These Violent Delights

by Whitecroft, Jess

  He crawls up over me, his tongue trailing over my belly and chest. “Condoms,” he says.

  “What?” I wave a hand at the bedside drawer. “But…”

  Milos scrambles for the drawer, crashing and rattling in indecent haste. “Do you want to fuck me?”

  “Again with the stupid questions.”

  He finds what he’s looking for. “Is that a yes?” he asks, as I take it from him and quickly roll it down, my pulse pounding in a way I didn’t think was even physically possible over the age of thirty. I feel like a teenager again. This is insane. Does he even know what he’s doing?

  Obviously. He’s found the lube and it goes on cold, making me wince.

  “Yes?” he says, again, and he may as well call me Molly Bloom.

  “Yes,” I say, as he leans to kiss me. I can feel him against the head of my cock through the condom. That knot of slight resistance. “God, yes. Yes.”

  He rocks back on his heels and it catches me by surprise; I slide straight in. He lets out a long, shivery moan as he sinks down on my cock, his head back, his eyes closed, his own cock squeezed greedily in his fist. How the hell is he good to go already? Was he playing with himself before he came round to see me? I jolt at the thought, bucking up into him. He moans again.

  “You okay?”

  Milos nods. He has that wild-eyed look I remember from the first time, when even the idea of having a dick inside you is enough to blow your mind. I want to roll him over and pound him into the mattress, but we have to go slow; he’s so very tight in there. I slick my fingers and curl them over his. “Here, let me do that.”

  He relinquishes his hold, breathing raggedly. I stroke him slowly, in time with the steady motions of his hips, but I can feel from the tension in his thighs that he’s holding back; he wants my cock. I squeeze a little harder, faster, wringing a moan from his throat. He looks at me like I’m edible and rides me harder, and I have no idea how I’m going to last. He’s exquisite and aggressive and I can’t help but think how he would treat me if the roles were reversed right now. As it is he’s already fucking my brains out.

  “Oh God,” he gasps, his hips bouncing as he goes to town on me. He’s slick and soft behind and yet so hard in my hands, and with every breath he’s cursing and moaning and urging me on. Oh God, I’m in so much trouble. I am so in love.

  “Come on, Gorgeous. Fuck me. That’s it, fuck me.”

  He scrunches his nose in that way that I know means he’s close. “I thought you were fucking me?”

  “Hard to…” Oh God. I feel him ripple and shudder in there. His balls feel tight against my belly. “…tell at this point.” I squeeze the root of his cock and he cries out. He’s a noisy, messy lover at the quietest of times, but with a dick inside him he’s practically shaking the walls. I feel him hot on the back of my fingers first, then I feel it shaking through his thighs and arse like a little earthquake. I’m so close but not quite there, but he’s done, spilling over my fist as his muscles ripple around me.

  He wilts towards me, his weight settling on my hips. “Oh my God,” he says, when he catches his breath. “Did you come?”

  “Not yet. Roll over. On your back.”

  I slip out as he does as he’s told. He guesses what I want right away and hitches his knees up, baring the tender pink hole I’ve just fucked. He looks soft and glowy and completely depraved. As I push inside he shudders slowly and I draw back, worried about hurting him, but he hitches his ankles over my shoulders and grinds down on me.

  “Whatever you want, baby,” he says. “I can take it.”

  Baby. He’s never called me that before. I watch his face as I fuck him; his eyelids are heavy, his cheeks flushed, his mouth red and full and panting. Sparks dance down my spine and into my cock. I’m going to come and I can’t stop looking at his mouth, open and breathing in time with my thrusts. I go deep and his breath shudders, fanning my face, and that’s all it takes. I’m there, my breath on his lips, and he breathes it in, receiving my climax a second time.

  In the moments afterwards my mind is so quiet that all I can focus on is the steady sounds of our breathing, his forehead against mine. It’s only when I float down from the cloud a little way that I realize his ankles are still around my neck. He is effortlessly folded in two.

