Conscious Decisions of the Heart

by John Wiltshire

  § § §

  Nikolas knew as they entered the restaurant that night they turned heads just as much as they had in Alan Lund’s restaurant on Aeroe, but now for very different reasons. Although everyone in the place had dressed up a little for dinner, he and Ben were elegantly attired in bespoke tailoring. They were both tanned, and he was very well aware how strange his bleached blond hair looked with its unique pale stripe on one side. Ben, of course, had a quality of beauty that would turn heads wherever he went. Sometimes, Nikolas could hardly bear to share that beauty with anyone, but as it never ran out or diminished in any way from the sharing, he’d realised it only increased his pleasure looking at Ben to know everyone else was as well—but they couldn’t have him.

  As they entered the restaurant, they paused as everyone did to study the glass floor. It was quite something: sunk a little way into the illuminated water, it gave the God-like impression of walking on the lagoon. The brilliant white sand glowed in the green light and the whole room was filled with a wavering, watery luminescence. Ben just raised an eyebrow at Nikolas, and they stepped down, following a waiter to their table.

  § § §

  While they were waiting for their food, they had a chance to study their fellow diners. Mostly they were couples, some possibly on honeymoon. But there were a few families as well. Nikolas’s game of guessing who was sleeping with who seemed a bit redundant here, as it was fairly obvious the adults present were paired off. Which, Ben supposed, included them. He wondered what Nikolas thought about this—they were now being seen by everyone else in the room as a couple—knowing Nik would have thought about it and considered it from all angles. Neither of them ever wanted to be thought of as in a relationship, gay, in other words. This was not a word they ever used or applied to themselves. After all, Nikolas had been married for many more years than he’d known Ben. Ben, Nikolas used to joke, was only gay for pay—a joke, Ben noticed, he’d dropped after the events on Aeroe. This was something of a testing moment for both of them, therefore. After a few minutes, knowing they were under intense scrutiny, Ben let out a long breath. “Jesus, sniper alley, or what?”

  “They’ll get bored soon and look at something else.”

  Ben caught Nikolas’s gaze. “You’re okay with this?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. Stop worrying so much about what I think or don’t think, Benjamin. You’ll give the impression I have issues. I’m the most easygoing person I know.”

  “So, if I took your hand now…” Nikolas’s hands immediately went under the table. Ben chuckled. “Well, that doesn’t look suspicious.”

  Nikolas laughed, and to Ben’s astonishment brought his hands back out, reached over and rubbed his hair. “There, now shut up, and tell me something to amuse me.”

  § § §

  They ate enormous quantities of fresh lobster and other local seafood, whiling away the evening, in no rush to return to what was on both their minds, drawing out the anticipation. At one point in the evening, the underwater illumination was turned off, and waiters came around the room lighting candles. Nikolas leant back in his seat, studying Ben in the candlelight. He was filled out once more, the gaunt unhappiness of Aeroe quite gone from his perfect features.

  Nikolas still couldn’t understand how he hadn’t seen the change in personality that had led Ben to attempt what he had in the bathroom of their cabin. He wouldn’t let his attention wander so again. But then he knew he was the subject of Ben’s intense study, too. He was still being monitored and watched just as closely. It made him smile. They were a matched pair of flawed individuals. Ben appeared to sense his scrutiny and quirked him a small, complicit grin. “Ready?”

  Nikolas nodded and murmured slyly, “We’ll have to walk back across the room with everyone speculating on what we’re returning to our hut to do. How…Perhaps even…where…”

  “You bastard.”

  “They’ll be wondering which one of us is the top and which the bottom, for that’s their only understanding of these things.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Ben was trying not to laugh.

  “They’ll see you as the pretty boy who takes it up—” Ben put his palm over Nikolas’s mouth. Nikolas eased it off. “Now they’ll think you’re engaging in foreplay.”

  Ben rose from the table and left, alone. Nikolas watched him with great amusement. It would be a sad day when he couldn’t annoy and confuse Benjamin Rider.

  § § §

  Ben was still sulking when they got back to the hut because Nikolas was still laughing at him. Ben had come to realise over the past year that Nikolas’s initial promise their first time had been his first time was one of Nikolas’s total fabrications. Nikolas clearly had a great deal more experience of sex with both men and women than he let on. Therefore, Nikolas was more flexible in his thinking in these matters when it suited him. He’d clearly decided in this remote place, with people he would never see again, it suited him to be unconcerned what anyone thought. Ben, on the other hand, as he’d admitted to Squeezy, hadn’t even considered sex with another man until his body had betrayed him in a remarkable way during his first interview with Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen, and he didn’t see himself as gay. He didn’t even want Nikolas to think that—which even Ben could see was a bit of a ludicrous stance to take.

  Nikolas let him sulk for a while, watching him as they undressed. After a few moments, Nikolas picked up his silk tie, sliding it between his fingers. Ben was instantly wary. He knew what was coming and began to head obediently toward the bed, but Nikolas caught him around the waist and very deliberately pressed the tie into Ben’s hands. He bit gently into Ben’s neck. “We’ll keep them guessing who’s in charge in this relationship.” And with that, he crawled onto the bed and lifted his hands to the rail.

  Ben restrained Nikolas.

