by Lily Morton
Finally done he chucks the hanky into a bin and then tucks me back in and zips me up. He does the same for himself and still he’s silent.
“Matt?” I finally whisper, suddenly afraid to the depths of me that he’s regretting this. His head shoots up and worry creases his forehead. My God is he regretting this? “Was it not good?” I finally whisper, hating how pathetic I sound.
He stares at me so patently flabbergasted that I want to smile and I relax a little. “Not good?” he echoes. “Jesus, John I’ve never felt like that or come like that, ever. I’ve had a lot of hook ups and nothing ever felt like that.”
I flinch a little at the thought of how many experienced men he’s been with, who knew what to do and probably put me to shame. “No Johnny,” he says firmly. “Don’t think that.”
“How do you know what I’m thinking?”
He smiles. “I know you. I don’t know how or when it happened but I know you better than I know myself, and despite their experience those men never made me feel an ounce of what you did.” He sighs heavily looking worried. “But my experience in situations like this is telling me that I should never have let it go that far.”
I jerk. “You didn’t want it?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says sharply. “I couldn’t have stopped if Demis Roussos walked in.”
“Demis Roussos? Where on earth did that come from?”
“That caftan,” he shudders smiling, and then looks up at me. “I wanted to do this properly Johnny. Your first time with a man shouldn’t have been like this, all seedy. I wanted to make it good for you.”
“It was good,” I say harshly, reaching a hand for him and feeling immediate relief at the feel of him against me again. I feel safe like this, more able to talk. I cup his face making him look at me. “I’m not saying that I have all the answers.”
He gives a small smile. “Bet you hated saying that.”
I consider it for a second and then nod. “It doesn’t happen a great deal obviously but in this case it has.” He snorts out a laugh which dies as I stroke his cheekbones feeling the brush of his scruff against my hand, so alien and yet so strangely familiar. “I don’t know where this is going. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but for the first time in my life I don’t care.” He looks at me solemnly and I repeat firmly. “I. Don’t. Care. What I care about is being with you and seeing where we go.”
Some weight seems to lift off him but I keep talking, needing him to get this. “The only thing that I don’t want is you treating me like I’m fragile. Don’t treat me like a novice or as if I’m weak. Treat me as an equal and trust me to be able to speak up if I’m not comfortable with anything. It’s the same way that I totally trust you to take care of me, and that’s not an easy thing for me to say Matt because I don’t trust easily.”
He leans into me and rests his head against mine staring deep into my eyes and I watch his doubts visibly drain away, for now anyway. Finally he runs one long finger down my nose ending up at my lips where I surprise myself by kissing his fingers lightly and almost romantically. He stares at me, rubbing his fingers gently over the grooves on my lips. “Let’s go home,” he whispers. “I’ve had enough of this place. I just want to be together now.”
I nod unable to say anymore because I want that too. I want that more than I’m comfortable with.
Chapter 9
Song: ‘I Can’t Help It’ by Michael Jackson
John
I wake up the next morning lying face down amongst my sheets, face shoved half under the pillow like normal. For a second I stretch, thinking nothing and just enjoying the feel of my muscles loosening and the warmth of the sunshine pouring through the open French windows as the curtains move lazily in the breeze.
I feel loose and content and utterly unwilling to move which is sufficiently unlike myself to actually focus my mind, and then suddenly memory pours back in and my eyes shoot open. Twisting my head I see his broad, muscled, tanned back first as he’s lying sprawled on the mattress, the white sheet sitting low enough over his arse to display the dimples above his cheeks. His face is turned towards me, his eyes closed and his hair a mess over the pillows. He has a relaxed, contented look on his unconscious face and I stare at him wondering for a second what I should be feeling right now.
I would expect to feel panic welling up at the thought of what we did last night, at the way that my life has just dramatically changed. I would have thought that I’d be concerned over what everyone will think of me, but it’s the total lack of these feelings which utterly surprises me and I lie looking at his tanned face, the full lips now pursed slightly. When I examine what I actually feel, I realise that I feel … happy and enervated.
