The Professionals Circuit Archive - Old Longings	 Old Longings

 

by Jane

  
 Doyle was only gone for four hours, and the vicious irony of it was that
nobody noticed that he was missing, not even Bodie, who was out arranging
to have his beloved Lagonda treated for rust and resprayed. The event was
over that fast, but the repercussions would ring like a bell for much
longer. Bodie arrived back at Central at 4:30, annoyed by the battle with
the early rush hour traffic, and he was looking for Doyle as he swung into
the garage. Ray's gold Capri was not there, which meant that either he was
late for work -- unusual in so punctual a soul as he -- or that he had
already left. Bodie made a bet with himself that there was a job in the
wind, something so important that his partner was unable to wait around
for him. It was a bet he lost.

The office was a hum of activity: the bustle would go on supposing the sky
came crashing down, but Bodie noticed that Cowley's private secretary was
not smiling as she said, "Oh, there you are 3.7. The Major has been
waiting for you."

"I'm not late," Bodie said defensively, checking his watch. "Something's
come up, has it?"

The woman's mouth tightened and she cleared her throat uncomfortably.
"Bodie.... We tried to reach you. We couldn't --"

"Reach me to tell me what?" Bodie demanded, his voice rising a tone.

"It's Ray," Betty said disjointedly, her cheeks flushing up. "He --"

But Bodie's raised voice had carried as far as George Cowley's office and
the Scotsman's own voice was like a whipcrack over the secretary's head as
he leaned out through the door: "Bodie, come in here."

Bodie was pleased to do as he was told; every nerve was on edge and the
questions were piling up on his tongue, demanding to be answered. As the
door closed behind him he said sharply, "If somebody doesn't tell me
what's going on soon I'm going to blow my cork!"

"You'll blow it a damned sight harder when you've heard," Cowley said
tensely. "Sit down, Bodie, and here--" handing him a glass, "drink this.
You may need it."

The glass contained a generous double Scotch. Bodie gave it a sour look.
"Betty said it's about Ray. He's dead, isn't he?" No fraction of emotion
carried in his voice, he spoke in a monotone, the glass held before his
eyes as if it were a crystal ball.

"He's not dead," Cowley said quietly, "but he's hurt."

The younger man's eyes closed for a moment. "*How*?"

"Uncertain, as yet," the Scot said carefully. "Some kind of vengeance,
probably. In our business, you can make a lot of enemies."

"So, what happened?" Bodie's eyes were like live coals, burning into his
superior with an intensity that was startling, even to Cowley, who had
expected an emotional reaction. "Is he maimed, or crippled, or *what*?
Shot? Run down--"

"Worked over, and not all that badly, at that," Cowley said carefully.
"He's had a knock on the head, concussion, his right shoulder was out,
he's chafed about the wrists, other ... minor injuries."

The frown on Bodie's face conveyed his confusion. "Jesus, I thought he'd
been hit by a truck at least from the way everyone's been acting," he
began, and then ran down into silence as he saw the look of distaste and
anguish George Cowley allowed to show for a moment. It was a look he had
seen only rarely before. "Sir? There's more?"

With a deep sigh, Cowley sat down on the edge of the desk, facing him.
"Aye, lad. I wish to God there wasn't. He's been ... abused."

"Ab..." Bodie swallowed. "That's a euphemism, and guessing games were
never my strong suit. You mean somebody's tortured him?"

"I mean somebody raped him," Cowley said, very quietly.

How Bodie did not drop the glass he would never know, because for a
terrible second there was not a live nerve in his entire body. He blinked
uncomprehendingly at the older man, then somehow transferred the glass to
his lips and swallowed without tasting the burning alcohol. "Is he ... is
he all right? I mean, he's not injured or anything? We're just talking
about push and shove, not bottles or knives?"

"He's not badly hurt," Cowley told him. "Not physically, anyway. Push and
shove, as you call it." He seemed to gag on the words. "Oh, I saw enough
of it in the army, barrack games, cadet 'initiation', all the crude
horseplay ... clumsy, sordid. It goes on in every army, it always has, it
probably always will. But sex is sex and rape is rape." He passed a hand
before his eyes. "Bodie, has Doyle ever shown any interest in other men,
that you know of?"

Anger flared, reddening Bodie's cheeks. "That's a cruddy thing to say --
like saying a woman with a normal sex life can't get raped, because she's
used to sex!"

Cowley shot a hard glance at him. "That isn't what I meant, you young
hothead! Time to use your brains, laddie, he's going to need support, not
hysterics, from either of us. What I asked -- politely -- is, is he gay?
If he is, the psychological shock will still be enough to hurt him deeply;
if he's not... Come on, Bodie, you don't need pictures drawn."

The younger man drew both hands over his face. "He's always been as
straight as a die as long as I've known him," he said slowly.
"Affectionate, you know -- with everyone he likes, including me.... Hugs,
pet names, but I'd spot it from a mile away if he was really gay and
trying not to show it. You know what mercs are like when they've been up
to their eyeballs in mud for months, a thousand miles away from the
nearest woman. All right, I'll confess to you, because you've been there
before me, you know. I've transgressed myself on one or two occasions,
when I got desperate enough and drunk enough and miserable enough to
cuddle up to the pretty little sod with the big, soulful brown eyes. But
Ray... Oh, God." He dragged in a breath. "His whole trouble is that he's
too beautiful for his own good." Bodie did not notice the sharp look
Cowley gave him. "I've watched the way people look at him, blokes as well
as birds. He glides through life with his head in the clouds, painting,
Mozart, kendo, esoterics, organic food... It's as if he's never looked in
a mirror, never noticed the way the rest of the world's reacting to him.
He's never short of women, but if he snapped his fingers I know half a
dozen guys who'd be all over him like a rash." Bodie heaved himself to his
feet. "How's he taking it -- and where the hell is he?"

"They took him to hospital," the Scot said quietly. "St. Andrew's. He's
sedated, concussed, probably hurting." He forced himself to speak
professionally, but it was not easy. Doyle could have been his son -- the
age was right, the stature, the Celtic heritage. He shook himself hard.
"Look, two jobs for you, Bodie. One: get him over this. He'll trust you,
confide in you, as he'll not trust anyone else, me included. Two: go out
and find the man who used him this way, and if you want to call it a
personal vendetta, feel free to do so." There was a measure of solace in
saying the words; it was as if the outrage had been foisted on a member of
Cowley's family ... a close member, and much as he hated to admit it, the
hunger for vengeance was there, a tight knot under his heart.

"Authorised revenge?" Bodie muttered.

Cowley's blue eyes were icy. "There's a time for vengeance; you know that
as well as I do. You save vengeance up till there's nothing else you *can*
do, then, when you cut loose you've got a bloody good excuse... On your
way, Bodie. He's your partner, your friend, and he'll need you now as he's
never needed you before."

It was an understatement and it ate at Bodie as he drove over to the
hospital, pausing at the traffic lights to read and reread the scant
report that had been filed. Betty had typed it, obviously, which is why
she knew as well as Cowley what had happened, why she was angry, hurt and
embarrassed. Doyle had gone off duty at 11:30, at the end of the morning
shift, and the next anyone knew was the call from St. Andrew's, made to
CI-5 direct when the doctors got the name of the victim. He had been
dumped behind the bins at the back of an Italian restaurant, and found
there by an employee who had gone out to dump the rubbish. He was naked,
unconscious, and there was blood on his legs, but the injuries were
surprisingly minor: concussion, dislocated shoulder, bruises and blood
loss.

Those were the injuries you can *see*, Bodie thought darkly as he parked
the silver Capri Ghia in the visitors' carpark and headed for the
inquiries desk. They sent him up to the fourth floor and he strode toward
a private room; at the door was a big, thick-set man in a blue jacket that
hid a magnum .45. His name was Rollins, and he was as much a CI-5 'heavy'
as Bodie was himself. He nodded a mute greeting to the man as he
approached. "Why the guard duty, Alan?"

Rollins shrugged. "The Cow reckons they might finish the job... He can
identify them, can't he?"

"I suppose he can at that," Bodie muttered, and pushed on through the half
open door, shutting it behind him for the sake of privacy.

The room was cool and silent, and the still form in the bed breathed so
shallowly that, if Ray had been dead he could have looked no less animate.
He lay on his left side, facing the door, bandages immobilising the
shoulder that had been out of joint, and he was so pale that his skin
looked translucent. Bodie approached, light footed, frowning down at him
with a growing sense of bitter anguish. He looked so young, unaccountably
delicate, with those glorious curls and the long, dark eyelashes. *No
wonder they wanted you*, Bodie thought feverishly, *Christ, no wonder at
all*. But who, and why? Wanting to woo him, to coax the loving from him
with soft words and subtle caresses, was one thing; wanting to hurt him
was something else. What it was, was intolerable.

As he became aware of his partner's presence, Ray stirred, the lashes
fluttering on his pale cheeks, and he looked up, focusing with an effort.
As he made out Bodie's face, Bodie watched his green eyes fill with tears,
and his heart rose up to choke him. He scraped a chair up to the bedside,
reaching for Doyle's hand and squeezing it. "Hey, chin up, sunshine.
You've had worse damage after a spell in the gym. Bump on your head, stiff
shoulder, couple of bruises where you sit -- you'll be fighting fit in no
time." That was it, make nothing of it.

The curls rustled on the pillow as Ray nodded, mutely agreeing, but the
tears spilled, soaking the white linen under his cheek. "You want to talk
about it?" Bodie prompted softly. "It helps if you talk it out. I know. So
do you. You were a copper, you've seen enough of these cases -- girl, boy,
what's the difference? Willing or not, that's what matters. Ray? Talk to
me?"

Heaving in a breath, Doyle spoke quietly. "And say what? You want all the
sordid details? I never figured you for a pervo."

"I'm only trying to help," Bodie said levelly, tightening his grip on
Ray's hand. "I know the sordid details, sunshine, from years ago... Don't
talk, if you don't want to."

But Ray barely heard. "They grabbed me off the street, I didn't have a
chance. Three of them, and I took a belt across the back of the skull
before I knew they were there. I woke later. They were ... taking the
clothes off me." His face twisted and he closed his eyes. "They bent me
over a table, and he took me." Bodie felt a shudder course through him,
felt him fight to face it.

"Who? Come on, Ray, who was it?"

The green eyes opened, misted and blind. "Lupino. I put him away nine
years ago -- no, ten. Charge of rape. What else?" His voice broke on the
key word. "He stood in the cells under the Old Bailey and swore he'd 'get
even' with me, swore he'd catch up with me, no matter how long it took.
Christ, why should I be surprised when he was as good as his word?" He
shivered, clutching convulsively at Bodie's hand. "It hurt, Bodie. He went
into me like a hammer, till I couldn't breathe, and then I...." He gasped
as the memory rolled into him.

"And then?" Bodie prompted very gently, though he already knew what Ray
was going to say. The body was a mechanical device, after all. Give it the
right kind of stimuli, and --

"I came," Doyle said almost inaudibly. "I turned on and I came. Jesus God,
that was worse than the getting banged. My *body* enjoyed it, wanted it."

"Don't be tough on yourself," Bodie said quietly. "You know what that
amount of friction on your prostate's going to do. It's involuntary. It's
got nothing to do with what you want, or like, or need. It's just
mechanical. Ray?" The green eyes met his and he saw the pain there.