  I draw back and slip out. He brings his legs down and winds them around me and neither of us seem to be able to stop smiling or kissing. Smile, gaze, kiss – it goes on for a while like that, with his fingers in my hair and me marveling at the number of shades in his tortoiseshell eyes. Cinnamon, amber, chocolate. It seems ridiculous to think I might ever have once just called them brown.

  “You’re incredible,” I whisper, kissing his pillowy lips.

  His fingernails scrape lightly over my shoulders, stinging the remnants of a sunburn. He’s so pale against the tan on my forearms. “I love you,” he says.

  I don’t trust myself to look at him in that moment. I rest my forehead against his once more, breathing in the silence, knowing what to say, but so bone-deep afraid of it that I know it’s real. “Well, shit,” I say.

  Milos stiffens beneath me. “What? Is that a problem?”

  “I’ll say. I’m in love with you, too.”

  There. It’s out. It’s done. He lies back and gazes up at me, glowing in his triumph.

  “Then how is that a problem?” he says.

  “Because. Student/teacher romance. Almost never ends well.”

  “Meh. Tell that to my prostate. Now that was a happy ending.” He wiggles his hips and grins, his eyes shining. We lie there beaming at each other like morons for a long moment.

  “Oh my God,” he says. “We’re in love.”

  “Yep.”

  “So what happens now? What are we going to do together?”

  I sniff. “Some sort of bath would probably be a good idea,” I say, sitting up and reaching for a tissue. He’s giving me polecat vibes again.

  Milos groans, his thighs sprawling as he stretches. “You have crazy standards of personal hygiene, do you know that?”

  “Yeah. Welcome to homosexuality. Enjoy your stay.”

  I drop the condom into the bin and get up from the bed. This is not the scene I imagined for myself when I crawled into bed with a bottle of wine and a headful of break-up songs. It feels like a happy dream or a miracle.

  “Am I spending the night?” says Milos, his voice already sleepy.

  “If you want to.” So many nights I’ve wanted this, to drift off in one another’s arms. I’ve denied myself for too long. “Stay for breakfast. Stay for anything else you want.”

  He grins. “I want.”

  *

  He’s here in the morning.

  That’s new, and strange, and wonderful. Sprawled out on my sheets he looks like all he’s missing is the outline of wings behind him. He has one of those impossible bodies you see on the covers of feverish novels, all abdominals and ink. There’s a spatter of black stars across his ribs, a silhouetted stand of pine on one bicep and a howling wolf on the other. On the back of his right hand is a black rose, and the left foot is decorated with what I suppose is an anatomically correct depiction of the bones beneath the skin. Metacarpals, metatarsals? I can never remember. His toes are long and knotty looking, with calluses on the tips, yet when I breathe on them they stir, sensitive as flower petals. He murmurs in his sleep and stretches his foot, his toes pointing like he’s dancing through his dreams.

  I reach to pick up my robe, meaning to sneak off and start breakfast, but Milos must feel my weight shift on the mattress, because he stirs and stretches, his toes nudging my hip.

  A little part of me is still anxious. You never know how straight boys are going to react the night after they’ve hitched their heels in the air and taken it like a man, but not Milos. He’s still smiling, still glowing, still rapturously smug. I run a hand up his perfect thigh and he arches like a cat. “Hi,” he says, stifling a yawn.

  “Hello.”

  “What a
re you doing?”

  “Nothing. Just admiring your...ink.”

  “Just my ink?” He slides a hand down his body, his fingers ruffling the top of his pubes. He’s already thickening in anticipation. I lower my head and tease him by placing a kiss at the top of the shaft.

  “Well, other things as well. You hungry?”

  “Horny.”

  “You’re twenty. Horny is your default state.”

  “I’m almost twenty-one.”

  “Oh. Practically geriatric.”

  “Will you still love me when I’m twenty-one?” he says. “Or will you trade me in for a younger model?”

  “Course not. I want to be able to drink legally with you. When does that happen, by the way?”

  “May seventh,” says Milos, pushing his feet into my lap. “And I know, I’m nothing like a Taurus; it’s been said.”