I don’t actually care what anyone thinks of me anyway so people changing their opinions about me because of my sexuality actually just renders them imbeciles and undeserving of friendship, so that doesn’t bother me and I feel no panic. I just feel warm and peaceful lying here next to him, and when I inhale and smell his warm citrus scent on my sheets I feel proud that such a gorgeous man wants me. Is that odd? Who the fuck knows and actually cares because that’s what I feel and that’s all that should bother me.
I feel connected to him in a way that I haven’t felt with any other person and I want to be with him and see where this goes, so that’s what I’m going to do. For the first time in my life I’m going to switch off the ever active part of my brain that calculates every move that I make, and I’m going to take a leaf out of this man’s book and live for now.
My lip quirks and I reach out and lay one hand on his back feeling the sleek heat of his skin and the muscles lying dormant underneath. A sudden mental snapshot flashes into my head of me pushing my hands under his shirt and feeling those muscles moving as he rutted against me, and just that quickly I’m rock hard.
I suppose the sheer heat of last night’s encounter might be switching my worries off as well because nothing that I’ve ever done, and I’ve done a lot, has ever made me feel an ounce of that passion. I’d felt like I would have come out from my skin if I didn’t get to come and all of that had been tied up for the first time in the identity of my partner.
I roll over and stare at the ceiling feeing the breeze blow over my naked chest and consider that more thoroughly. Before in any sexual encounters I’ve always been concerned that my partner enjoyed it, but that was probably more a matter of pride than any real feeling for the person. Even with Bella there had always been something slightly perfunctory about our sex life. It was an itch that I needed to scratch. But last night had been as different from that as bread is to chocolate because if the other sex was bland, then being with Matt had been rich and a feast for all my senses.
I smile slightly. Even my thought processes have become florid and over the top because we haven’t even had full sex yet. Last night we’d come home sitting in the back seat of the taxi close together and he’d left his hand on my thigh tethering me to him for the whole journey, but by the time that we’d got home I’d been expecting actual sex and a massive rehash of everything and it had made me jittery.
Then as always Matt had seemed to read my mind, and instead he’d guided me to the shower, stripped us both and then showered with me, his arms around me cleaning me and washing my hair. He’d towelled us off and then led me to my bed and without my having to ask he’d slid in next to me and drawn me close, and I’d fallen asleep like that, lying held tight against hair roughened strength rather than silky delicate fragility. I’d slept better than at any other time in my life.
I jump when a finger traces down my forehead and I twist to see him now awake, his warm brown eyes very alert. “That’s a thoughtful wrinkle,” he says slowly with no tone in his voice at all. “You look like you’re thinking hard and maybe regretting things?” His eyes are watchful and guarded.
I twist to face him, lying on my side with the sheet pooling under my hip, and his eyes betray him. They flick down, tracing my torso and the curls of my thatch of pubic hai
r that are showing, and for a second they flash fire and want and need before he shutters them like he’s packing his house up for the winter.
However, it gives me the confidence to do what I want to do, and without thinking I slide over and throw my arm over his back, pulling myself close to him and kicking the sheet aside so that I can feel all of him against me. He rolls slightly onto his side and the warmth of his skin is my first impression followed by the tensile hairy length of his legs now pushed against mine, and the crispier wiry hairs on his groin along with the weight of his cock, half hard and lying against my thigh.
He breathes in sharply and then rolls fully onto his side and wraps his arms around me so that we’re face to face. It’s almost unbearably intimate because he can see everything that I’m thinking, and his eyes rove over my face intently. Before I would have shied away from this, but now with this man I let him look his fill before I lean forward the few centimetres needed and touch my lips to his.