"Find him," Doyle murmured. "Find Lupino, and fix him. For me?"

"You want to get him put away again?"

Doyle fought to sit up, wincing as he did so. It was not really
comfortable to sit yet, and he propped himself on his left hip and the
pillows. "Go into court? Have it get out that a big, tough, arrogant
bastard CI-5 man was grabbed and raped till he was senseless? Have Lupino
tell the judge how the CI-5 man turned on? How he came like a cheap
tart--"

"Oh, Ray, don't," Bodie breathed; he could hear the bitter self-hatred in
his friend's voice. "All right, I'll get Lupino. It doesn't go into court,
but I'll find him, and when I do, he'll be singing in the descant next
Christmas. Good enough?"

The green eyes cleared a little, as if the promise of justice took away a
little of the hurt, the humiliation of being betrayed by his own body. He
plucked at the sheet. "Get me out of here."

"But you're concussed--"

"I can be just as concussed at home in private," Doyle muttered. "Every
ten minutes the bloody nurses come in and stand squinting at me. I can't
stand them knowing what happened...." He gave Bodie a look that squeezed
Bodie's heart. "How come I don't mind telling it all to you so much?"

Bodie forced a smile. "What's your best mate for? And I've heard it all,
seen it all, done it all, sunshine. You can't shock me, you can't even
surprise me. What about your clothes?"

Colour flushed up in Ray's cheeks. "I haven't got any."

"Then I'll get you a robe," Bodie said smoothly, "and a wheelchair, and
take you down in the lift, the car's about ten yards away. On the way home
we'll pick up something good to eat, beer, bubbly, and a couple of
pictures for that video of yours. All right?"

Nodding mutely, Doyle watched him leave the room; when he was gone he
heaved a heavy sigh, rubbing the back of his good hand across his eyes,
the better to see. Bodie was right; it did feel better to share it, to
talk it out. He had said a mere fraction of what he felt, but it was
better. He felt used, filthy, as if he was an old toy, a football,
something to be kicked about in the street and then discarded when it was
soiled and broken. The way Bodie looked at him, it was as if he *knew*,
and that was odd; he would never have taken Bodie for a --

A gay? The idea was ludicrous, laughable, and it was with an effort that
he remembered the tales of his friend's past career. Mercenaries, mud,
humidity, jungle, perversion.... How much *did* Bodie know? How much had
Bodie *done*? Girl, boy, it doesn't make any difference, he had said, and
Doyle wondered about it seriously as he swung his legs off the too-tall
hospital bed and took his weight on his bare feet. Would it have been any
better, any less painful or 'normal' to be used by a woman? He shivered,
feeling his emotions locking up like clockwork left too long without gear
oil. He let it happen, fostered it: if he felt nothing, it would not hurt
any more than it had to, and all he had to contend with was a bunch of
physical nuisances that would heal up, given a little time.

The wheelchair and robe arrived; Bodie helped him put the garment on and
wheeled him out of the building, and half an hour later he was sitting in
an armchair, picking at a takeaway lemon chicken he did not really want to
please Bodie, and drinking too much wine while John Wayne and Dean Martin
played out a celluloid cowboy fantasy on the TV. Take your mind off it,
Bodie had said... Wise, was Bodie. Abruptly, frighteningly wise -- he had
all the answers, prepackaged and ready to be rendered like Christmas gifts
to a kid who's been waiting and waiting all year. Doyle gave his partner a
curious glance: Bodie wasn't watching the TV, he was sitting watching
*him*, with a worried, fond, anguished expression.

"Okay, Ray?" he asked quietly under the gunfire on the TV.

"Okay, Bodie," Ray murmured, holding his glass out to be refilled; he
noticed that Bodie had eaten no more than he had.

He had drunk half the bottle already but Bodie was unconcerned; if he
drank the other half he would sleep, possibly through till morning, and
everything would look different on a new day. He filled the glass, filled
it again when it was empty, and half carried his partner to bed. Ray fell
into a deep, drugged sleep as the day grew dim with evening, and though he
smelt of wine and wore a blue six o'clock shadow about his jaw, Bodie
stood over him, transfixed now as always by the person he saw. It was all
too easy to imagine how someone would want to possess him; it was more
difficult to imagine how someone could be *un*moved by his looks, and as
Bodie stood watch over him the lust for vengeance began to make him ache.
He had promised that he would find Lupino, and he would be as good as his
word.

Dawn was flushing rosily across the sky when Ray woke with a sob; it
sounded so young, so helpless and hurt that it frightened Bodie to hear
it. He had slept in one chair with his feet on another and a stack of
blankets on top of him, but before Doyle was fully awake he had him in a
tight embrace, shutting out the pain and fear, and Ray clung blindly to
him, fingers digging into his back for a time before he relaxed, little by
little, reorienting and then pulling away.

"Dream," he muttered, the cold sweat pouring out of him, and Bodie was
sure he passed out rather than falling asleep, the fingers of his left
hand still clutching Bodie's right. Bodie sat on the side of the bed,
watching him sleep, for a long time, wanting to find some way to undo it
all or, if that was impossible, to put it all into the past tense where it
would never trouble him again.

At six he crept away to shower, pull a razor across his face and change
his shirt for one of Ray's; the other man's clothes were two sizes too
small and he chose a yellow tee-shirt that would stretch to fit. He made
coffee and toast, and loaded a tray with the breakfast and Ray's electric
razor. As he put the tray down on the chest of drawers beside the bed
Doyle woke. He gave Bodie a faint smile but said nothing as he sat up and
was propped up with extra pillows. Drowsy and warm, he let Bodie play the
Ronson electric over his jaw, then took the cup of coffee from him.

"Nice day out there," Bodie said abstractly. "Better?"

"Better," Ray nodded. "Shoulder's much better, and I don't ache so much
between the legs." He coloured and looked away.

"Don't punish yourself," Bodie said softly, "it wasn't your fault you were
raped."

"I was sodomised," Doyle said bitterly. "Let's get the term right."

Bodie frowned. "Does it matter? You didn't want it to happen, that makes
it rape. Love and sex and rape are three different things. Give yourself a
chance, sunshine."

"I'm not...." Doyle closed his eyes. "I'm not a faggot, am I? I mean, I
came, I turned on. What does that make me?"

"Human, and a man," Bodie said forcefully. "Your machinery works the way
it's supposed to --"

"Supposed to?" Doyle's eyes snapped open. "You mean nature intended me to
turn on when I get a good, hard shove up the backside?" He sighed. "If it
happened, it's natural, or it wouldn't have happened," he said, and Bodie
watched him shudder. "I never touched a man that way before, no one ever
touched *me* like that, Bodie. Why did it hurt?"

"Because you were scared and tense, and he was too rough with you. If it's
any consolation, he probably hurt himself at the same time."

"He didn't seem to notice."

"At the time, he wouldn't, would he," Bodie shrugged. "He'd be too carried
away. You're a big lad, and a bonny one, Raymond. It's not your fault
you're so ... attractive."

"Attractive?" Ray frowned, drowsy, tousled and confused as he looked at
Bodie, aware that he was looking at his friend for all the answers and
praying that he had them to give. "To *you*? I mean, the way you said that
--"

Bodie laughed nervously. "Of course I find you attractive! Why do you
think I keep telling you have a face like the back of a bus? Look, what's
bothering you? The fact you were raped, or the fact you were raped by a
*man*? Jesus, Ray, rape is rape and sex is sex, and the gender doesn't
matter that much. And love is love," he added pointedly. "Follow me?"

But the frown that tugged Doyle's brows together said he didn't. "When I
was a kid, the parish priest, old Father Duffy, used to give it to us
straight from the shoulder. Sex outside wedlock is a sin, sex in marriage
without the yearning for a bloody baby is a sin, sex with your *own* sex
is a sin, and so's playing with yourself, and reading erotic magazines,
and gambling, and fighting, and drinking, and swearing, and forgetting to
pray --"

"Five times a day, facing Rome?" Bodie quipped gently. "That's your
parents' religion, Ray; you broke with the Papal edict when you were
fourteen years old, when it dawned on you that it's just arbitrary *human*
rules and regulations on a piece of paper -- the rule book that was
written to organize human society two thousand years ago still being used
to make prisoners out of people today. Don't tell me you attach any
importance to the hellfire and brimstone jargon because you were raped?"

"By a man," Doyle sighed. "A man who turned me on and kept me going till I
came like the Intercity express, and I can't forget it, and it's making me
wonder if I'm as bloody gay as Lupino." He looked up, meeting Bodie's dark
eyes with an anguished frown. "Do you think that's true?"

Bodie chose his words with care. "What does it matter, if you are? Lots of
people are, nice people. It's not a sin to *love* someone. Even another
man."

The last was said only painfully, and Doyle's frown deepened. "That
sounded like the voice of experience. Are we talking about a tragic love
affair in your past? A woman? God, a boy? I'd never have thought you were,
well, you know." He watched Bodie's slight, sad smile. "Who was it? Anyone
I know? Someone who left you?"

"No, just an old unrequited love I buried years ago," Bodie said slowly
and quietly.

"And she left you, did she?"

Bodie stood up, hugging his arms about his chest. "It wasn't a she --
you're quite right. And he didn't leave.... He's still here, looking nice
and smooth after his shave and letting his coffee go cold." Doyle choked
on a mouthful of the bitter liquid and Bodie shrugged helplessly. "You
know what's really bugging me? I could have loved you, so gentle, so fine,
so smooth, but I swallowed it, made myself forget, because you were never
like that; and now this animal jumps you, makes a mockery out of it, makes
you hurt and hate yourself --Christ, I could kill him!" He seemed to snap
back to the present with a jerk and met Ray's eyes with discomfort. "I
shouldn't have said any of that, I suppose, but.... Look, don't let the
turkeys get you down. Or the Father Duffys of this world. Love is love,
and the day we start seeing sin in love is the day we ought to blow this
bloody planet up and start again!" He paused and sighed. "Now, I expect
you'll be leery of me and tell me to get lost, tell Cowley you want
another partner from --"

"Bodie!" Ray said loudly. "Jesus, when you set off to talk you never know
when to bloody well shut up, do you!" For the first time he smiled,
lopsided and embarrassed. "Will you do something for me? Please?"

"Name it," Bodie said, wondering if he was going to be shown the door.

"Come here, and sit down," Doyle said softly, and when the bedsprings had
squeaked into silence he cleared his throat, moistened his lips with the
tip of his tongue and said, "kiss me."

"What?"

"I said, *kiss me*. Damn you, you're the man I call my best friend, the
bloke I stick my neck on the block for every day. If I'm prepared to go
out and die for you, I must feel something special for you! If I'm as gay
as my body seems to think it is, I'll light up like a Christmas tree if
you kiss me." His voice was thick, his eyes half closed and his breathing
short. "You terrify me, Bode. I keep looking at your crotch and seeing the
size of you and wondering what it'd be like if *you* were inside me. I'm
in a cold sweat -- I'm scared silly, if you haven't noticed."

*I've noticed*, Bodie thought, but, if anything, he was even more
frightened than Ray. Petrified was a better word. He was so sure he had
buried his feelings so deeply that they would never ever surface again --
he had not even dreamed about Ray in a year. Kiss him? Kiss him, and stir
it all up again, then have Doyle decide there was nothing in it, shrug it
off and go back to his adoring birds?

