What Remains

by Garrett Leigh

As if Rupert could say no. As if he wanted to. He’d always got off on giving Jodi head. Perhaps it had been the power—the control it gave him over this beautiful man who Rupert felt so plain beside . . . but Rupert didn’t feel like that anymore. Hadn’t in years. Jodi had taught him to feel nothing but pleasure when they were laid bare to each other like this.

  He took Jodi deep, scraping him against the roof of his mouth and down his throat. Jodi, perhaps expecting Rupert to ease him in gently, cried out, jerking violently. Rupert held him still, controlling the pace initially. Then he relented and let Jodi fuck his mouth, slowly at first, but then faster and harder, until Jodi yelled out a curse and shot down his throat.

  For a long moment, Jodi gasped and clung to the headboard. His arms shook and his legs quivered. He stared at Rupert, his mouth opening and closing, but nothing intelligible came out. Alarmed, Rupert wriggled from beneath him and pried his hands from the bed frame, easing him onto his back.

  “Jodi? Talk to me. You all right?”

  For a long, anxious moment, Jodi didn’t answer, then he burst out laughing and yanked Rupert down to lie on top of him. “All right? I feel like I’ve just done a bloody skydive.”

  “Landed on your feet, I hope.”

  “I landed on the fucking moon.”

  Jodi laughed some more, and his euphoric humour was infectious. Rupert wrapped his arms around him and held him tight, smiling so hard his cheeks ached. “Are you ready to come back to earth and go to sleep?”

  “Sleep?” Jodi sunk his teeth into Rupert’s shoulder. “But what about you? I want you to feel like I do—if I can do it half as well as you can. I want—”

  It was Rupert’s turn to kill the conversation. He kissed Jodi gently, warmly, with barely a tickle of the heat that had just exploded between them. “We’ve got all the time in the world to fuck about. Come and sleep with me? Please?”

  Jodi tried to scowl, but a tired, sheepish smile won out. He crawled under the covers and held up the duvet. Rupert slipped in beside him and rolled onto his side to spoon him from behind, the way they’d always slept before the accident, even in the heat of summer. It took him a moment to realise what he’d done, and for the umpteenth time, the magnitude of how far they’d come in a matter of weeks threatened to overwhelm him.

  Then Jodi wriggled backward, pressing his warm body against Rupert’s, and reached for Rupert’s arms, tugging them around him. He kissed Rupert’s palm and let out a sleepy sigh. “I’m not obsessed with sex, Rupe, I promise. I just really fucking love you.”

  Jodi writhed beneath Rupert, revelling in the weight of the body pinning him down. Rupert kissed him roughly and pulled at his T-shirt. “Off.”

  Breathless, Jodi raised his arms. Rupert yanked the offending shirt over Jodi’s head and tossed it away. “Up. Turn around. Hands on the headboard.”

  Jodi obeyed with a healthy shot of nerves. In the last week, being intimate with Rupert had proved as natural as breathing, but with no memory of the sex life they’d shared before the accident, Jodi had often felt exposed and laid bare by his ignorance. Ignorance that was equal parts embarrassing and hot as hell as they learned—relearned—how to pleasure each other: the handjobs, the blowjobs. The grinding together until Jodi was sure he’d combust. Somehow, Jodi knew they’d barely scratched the surface.

  Cool air hit his back. He shivered and dropped his head. Rupert soothed him with warm hands, rubbing circles into the base of his spine. “Relax.”

  Jodi tried, then gave up. He didn’t want to relax, because then he might fall asleep. And he didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to absorb Rupert’s every touch and commit them to his sketchy memory in permanent ink. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “Do you really want me to tell you?”

  “No.” Jodi already had a pretty good idea what Rupert had in mind. He remembered rimming from his relationship with Sophie—her gentle tongue, and her soft skin against his. He’d loved it, and the thought of Rupert doing that to him— “Fuck!”

  Rupert’s tongue was far from gentle, and the scruff of his stubble scratched Jodi’s thighs in just the right way, taking him to that dangerous precipice between pleasure and pain.

  Jodi chose pain, and then pleasure, losing himself to the toe-curling sweep of Rupert’s tongue. Dear God, it was nothing like he remembered with Sophie. This wasn’t playful and naughty—a drunken fumble they wouldn’t talk about in the morning. This was the morning. Rupert meant this, and Jodi could hardly bear it.

