The Summer of Us

by Lily Morton

  Becoming aware that I’m staring and he’s now looking quizzically at me, I feel myself flush slightly. “I’ll be around,” I murmur, waving my fingers about and he grins, squeezing my arm before turning back to the assistant.

  Dismissed I take the opportunity to wander as far away as I can from the man who is totally rattling my thought processes at the moment. I end up alongside a set of silk patterned screens and I closet myself amongst them, staring blindly at them while I try to think properly.

  Last night in that booth had felt unlike anything that I’ve ever felt before. I must have had hundreds of encounters in back rooms in clubs but I’ve never felt so in the moment with someone. Every breath that he took and every groan that he gave made me hotter than I’ve ever felt.

  Damn! I blow out a breath trying to think of something unpleasant to scare away my incipient hard on. I think of that fucking awful picture and sigh with relief. Job done.

  I stare at the colours of the screens and the purples and rich reds of the embroidery, and I give myself a good talking to. I have never made a habit of imputing real emotional feelings into what is just good sex, and I’m not going to start now. Yes, last night had felt amazing and I hope to have a lot more with him, but I cannot forget that this is a man who three months ago was determined to get his ex-wife back and was resolutely straight.

  I’ve done this dance with a few straight men before and it always ends the same way, with them tangoing back into heterosexuality without a backward glance. Not to mention that I would never stand in the way of him being happy, and no matter how horrible his ex sounds I would like him to be happy.

  But what if this isn’t just a toe dipped in the water? What if he decides that he wants a man instead? The thoughts shimmer into my head like a bright temptation, but I shove them aside because this is still no excuse to get involved. How shitty would it be of me to tie him to me with the chains of friendship and being the first man that he’s been with? That would make me a despicable person and it would only lead to disaster, because in my experience relationships should be about a mutual desire to be together, to put each other first.

  I sigh because therein lies my very real problem. I have never in my life been in a relationship where the other person chose me fully and decided to put us as a couple first. Every relationship that I’ve ever had I’ve had to push to get what I want, and the other person has still prioritised other things over us.

  I’m not being needy. I don’t wish to have my partner want to be with me twenty four hours a day and to have no thought beyond me. That idea makes me shudder in horror. I just want to matter. I want my feelings to matter, because what I want more than anything is to find that one person who I can do the same for. I want to look after them and be with them, but in a safe and easy way.

  I grimace because that’s not going to be John. Maybe at another time in his life it would have worked with him, but he has so many loose ends and unclear paths to take that it’s just not going to happen now. I sigh because the thought hurts more than it should.

  “That’s a big sigh. Seen anything you like?”

  I jump and turn to find him standing close with one eyebrow quirked queryingly. Fuck, I love it when he does that. Makes me want to lick him all over. Trying to marshal my thoughts and with the worry that my feelings are written all over my face, I look back at the closest screen and stare at it blindly. “No, I like this one.” I search for words. “It’s very powerful.”

  “Really?” His voice is incredulous enough to make me take a real look at what I’ve actually not been looking at for the last twenty minutes. Instantly I feel myself redden because what looked like a beautiful collection of colours on a screen is actually erotic art, with a man being taken up the arse by a three armed and two headed man.

  “Erm -” I hesitate and cock my head to one side aware that he’s doing the same. Silence reigns for a second before I say casually, “I think I might have dated him a few years ago. It’s the hands I remember most.”

  He bursts out laughing really hard. “Really? I’ll come up short then.”

  I look up about to make a dirty pun, but the words die in my throat as I see a tiny bit of real worry in his eyes. He honestly does think that I’ll find him lacking because I’ll have to show him stuff that he doesn’t know. I wish he knew how fucking hot I really feel about being his first, but as Ben was the last one that I could say that about I don’t feel able to tell him, especially not with Ed’s words still ringing in my ears from last night.

  “You’ll never come up short Johnny,” I settle for saying, and instantly that vulnerability that he only seems to let me see is gone and he blinks.

  “Going to buy it then? Put it in your Red Room of Pain.”