He shook his head sadly. "Don't hurt me, Ray. You're just wanting to
experiment on someone -- anyone will do. I know a couple of nice boys who
are interested that way, I'll ask one of them to --"

"Oh, Bodie, don't be an idiot," Doyle sobbed. "Experiment? What with? With
sex? The only thing I know is, it *hurts* to be banged up the rear, it
hurts like hell and makes you bleed, makes you want to shoot yourself in
the head.... Or find out if your body knows best. I was raped -- by a man.
You say it makes no difference that it was a bloke, right? I want to
believe you, but I don't *know*. I'm so confused I can't seem to think
properly! You want me to go and ask a stranger to kiss me? And if I decide
I don't like it, how do I get him to stop? Or do I get myself banged
again, because I 'asked' for it, 'led him on' like a schoolgirl?" He
paused, fighting for breath. "I'm not asking you to make love to me, just
kiss me." He paused, trembling, "Please?".

The anguish in his voice, the confusion in his words, caught at Bodie's
heart and there was no way he could deny him. He sighed heavily, studying
his knees for a moment, feeling arousal begin to harden him. Then he
looked into Ray's remarkable eyes and leaned forward. Doyle's lips
remained sealed as he brushed them with a light kiss, but his eyes closed
and stayed closed as Bodie drew back. "No good, eh?" he asked sadly,
feeling the kick of the lightly brushing lips deep down under his heart.

But Ray swallowed and husked, "Do it again, Bodie". And this time as Bodie
touched his mouth with a kiss the soft lips parted and the kiss clung,
deepening so quickly it was frightening. Bodie's breath caught in his
chest, it was pure torture, pure joy, and in the same moment he loved and
hated Ray for making him do it. The fear that it was all for nothing
tightened his throat, choking off a groan. And then he felt Ray's arms go
around him, felt his own arms pull him into an embrace, and tried to
remember that he was hurt and shocky. *Be gentle, you idiot*, he told
himself, *if you frighten him now it's all over*!

They twisted on the messy bed, falling sideways, and when the kiss broke
they were lying nose to nose on the rumpled sheets, clinging tightly
together. Ray cleared his throat and somehow found his voice. "Well, I'll
be damned."

"I lit you up?" Bodie asked hesitantly, hopefully.

"You lit up half of Chelsea, you ought to go on the National Grid," Doyle
panted. "Jesus God, Lupino had me pegged from the word 'go'. He took one
look at me and knew what I was even when I didn't know myself."

"Which gave him the right to make a pass at you and get his teeth knocked
out," Bodie said, "not to force you. You didn't *fancy* him.... You fancy
me instead, don't you?" And when Ray blushed darkly and averted his eyes
Bodie heaved a sigh of relief. "I wish you hadn't had to get hurt to find
out. I wish you weren't so sore and bruised now; I'd show you what
loving's all about."

"So show me anyway," Doyle whispered.

But Bodie shook his head. "It'd hurt worse than you think, you'd only
bleed again, it's too soon. You have to heal up, first.... Unless you want
to take me, instead."

"Like--" Ray's eyes snapped up to meet Bodie's. "Like Lupino took me?" 

"Well, not over a table," Bodie smiled, "but the principle's the same.
You've read enough of the 'wrong' kid of literature in your time, Raymond,
you must know half the tricks in the book. You can make the other half
up."

Ray swallowed convulsively. "I couldn't do that to you. Why would I want
to hurt you?"

"It wouldn't hurt. The difference is, I... I want you." *Oh, God, how I
want you*, Bodie thought. The ache that had begun in his abdomen had
spread right down to his toes and it was an effort to keep his voice
level. "You just use a bit of oil or jelly -- the stuff the hospital gave
you to put on your sore spots will do, or the apricot oil in the bathroom
cabinet." He grave Ray a troubled frown. "Only if you want to. It'll keep,
you don't have to do anything like that until you want to."

"More ways than one to skin your lover?" Doyle sighed. "Later, Bodie, when
yesterday's half forgotten, and my rear portion and I are on speaking
terms again. But I *do* want you. Your hands on me, and...." He coloured
and looked away, unable to ask what he wanted.

Love, to bury the hurt and the lust, Bodie knew. Gentleness to put the
pain into the past, tenderness to make him feel good about himself and
what he wanted. Very slowly, Bodie levered himself to his feet and took
off his clothes, aware of Ray's eyes following his every movement; then he
began to touch and kiss, the delicate caresses of fingers and lips working
lower on Ray's slight, tense body until he had slipped off the pyjama
bottoms without Doyle noticing that they had gone. He took the swollen
shaft in his hand, tickling, gently pulling, working carefully about his
partner's bruised groin so as not to hurt him at all. Holding him in a
firm embrace, skin to skin the whole length of them, he kissed his closed
eyelids, his nose, his lips, until Ray moaned aloud and began to buck his
hips, thrusting into Bodie's hand, so mentally relaxed, so physically
excited, that the past did not exist and all he was aware of was the
present and the indescribable pleasure.

He came, shuddering against Bodie, and a moment later Bodie let himself
come also, rubbing himself discreetly against Ray's thigh so as not to
alarm him, not to make demands of him before he was ready. Doyle cried out
incoherently, collapsing against Bodie, his skin hot and damp with sweat,
and Bodie pressed kisses to his lips until he lay quietly on his back,
accepting the other's weight on him with delight.

Then Bodie propped himself up on both elbows, looking down at him. "That
was nicer, wasn't it?"

"Nice," Doyle smiled drowsily, "is an understatement." Then he chuckled.
"Father Duffy must be spinning in his grave! Kiss me, Bodie?"

"With the greatest of pleasure," Bodie murmured, bending to the task and
covering Ray's mouth with a gentle, intimate expression of his feelings.
Then he got to his feet again. "Will you be okay on your own today?"

"Why?" Ray yawned. "Where y'going?"

Bodie was retrieving his clothes. "Vengeance is *mine*, for both of us,
sayeth the Cow. I'm going to find Lupino for you, and nail him to the
floor. Today, if I can manage it, or tomorrow, I'll bring dinner in with
me, and a film for the video; and then you and I will stand under the
shower together, and I'll blow those lovely curls dry with the head
toaster... And if you dream bad dreams tonight, you just hold on tight to
me till the bogies go away." He watched Ray shiver visibly in
anticipation, and smiled. "You've got a bad case of it, mate."

"A bad case of...?"

"It's called love," Bodie said softly. "And I've had a shocking case of it
for years. Look, I have to go to work. Lupino's out there somewhere, let
me find him and finish it. Alan Rollins will be parked right outside,
you're as safe as a row of houses here. Rest yourself. Eat, sleep,
*forget* all about what happened yesterday. Think about what happened here
this morning instead, and think up something nice you'd like to happen
tonight."

"Anything?" Doyle murmured breathlessly.

"Your wish," Bodie said, stooping to kiss him again, "is my command."

He was on his way out, car keys in one hand, comb running through his
short cropped hair, when Ray came padding out of the bedroom, his red robe
loose about his spare frame. "Bodie ... did you do that because you wanted
to, or because you know I wanted it?"

The question caught Bodie squarely between the ribs. He gave Ray a probing
look. "*We* did it because *we* wanted to," he said quietly. "Takes two to
make love; you do it on your own, it's called masturbation. You still
concussed or something, Ray? You can't tell when you're wanted?"

"Desired?" Doyle heaved in a breath. "It's all so new." He forced a smile.
"Let me think about it while you get the bastard who hurt me."

Bodie swallowed. "Christ, don't change your mind now, not *now* after
you've let me lie down with you once. That'd be sadistic."

But Doyle gave him a fond, exasperated look. "You *are* a silly bugger,
aren't you, Bodie?" he said gently. "That's not what I meant. I have to
get it all clear in my head. What I want, who I am, what it means to me,
what I feel. It's going to change things, for both of us. Cowley is going
to go straight through the roof."

"Cowley sort of knows," Bodie said uncomfortably. "'Go to him, get him
over it,' he told me. If by that he meant paint enough love over the hurt
to take it away, then he as good as gave us his blessings." He paused. "I
like to think he did. It's not every day this happens, is it? It's on the
cards for anyone, any time, but thank God it doesn't happen too often!" He
cupped Doyle's smooth face in his hands. "Go back to bed, sunshine, and
take it easy. I'll give you a ring when I can." In answer, to Bodie's
intense gratification, Doyle lifted his lips to the taller man's mouth and
kissed him. It was an awkward, hesitant gesture, a little immature and
embarrassed, and Bodie helped him, moulding the kiss for him and inviting
his tongue into his mouth for a moment. He was a little breathless when it
broke, and shook his head ruefully. "I'd better get out of here before I
go right back to bed with you and cuddle you like a big teddy bear till
lunch time!"

With that, Bodie fled and Doyle stood looking at the closed door. He still
hurt a lot more than he would have let on to Bodie; his head was buzzing
and his buttocks felt as though he'd been through a wringer. But the
confusion was worse, and he was aching from the waves of pleasure and
guilt that fought for dominance in him as be remembered... Bodie,
tenderness -- Lupino, bleeding -- coming in Bodie's strong, warm hand --
coming with his wrists wired together and his face pushed into the table
while his body was being flayed alive... Lying with Bodie in the drowsy
pleasure of afterglow and seeing the love written all over his friend's
finely chiseled features. Bodie was probably the most handsome man he
knew, he admitted -- it was an easy admission, one he had made
unconsciously, years before.

Neither of them had come through life unscathed; Bodie had had his nose
broken -- it showed in his profile, making it what it was, and Ray himself
had come off worst in one fist fight too many, and sported a right
cheekbone that was made of plastic. Battle scars, he thought, padding back
to bed and stretching out carefully. He was still sore, and the bruises on
the inside were winging sharply, reminding him constantly of the pain of
the forced coupling and making him wonder, fretfully, what it would be
like to spread his legs for Bodie... Bodie understood, for some odd reason
-- Angola, the Congo. Of course. In a bush prison, you'd see everything
there was to be seen. And more besides.

Tired, Doyle closed his eyes, trying to imagine what the old folk would
say, and Father Duffy's face and voice returned to haunt him... *Hail
Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women;
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death*... What would old
Paddy Duffy make of Mary Doyle's youngest son? And -- did he actually care
what the creed-bound, celibate old priest would think? It was Bodie's
words that made more sense by far: the day we start to see sin in love is
the day we ought to blow this bloody planet up and start again!

Sometime before noon, he drifted back into sleep.

******

Alfred Lupino died late that afternoon, and technically, he killed
himself. Bodie had not intended his death but neither did he mourn when
the man he was chasing took a short cut across the lines at Clapham
Junction and got in front of a goods train. Bodie would have hammered his
front teeth out, one by one, redesigned one of his kneecaps so as to
accommodate him with a life-long limp, and placed a kick where the pain
Lupino would feel might approximate the pain he had put Ray through. He
wanted to see the man's *face*, wanted to see the eyes of a person who
would, or even *could* take beauty and violate it for the sake of revenge.