  Too soon, Rupert pulled away and kissed a path up Jodi’s back, stopping at his neck where he sunk his teeth in, biting down until Jodi wriggled free and threw himself at Rupert, sending them both tumbling to the mattress, pillows scattering onto the floor. “That was amazing.”

  “Yeah?” Rupert grinned. “I like it too, both ways. Drives me up the feckin’ wall when you do it to me.”

  Up the wall. Yup, that made sense. “I couldn’t come from it, but that’s what makes it so hot. It’s like torture.”

  “The best kind,” Rupert said. “It’s good for, um, prep too.”

  “Prep?”

  Rupert smirked.

  “Oh.” Jodi pictured the lube still hidden away in the drawer. “You mean for fucking?”

  “Aye. I’m no expert on how it feels to bottom, but you’ve told me before that a little, er, rimming action gets you to just the right point between relaxed and—”

  “Gagging for it?”

  Rupert snorted. “Something like that.”

  Jodi bit his lip. The old him hadn’t been wrong, but alongside the thrill of anticipation, and a desperate yearning for Rupert he could hardly contain, he was still fucking terrified. Rupert’s tongue was lush, but his dick? Jesus. How was it even possible?

  The rational side of him knew exactly how it was possible, but that didn’t stop his stomach flipping as he imagined how it would feel to have Rupert sliding inside him, stretching him, fucking him. How it was going to feel when it happened.

  Which wasn’t today. Jodi wanted Rupert to fuck him as much as he wanted just about anything, but he didn’t quite have the balls yet. Besides, there was something else he had to do first. Something he’d been dreaming about since his attraction to Rupert had shown its hand. Something he knew was going to be the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, or at least, could remember seeing.

  He sat up and leaned back, eyeing Rupert’s cock. He’d yet to put his hands or mouth on it, because somehow Rupert had managed to make their every sexual encounter about Jodi: about teaching him to enjoy Rupert’s touch again, slowly, carefully, when Jodi let him and didn’t come like a train in five seconds flat, which had happened more times in the last week than Jodi cared to admit.

  Rupert squeezed Jodi’s thighs. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking about how I can make you come.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know. I want to. Do you want me to?”

  “Now there’s a question.” With the early-morning sun filtering through the gap in the curtains, Rupert’s soft smile was dazzling. “Do you really not know the answer?”

  Jodi knew. Despite Rupert’s softly-softly approach, he hadn’t hidden how much he wanted Jodi. Couldn’t, with his dick digging into Jodi with every grind and roll. “I don’t know how to do it.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No, seriously, I don’t. I mean, I know what to do, I just don’t know how to make it good.”

  “Ah, see I thought that too when we first met. Thought I’d put your dick in my mouth and start chewing it by mistake, I was so feckin’ nervous.”

  Jodi laughed, couldn’t help it. Rupert’s way with words was something else. “So what did you do? ’Cause I’m sure even I would remember someone taking a bite out of my dick.”

  “Very funny,” Rupert deadpanned. “If you must know, you told me to treat your dick like my own, and you were right. Once I’d got myself in that mind-set, it wasn’t as alien and terrify
ing as I thought, and it all kinda clicked.”

  Treat it like my own. Jodi closed his eyes and called on the clandestine occasions he’d pleasured himself in the weeks before he’d come to realise his desire for Rupert was everything he was missing. Pictured every squeeze, every twist, and combined the memories with the more recent ones he had of Rupert doing it for him—his strong, warm grip and devilish tongue. I can do this.

  Jodi opened his eyes and moved down Rupert’s body, absorbing Rupert’s sharp gasp. Here goes nothing . . .

  A few days and many mutual orgasms later, Jodi found himself home alone. Rupert was on his mind, as ever, but with him at work until morning, Jodi was trying to keep busy.

  For the most part, he’d succeeded, but it was early evening now. He’d been to his appointments, done all his exercises, and run out of things to clean. He’d even managed to reheat the curry he and Rupert had cooked together the day before without burning the place down, though it had crossed his mind that such a thing would bring Rupert home quicker than the end of his shift.