  “Oh shut up.” I shove him with my shoulder. “Fuck off and buy your pavement pizza.”

  He bursts out laughing, throwing his arm over my shoulder and hugging me to him. “I know where we can go to look at real art.”

  Half an hour later I stand outside a simple whitewashed building with a cross. I look at John enquiringly and he smiles. “It’s the Chapel of the Rosary, otherwise known as the Matisse Chapel. He helped to design the building, the stained glass windows, even the priests’ vestments and he decorated it.”

  “I somehow don’t think that you mean he put a roller over the walls,” I say wryly, and he laughs.

  “No, come and look.”

  I follow him into the building watching the broad set of his shoulders in his sky blue shirt and feeling the sacred hush of a religious building wrap around me, and then I look up and gasp because it’s the most beautiful building that I’ve ever been in. It’s simple to the point of being stark with its plain white walls, but they serve to emphasise the colour flooding through the stained glass windows. Blues, greens and sharp lemons swirl through the glass laying lazy, vibrant stripes across the simple tiled floors, and although the designs are simple they seem almost miraculous in the plain rooms.

  John touches my arm and I jump so absorbed am I in the colours, and he smiles gently and turns me to face the other walls which are full of elegant spare black drawings. They’re exceptional but I’m drawn most to a huge picture of what must be Mary with Jesus as a baby. It’s simple but full of a real feeling of great love and devotion that brings a lump to my throat.

  I stare at it wondering why it touches me and I think that it must be because it reminds me of my mum. When I was little she’d been the main focus of my life. Beautiful with a warm laugh she’d lavished love on me, and I only have to smell the scent of ‘Beautiful’ by Estee Lauder when walking through department stores to be taken back to sitting on her lap wrapped in her love while she read to me or tended to my cuts and bruises.

  It wasn’t my dad that had nearly broken me, it was her, because I have ever been able to reconcile that woman with the one that stood silent and stone faced as my dad laid blows on me and threw me out. It was the one defining betrayal of my life and everything that came later just seemed to reaffirm her choice.

  A warm arm wraps around my shoulder and I look sideways at John who is staring at the drawing meditatively. I would almost see it as shared artistic appreciation if I didn’t know suddenly and irrefutably that he knows what I’m feeling and is offering his own comfort. I feel a surge of warmth run though me and I reach up and squeeze his hand in appreciation.

  We remain there for a while wandering the chapel, speaking in low voiced murmurs and in the language of the slight weight of a hand to the back or fingers brushing a hip bone, and by the time that we leave and go to find a restaurant I feel centred and as if a weight has lifted slightly.

  Chapter 10

  Song: ‘Dark Necessities’ by The Red Hot Chili Peppers

  John

  It’s dark when I pull through the gates and onto the driveway. We’d sat late in a little restaurant in the square, people watching and stuffing ourselves with a delicious cassoulet and drinking an earthy red wine.

  The dr
ive back had been largely quiet as we listened to the ‘Attack and Release’ album by The Black Keys and kept to our own thoughts, but it wasn’t tense or awkward. It isn’t with us. I’ve found that I’m as comfortable with him in silence as I am when he’s chattering and joking.

  It’s still very hot when we get out of the car. The sky is a deep dark velvet blue spattered with stars like one of the stained glass windows that we’d seen earlier. He veers to the side rather than walking up the steps to the front door, and I follow him until he reaches the swimming pool. The water is totally still and reflects the stars so that for a second it looks like a piece of the sky has fallen to the earth. The air is headily perfumed with the scent of jasmine and the sweet smell from the orange tree that grows near the pool, and I take a deep breath.

  “It’s gorgeous isn’t it?” he whispers looking out at the multi-coloured lights of Cannes, and I stare out too welcoming the slight breeze that blows over us bringing the faint tang of the sea. “I am very hot though,” he says almost casually and I go to agree with him but my words stutter and die away in my throat as I watch him undoing the buttons on his chambray coloured short sleeved shirt one by one, his long fingers looking elegant and dexterous.