The man's face was Mediterranean, swarthy, fleshily good looking, lined
about the eyes, and the black hair was just beginning to recede from his
forehead. He thought he looked like a film star: gold chains about his
neck caught the sun where they lay atop the mat of black hair that showed
where his shirt was open. Bodie caught up with him on the strip of common
land by the rails, steered to him by one of Doyle's old informants, and
when he saw the .45 automatic in the big CI-5 man's fist, Lupino ran.

The foot chase took them two hundred yards from human habitation, and
Bodie was within an inch of grabbing him by the collar when the goods
train came thundering down on them and Lupino just didn't make it out of
the way. The big diesel loco plucked him up like a rag doll and carried
him away, and Bodie shoved the gun back into its holster without ever
having used it.

Back at the car, he called Central, and Cowley himself answered. "The man
who did Ray up was Alfred Lupino," he began.

"The Chelsea rapist," Cowley said sharply. "Damn! He got out three days
ago -- I'm getting slow, I should have guessed. Pick him up, Bodie --"

"I just tried to, sir," Bodie said quickly. "He took to his heels when he
saw me and tried to duck across the railway... He didn't make it, sir."

The line was silent for a moment, then Cowley's voice was back. "What a
shame," he said caustically. "Ah, well, if people will insist on using the
railway as a footpath they can hardly complain of the consequences, can
they? Leave it to me, 3.7. We wanted to question him in connection with
the bashing of one of our agents, he took flight for some odd,
unaccountable reason, and came to grief on the railway. It's all true
enough."

"It's true," Bodie agreed. "All you had to do was change the one little
word. 'Bashing' is a nicer word, anyway."

"I think so," Cowley said, and Bodie could hear the satisfaction in his
tone. "Is Doyle all right, Bodie? Physically, mentally?"

"He will be, sir," Bodie said, smiling at the radio. "It'll do him the
world of good to hear how Lupino ended his day."

An hour later Bodie was telling the story and watching Doyle's grim smile,
not a particularly pleasant expression, but a satisfied one. He wore his
baggy white slacks and a loose smock shirt over them. He was barefoot, and
he was hungry. Bodie had brought in Dover sole, chips, Guinness,
cheesecake, apple Danish and *Raise The Titanic!*, and they watched the
film as they ate, sitting at the table with a comfortable clutter of chip
papers and beer bottles. Then they transferred to the couch and Bodie felt
Ray tense up as he offered him the comfort of his arms.

"Ray? What's the matter?"

Doyle shrugged. "I don't trust myself. If you touch me I'll want you to
keep on touching me."

"So, what's wrong with that? I've been thinking about you all day. I had
one eye peeled for Lupino and the other on my watch, wanting to come
home!"

Dirk Pitt was putting a crowbar to the crates after the *Titanic* tied up
at the dock in New York, but Doyle was no longer looking at the screen. He
had seen the film at the cinema, two years before, and knew how it ended.
He sighed, dragging a hand across his face and sagging against Bodie.
"I've thought so much about it today, my brain feels like spaghetti."

"Give me the short version," Bodie said against his hair, and held his
breath.

"The bottom line?" Doyle turned his face to Bodie's neck. "You said it
yourself. I've got a pretty bad case of it... You're going to make me love
you, you realise that," he warned.

Bodie groaned his relief. "Realise it? I'm counting on it!"

They left the papers and bottles on the table as the film ended, and Doyle
held Bodie to his promise. It was wonderful to stand under the hot water
with the steel-strong arms about him, and Bodie pampered him shamelessly,
shaving him, washing his hair for him, getting the shower stall into a
mountain of suds until they were playing like a couple of kids.

Or like young lovers. The hot water made both of them pink, and they
scrubbed at one another with Ray's blue and green, yacht-pattern towels.
Bodie's cropped hair dried as he shaved, but Doyle's wayward curls were
still limp and damp, and he sat indulgently, swathed in the last of the
towels, while Bodie blew hot air at him from the Gilette dryer. The curls
became fluffy, smelling sweetly of the herbal shampoo, and as he turned
off the dryer Bodie buried his face in them, inhaling deeply.

They tumbled onto the bed, warm, dry and laughing, but Bodie sobered
first. "How do you feel, mate? The shoulder looks okay."

"It's just a bit stiff," Doyle said, shrugging it carefully in
demonstration.

"And your other end?"

"It's okay."

"So turn over and let me see." Doyle shot a startled glance at him but
silently did as he was asked, holding his breath as the gentle fingers
parted his buttocks and examined him. "Oh, you'll live." Bodie's voice was
husky as he watched Doyle roll over again. "Just let yourself heal up." He
bent to kiss him, felt Ray's long legs wrap about him and choked back an
involuntary moan.

"And then you'll take me, I suppose," Ray murmured.

"Only if you want to organise it that way," Bodie shrugged, trying to make
it sound as if it was of no consequence. "Take me instead, or do it
another way."

"Like what?" Doyle watched Bodie's colour deepen. "Show me."

Bodie hid a grin, pulling him over onto his side and locking his legs
tightly about him so that their groins ground agonisingly together each
time they moved. "This'll do for as long as it takes; the last thing I
want to do is hurt you. Take it slow, take it easy, there's no hurry. No
hurt, no hurry, no worry."

Ray closed his eyes. "Damn you, Bodie, if I fall in love with you it's
your own bloody fault!" He had opened his mouth to speak again when Bodie
claimed his lips with a triumphant kiss and began to move his hips in a
slow, driving rhythm that was irresistible.

Somewhere amid the strange new kind of loving, the outrage of being forced
faded away with the knowledge that Lupino had paid the ultimate price for
his cruelty -- his life -- and that Bodie was gasping with the tormented
effort of holding back long enough to make Ray come first -- an act of
love that was entirely selfless. Somewhere amid the tangle of confused,
overwhelming sensations, Ray fell hopelessly in love, and when he said as
much, muffled against Bodie's chest as they drifted back to reality, Bodie
whooped like a renegade Apache, clutching him in a punishing embrace.

"*Old longings' nomadic leap*," he breathed into Ray's sweet-smelling
hair," *chafing at custom's chain*... Jesus Christ, he loves me, I thought
I'd be a hundred and sixty before I heard him say it, if he ever said it
at all!" He sobered. "God, what a shame you had to get hurt to realise
it," he added, and grinned wickedly. "You want your Uncle Bodie to kiss it
*all* better?"

Doyle lifted his head, about to protest, then surrendered. "Kiss whatever
you like, it's all me. If you're going to love me, you might as well love
the lot." He curled his tongue about Bodie's right nipple, felt it harden
in his mouth. "Do whatever you want with me, anything, everything; and
then I'll do it all to you." He looked down into Bodie's crackling blue
eyes. "How's that for a proposition?"

"Could take a lifetime to get through everything," Bodie warned happily.

And Doyle cuddled closer. "Yeah. I hope it does."

******

It was a week later when the CI-5 medical officer, Peter Cooper, looked at
Ray's shoulder and certified it fully recovered, returning him to work.
They buried Lupino the same day and his family mourned at the grave side.
Cowley stood in the squad room with his hands about a cup of tea, watching
the live-eyenews bulletin at 10:45, and listening to the plummy BBC voice
reading over what scant details had been made available to the media...
The name of CI-5 was mentioned, twice, but Bodie's name had been withheld.
Cowley was pleased that 4.5 had just left the room in search of Bodie, to
tell him that he was indeed back on the job. It would have been vicious
for Ray to have to watch the news broadcast.

A muttered oath from behind him announced Bodie's presence and he turned
to see the agent's sour expression. "Look at that. Jesus, what I think of
what that bastard did to Ray, I could kill him if he wasn't already dead!"

He lived up to his name with that 'Irish' remark and, despite himself,
Cowley hid a faint smile. "Speaking of Doyle," he said quietly, "how is
he?"

"Physically?" Bodie shrugged. "He's okay. Bruising's gone down, shoulder's
fine."

"Mentally, emotionally?" Cowley added. "He seems happy. In fact, he seems
rather *too* happy, when one considers what happened to him. And he talks
about you all the time, Bodie... And when he does, his eyes shine. You'd
better tell him. Warn him. To cover it up, draw a blind over it, or other
people will begin to notice it."

"It?" Bodie growled. "Don't hint, sir, come out and say what you mean."

Cowley gave him a stern glance. "Don't play word games with an older
warhorse than yourself. I was in the army a devil of a lot longer than you
were, in three wars and eight countries. I've seen it all, from the rough,
brutal stuff, to the kind of tenderness that'd break your heart."

"Sir." Bodie swallowed, colouring and averting his eyes. "He needed it. He
needed me."

"Aye, so he did," George sighed. "Look, it's against every rule in the
book, but the book doesn't have a chapter that deals with this sort of
trauma, and God forbid that we should ever have to write one in! Keep it
discreet Bodie, and it's your business. Happy agents, like happy little
Christmas elves, do nice work."

The relief washed down through every nerve and Bodie looked the boss in
the eye. "Thanks, sir... But if you ever say a word, just one, to Ray
about it, I'll resign faster than you can quote my contract at me. He's
not up to it yet. It's that bloody Irish Catholic morality out of his
childhood. He doesn't even believe in the orthodox view of God anymore --
in this job, who could? -- but it's there in his subconscious and it
haunts him. Between the two of *us*, it doesn't matter a damn, but he's
not up to anybody else knowing."

The Scotsman nodded in agreement. "Wise, Bodie. So you're a backyard
psychologist too, are you?"

"Just Ray's lover," Bodie corrected quietly, "for as long as he wants it
to go on." He smiled. "It's going to be interesting working with him."

"You want a new partner? Murphy, Johnson, Brock, Alex --"

"Not on your life," Bodie said, the smile widening. "Take the sunshine out
of my day, no thanks."

"Well, keep your hands off him while you're at work," Cowley said,
shrugging, "and after that your time's your own. It's got nothing to do
with me... But stick to him like glue for a while, Bodie. I've got a
feeling, a bad feeling... The Lupinos are a big, violent, angry family,
and they know we're involved. The BBC just told them how Alfredo died --
and that ties his death right back to Doyle."

"Reprisals?" Bodie frowned. 

Cowley shrugged expansively. "It wouldn't be the first time... I don't
know, Bodie, but you can't be too careful when you've enemies under every
flat rock." Footsteps clattered in the hall outside and they turned to see
Doyle's curly haired head appear through the door. At once Cowley was all
business. "Ah, there you are, Doyle. You two have drawn bodyguard duty.
Sheik Abdul Kabir of Ohman is here -- the Opec talks. He has his own
guards with him, but there have been threats on his life and we'll take no
chances. To have Kabir killed on British soil would be embarrassing. The
Armoury have Ingrams for you, and you're to meet his aircraft at Heathrow
at 3:00. He's coming in on the Concord from Bahrain."

"Pick him up and take him where?" Doyle asked, already on his way back out
of the room.

"The Regency Hotel; then, tomorrow, he'll be at the Wembley Convention
Centre from ten till four. A show in the evening, British hospitality and
so forth, then back to his hotel for paperwork and long distance phone
calls back to the Persian Gulf. Repeat daily for three days, and then wave
him goodbye on the 10:45 Concord *to* Bahrain, on Thursday morning. It's a
simple itinerary."