  Idiot.

  Jodi closed the dishwasher with a thump. Though eating as much as Rupert wanted him to was hard going, making dinner with him had become one of Jodi’s favourite things to do. By all accounts he’d used to be good at cooking, and these days, muddling through, using every pan in the kitchen to make chicken madras, was almost as much fun as relearning some of the other skills he’d forgotten.

  Skills. Ha. Heat bloomed in Jodi’s gut. He drifted to the living room, recalling Rupert’s gravelly moan when he’d come from Jodi’s touch that morning, and the night before, and the night before that. Treating Rupert’s dick like his own had turned out to be easier than he’d imagined, and making Rupert come? Watching him, entranced by him, absorbing every breath and groan? Damn. Beautiful didn’t quite cut it anymore. Who knew having another man’s cock in his mouth could be so fucking magical?

  Rupert, apparently—

  Stop thinking about sex.

  In an effort to distract himself, Jodi bypassed the couch and the nap he could’ve done with and went into the office. He sat in front of the iMac and tapped the keyboard to activate it. Like his laptop, the screen flashed to life with a photograph of Rupert, this time sitting on a wall in full fire gear, helmet and all, smeared in soot and grime, drinking from a grubby mug while he spoke with another firefighter whose face Jodi couldn’t see. It was obvious neither man had been aware of the photograph being taken, and Jodi wondered how the image had come to be on his computer. The logical answer, that he’d taken it himself, was equal parts embarrassing and amusing.

  Looks like I really was the creepy one.

  Jodi launched the web design software he’d been trying to reacquaint himself with, and Rupert and his mystery friend were swallowed up by toolbars and coding widgets. He studied the project he’d been working on—a contract Sophie had told him he’d lost when he’d dropped off the map after the accident. The brief, as far as Jodi could tell, had been to build an innovative site for the company’s new line of pop-up tents. The brand was aimed at children, and Jodi’s initial take on the project, started nearly a year ago, had been a minimalist black-and-white effort with few avenues for users to do more than add products to baskets and pay.

  It hadn’t struck Jodi as very innovative, or imaginative. He didn’t know much about children, but he thought of Indie and his mind filled with colour, possibility, and light. Question was, how did he translate that into a functional website without giving himself a migraine?

  He spent a few hours trying to find out, until he ran into a coding wall he couldn’t guess his way around. It happened from time to time, and he’d learned the only solution was to admit defeat and look it up.

  Didn’t make it any less frustrating, though. He pushed his chair back from the computer and scanned the shelves behind him, searching for the book he’d apparently once told Rupert was his tech bible. It wasn’t where he thought he remembered putting it. He searched the shelf below and the one above, but came up blank. Then his gaze fell on a flowery book that was so drastically out of place with the tech magazines and software manuals lining the shelves, Jodi couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before.

  He plucked the book from the shelf and turned it over in his hands. It appeared to be a photo album. He flipped through a few pages. Images of Rupert and him stared back at him. Jodi sat, turning to the beginning. A child’s—Indie’s—scrawl covered the page.

  Dear Daddy and Jodi,

  Here is your anniversary present. Auntie Sophie helped me make it. Daddy, you need to smile bigger. Jodi is beating you. Lots of love and crunchy cuddles, Indie (and Auntie Sophie) xxx

  “Crunchy cuddles”? Jodi was officially mystified, but that was quickly forgotten as a snap of him and Rupert, taken somewhere in the city—Hyde Park, according to Indie—caught his attention. The photo was dated June 2010, six months after he and Rupert had met, and given how they were stretched out on the grass with their arms around each other, it was clear they’d already been madly in love.

  Jodi turned a page, and another, and another, and discovered a timeline of images that plainly showed the love and life he and Rupert had shared. His chest tightened, and he thought he would cry, but instead of tears came laughter, and a smile so wide he thought his face might split. He’d loved Rupert then, and he loved him still. The remnants of their broken dreams lay scattered all around, and were laid bare on the glossy pages of the photo album, but what remained was something beautiful, and for the first time he could remember, he felt proud of who they’d been then, and who they were now.

  We really are going to be okay.

