S'funny really. Not that it happened at all, because that doesn't surprise me now I come to look back over my partnership with Bodie -- but that it never happened before. You see, Bodie's always made a hell of a lot of excuses to spend the night at my flat -- pretty plausible ones, I'll give him that, nothing to make you stop short and think wait a minute, that's a bit odd, innit? but, looking back... Wouldn't sleep on the sofa, either; oh no, that idea didn't suit Master Bodie for long. I told him, being a bit unfeeling, that these army types were supposed to be able to sleep on a clothesline, but all he could say to that was why'd I think he'd left the army? So it must have been two, three years ago I first resigned myself to the fact that several times a month I'd have a bedmate. And not the softbreasted cuddly type you can turn to in the drowsy small hours for some half-awake loving, either.

No, this one smelt of warm whisky and aftershave, had a snore on him like a blocked drain and an annoying little habit of waking me up at 5am to accuse me of hogging the duvet. Bit rich, I always thought, considering whose bed it was.

Not that I minded all that much, must be honest. Can't be screwing every night, just not even practical, or even necessary. And even if you aren't in the mood for fucking it's always nice to wake up and not be alone; keeps the nightmares away. So I got used to him, all the snuffles and snorts and the warmth of him all over me in the chilly dawn. Even thought about suggesting we share a flat, in some of my madder moments. Now, I suppose -- but that's telling the story out of line. Get back to the point, 4.5.

Was having a dream, that night. Running and shooting and yelling a lot; Bodie was there with me, giving me cover, I didn't even need to see him but I knew he was there. Then suddenly it all changed the way it does in dreams, and there was a good sweet feeling deep inside me growing and spreading and, suddenly, overflowing --

I woke up straight after like I always do and it took me a moment to realise what was going on. I was damp and sticky, and all shivery still with pleasure, and it was a bloody shock to find Bodie's clearly malicious face peering at me so close and snidely asking if I'd had a good dream.

'Nocturnal emissions', that's what that book I used to purloin from the library and pant over in my early teens called 'em. It was bloody embarrassing. I have a lot of wet dreams, love 'em, all that fun without even trying, but I prefer to have them alone. I agreed, yeah, it was a good dream, in a kind of noncommittal way -- after all, he might not have noticed anything for sure; and then he seemed to forget it, thank god, and started off the usual early morning litany about the cold. I knew what was coming all right, and in the light of the cooling stickiness which I'd managed to erupt all over myself and the inside of my pyjamas, I wasn't too happy about it.

There are times when I look back with affection on the far-off shortlived good old days when one could have the pleasure without the messy business of ejaculation -- not many of 'em, I grant you, but some.

Anyway, it wasn't any good. He's a determined bastard, is Bodie, despite all that little-boy innocence he affects at times, and I knew he was in the mood to cuddle me, and cuddle me he would.

He passed it off like he always does, using the cold as an excuse; once or twice in the past even before all this I've felt like pointing out to him that it's no big sin to want to cuddle someone if they don't object, and I don't. I hate being mauled about -- not keen on cuddling at the best of times, sometimes not even with the women I've known, but somehow it's different with Bodie, always has been. He's not mushy about it, maybe that's why, just grabs me and hauls me close and pets me in a rough kind of way, breathing happily and heavily into my ear; we seem to fit together pretty well. When he first used to try it on I suppose I must have been a bit tense and edgy about it or something -- I can remember him telling me in a disgusted sort of way that sleeping with me was about as relaxing as snuggling up around a coiled rattlesnake. Don't get any complaints these days, so you see I must have learnt to live with it.

Anyway there we were as usual all huddled together like Babes in the Wood, snug and warm, plenty of time till we need get up, nothing to stop us going back to sleep -- only we couldn't, of course.

He made some comment, and I answered it in a flip kind of way, mildly getting at him, which was a mistake because it brought his mind right back to the state I'd been in a few minutes before.

He'd noticed, all right.

Bodie's very curious about what I get up to in bed. Always has been, probes about as far as he thinks he can push me. Not in a sly, furtive way, not Bodie. He just asks right out in the same happy tone of voice he'd use to offer me a sweet -- fancy a polo, Doyle? Bet she was all over you with her tongue, right, Doyle? And now, it didn't seem to be bothering him in the least that a bare millimetre of very damp cotton was all there was saving him from direct contact with my nocturnal outpourings. In fact, on the contrary he seemed fascinated by it, eyes kept straying down there, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that any moment he was going to reach out and prod me in the area with a curious forefinger.