Too simple, Bodie thought, wondering what could go wrong this time. They
drew the Ingram machine pistols and went home to change into clothes more
fitting for the job. Doyle dressed in tight new pale blue denims, a loose
cream shirt and a tan sports jacket; the gold of the chain about his neck
nestled among the soft hair on his chest, and he was wearing the gold
bracelet Bodie had given him only two days before, an identity plate which
was engraved on one side only with his first name and on the other with
the innocent catch phrase, 'bring me sunshine'. He remembered the look in
Ray's green eyes as he took it out of the box; he had covered his emotion
by doing several bars of the song, which had been the theme number of the
old Morcambe and Wise Show for years, and then gave up the attempt at
levity and buried his face in Bodie's warm shoulder, wanting to be held
and kissed, and Bodie also remembered the old song. Eric and Ernie had
made a hilarious routine of it but, divorced from their antics, the words
were actually painfully poignant... *bring me sunshine through the years,
never bring me any tears, let your arms be as warm as the sun from up
above, bring me fun, bring me sunshine, bring me love.* Obviously, Ray had
watched the two TV comics, in their top-hat-and-tails costume, dancing
their way across the end title with the song often enough to know the
lyrics as well as Bodie knew it himself, and the words choked him up.
Refreshingly wanton as his inhibitions began to ease away, he had actually
asked to be loved right there on the couch, and Bodie had complied with an
absurd sense of joy, kissing every inch of him and reveling in the smell
and taste and heat of him, so *alive*, so vital.

As he finished dressing for the bodyguard job he looked stunning; Bodie
felt a pang of jealousy as it occurred to him that Ray was going to go out
and strut his stuff for one and all to see, and his expression clouded.
Ray looked up, saw the frown and mirrored it. "What's wrong?" He looked
down at himself, wondering if he looked odd. "Bodie?"

In answer, Bodie smiled ruefully. "If anyone else -- bloke or bird -- so
much as winks at you, I'll break teeth," he growled. "Jesus, if you wore a
bag on your head the rest of you would draw a crowd!"

"Well, what about you?" Doyle demanded with a delighted grin. "Ever caught
the sight of yourself in a shop window, sauntering down the street like
the king of the barnyard? Come on, Bodie, let's get going before we're
late... *And* I need a haircut. Damn!"

"Don't you *dare*," Bodie said fiercely. "It isn't long *enough* yet... I
like it, well, long. You know."

"Let it grow, so you can do your 'bionic golly' routine?" Doyle said with
a mock-frown.

Bodie gave him an exasperated smile. "Why do you think I used to call you
that, you beautiful idiot? To annoy you in self defence. The longer you
let your hair grow, the more ... passionate it makes you look. You used to
frighten the life out of me, but now I can *have* you, you don't scare me
-- so I'll tell you when you need a haircut, love. Deal?"

"Deal," Ray laughed, unable to hide his delight.

The British Airways Concord was right on schedule. Sheik Kabir was a
short, rotund man with a Yasser Arafat checkered 'tea towel' and a Charles
Bronson moustache. Bodie was amazed to discover that he liked the man at
once -- he was no threat to his masculinity and he had two of his wives
with him in addition to three big, thick set bodyguards. It was one of the
bodyguards who at once annoyed Bodie: Jamil Abbas sported diamond
earrings, was meticulously clean shaven, and wore his pants almost as
tight as Ray. And he was looking at Ray from beneath lowered lids before
Kabir and his wives were installed in their plush suite at the Regency.
Trying to figure out if the tight denim, the sculptured curls and the
jewellery were a form of sign language, one living nature to another?

Bless Ray's heart, Bodie thought bitterly, he had not even noticed the
looks he was getting; but what could he do about the way he looked and
behaved? If he shaved his head and wore a cassock he might disguise what
he had to offer, but the way he walked, with his back so straight and
swinging shoulders, and the poise of a dancer, was enough to turn heads.
Bodie stuck close to him, when possible putting himself between Ray and
Abbas, and it came to the minor confrontation between them when Doyle had
gone ahead into the rooms he would share with Bodie and the door clicked
into place behind him.

The CI-5 man and the bodyguard stepped up, eye to eye, and Bodie wondered
how far Jamil would be prepared to push it. "You speak English?"

"Also French, Greek and Italian," Jamil said silkily. "We are about to
discuss your associate, are we not?"

"Nothing to discuss," Bodie said coldly.

"Your friend is very beautiful, this I have seen."

"Yeah," Bodie agreed bluffly, "he is. Full marks for observation. He
belongs to *me*, you hear me, Abbas? We're going to be working together
for three days, and I'm telling you before we start: you so much as
embarrass my friend and I'll take a delight in ruining your holiday
prospects. Don't even bat your eyelashes his way."

Unexpectedly, Jamil smiled, an astonishing expression of good humour in
response to Bodie's threats and promises. He raised his hands as if at
gunpoint. "You British are so uncivilised. In my country we are much more
cultured. I was about to ask if your friend desired my company, or if he
has no need of it. It is dishonourable to covet another's bedmate, Mister
Bodie, and I am an honourable man. Neither you nor your lover need be
concerned. Give him my compliments; he is quite the most exquisite
creature I have seen in many years."

"Yeah," Bodie said, startled, "he is, isn't he?" It was weird to hear it
from another man's lips, but he began to relax. If Jamil fancied Ray it
was monumentally unlikely that he would fancy Bodie at the same time,
because the two were so vastly dissimilar. "You, er, like them leggy and
redheaded, I see." He cleared his throat. "Just call me Bodie; so long as
you don't bother Ray I don't see why we can't be friendly."

In the en suite bathroom, Doyle was pulling the Ronson over his face to
beat the five o'clock shadow. Bodie leaned on the door, watching him,
amused, wondering if he should relay Jamil's compliments, and deciding not
to: Doyle was not up to that yet. He glanced once around the expensive
room and grunted. "Twin beds, I'm afraid."

"Nice big ones, though," Ray said, tossing the razor to him. "You look a
bit blue around the gills yourself. Jeez, I get sick of shaving."

"But that face is too beautiful to surrender to the fungus," Bodie
grinned. He glanced at the beds... "Room in one of those for two, do you
reckon? Be a tight squeeze."

Ray's cheeks became quite pink beneath his tan. "Sounds, um, nice,
actually."

It was. Much later, Bodie enjoyed the gentle ritual of undressing him, but
he did not remove the jewellery. Doyle did not notice what he had done and
the yellow gold shimmered on his skin while they made one of the beds into
a nest and slid into it, pressed together out of necessity, the musky
scent of masculinity strong between them. Bodie had not realised how close
to the edge Doyle had been until he shifted position, drawing an
involuntary caress across his partner's hardness, and felt the spurt of
dampness on his thigh as Ray gasped. He tipped Doyle's face up to look at
him. "That was quick. When you want me, *say* so!" He rolled Ray onto his
back and kissed his throat. 

"I want you all the time," Doyle admitted apologetically.

"I can keep up with you," Bodie smiled. "I do my exercises and take all my
vitamins." He paused as Doyle caught his head, drawing it down to his
mouth, and the kiss was fiery. "You're still on the simmer, aren't you?"
As he spoke he felt his lover rise against him and watched Doyle swallow.

They clung together, Ray on his right side, Bodie on his left, and Bodie
took it so slowly that Doyle left finger-bruises on his shoulders and was
sobbing helplessly before he was nudged over the peak and convulsed
deeply, triggering the exhausting spasms in Bodie's own abdomen. It was so
good to please him that Bodie barely bothered to notice that Ray had been
taking and taking and had yet to actively *give* in return.

That might take time, he knew; the hurt had to bury itself in the past and
the inhibitions of the faith of his forefathers had to find some wary
truce with his tormented subconscious before he would be able to do that.
As it was, the way they made love, with a thousand hot, exquisite
caresses, driving in between gripping thigh muscles, belly to belly and
mouth to mouth, was more than enough, and Ray had enough staying power to
exhaust Bodie as his women never had.

They slept soundly, and Bodie had the prudence to thoroughly mess up the
other bed before they shared the shower and departed about the day's
business. The tedium of this kind of duty was beyond description. The
day's sole high point was the bomb scare at the Empire Stadium, the world
famous Wembley Stadium itself, where the FA Cup was battled for at the
close of the soccer calendar each year, in May. There was never a moment
to themselves and they were tired from sheer boredom when they went out to
*The Mouse Trap* that evening, then accompanied Kabir, his wives and his
bodyguards to a nearby restaurant for supper.

Five pancakes and three cups of coffee later, Bodie was falling asleep
listening to the gossip, his chin on his hand, when the sounds of
upturning tables and shattering glass set his nerves on edge. He woke
fast, but Doyle was there first, shoving him out of the line of fire at
the last possible moment before a dozen 9mm rounds ripped out of a Russian
machine pistol, impacting with the wall against which Bodie had been
sitting. Kabir dove to the ground, taking the women down with him, and
Doyle had clawed his automatic from the holster beneath his jacket,
snapping off three quick shots before Jamil, who was the fastest of the
Arabs, had got his own weapon loose.

The shots were dead on target -- since when did Ray ever miss? Bodie
grinned mirthlessly at the gunman, who had gone down in a heap in the
doorway. But Doyle was not smiling. Reholstering his gun, he went to his
knees at Bodie's side. "Christ, are you all right? You nearly bought it,
Bodie!"

"Not today," Bodie said as he levered his way to his feet, and he managed
to squeeze Ray's hand tightly without anyone noticing. "Not *any* day when
you're there, right? Jeez, you were like greased bloody lightning!"

They reported to Central by RT and Cowley's after hours understudy
dispatched the forensic squad while the assortment of bodyguards ferried
Kabir and his family back to the hotel. Doyle's legs were still trembling
under him when Bodie shut their door, and his eyes were feverishly bright.
Bodie looked at him and frowned, tossing his jacket and shoulder harness
at a chair. "Ray? What's wrong?"

Doyle shook his head mutely for a time. "I'm a fool. An idiot. It's just
really occurred to me... One of these days one of us is *going* to buy it,
and... And it'll all be over."

"Not healthy to think that way," Bodie murmured. "If it happens, it
happens *when* it happens. No sense brooding about it. You live for the
*now*,the today. You probably saved my life, I'll save yours next week,
and then we can go back to the beginning and do it all over again."

"For how long?" Doyle whispered.

"For as long as we can." Bodie took him by the shoulders. "Come to bed,
love. It's late, I'm tired, I want you and I've been waiting all day to
kiss you." He caught Ray's head, exploring the perfect lips, the slightly
imperfect teeth that made Ray's smile heart-catchingly human; and then he
checked in surprise as he felt Doyle take over the kiss, pressing it to
him with a ferocity that was startling. It was the first time Ray had ever
done that.

And it was only the beginning. He drew Bodie to the foot of the bed and
made him sit down, his thin, nimble hands deftly undressing him before he
tumbled him back onto the quilted coverlet, quickly shed his own clothes,
and knelt astride the taller man's thighs. Bodie watched breathlessly as
Ray bent his beautiful head, kissing the satin skin of his chest, teasing
at his nipples with lips and teeth, and he knew even then where it would
end. Bodie's body was burning when Doyle took his weight on his palms, one
on either side of him, and looked down into his partner's flushed face.
"You want to take me now?" he asked, brave words betrayed by their
hesitant tone. He was still afraid of the pain and the bleeding, Bodie
knew.