For a second he seems held immobile by surprise and all his muscles lock up as if he’d expected me to be out of the door and running by now. But in the next second he moans low in his throat and his arms band tightly around me and he deepens the kiss, pulling my tongue into his mouth and sucking it, humming in his throat as I groan and press against him.
We kiss lazily for what seems like forever with no sense of urgency, until eventually he draws back. His pupils are blown making his eyes look almost black in the sunlight, and I can feel the weight and heat of his cock now fully erect and pressing against my stomach as he must feel mine against him. However, instead of carrying things on he pushes back and I make a lazy, inarticulate sound of protest.
He smiles in a muddled sort of way and pushes my hair back from my forehead almost tenderly. “We have to talk,” he says hoarsely and I groan, rolling onto my back.
“Really?”
“Yes really.” He’s stern now and I focus on him. “I need to know where you are with this John. This is a big thing.”
I smirk. “It really is.”
He groans and half smiles but then Captain Serious appears again and I take a moment to wonder when I became the light hearted person in any scenario, and then I focus again on him as he speaks. “How do you feel and don’t make jokes now?” He swallows. “Do you regret it?”
His hair is a crazy bed head and I run my fingers through it, smiling affectionately and enjoying the sensation of the sun warmed silky strands against my palm. “I feel … good. I’ve been lying here examining my feelings for a while.” I stop. “You look relieved at my analysing?”
“I am,” he says simply. “You shouldn’t do this on a whim babe. It should be thought out.”
“Why?”
“Because it changes everything, the way that people regard you, your own self-image. It’s a path with many pitfalls.”
I put my fingers over his lips to stop him talking. “This is me Matt. Of course I think about things. I doubt that will ever stop, but the conclusion that I came to is that I feel -” I hesitate. “I feel happy.” His face lightens and yet possesses a hint of consternation so I carry on quickly. “I feel happy and I don’t feel all that confused. I want more but at the same time I also feel out of my depth, because I don’t know anything about this. I don’t know what to do and I hate feeling like that. I want to be good at it and please you but I don’t know how to do that. I don’t have the inbuilt knowledge that you do that comes from years of being gay. Apart from that crazy mix of feelings I can’t give you any more at the moment. Will the confusion and worry come later? Maybe. I don’t know, but I need to know more. I want to carry on with this because I’ve never felt like this before. I just don’t want to disappoint you.”
He stares at me thoughts running over his face too quickly to read until suddenly his face clears and he smiles slightly, making me want to kiss those full lips so I do, lingering gently and licking their firm texture and feeling his early morning stubble rough against my cheek. “Everything feels brand new,” I say slowly. “It’s like I’m a new person.”
“Johnny in a way you are but you’re still you, and once again you amaze me because I just can’t second guess you.” He caresses my cheekbones, cupping them in his wide calloused hands tenderly, and once again I feel that shock of recognition that this is a man touching me without any doubt. He talks in a low, soft voice, and the deepness of his voice and the slight early morning raspy catch hit me in the chest and balls. “I thought that you’d be torturing yourself about how your partners at work will look at you, maybe feeling guilty and ashamed. Maybe wishing we’d all had less to drink?”
“Jesus that’s a lot of thoughts and emotions for first thing in the morning, even for me. I’m quite a simple bloke. I normally just want to have a shower and a cup of coffee.”
He shakes his head knowingly. “Not simple at all. You’re a very complicated, clever man whose thought processes I think will always start at full gear in the morning.” I shrug and he smiles. “Instead you’re just so you. Not really over complicating this. You’re examining all the angles and dealing with it and ready for problems along the way, like a lawyer I suppose.” He smiles. “It is very typical however to find you struggling against the knowledge that you don’t know everything about everything.”
I snort and pull myself closer, accepting his open arms and nestling my head into his neck where I can smell his warm citrus scent strongly. “I do know most things. I’ll just have to get a book on it and read up on it.”
“What, like the ‘Dummy’s Guide to Homosexuality’?” he drawls and then laughs as I pinch him.