I dunno what I must have been doing while I was having this famous dream -- rolling around a bit I suppose -- and now he starts on about what went on in it, what was I doing, to whom, where, and what with. Very persistent, he was; and in a funny playful kind of mood -- kept tickling me, hands going everywhere, pointless trying to fend him off. Until he blew at my ear, anyway -- that really does something strange to me, makes me go tingly all over as if I've got an exquisite itch somewhere I can't get at to scratch. I leapt a mile, managed to bang the poor sod on the nose and he, being Bodie, made the most of it, heaving about and groaning -- truth to tell, I did feel a twinge of pity for him, noses are hell when they're bashed and he was distinctly watery-eyed and pink-tinged around the nostrils. So I decided, what the hell, cheer him up a bit; and I open my mouth and start to waffle on. Just bringing out the first things that came into my head 'cause I couldn't remember the bloody dream anyway, though bits and pieces like the running and the yelling and the smg pattering out did filter back as I was talking so I chucked those in too for good measure.

At first he was all agog; swallowing it all down like the gullible creature he is, and then he started to get a bit restless waiting for the dirty bits. He was taking all this very seriously, I realised, all eyes and ears and attention on me. Great, it was. He'd been having little goes at me all morning and I'd taken it all so far without making any comeback. So I led him on, kept stopping in a tantalising way whenever it sounded as if I might be getting to a good bit.

He was pretending to be patient with me, and really quite offhand about all this, as if it wasn't actually very important to him, just a casual bit of fun; but he was gripping onto my shoulder for dear life -- had a bloody great bruise there the next day -- and his eyes as he leant over me were very dark, very intense. Pushing a bit more, I asked him if he wanted all the disgusting details.

Yeah, he said; he wanted a blow by blow account.

I've got a strange mind, I know that; sometimes it works for me, sometimes against me.

Anyway when he said that, used those words, something snapped together in my mind, a connection of ideas, and before I'd had a chance to think about it I said it straight out.

You did a wonderful --

God, it was hard not to laugh, he looked so stupefied. If I'd wanted revenge for all those tiny embarrassments and annoyances of the morning, then it was mine in full measure.

Stupefaction turned quite quickly into speculation -- he knew I was lying there laughing at him -- and then, finally, he disbelieved me, calming down and lying back. Somehow I had the feeling he wasn't going to be asking me about my erotic dreams again for a very long time.

I always thought I didn't have any morals left; CI5 drains you of them. But just at that moment I was feeling, peculiarly, a bit sick with myself, a bit hollow-gutted and shaky. What a bastard thing to do to someone. If he'd seen straight away that I was teasing him, and given me a thump; or if he'd been angry with me for lying to him deliberately like that, it would have been okay.

But it wasn't okay, not at all, because for one moment there I'd known he believed me, and, more than that and worse, had been pleased to think it was true.

I hadn't meant to hurt him; that was the last thing I'd wanted to do. Generous to a fault, that's Bodie; at least where I'm concerned. He'd forgiven me already, after a bare moment's anger; let me get away with anything, Bodie would.

If I threw a fit of insanity and murdered the Queen, Bodie'd be right there in court pleading extenuating circumstances.

Not really any way I could put it right. I'd said a stupid thing, and wounded him. The best I could do in penance was keep the lie going, make him think it was true.

He was a bit short with me, which only confirmed it in my mind -- I wasn't imagining it, I'd hurt him all right, he's easy to hurt is Bodie though you mightn't think so, hides it very well. Just retreats behind darkened eyes and a cool don't-care nothing-hurts-me mask, throw it all at me, see if I care.

He does care.

I know him, you see; and when he tried to move away from me, escape all that careless intimacy we had going for us, I knew in a chilling moment that in my own thoughtless heartless way I'd managed to make him feel uncomfortable with me.

Probably realising that he was coming across a bit odd, he chatted a bit, trying to get it all in perspective, and I responded because that took courage on his part; but I was only halfhearted about it despite myself and we were silent after a while, and it was then I got to thinking.

Bodie, going down on me? Pity I hadn't dreamed it, would've been nice. Would he do it, though, in reality? Even my mind, surely, would've had trouble coming up with that. Can't be the nicest thing to have to do to anyone. I've never even asked women to do that; if they make moves that way, fine; but if not I'd never dream of hinting I wanted it.

Such a sweet feeling, though... better than fucking, even...

I came back to reality, realised I was staring dreamily at Bodie's mouth while the weirdest thoughts assailed me from every direction --

Well, if I hadn't been dreaming about Bodie sucking me before, it was on the cards for tonight. 'The things you can do with your tongue' -- I'd said that to him moments before, and now I was seeing it all in pinpoint clear detail as I gazed entranced at those pale pink lips; and it was the most beautiful idea I could ever remember having.

Honour satisfied now, Bodie? Even if I never dreamt it, I thought it at that moment, consciously and deliberately, and I wanted nothing more than to make it true.

Impossible.

But then I saw him looking back at me, the same confused shy speculation in his eyes that I was feeling.