"Later," Bodie smiled. "You take me instead, see what it's like from the
other perspective. You know how?"

Doyle nodded, reaching down with one hand, brushing by Bodie's throbbing
groin to lubricate both of them thoroughly with his early release. He took
his weight on both palms again and Bodie watched him swallow as he spread
his thighs wide apart and invited Ray between them.

"Slowly and gently does it, Ray," he said while he could still speak.
"Just do what feels good, just -- aah..." He closed his eyes as a shaft of
lightning thrilled upward through him, reaching up with his hips to help
and clutching at Doyle's shoulders with fingers like steel. Ray sobbed
aloud as he managed what, at one time, he was sure he would never be able
to do, and for some time they lay still, not moving a muscle, until the
pressure became intolerable and Bodie began to writhe beneath him,
murmuring his name in a torment of wanting.

Courage bolstered by Bodie's breathless appreciation, Ray began to move,
working his hips slowly and carefully, hot caresses that were beyond
comprehension and quickly stole his mind away, plunging both of them into
a wrestling match that was blind and frantic and ecstatic. They came in an
explosion that seemed to tear them limb from limb, collapsing in a tangle
of arms and legs, and it was minutes before they could think and speak
again.

Bodie clutched Ray against him, proud of him, knowing the battle he had
waged to beat the fear and the childhood brainwashing of religion, and Ray
lay on his chest like a rag doll, spent, pulling air into his lungs. "Did
I do it right?" he muffled at last.

"Course you did," Bodie told him. "Nothing to it, is there?"

They lay quietly in the ridiculously narrow bed, drowsing and thinking
without saying a word for a long time before Ray lifted his head again and
looked down into his lover's face. "You can take me, if you want to," he
said huskily.

At that, Bodie came fully awake, the mere suggestion hardening him in
moments. "You sure, mate? Absolutely sure?"

"It didn't seem to do you any harm," Doyle reasoned, "and I'm healed up.
Look, it's bothering me, Bodie. I sleep with you, I turn on and wear
myself ragged with you, but the only time anyone's been inside of me it
was a bloke trying to hurt me. It shouldn't have been him, with hate... It
should have been you. With love."

A smile crooked one corner of Bodie's expressive mouth, "Now, there's
logic for you." He drew his fingers over Ray's full lips, stroking his
soft inner thigh with his other hand. "Just lie down, it's easy, you'll
see... No, the other way up, Ray, make it easier for yourself."

"Not the way he did it to me," Doyle said stubbornly, "the way *we* did it
just now." He parted his thighs to accommodate Bodie's knees. "I want to
feel it from you. He made me come when I didn't want to. Now... I want
to."

Bodie nodded with a fond expression. "Yours to command, love. Just a
tick." He was lubricating himself with Doyle's essences, caught and held
by his own body as if it knew they would be needed, and he moved slowly
and steadily, entering Ray's tense, quivering body and listening to the
choking sobs of relief and arousal as Doyle realised that it *didn't* hurt
and *did* feel incredible. Having made love once already they had a
greater control, and with patience and effort they played each other up to
the peak and hovered there for what seemed an eternity, until Ray was
struggling for breath and Bodie's heart seemed to be trying to escape
through his ribs. Climax racked them, and then Bodie withdrew, climbing
off his partner with shaking muscles and ringing ears.

It was some time before he could look into Doyle's face; and then he saw
the tears there. Alarm doused the glorious afterglow at once. "Ray --
what's the matter? Jesus, are you hurt? Why didn't you say something? I
didn't mean to -- I tried to be --"

"Shush, Bodie," Doyle said, smiling gently at him, though the tears
continued. "Some people cry when they're so happy they don't know what to
do with themselves."

"Happy?" Bodie collapsed beside him in relief. "God, I thought I'd hurt
you."

Doyle slipped his arms about him, cuddling him, holding his head against
his shoulder and feeling Bodie's warm breath ruffle the fine, dark hair on
his chest. "Hurt me? I thought maybe I wouldn't be big enough inside for
you, but even that worked out. I'm just aching a bit... You're, well, a
big lad, you know." Then he laughed.

"So what's so funny?"

"I'm just remembering a sermon of Father Duffy's. We'll burn, according to
him, in Eternal Damnation. If I was still one of the faithful, I expect
I'd get excommunicated. Not because I've made love to a man, but because I
want to do it again, because I like it."

Bodie's tone was honestly curious. "I know the Bible says you're not
supposed to make love to your own sex, but *why* can't you?"

"Probably the dumbest of all possible reasons," Doyle told him drily.
"You're not supposed to make love with *anyone* -- not even your own wife
-- at *any* time unless you're trying to make a baby." He paused. "Blokes
don't get pregnant, thank God. That's your reason. Stupid, isn't it?
That's why Catholics used to have sixteen kids and marry their women off
at fourteen and go to prison for using rubbers. Rome rule. Be fruitful and
multiply, says the Book -- and we've given ourselves a wonderful
population problem that way, 'cause the only alternative to abstinence is
to sin and sin and keep on sinning... And I don't reckon we're going to
make many babies between *us*, Bodie."

"Going to make a lot of love, though," Bodie smiled. "I love you so much I
think my heart's going to explode."

The tears welled up again and Ray shed them with a smile. "You can say
that as often as you like! The loving's like an ache, in here." He tapped
his chest. "It frightens me, makes me want to act like a fool."

"And do what?" Bodie grinned.

Ray laughed quietly. "Tell the world I'm in love. Bring you presents,
spend my whole life with you, and when it's over, have them put my ashes
in the same urn with yours."

The last suggestion, whispered huskily into his dark hair, broke Bodie's
heart at last, and for the first time in years his vision misted and Doyle
felt the cool tickle of tears on his chest. He said nothing, reaching out
to put out the lamp, and they lay awake in the darkness, lost in the feel
and smell and warmth of each other, and wondered how they ever survived
without this.

"What about Father Duffy?" Bodie said quietly as last. "And what about
Mary Doyle's youngest son, Raymond?"

"Yeah, what *would* Mum say?" Doyle sighed. "Out to Mass three times a
week, fish and chips on Friday, Saint Peter on the wall beside the front
door, candles and Saint Luke in her room. I feel like I've let her down,
you know?" Then he laughed. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned ... 'Yes,
my son, what have you done?'... I've made love, Father ... 'An occasional
transgression can be forgiven, my son' ... I've made love about forty
times since my confession last month, Father ... 'Oh, dear. Well, your
young lady is very beautiful, I'm sure--' ... I'm sleeping with a man,
Father ... 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Nine thousand Hail Marys and come to
Mass twice a day for the next six months!'" He was doing a Belfast burr in
the old priest's part, and it was hilarious.

Bodie guffawed. "And that much praying's supposed to make you love me
less, is it?"

"No," Doyle quipped glibly, "it's supposed to wear out my knees."

"So, roll over, underneath, and give 'em a rest," Bodie chuckled. He
looked at Ray's dim profile, half-lit by the slight illumination from the
street. "You don't regret it?"

"Because of what my mother might say?" He shook his head. "I'm a big boy.
I've gone my own way for twenty years, why should I go back now? And
Father Duffy died back in 1968, so I'm not a thorn in *his* side either.
Besides ... I suppose you have to come from a Catholic background to
understand who they are, but there's a couple of slogans that are pretty
telling. They're not perfect, says one, just forgiven. So you can do what
the hell you like and repent on your death bed and watch the pearly gates
swing open to meet you. Carte blanche to be a dead wrong'un and still be a
Catholic and get into Heaven. The other one rhymes: sex is evil, sex is
sin, but sin is forgiven, so sex is in."

Again, Bodie guffawed, snuggling closer to Ray's warmth. "Bloody
perceptive."

"Thought you'd like that one. Regrets? Just one. That we wasted so long.
That the bloody brainwashing I had as a kid hid who I was even from me ...
Which left you hiding your feelings like a martyr going to the stake and
me mucking about with empty casual relationships I didn't really want.
Lots of sex, no love... And it's not the same if you're not in love, is
it?"

In answer Bodie kissed him, then kissed him again, told him he loved him,
and Doyle tangled himself happily in Bodie's arms and legs, absurdly
grateful that the bed was so narrow that the only way it would accommodate
two was in such an embrace. "Sleep, my love," Bodie told him softly. "It's
late, and --" He laughed. "I think we're going to be a bit stiff in the
morning."

"A *bit* stiff?" Ray echoed. "I reckon I'm going to want about half a
gallon of horse liniment!"

It was raining the day the 10:45 Concord took Sheik Abdul Kabir and his
party back to Bahrain, but the Arabs smiled at the weather, enjoying it.
British drizzle was something of a novelty to them. Kabir shook Bodie's
hand, then Doyle's, at the exit gate. "I must thank you for your
unobtrusive presence, gentlemen. You made me feel positively unhindered
during my stay here."

"All part of the service," Doyle smiled, his green eyes transferring from
Kabir to Jamil, and Bodie's narrowed eyes saw him lift his chin a little.

*Damnation, he finally noticed*! Bodie thought. His innocence was just
beginning to vanish, to be replaced by something that was not vanity. It
was dawning on him, last of all, how beautiful he was. Bodie smiled in
spite of himself, looking forward to giving him Jamil's small surprise.
Rain sluiced over the Capri's windows as they sat in the VIP carpark to
watch the Concord depart, its droop-snoot and gorgeous delta wings drawing
their gaze until it was no more than a white speck in the overcast.

Then Bodie leaned across to kiss his partner's responsive mouth in the
seclusion of the rain storm, and pressed a small box into his palm.
"What's this?" Ray muttered in surprise.

"Open it and see," said Bodie grinning, watching him do as he was told.
The box held a single piece of ivory, delicately carved into the shape of
a lotus, and it was suspended on a fine gold chain.

"Bodie, it's beautiful --"

"Before you thank the wrong person, it's Jamil's gift. A token of his
admiration."

Doyle blushed and hid a smile. "Oh. It was only the other day I noticed. I
was picking up the magazines Farrah dropped -- you know what her lumbago's
been like in our weather --"

"And the incomparable little backside of yours went on display as a free
art exhibition, and Jamil just happened to be there?"

"Yeah. He went sort of glassy eyed and asthmatic. He didn't say anything
to me, though."

"Because," Bodie said flatly, "I'd already told him, two days before, that
I'd duff him up if he did." He paused. "You, er, didn't fancy him, did
you? He's kind of nice looking."

Doyle choked off a chuckle. "He's dark, like you, and built a lot like
you, and a smooth talker, like you, but... Fancy him? Nah. I'm a one-horse
cart, Bodie. I didn't use to date two girls at the same time, I wouldn't
cheat on a lady I'd married, so why would I want to start looking around
when I'm in love with you?" He grinned. "Pity you couldn't marry me, make
an honest man of me, and we could settle down in domestic bliss."

The notion -- not of marriage, but of domesticity -- made Bodie laugh.
"Jeez, I wouldn't go as far as curtains and carpets, pet... I'm useless at
that. All my places are furnished when I rent 'em. But," he added
impishly, "if you want a ring for one of those fingers, I'll get you one."

Trying to tell if he was joking, Doyle frowned at him. "You would,
wouldn't you?"