  “What -” I clear my throat and he grins knowingly. “What are you doing?”

  “Well Johnny I’m taking my shirt off.” He matches his actions to his words and the shirt flutters to the ground, and then his fingers move to the fastening of his cargo shorts.

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess what you’re doing now,” I drawl mockingly and he grins, his smile white and wide in the moonlight.

  “That’s your expensive education and the fancy letters after your name showing right there,” he laughs and I smile, charmed as ever by him before gulping hard.

  “That’s right and my time at Eton tells me that you are actually getting bloody naked,” I croak as his Vans hit the patio, followed by his shorts and red stripy boxer briefs and as a final gesture he takes off the band that had been holding his hair back in a ponytail so that his hair falls loose around his shoulders.

  He stands there confidently for a second letting me stare at him without showing any signs of embarrassment. He’s so confident in his body that I almost envy him. “I am naked because I am going for a swim,” he says happily. Then he laughs loudly, clutching his side. “Oh Johnny you look like an outraged Victorian chaperone. You just need a pearl necklace to clutch.” He waggles his eyebrows lecherously. “I can definitely help you out with that.”

  “Oh my God,” I groan. “Stop!”

  He laughs again and then gestures to me. “Come on then, chop chop.”

  “What?” I ask slowly.

  “Get naked Johnny.” He comes to me and starts to unbutton my shirt, stopping occasionally to slide his warm calloused fingers over the skin that he exposes until I swear that I can feel my heartbeat echoing in my ears.

  When he’s done he slides it off my shoulders and moves on to the buttons of my shorts. His fingers move slowly and I groan at the feel of them moving against me until my cock is rising and pressing impudently against his hand. He palms my erection with just the right insane amount of pressure and I grunt which sounds loud in the still night air.

  “Johnny,” he whispers, sounding almost stunned as my shorts and boxers drop to the floor and I hastily kick off my Converse. “God you’re beautiful.”

  “Not beautiful,” I remind him and he nods, a smile playing around his full lips.

  “Okay I forgot. God you are smart and clever.” He pauses and then smiles wickedly. “And you have the most intelligent cock.” He dances out of the way as I go to punch him, before turning and diving neatly into the pool. He surfaces, shaking his hair back and running his hands down his face. “Fucking hell it’s lovely in here Johnny, so cool. Come on, get your ass in here.”

  I obey and dive in, surfacing next to him. The water feels amazing sliding silkily against my skin and my cock. He laughs loudly throwing his head back before throwing himself onto me his weight borne by the water, and I gulp as his wet body slides against mine. However, he spins away and a second later slaps a massive wave of water into my face.

  I splutter wiping the water off my face, and gaze at him intimidatingly. “Oh you’re going to suffer for that,” I say darkly and lunge after him.

  For the next hour we play and muck around splashing and ducking each other while the huge harvest moon hangs full and yellow in the sky and bats skim the sky above us. Finally we surface together in the shallow end, clutching onto the side while we catch our breaths back. The white shape of an owl swoops low over the pool but apart from that the night is still with not a sound apart from our breathing, and it feels almost unbearably intimate.

  “Johnny,” he whispers and I turn to find him standing close. “Johnny,” he whispers again, and takes my mouth in a lush, warm kiss. I open my mouth and moan under my breath as his tongue slides inside and tangles against mine.

  He lets go of the side, standing up in the water as it streams off his muscled torso, and then his hands come up and he takes my jaw in his palms pushing my face to one side so that he can go deeper, his breaths striking the side of my face.

  For a while we kiss, not touching apart from where our mouths connect and incoherent murmurs of pleasure drift around us. I can feel the water lapping around me and it feels cool against my heated skin and the push and pull of the water as we move swirls around my erect cock in an amazing tugging sensation.