  Jodi shut the album with a yawn that made his jaw pop. He checked the time. It was after midnight. Shit, how had that happened? He stood up. The room tilted a little, like it often did when he was overtired, and the warning throb of an impending headache buzzed down the side of his face. Great. Time for bed and a handful of codeine.

  He took the drugs and went to the bedroom, scanning the shelves for any other errant photo albums he hadn’t yet noticed. There were none. He tried under the bed, remembering a large plastic box that, in his haste to hoover like a madman a few weeks ago, he’d forgotten to open. The box rattled as he pulled it toward him. Intrigued, he lifted the lid. A traffic cone–sized dildo, amongst other . . . things, greeted him.

  Startled, Jodi dropped the lid and shoved the box under the bed. Jesus. Was that his? Rupert’s? And what the fuck was it for? Like he didn’t know. But the trouble was, he didn’t. In theory, Jodi knew who put what where, but as he pictured Rupert’s cock, and the giant dildo, he couldn’t imagine enjoying having either one crammed inside him.

  But, for once, sex wasn’t what he wanted to think about. He pushed the box to the back of the “Rupert Files” and crawled into bed. His vision was too blurry to watch TV, so he turned off the lamp and closed his eyes, ignoring the strange falling sensation that made the bed feel like a magic carpet. He blocked out the album and tried to make peace with the bewilderment that accompanied the joy warming his veins. The album documented the entire five years he was missing—where they’d been, what they’d done, and how they felt. Undeniable love and laughter seeped out of every page, which left him with just one question: why the hell hadn’t anyone shown him the album before?

  Rupert had never finished a night shift in such a good mood. He emerged from the station to a haze of dawn sunshine, and could hardly bear to head straight underground to the Tube.

  Feeling reckless, he ditched it at Highbury and jogged the remaining five miles home. It took longer than a Tube ride, but running cleared his head of the long night’s work, and running home to Jodi’s arms seemed somehow fitting. If Jodi was awake, at least.

  Rupert hoped he was. He’d grown indulgently used to finding Jodi waiting for him in the kitchen, greeting him with a sleepy smile and a cup of the terrible concoction Jodi called tea. All this time, he’d thought he’d known what he was missing, but
now that he had some of it back, it was clear his own memories had done Jodi’s way of loving him no justice. Far from being a token gesture of their old life, this brave new world felt somehow more real.

  He let himself into the flat. It was dark and still, with no sign of Jodi being up just yet. Rupert swallowed his disappointment and went to the kitchen, flipping the kettle on. A cuppa while curled up beside a sleeping Jodi sounded like heaven, then perhaps he’d get a few hours shut-eye too. They had all day in the world to fuck around, right?

  Rupert brewed his tea with a smirk. Rebuilding their physical relationship was becoming less terrifying by the day, and he wondered if today would be the day fate gave them the green light to move on.

  His mind still in the gutter, he took his tea into the bedroom. Jodi was hunched up under the covers, the duvet over his head. Rupert set his mug down. “Morning, boyo.”

  The greeting was whispered, but it was usually enough to bring Jodi round.

  Jodi didn’t move. Rupert leaned over the bed and gently drew the covers back. “Jodi?”

  “Rupe?” Jodi moaned and hid his eyes.

  Rupert grasped his shoulder. Despite the heavy duvet, Jodi’s skin was clammy and cold. “I’m here. What’s the matter? Can you look at me a sec?”

  Jodi raised his head and gazed at Rupert with one eye, the other half-closed and drooping, pulling the left side of Jodi’s face with it.

  Rupert’s stomach dropped through the floor. Jesus. He’s had a fucking stroke. “Jodi? I need you to tell me what’s happened, okay?”

  “Head hurts,” Jodi slurred. “Can’t see you.”

  “What about your arms and legs? Can you move them?”

  Jodi clumsily shifted his right arm, covering his face with his hand, and mumbled something nonsensical, until he broke off with a groan so full of pain it was like a bullet to Rupert’s heart.

  He covered Jodi with the duvet again and retrieved his phone from his pocket, dialling 999 with his thumb. The operator connected him to the ambulance control room. “He has a TBI,” Rupert explained after listing Jodi’s symptoms. “I’m a firefighter with Green Watch at Brixton, and I think he might’ve had a stroke.”