He wouldn't confess it, just wouldn't. Not Bodie. I knew he'd get out of bed, die, send Cowley a signed Valentine rather than make moves to me that way. So I plunged right in, and if my heart wasn't exactly in my mouth it was certainly doing some pretty peculiar things down in the region of my diaphragm.

Whatever else we could, or couldn't have, there was no reason in the world why I couldn't kiss him.

And the moment I did, everything changed forever.

The moment my mouth touched his, barely brushing over his warm lips before they parted for me and let me seek out the sweet moist darkness inside, we both knew.

It frightened me, yeah, it did that all right; but it was the kind of fear you go through when you're a kid, alone in the dark, staring at the stars and wondering what would happen if you were the last person left alive on earth.

It was then I knew we must have loved each other for a long time, because I just don't believe in love at first sight, love bursting into being at the first touch of mouth on mouth. Lust, yes... desire can spark that way, that fast. But not love. That takes time. And in that moment I knew I loved him so much, so goddamn much I felt sick with it, all choked up like I wanted to cry. Not happy. Not yet. That came later.

I stopped kissing him then because we were getting rather urgent about it and my body was acting like it was getting ready to rape him, and that was something I didn't want. So easy... it would have been so easy for me to do that, him so soft and dazed and one step behind, even appropriate maybe between two tough men having it off for fun, with a deadly play for dominance going on beneath it all: but not for Bodie and me. We weren't in this for fun: we weren't even tough any longer.

I wanted to check how he felt, if he wanted it to go on. Just a few phrases, clumsy -- 'do you?', '-- and me --'; not poetry. But it was enough. We were gentle with each other because that felt right; neither of us, I think, knew quite what to do, but somehow that slight clumsiness, hesitance, was one more thing to treasure; it was so sweet, to travel hands and mouth over him, discovering what made him light up; to have the gift of his body laid open to me, to watch his face crease, then settle; hearing him whimper, and say my name in a whisper --

He could have done anything to me. I'd have let him do anything, let him have whatever he needed. But it didn't take anything heavy in the end, nothing deep; I just reached out, took his cock in my hand and it felt so good to touch, so right to be handling him like this, having him entrust me with the precious responsibility of his coming that it felt as if I must have done it a hundred times before. I stroked him gently and made him shiver; then I touched him harder, and that was enough.

The feeling of his spurting, spilling into my hands was the most wantonly erotic sensation I've had in my life; and I watched him the whole time, not missing one clench of tensing muscles as his body lifted, giving itself to me, one spasm of pleasure that twisted his face, nor the tiniest whimper of anguished ecstasy that left him. And I loved it, loved him, loved the luxurious texture of his semen that I was trying to hold on to as it threatened to slip away; the damp softening curl of his sex as it nestled in my slippery palm; loved seeing him lose control like that, abandoning it and himself to me. His eyes were soft, and very bright, with tears and love.

And then he did the most beautiful thing he could have done for me; I was desperate for anything at all but instead he answered my unspoken wanting as surely as if I'd begged him to do it.

Impossible to describe, the exquisite feeling as his tongue pressed against me, a bit shy, a bit delicate at first, and then a firmer achingly beautiful touch as it stroked up and down me; and when I cried out he opened his mouth, his head laid on my belly; and took me in.

I came between his lips as his tongue was searching over the tip of me, sending me over the edge, just couldn't help it, couldn't have held it back if the serried ranks of CI5 had marched into the room and stood gazing; but he didn't flinch, didn't let me go, just stayed there as I poured down his throat, accepting me.

I found my nailmarks in his shoulders afterwards. Don't suppose he noticed at the time.

When I was finished coming, fireworks over and fizzling back to earth leaving me warm and relaxed and comfortable, it struck me what I'd just done. Christ, the poor guy, was my first shamed thought, but he drove it away from me instantly, sliding up the bed, deep blue eyes lit up with laughter and magic, kissing me deeply and thoroughly so I could taste myself on his tongue.

He can be a kinkily inventive bastard at times.

It was so unexpected, so forbidden and so wicked and so wildly erotic that I found I was thinking darkly wanton things all over again.

Like about doing it to him. But that was for the future. For now, there was the present to think of.

There wasn't any hassle about how long it would last, and whether we meant all those crazy things we'd been murmuring; and if it was really love or just a passing fancy. We both knew the answers to all those things; had done since I kissed him and he reached out for me.

So that's it. Weep no more fair ladies, and all that. We've come to the end of the line, Bodie and I, and found each other waiting there, almost by accident -- not that he knows that. Bodie can have all the truths he wants from me and the rest of my life to hear them in; but he's never going to know that I was dreaming of shadows in an unreal unremembered world. I think he guesses anyway; but it isn't important any more.

Funny, the way things happen...

-- THE END --