“Laugh away but my way is always a good way.” I reach for my tablet by the side of the bed. “I’ll have a look on Amazon now.”
He laughs out loud and grabs my arm and I’m struck by the strength there. When a woman tries to pull you it’s usually joking and playful so to have someone in my bed who could actually manhandle me about is different, and I have to admit surprisingly erotic.
He pulls me close. “I don’t know what thought just crossed your mind but that’s a very interesting expression. How about rather than looking at a book you see me as your consultant?” The smirk is evident in his voice. “A very, very experienced and able consultant.”
I snort. “Computer says no.” I pause. “Shall I hire you?”
He laughs out loud. “That is so wrong and yet so hot, and it still doesn’t distract me from the fact that you just quoted ‘Little Britain’ in bed. We’re obviously made for each other.” I laugh but he stiffens as if surprised at his words and rushes into speech. “I don’t mean together forever obviously. I mean we’re mates.” His smile twists slightly. “Mates who fuck each other at the moment.”
I stare at him. I’ve never really seen him flustered before, and something inside me flinches at his words and I don’t know why. Surely I can’t view him as anything permanent, can I? We’re blokes so surely it doesn’t have to be a huge, big deal if we just fuck? I mean there is obviously a big attraction between us, but you don’t make life partners from just attraction. There have to be mutual goals and respect as there had been with Bella, and I’m abruptly reminded that my goal three months ago was to get her back. Surely I haven’t changed that much?
I ignore the twisting sensation in my stomach because Matt obviously doesn’t see this as the start of a permanent relationship, and I shouldn’t either. I have my target set. My chest feels a bit hollow and I rub it absently before I realise that I’ve been quiet for too long and he’s waiting for an answer.
“Yes that sounds good,” I murmur and although he relaxes instantly there’s still something tight about his body, and I frown at him wondering what he’s thinking until he strokes my hair back gently, staring into my eyes.
“Let’s spend the day together,” he says softly. “Let’s go out the two of us and leave big decisions far away for the day. While we can, let’s just be together and leave everything else alone.”
I stare at
him for a second seeing worry at the back of his warm eyes. “Let’s do that,” I say softly.
Matt
Two hours later we stand in a very expensive art gallery in the hilltop town of Vence. We’ve wandered the picturesque market town munching on crepes and tried different artisanal French beers at a small wine bar, but now we’re standing in front of a gigantic canvas full of splashes of paint and broad slashing brushstrokes all in yellows and oranges and greens.
John stands in front of it, his head cocked to one side looking a bit like the way my mum’s old parrot used to look at you when you were eating peanuts. I snort out a laugh involuntarily and both he and the gallery assistant turn to look at me in consternation. They’ve been standing here for the last half an hour in a passionate conversation about abstract impressionism and blah blah blah, and I’d drifted into my own thoughts and now here we are.
I wonder what to say but instead opt for a helpless smile which I like to think is charming. The assistant obviously views me as a complete Neanderthal and turns back to the hard sell, but John’s lips quirk slightly as he stares at me for a moment too long, enough to make me wonder what he’s thinking. Another second or two passes and then he gives me a very enigmatic shrug.
“I’m going to have a wander,” I say softly.
He’s instantly the well-mannered gentleman. “I’m sorry Matt. This is rude.”
“No it isn’t. You’re enjoying yourself, and I love art galleries so I’m happy to potter about.”
He draws closer and away from the assistant. “Art galleries but not this piece of art?”
I smirk slightly and lower my voice so that only he can hear me. “I don’t mind modern art but that looks like something that somebody regurgitated on the pavement. I can’t even begin to imagine where I’d hang it.”
He breaks into a howl of laughter making the assistant and a few people in this hushed environment stop and stare at him, but I ignore them staring at the way that the laughter lights up his face, turning a taciturn man into someone who looks warm and totally approachable.