  I’m so hard it hurts and I can’t believe that it’s from just a kiss. For a second I wonder whether it’s affecting Matt like this. I mean he’s done so much that a few simple kisses can’t have the same effect on him as they’re doing to me. Then he groans deep in his throat and his hard muscled arms band around me dragging me against him, and I grunt as our bodies collide in the water and I feel the force of his cock, hard and throbbing against me. I feel the heat and hair roughened surfaces of his body against mine and it’s like nothing that I’ve ever felt before. I have no comparison for this act because it’s totally new, like I’m on a different planet.

  The kisses pick up pace as our hands start to wander. I send mine over his shoulders feeling the tensile strength of him under all that sleek wet skin, the play of his muscles, his biceps bulging as he grabs my arms and drags me closer against him. The movement is strong enough that I know I’ll be bruised tomorrow, and even that sends an erotic thrill through me because before I’ve always had to temper my strength for fear of hurting the woman. Now I don’t fear it and I give into the darker side of myself that I’ve always known was under there, the desire to grapple and push and thrust without the fear of hurting someone because I know that he will like it. I feel as connected to his wants and needs in this moment as if we are psychically linked.

  As we kiss I stroke my hands hard down his chest feeling the wiriness of the sparse hairs against my palm. He groans and grabs my hipbones pulling me into the cradle of his pelvis and making me gasp loudly throwing my head back and overtaken by the feel of the sleek hardness of his cock thrusting against mine, rubbing and rutting and driving me mad.

  “Matty,” I gasp, as he kisses a chain of biting, stinging kisses down my throat culminating at the Adam’s apple where he licks and sucks, panting out harsh gasps of air.

  “Matty please.” I don’t know what I’m asking for, maybe just the same as we’d done last night, rutting against each other until we came, but at the sound of my voice he pulls away holding me at arm’s length and staring at my face in the moonlight. It’s light enough for me to see how wrecked he looks, his eyes heavy lidded and his lips full and glistening.

  “Johnny.” His voice is low and rough and hits me in my balls, and without thinking I reach below and touch my cock, shuttling my hand down the length and feeling how hot it is. He watches the movements of my arm the biceps bulging and relaxing, and for a second he seems to forget what he was saying. “Johnny that’s so fucking hot.” He pauses and then lo
oks me full in the eyes. “I want you to fuck me.”

  “What?” My movements stop in surprise. “Really?”

  He smiles. “Yes really. I want it so much but we don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do.”

  “I thought -” I swallow hard. “I thought that you’d want to fuck me.”

  He groans. “I do but not now. You’re not ready for that yet.” He pauses. “Do you want to? Do you want to fuck me?”

  At his words my hips involuntarily thrust forward as I fuck into nothing. “God yes!” I gasp, so turned on at the thought of being inside him, taking him and fucking into him that I can feel the pre come building on my shaft.

  He winds himself around me in a desperate tight hug, burrowing his face in my neck. “Let’s get out of the water baby.”

  I blink at the endearment which sounds so strangely right coming from him that I want to hear it all the time, especially when it’s said in that low husky voice that seems like it’s been made for, and by me. I take his hand and let him lead me from the pool but suddenly the heat in me flags a little because this suddenly seems very real. I’m about to fuck a man.

  He senses my thoughts as normal and pauses on the steps, looking at me intently. “Be very sure Johnny because this is a very real step. Once we’ve gone past this there’s no going back. You’ll have fucked a man. Are you ready for that?” He pauses. “I need you to be ready babe but there is no pressure. If you back out I won’t feel hurt or angry. I will understand, and if you don’t want to do anything again we will go back inside and never speak of it again, and I will always be your friend. If fucking me is too much and you still want me then we can do other things. I mean I could drop to my knees and make your eyes cross in seconds but this is all your choice.”

  I stare at him, at the body where moonbeams cling to the dips and swells of his muscles, at that high cheek boned face with the sleepy eyes and the sun streaked hair which is almost white in the moonlight. A burst of clarity hits me like a thunderbolt as I realise that there is no going back from this because my feelings for him are so intense and wanting. Suddenly my decision is made and I stride through the water to him, taking his shoulders and pulling him into me and kissing him so hard that our teeth clash and my lips feel bruised.