  “Why? Are they naturally skeptical or something?” I lift his feet. They feel surprisingly heavy, like old-fashioned Indian clubs. “Are Tauruses hungry? Because this Sagittarius is fucking starving.”

  “Yeah.” He yawns. “I could eat.”

  “Eggs? I’m guessing I’m not allowed to feed you carbs, not with that body.”

  He grins and stretches again, so graceful and elastic that I’m reminded of that thrilling moment when I realized I was nose to nose with him and inside him all at once. His muscular, flexible body has surely already spoiled me for every other lover I’ll ever have in my life. “Sure,” he says. “Eggs sound good.”

  “Cool. There’s a robe on the back of the bathroom door. I’ll get started.”

  I kiss him and get out of the room before I give into the temptation to start anything else; I really do need to eat. I’m getting lightheaded, and he demands a lot of my energy.

  The morning sun beams brightly through the kitchen windows. My spine feels looser and lighter and my feet feel like they’re barely touching the ground, and I’m not sure whether it’s because I’m in love or because I gave myself permission to love. I could have felt like this all along, and all it took was for me to stop stubbornly holding myself to a higher standard than everyone else. Saint Thomas – they’re not wrong. Talk about a martyr complex.

  Eggs. Spinach. Mushrooms. Bacon. No carbs for the ballet dancer, but somehow I can’t see him turning down bacon. He has a day off from rehearsals. We’re used to fumbled scraps of one another’s time, so the day and night ahead of us feels like an embarrassment of riches. Last night we dozed off in the bath, only waking when the water got cold. And then this morning. I think it must have been around four o’clock – dark blue sky and early birds chirping – when he kissed my shoulder, pushed his thigh between mine and said, “Love you,” in a half-asleep voice. I don’t know if he was even awake, but I lay very still for a while, listening to his breathing, slow tears of absurd happiness spilling over my cheeks and pooling in my ears.

  A splash of red outside the window catches my eye – a cardinal at the bird feeder. As I look out I see that the tulips next to the fence are bent and squashed, as if someone has trampled them. My heart gives a weird, ugly thud and I throw open the back door, scattering the birds. I stand there for a moment, the sizzle of bacon hissing in my ears, my pulse pounding at the thought of human feet in my flowerbed, of someone who wishes me ill sneaking around in my garden in the middle of the night. Of Simon.

  Yeah, I really need to lay off the weed.

  I take a couple of steps forward, mentally bracing myself for the sight of footprints in the mud, some sign that Milos was right and maybe we are being stalked. But instead as I advance I see that there’s a hole dug beneath the fence. The flowers are squashed under a spray of compacted dirt. Something was digging here.

  “Hey.” Milos appears beside me in his bare feet and a white robe that makes his hair stand out all the blacker. He kisses me lightly on the mouth, as if we’d been together a dozen years. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just looked out and saw something had been in my flowers.”

  He glances over at the fence and scrunches up his nose. “Looks like a raccoon to me. Probably trying to get in your neighbor’s yard.”

  “Right.” Mr. Jefferies next door. He has Second Amendment tendencies and doesn’t hold with anti-raccoon trashcans, not when he could be ‘flushin’ ‘em out and pickin’ ‘em off.’ “That makes sense. Want some coffee?”

  “Love some.” His stomach gurgles loudly, making us both laugh. “And bacon. You’re cooking bacon, right?”

  We end up eating like wolves. First time we’ve ever sat down to a meal together and we’re stuffing our faces. Sex always makes me hungry; sex like we had last night makes me ravenous. “Oh my God, that was amazing,” Milos says, as he sets down his fork. “You’re really domesticated, with the cooking and the gardening and everything.”

  “Not really. It’s just basic adulting.”

  “It’s cool,” he says, as I pour him another cup of coffee. “I wouldn’t know where to start. Is it complicated?” He waves a hand out the window at the tulips. “Making them grow?”

  “Not particularly. You stick a bulb in the ground in September and they pop up in spring.”