"Course. Rings for your fingers, rings for your toes. They fit on other
parts of your anatomy too. Or is that a bit voyeur for you?"

"A bit," Ray admitted, slipping the gift's fine chain over his head. "Why
didn't he give it to *me*?"

"Because he thought *I'd* kick his teeth in if he did," Bodie grinned,
starting the car. "And he was right. I said your thank yous for you,
sunshine, so if you want to thank anyone, you can climb up on top of me
and do it properly later."

"Don't get me going," Ray muttered, colouring again. "It'll be hours
before we're finished work."

They had the afternoon off, and after reporting back to Cowley they drove
over to Bodie's in two separate cars and filled eight cardboard boxes with
Bodie's personal effects. His lease was up in a week's time, and he had
decided not to renew it. He had the keys in his hand as Doyle slammed the
hatch on the last of the boxes, and they stopped off three miles away to
hand them in at the agent's office. Doyle's home was *more* of a home, not
just a place to eat and sleep and change clothes -- which was his Irish
family background showing. Bodie had always been guardedly envious, but
the envy dissipated as Ray shut the door behind them and he realised that
it was *his* home now too. It was a nice flat, but any flat that had Ray
in it would have been nice, and he said so, enjoying the opportunity to
hold him and kiss him, feel his body heat and bury his face in the soft
curls that still smelled of that morning's herbal shampoo.

"Love you, Ray," he whispered into his left ear, cupping Doyle's
denim-clad buttocks and pulling their hips together.

"I know you do," Ray said, looping his arms about Bodie's neck.

"Love me too?" Bodie prompted in a mock-hopeful tone; he already knew.

"Ray sighed. "So much I couldn't even start to tell you what it feels
like. Best I can do is show you, if you're in the mood."

"*If*?" Bodie demanded, propelling him toward the bedroom. "*If*?"

******

There was happiness the like of which Bodie had never really known. His
life had been one enormous chaos as he grasshoppered about -- schoolboy,
merchant seaman, gigolo on the Cape, mercenary, inmate of the brutalised
Congo prison, then out of Africa by the time he was twenty-three. 2 Para,
West German Division 9, into 3 Para, Belfast -- seconded to the SAS...
CI-5. Sometimes he wondered how long his affiliation with the department
would be, since he had already been with 'Cowley's mob' since 1975, years
longer than he had lasted with any other outfit. Where else was there to
go after one had run the course with CI-5? MI-5? BOSS -- the James Bond
brigade, the British Overseas Secret Service? He admitted to a certain
longing to travel again, and knew full well that when BOSS was recruiting
these days, they looked at CI-5 first...

Vienna, Saltzburg, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Bodie thought dreamily as he lay
back in the stern of the rowing boat, watching Doyle's sun-dappled face as
he sculled leisurely with the current. And then he remembered Quinn... Two
years as a 'guest' of the KGB -- and Igor Kodai, the *late* Igor Kodai,
who had been George Cowley's personal nemesis. Yes, he could go overseas
for BOSS, and take his chances about coming back; the thrill of the danger
was indisputable, but as Bodie thought it over he admitted to himself that
he had changed lately.

Now, for the first time, he had something to *lose*, something that
mattered so much to him that if he was sent out with a 50/50 chance of not
coming back, the thrill would be supplanted by terror, cold sweats and a
rabid desire to think of any excuse *not* to go. The thought of being
without Ray was terrible... The thought of Ray being without *him* was
even worse. The spy business was for the unattached, the footloose, those
who were addicted to their own adrenalin and who were hooked on the
danger, the sex, the power politics.

Not for someone who looked forward to going home at night because it was
so good to shut the door, collapse on one end of the sofa, kick off his
shoes and balance a takeaway pizza on his left knee while the person he
loved most in the world sprawled full length all over the rest of the sofa
with his head on his right knee, feeding vegetarian pasta into himself and
making cynical one line gags about the inane stories on the Six O'clock
News that had them both laughing till it hurt.

Out in midstream, Doyle let the oars rest and levered himself into the
bottom of the boat to curl up comfortably against Bodie, singing quietly
as Bodie tousled his hair: "*and then he'd row, row, row, right up the
river he would row, row, row, row, row, then'd rest on his oars, take a
round of applause* --" Bodie kissed him to silence him.

"You're in good voice today, my lad. Take requests, do you? Like to
perform for me, specially?"

The emphasis on the word 'perform' made Ray chuckle richly. "You're
incorrigible, Bodie. What about all those people on the bank? If they saw
you kiss me --"

"All they can see is your curls, love," Bodie grinned. "They'll just think
my missus has had a nice new perm. Come on, Ray, it's our day off. Don't
you want to play?"

"I've been playing since seven o'clock this morning," Doyle chided,
"you've got me worn out already -- and you've got me rowing the bloody
boat!"

"If I row it back, will you play?" Bodie wheedled.

Ray laughed aloud. "I'd play anyway, you know that. But you may have to
push me home in a wheelbarrow if you take much more out of me!" He lay
back comfortably, watching the branches of a midstream island tree drift
by overhead while Bodie petted him as if he were a beloved kitten. They
dozed, letting the boat drift with the current until Bodie looked at his
watch and sat up reluctantly with a yawn. "Time to start back?" Doyle
wondered, prising open one eye.

"If you want to get any tea before the dining room fills up," Bodie said,
taking the oars and working one of them to pull the boat about.

On the way back to their hotel he would be pulling against the current,
Doyle realised, and he sat back to watch with a smirk. "Don't wear
yourself out too much, will you, mate?" he said, his tone wickedly and
deliberately erotic while his expression was entirely innocent.

"Who, me? See these muscles?" Bodie grinned. "Plenty left, old son, don't
you worry your head." He watched Ray stretch out in the stern with a deep
yawn, crossing his long legs and drawing his palms across his chest where
the gold chain shone in the sun, artlessly seductive as women just had no
idea *how* to be.

It was forty-five minutes' journey back up the river to the landing on the
bank by the Black Lion Hotel, and Bodie was tingling from the gentle
exercise when Ray stepped up out of the boat and tied it up. He looked at
his watch. "Time to go up and wash before they start serving."

Their room was at the back of the hotel's second storey; it was a Tudor
building and booked sparsely at this point, late in the year when the
tourist season was over. There were only two other couples there, but the
dining room catered to passing trade. As they climbed the ancient, narrow
and creaking staircase, Bodie brushed a hand over Ray's tight-packed
buttocks, sure that they were alone already, and Doyle turned back to give
him a look of mock-reproof. "Blame yourself, mate," Bodie said with a
grin. "If you didn't wear your pants so tight --"

But Doyle was no longer listening. As they climbed to the landing he held
up one hand, cautioning Bodie to silence, and hissed: "The room. There's
somebody in there." As he spoke he reached in under the light canvas
jacket he wore, bringing out his service issue automatic. Bodie's
expression had darkened abruptly and he brought out his own weapon,
charging it. They took station, one on either side of the door, and it was
Bodie who took the point, stepping up to kick the door open, slamming it
back on its protesting hinges.

What happened in the next four seconds was a blur. As Bodie appeared and
the door smashed open there was the unmistakable blast of a shotgun in the
same instant that several rounds spat out of the CI-5 man's gun. Blood
fanned into the air, Doyle caught an impression of the gunman going down,
tossed backward by the multiple impacts; but Bodie was going down also,
with an annoyed curse through clenched teeth, and it was only Ray's feral
instincts that dragged his attention to the room's other corner.

A second man was there, a big, burly Italian with a Rambo knife held in
his right hand. Ray brought up the gun, steely-eyed. "Drop it! Right
bloody now!" The man hesitated, Doyle could see the courage building up
behind his sallow face, and a moment later he lunged forward. Two rounds
snapped out of the automatic, tearing through the shoulder above the
saw-backed knife and spinning the man about. He went down in a heap and
Ray kicked the knife away as it fell from numbing fingers.

"Bodie? Bodie, how bad?" he called, the thin edge of panic in his voice as
he turned toward his partner.

Bodie was sitting against the wall, flushed and bright eyed, his gun held
loosely in his left hand, but his teeth were bared in a smile as Ray came
to kneel beside him, peering at his right arm. "Bloody bird shot," he
mattered. "I've picked up a few pieces. That stupid bugger couldn't hit
the side of a barn."

"That stupid bugger's dead," Ray said, strung out by relief as he
retrieved the Rambo knife and cut the shirt away from Bodie's arm. He
tossed the knife down, counting the impacts. "Three shots," he said.
"Deep, I'm afraid; you're going to want that seen to, fast." He looked
back over his shoulder at the body and the wounded Italian knifeman.
"Why?" he demanded of the glassy eyed man. "Who the hell are you? What do
you want?"

There was something dreadfully familiar about the Italian's face, but
something Ray had difficulty placing; he watched the glazed eyes fight for
focus, and then the North London voice spat out of the man's twisted lips.
"You don't know me -- Doyle? You're a bloody fool. Did you think your
chicken-shit department could kill my brother and we'd do *nothing*?" he
sniped at the CI-5 men. "You still don't know me? Angie Lupino --yeah,
that's right, you heard, Alfie was my brother, my big brother. You took
ten years out of his life, for what? For a little tart down the East End
who yelled blue murder when he got the fucking he'd asked for. Ten years!"

Bodie shot a glance at Ray, watching the colour drain from his face, but
the Lupino brother was still growling. "Oh, yeah, Alfie had you all
figured out. You took the side of that faggot boy like he was family, you
with your pretty hair and your friendly mouth, and the arse that's just
begging to be banged. Don't try telling me you're not gay, pretty little
Raymond. I held you down while Alfie shoved you --"

"*Shut up*!" The hiss was from Bodie, serpentine and dangerous. "Shut your
mouth before I shut it for you the hard way!"

The younger Lupino leered at him. "Oh yeah, his better half. Like the way
he handles, do you? Sweet as honey between the legs, ain't he? Tight as a
clenched fist and twice as hot, and he bucks like a bronco if you ride him
rough enough --"

"*Shut your mouth, Lupino*!" Bodie raised his voice, filling the room with
noise and levering his way to his feet. Ray was silent, white as a sheet,
his automatic held loosely in both hands, his breathing uneven. He was
studying the floorboards, the confusion written plainly on his face.
"Ray?" Bodie said softly. "Take no notice, he's trying to bait us."

"He's managing it," Ray said bitterly. "My hands want to kill him." He was
trembling with the effort of denying them that right.

"You don't *have* to be baited," Bodie said as levelly as he could manage.
"It was a crime, the one who did it's dead."

"And the one who held me down *while* he did it's still here." The shaking
frightened the life out of Ray as he fought every instinct in his body.
"Jesus Christ, Bodie, what am I going to do? If we take him in he's going
to have to testify in court sooner or later. He'll stand up and tell the
whole story to a jury. My *family*, Bodie. I've got two brothers and a
sister. It'll kill my mother."

The agony in his voice raked at Bodie's nerves like the fingers of a
musician on vibrating strings. He turned toward his partner, in that
moment forgetting the younger Lupino brother, and taking Doyle by the left
shoulder. "Cowley'll arrange it. We could keep him on ice for years before
he sees the inside of a court; we could deal."

"Deal -- with *him*? To keep it a secret that the CI-5 Alpha Squad leaders
are sleeping together?" The bitterness nearly choked Ray and it chilled
Bodie right through to the bone. "Bodie, what am I going to *do*?"

