasn't uncomfortable; certainly he was used to worse. He was less embarrassed now, as well, with Bodie's face no longer so intrusively close to his arse. When Bodie hesitated, he told him to go on, and was proud of the steadiness of his voice. Bodie found a rhythm, then, of long sliding thrusts, and Cowley braced himself and prepared to wait him out. It wasn't pleasurable; but Bodie was panting in his ear, moaning. Wanting him. When Bodie reached for his groin he stopped him, not wanting Bodie to know how flaccid he was; but he held his hand tightly and felt Bodie clutching him, crying out and then arching into him, convulsing. He looked down at Bodie's fingers, all he could see of him, and stroked them, whispering, "Sh, Bodie. Sh, man. There."

Bodie was pressed against his back, breathing hoarsely, trembling. Cowley could feel the bulk of his erection shrinking, and after a moment Bodie twisted his hips and slipped free. The sudden release of pressure was a gasping relief, and Cowley exhaled shakily. He was messy and sticky; he wanted a towel, and a wash. But as he was about to roll over he felt his gut spasm suddenly in a way that portended something dire; appalled, he clenched himself tightly together and jerked out of Bodie's arms, making hurriedly for the bathroom.

He sat on the toilet for long minutes, naked, cold and humiliated. Nothing had happened, but his bowels were still complaining; he didn't dare go back to bed. That would be the final shame, if his body betrayed him that way. Old he might be, and half-crippled, but some things were beyond bearing. God only knew what Bodie thought of him now.

Finally the danger seemed to have passed. He wiped himself off with a handful of tissue and flushed it away, grimacing; then turned on the shower and got under it before it was entirely hot, reaching for the soap. He hadn't even worked up a handful of lather when he heard a knock at the door, and Bodie's hesitant voice. "Sir? Are you-- Can I come in?"

He could hardly say no; and not all of him wanted to. "Aye. Come on." The door opened and Bodie stood there, naked as himself. Cowley watched him a moment; Bodie's face showed awkward worry, and something else. Guilt? Cowley pulled the shower curtain back farther. "Come in, then," he said gruffly.

Bodie's face lightened a little; he got in beside Cowley and took the soap from him, began to wash Cowley's chest and arms. The water rushed noisily over them both, and Bodie's next words were hard to hear. "Are you all right?"

"Aye," Cowley said again, shortly. He'd expected the question, and wanted it answered and dropped; he didn't expect Bodie's next words.

"I should have told you... it takes you like that sometimes. I'm sorry."

"What?"

Bodie looked up, and crouched down, all in one motion; he was soaping Cowley's legs now, working up from the ankle. "You felt..." Bodie hesitated, clearly trying to find words that wouldn't upset him. Cowley almost smiled. "You thought--you were about to have an accident," Bodie finally said, and this time Cowley did smile, at the ridiculously childish euphemism, and Bodie, tentatively, smiled back. "You get that feeling sometimes. After--being fucked."

Bodie too? "You, too?"

Bodie shrugged. "Not much, once you're used to it. Plus I know it's not real; just my arse getting confused."

Oh. He wondered how long it took to get used to it.

Bodie caressed the narrow muscles of Cowley's legs, wishing he could linger on the twisted flesh of the knee; but he could only smooth his hands along, giving each leg, scarred and unscarred, equal attention. He'd made a mistake, he knew that, but not a killing one; Cowley had let him in, was here with him. The act had meant something, but a grudging gift, or even a willing one, wasn't what he wanted, Cowley's hand holding his a poor substitute for the pinioning of blue eyes as he was pierced. He didn't want to see the expression he'd almost caught on Cowley's face as he wrenched himself out of bed and bolted for the bathroom, leaving Bodie momentarily panicked and then sickly furious at himself. No more did he want to see the puzzled hurt on Jax's face, and Redman's, or the cold glare he would get from his partner in the morning. But now Cowley was looking down at him, smiling, and Bodie felt the heat of the water soaking into his joints and his bones.

Cowley watched as Bodie washed his genitals briefly; he half-expected Bodie to linger, but instead he sat back a little and pushed at Cowley's hips, turning him around with his face in the spray and his back to Bodie; and he felt the slickness of soapy hands between his buttocks. He tensed a little, but put out a hand against the cool tile wall and let Bodie wash him there. Bodie's touch was impersonal, but gentle; and soothing. One finger rimmed his anus, but didn't try to push inside; the flesh of his buttocks was massaged, and Bodie stroked soap over his balls from behind.

He stayed under the spray when Bodie was done, turning to wash the lather off himself, and watching Bodie soaping his own genitals. He waited until Bodie had rinsed off before taking the soap and washing him again, gently.

Bodie chuckled as they were getting out, and handed him a towel. "No wonder we always stay here. You've got more hot water than the last three flats I've been in. All together," he added, and dried himself briskly with another.

"Rank has its privileges," Cowley quoted back at him, and grinned.

They got back into bed and Bodie pulled the rucked covers up around them and hooked an arm over Cowley's waist, half on his stomach beside him. After a moment, his hand drifted to Cowley's nipple, teasing it lightly. "Would you like..." The heat of the shower, and the combined aftereffects of orgasm and concussion, were beginning to fog his thoughts; but he would have liked a memory of Cowley's eyes, watching him until they were lost to their own pleasure in his body, to carry secret with him into the coming day.

Cowley pressed the hand flat. "No. Go to sleep, Bodie."

"You didn't come."

"It's all right." Cowley told him. He was tired, and a little sore, and he was long past a young man's urgency about such things.

Bodie accepted that, regret losing to his growing drowsiness. But he had made a mistake, before. "I'm sorry," he said, eyes closed against Cowley's shoulder. "I shouldn't have pushed you into that." With the arm that came around him, steadying him, he knew that it was all right.

Cowley heard this second apology with less surprise than he had the first. Well, Bodie wasn't the only one who'd forced an issue that day. And it hadn't been that bad, except at the end. And he should have expected it, after all. "You'll be wanting it again." It wasn't, quite, a question.

He felt Bodie yawn and snuggle into him. His answer was blurry, half-smothered against Cowley's neck. "Rather have you do it."

Cowley raised an eyebrow. It didn't seem likely; but Bodie wouldn't lie to him. Not knowingly. "Oh?"

"Like it better," Bodie explained sleepily. He yawned again; but Cowley shivered, faintly, deep inside, remembering how much Bodie liked it. Maybe he wasn't so tired after all. But Bodie's voice was fading. "Always enjoy having someone else do all the work..." He trailed off into deep, slow breaths, warm on Cowley's skin.

Hmph. Cowley gathered him closer, stroking his shoulder, and closed his eyes. There was always the morning.

-- THE END --

1997