  Milos shakes his head. “It can’t be that simple.”

  “Well, you weed and water. Watch out for slugs. It’s not hugely complicated.”

  He reaches over and gently scratches my forearm with the tips of his nails. “Keeps you out of doors though,” he says, looking thoughtful. “Getting sunburned.”

  I slide my hand out from under his and up to meet his fingertips. Our fingers fold together, his tattooed hand in mine. “I like the sun.”

  “Don’t you worry? Like, it was skin cancer, right?”

  “Yes. It was.”

  “And you still get burned? If it was me I’d be slathering myself in factor fifty just to walk to the mailbox.” His eyes are the color of molten sugar in the morning sun, his eyelashes black enough to break my heart. How does he keep doing this? How does he draw out the raw core of me every time we’re together? He may be young but he’s perceptive. Maybe too perceptive.

  “Sorry,” he says, recognizing my unease. “I didn’t mean to…”

  “No, it’s okay.” I sigh. “It’s another one of those awful things I used to do when I was caring for Simon. I used to escape to the garden.”

  “Tom, that’s not awful.”

  “It is. Because I knew he wouldn’t dare follow me into the sun.”

  Milos squeezes my fingers. It’s so quiet I hear his molars grind as he shifts his jaw. “You’re too hard on yourself,” he says.

  “I’m trying not to be.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes. That’s why you’re here.” I swallow. The pain I felt last night – before he showed up and made everything better – feels like a distant dream. I shouldn’t forget it so quickly. “Last night, before you came…I was so angry with myself for telling you it was over. It’s not like we’re doing anything illegal, or anything that hasn’t been done before. I mean, for God’s sake – everyone knows why half the faculty wives are all ten or fifteen years younger than their husbands. Twenty, in some cases. But not me, because I’ve got to hold myself to some higher standard, because I’m afraid everyone will see I’m not this saint who took care of his sick boyfriend.”

  “None of us are saints,” says Milos. “And anyone who wants you to be has a problem all of their own.”

  “I know. It’s just hard sometimes. It’s bad for you, when people think you’re a good person. In the best case you worry you’re never going to live up to it, and in the worst case scenario you start believing your own hype.”

  Milos snorts. “Hype, my ass. When all’s said and done, what other people think about you is none of your business.”

  I frown. I’m not usually one for aphorisms, but this sounds familiar. “Who said that?”

  “Eleanor Roosevelt.”

  “Really? I could have sworn it was RuPaul.”

  Mil
os makes saucer eyes over the rim of his coffee cup. “You watch Drag Race?”

  “I have to watch something when I’m on the treadmill. It’s boring.”

  “You should try running outside. The scenery changes.”

  “So does the weather.”

  “You like weather,” he says suspiciously. “You said so.”

  “Fine. I like RuPaul’s Drag Race. Is that what you wanted me to admit? I know it’s not highbrow television, but I like it. Happy?”

  Milos grins. “Very. You just took a vital step towards giving less of a shit. Keep going.”

  “Until what? I start getting twenty year old boyfriends, mid-life crisis cars and ill-advised tattoos?”

  He leans over the table and kisses me. “Why not? You’re a third of the way there already. At least until I turn twenty-one.”

  10

  Milos

  I thought I knew my body. I thought I knew every ache and twinge and tendon. I knew its limits, where it would complain if I pushed too hard or purr if I scratched the right spot.

  I obviously didn’t, because I’m still surprised.

  Every speed bump on the road sets my kidneys vibrating again. My whole lower back and hips feel shivery and sensitive, full of nerve endings I wasn’t even aware of until last night. I’m rearranged, my whole anatomy rewired for a different kind of thrill.

  “We could go to your place,” Tom says, catching my eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “God, no,” I say, immediately ashamed when I think of his clean, white-sheeted grown-up bedroom, compared to my own pit of student squalor. Barely wiped buttplugs and that one clean corner of the room that I show to the world when I’m working. There’s no fucking way I can tell him about that. “There’s no privacy,” I say quickly, trying to keep my voice light. “And it smells.”