"*We*," Bodie whispered. "Don't make it sound like you're on your own,
Ray, it's both of us or it's nothing. Cowley knows -- about everything.
Let him fix it. He'll hang this foul-mouthed little basket case out to --"

"*Bodie*!" Doyle's voice cracked about the room like a whip, it had
nothing at all to do with anything Bodie had been saying, and as the call
of alarm was dragged out of him both the CI-5 men spun, two .45 automatics
barking in unison. Angelo Lupino had the Rambo knife in his hand, had
crawled for it while they spoke, and it left his hand in a scything arc in
the same instant that the guns discharged. Ray pumped three rounds into
him, right on target in the middle of his chest, and Bodie snapped off
two.

Abruptly there was silence, blood and relief. The knife flew wide, missing
Doyle by a foot and burying itself in the skirting board behind him.

The trembling sapped the strength out of Ray and he put out a hand; Bodie
slipped his good arm about him. "Easy, easy. It's finished now. All over
-- and the best way for all concerned. Jesus, they must have followed us
up from London. What a family! Revenge is a way of life -- they're worse
than the bloody Mafia!"

Feet came pounding up the stairs and the manageress appeared, florid and
frightened. Bodie pushed his ID at her, waving her out of the way, and dug
through his British Airways overnight bag for the RT, calling CI-5 Central
with a thorough if terse report. The coroner's people would be out with a
meat wagon, and the hotel could claim on its insurance to cover the damage
costs -- bullets and blood.

As he put away the RT he sat on the foot of the bed beside Ray, taking his
partner's chin in his good hand and gritting his teeth against the fiery
pain from the imbedded fragments of birdshot in his right arm. "You okay,
pet?"

"Yeah," Ray said softly, rubbing at his eyes, scrubbing away the scalding
tears he did not dare let Bodie see. He forced a smile, looking up at
Bodie. "You don't look so hot yourself, though. Come on, I'll drive you to
the hospital, get you fixed up." He stood up, drawing himself away from
Bodie as if it was painful to be touched now.

Fear clawed at Bodie as he watched him reflexively pull away. *Oh, no*, he
thought feverishly, *no, Ray, don't*! The fright overrode the pain from
the birdshot and he stood up. "Ray? Ray, look at me." Doyle was breathing
shallowly, his face unreadable. "Ray, what is it? Say it, whatever it is."

But Doyle hugged his arms about his aching chest, mute, his mind brutally
replaying the taunts back to him, and suddenly it was all ugly to him,
hurtful and repugnant. He looked into Bodie's dark blue eyes only with
difficulty. "What... What he said..."

"Words," Bodie hissed, "said to hurt us, to pay us out. Nothing more. Come
on, Ray," he went on, coaxingly now, "use your brain, love, *think* your
way out of it. He wanted revenge for Alfie, and *he* wanted you for
himself, sweetheart, didn't he?"

Comprehension filtered into Doyle's spinning mind like cool water and the
fog began to clear. "He wanted me?"

"Your pretty hair, your friendly mouth and your lovely little backside,"
Bodie murmured intensely, deliberately rephrasing the last. "Remember? He
was so jealous he probably came up here with his mate to shoot me and make
a grab for you. Right? *Right*?"

The green eyes began to clear and Ray dragged in a breath. "I'll buy it."
He smiled faintly at the look on Bodie's face: pure fright. "You thought I
was going to walk off, didn't you? Walk out on you?"

"It... crossed my mind," Bodie admitted tensely. "Would you have?"

But Doyle shook his head with a sigh. "I thought you'd chase me, love. The
things he said made me sound so ... so cheap, like a ten bob scrubber. I
didn't see how you could ever want to touch me again."

"Oh, Ray, you gorgeous idiot." Bodie groaned, and he caught his lover in
an embrace so fierce it stunned them both, knotting his fingers into the
wayward curls and pulling his head towards a kiss that was desperate. "Not
want to touch you? You're *mine*, you *belong* to me, for good and all,
and I'll knock the head off the first person who tries to come between us,
bloke or bird. What in Christ's name do I have to do to make you
*understand*?"

Ray caught his breath with a smile, part sad, part wistful, part
celebratory; he slipped his right hand in between Bodie's thighs, stroking
the tight fabric there. "You just did, love." He leaned forward to kiss
Bodie's mouth again, licking his lips, and then slipped one arm about him
as the bigger man began to sag against him.

"Great," Bodie murmured, his flushed face against Ray's shoulder. "He
loves me. Now, would he please take me somewhere where I can get something
for *this*? My arm's killing me."

They gave him a shot of crystomyacin and a local and picked out the
birdshot at the provincial hospital a mile and a half up the winding lane
from the hotel, stuck an adhesive bandage over the sutures and gave Bodie
a foam rubber sling to take the weight off the abused limb. He threw the
sling into a bin on his way out of the tiny cottage hospital and hunched
down in the left side of the Capri, watching Ray's long legs work brake,
clutch and throttle as he drove back up to the Black Lion.

The van from the morgue was already there, and so was George Cowley. He
gave Doyle and Bodie a hard look, waiting for the story, and Bodie had
inhaled to begin when Ray took the initiative. "It was Lupino's brother,
sir. He was one of the men who assaulted me; he and his mate, the one with
the shotgun, must have been watching us since Lupino was killed on the
railway, and when we came out here we just made it easy for them. They
were in the room when we came back from boating; they damned near killed
Bodie -- the certainly *intended* to kill him... And, one way or another,
I expect they'd have killed me. Eventually."

There was no doubt about what he meant; Cowley watched 4.5 shrewdly as he
spoke. He saw the old confidence and pride back again, the belief in his
own abilities, the self-respect. He had faced it and beaten it. George's
pale blue eyes transferred to Bodie's dark ones, where 3.7 stood a little
behind Ray wearing a small smile of utter triumph as he heard Doyle speak
candidly for himself. Then Bodie winked at the boss and Cowley had to hide
a smile. "That seems to be in order," he said bluffly. "You're not
seriously incapacitated, I trust, Bodie."

"Just a couple of stitches, nothing really," Bodie shrugged.

"Then I suggest you make the most of what remains of your day off," Cowley
advised, "Because as of noon tomorrow you're on call. I'll see you both
back at the office."

It was mid-evening when they made it back to their room, and Bodie flopped
onto the bed with a deep sigh. Doyle shut the door and stood looking at
him, noticing everything about him, from his muscular legs to the breadth
of his shoulders and the sultry, smouldery set of his features that was so
seductive, even in repose. At length the other's silence made Bodie open
his eyes and lookup, and at the expression on Ray's face he had the good
grace to blush about the cheekbones. "That's a randy look, if ever I've
seen one."

"Well," Doyle shrugged, "you *did* row the boat back, didn't you?" He came
to sit on the edge of the bed, unbuttoning Bodie's ruined shirt and
throwing it onto a chair. He peered at the bandages with a frown. "Damn,
you're going to have a couple of new scars. You already have so many... I
know them all."

"So've you, and I know all of yours," Bodie said quietly. "Look, Ray, it's
a dangerous job, nobody ever said it wasn't. But we stick together -- you
watch my back, love, and I'll watch yours."

"Except it wouldn't be my *back* you'd have your eye on," Ray said drily,
hiding a grin.

"Damned right. If you wear your pants that tight, what else do you think
you can expect?"

Ray laughed richly. "Why do you think I wear 'em that tight? Gets your
blood going, doesn't it?"

"All the bloody time," Bodie admitted with a smile, and let his lids half
drop. "Seduce me, will you? I was about to set about you when we got back
here last time. This time, no interruptions."

"What about dinner? I'm hungry."

Bodie groaned. "Oh, Ray, have a heart!"

"All right," Doyle relented, fingers busy with Bodie's belt, "but if I'm
going to miss my dinner for this and subsist on cheese and pickles when
the dining room's shut down, this had better be absolutely bloody
spectacular."

And he made sure that it was; he kept Bodie on the tortured brink of
release until he had to clamp a hand tightly over his mouth to silence him
as they came at last, and it was a long time before either of them could
speak. Then Bodie whispered his love as if it was the sweetest thing in
the world just to say it. "Even... Even after what Lupino's brother said
about me?" Doyle muffled against his shoulder.

"Well... You *are* tight and hot, and you *do* buck," Bodie said very
gently, ruffling his lover's soft hair, "that's all true, and not the
point, is it? The point is, I'm just as tight and hot, and I buck just as
hard --"

"Harder," Ray corrected, biting into his shoulder.

"All right, harder. The point is, it's none of their damned business what
we're like or what we do, because... Jesus, I'm a jealous sod. If I could
hide you away from every other bugger on this planet, maybe I'd be happy
then."

At that suggestion Ray laughed drowsily, forgetting all about his dinner
as he settled in Bodie's arms. "I could say the same about you, sunshine.
The barmaid downstairs keeps giving me filthy looks. She fancies you
something rotten, and she saw you blowing in my ear this morning. And
we're sharing a room with one bed. You going to knock *her* head off?"

"If she tries to get between us, pet, she'd better *duck*," Bodie said
vehemently.

"Because *I'll* take pot shot at her if she bats her eyelashes at you one
more time," Ray finished, and then yawned expansively and set his head
down on Bodie's chest. "Love you, Bodie," he murmured, already nearer
asleep than awake.

Exhausted though he was, Bodie lay awake for some time, enjoying the
shared body heat and the gentle rhythm of Ray's breathing... Enjoying
being *loved*, honestly, without reservation or regret.

A week later, Murphy cottoned on to them and collapsed in gales of
hysterics every time he saw them for days, until Bodie threatened mayhem
on him and Doyle refused to acknowledge that the Smurph was even alive.
The younger man bit off his hoots of mirth and solemnly shook their hands,
asking when the wedding was set for; with that the overt merriment ceased,
but there was a department store 'Home Maker Sale' catalogue in Bodie's
locker the next day, and for Ray a paint and paper catalogue. Seeing the
funny side of it and determined not to be outclassed, they giftwrapped a
Health Board pamphlet for the Smurph --a small publication colloquially
entitled, 'How *Not* To Get Your Girlfriend Pregnant'. Murphy subsided in
mirth and shook his head at them.

"You two always were half way 'round the bend," he said, but his tone was
conspiratorial and kind.

"So?" Doyle demanded, sobering at last. "But keep it under your hat,
Murphy. Wouldn't do us *or* the department any good if it got about."

And Murphy nodded readily, watching Doyle shrewdly. He knew what had
befallen 4.5, though Cowley had restricted the info to the very top rung
of the ladder. He didn't underestimate the trauma, he felt the familiar
pangs of sympathy, and silently decided that if Bodie was all Ray needed
to rationalise his life, and if Bodie was as happy as a lark in
complicity, then the department could take its rule book and jump off the
roof.

Bodie *was* happy as a lark, happier than he had ever been since his first
year as Ray's partner, when he realised the wonderful and terrible nature
of his attraction to Doyle and somehow lived with it, morose, moody, mean,
but entirely unable to ask for a new partner, because he knew he could not
live without the sunshine. Ray blossomed like the little ivory lotus Jamil
Abbas had given him; but the domesticity never quite happened.

-- THE END --

*September 1981*

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