  For the first time, Ben really thought about what this meant. He’d let Nikolas do it to him many times because it’d never worried him. It hadn’t really ever occurred to him just how vulnerable it made the one who was tied. But now, straddling Nikolas, he could truly understand the power and vulnerability it gave to each of them. He could do anything he wanted. But would Nikolas actually want to be forced to do things he didn’t like? Was he only playing at this? Perhaps Nikolas assumed they’d just do the things they always did but with him tied up. Easy, not threatening at all. Ben decided it was time Nikolas was pushed a little out of his comfort zone. He took a gamble that by allowing this restraint, Nikolas was demonstrating he was ready for more, but he was unwilling or unable to actually say so.

  Ben moved further up, straddling the broad chest then leant forward, holding onto the rail. “Suck me.”

  Nikolas eyes widened a fraction, but he took Ben’s stiff cock into his mouth as ordered. Normally, Ben was very careful about not holding Nikolas’s head too tight or putting any pressure on him at all, but now he leant in hard, and Nikolas, hands restrained, had no option but to take him deep. Ben knelt closer, hands to Nik’s head, now holding him forcibly for the first time. It was an incredible sensation. Before it had always been light, like a teasing, now it was like proper fucking, deep and satisfactory. He eased off to let Nikolas breathe, but then pressed him back on, riding his mouth until he was almost about to come. He pulled out sharply, not wanting to lose the edge just yet. Nikolas was silent, watchful, wary, but he wasn’t objecting or trying to escape, although Ben could see red marks around his wrists where he’d strained unconsciously. He kissed the marks, licking around them, probably ruining the tie. They could always buy another. They’d gone through a lot of ties in the five years he’d known Nikolas.

  He shuffled back down Nikolas’s body, straddling his thighs, considering him. “Everyone’ll be watching us even more tomorrow morning. Thinking about what we’ve been doing. Who, doing what…” He brought his mouth to Nikolas’s neck, above the collar line of a shirt where everyone would see.

  Nikolas jerked away. “Don’t bite me there, Ben. Don’t mark me like a
teenage girl. That’s not fair. Not like this.”

  Ben chuckled and bit him anyway, marking him distinctly. He licked the bite immediately. “Now they’ll know you’re mine.”

  Nikolas arched back so he could see the tie around his wrists, clearly thinking Ben had enjoyed enough fun, checking to see if he could release the knot. Ben shook his head. “No you don’t.” He sat heavily on Nikolas’s waist and propped himself up on his elbows, staring at him. “I bet this’d confuse them.” He shifted back suddenly and took Nikolas inside. Nikolas’s eyes widened in surprise and pleasure. Restrained, dominated, he was still topping Ben, and it was wild and strange and so mixed up they both laughed, and then they were kissing, Ben lifting and lowering and pleasuring them both. Ben had a distinct advantage in this activity, as with incredibly strong legs he could crouch over Nikolas, riding Nik’s cock with his arse with nothing else touching.

  Ben could tell when Nikolas was about to come so lifted off and left him needy and weeping. He slid off the bed and fetched his own tie, running it across his palm. Nikolas was watching it with the same concentration he’d give a snake approaching. Ben climbed on his chest again and very deliberately, despite a great deal of protest and swearing, blindfolded him. Nikolas thrashed his head, trying to remove the covering. Ben bent down and bit his shoulder. Nikolas stilled and warned, “Stop it.”

  “No.” He bit again on the ribs, just a light bite, but it was a sensitive place and Nikolas jerked to the side, swearing. Ben laughed, slid lower and took Nikolas to the back of his throat. That, he noticed, stopped any complaining for a while. He brought Nik back to the very edge, and then stopped, sitting back, contemplating his handiwork. Nikolas’s whole body was thrumming with tension, not sure where he was going to strike next. Ben grinned and climbed off completely so as not to give any clues—then he struck. He slapped the erect cock. Nikolas jerked up. “Fucking hell!” but, incredulously, he was actually laughing. Ben licked where he’d hit as a reward. Then he sat back again. He needed to end this. He’d come spontaneously if he didn’t; he was throbbing painfully.

  Nikolas’s thighs parted to his command. Nikolas lay open and vulnerable, and Ben entered him, kneeling, watching himself penetrate and take. It didn’t last long, Nikolas had clearly been on the edge. Suddenly, he came, shooting blind, his cock pulsing on his hard, tanned belly. The sight of the milky white fluid pooling on the warm skin, mixing with their sweat, brought Ben off equally suddenly. He shivered into the release, crying out with pleasure and relief. The come down was incredibly pleasurable, too; for although he released Nikolas with some trepidation, watching warily as he ripped the blindfold off, he was immediately entangled and kissed and rolled in their sweat and sticky spills. Nikolas ended up on top, his weight pinning Ben to the bed. They stared at each other for a while, well pleased with everything they saw.

  Nikolas stroked over Ben’s hair, brushed his thumb along his stubble and across his mouth. He pursed his lips, watching his hand and how it moved on Ben’s skin. “I don’t hate that women Gabby as much as I did.” He rolled off and they lay alongside each other under the swathes of netting in the glow from the sea. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to the person I thought was taking you from me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The days of the following week merged into languid hours of doing nothing very much except lying in the sun or swimming, eating or making love. They developed a routine—if self-indulgent laziness could be called such. They woke late in the morning, ordered food, and then returned to bed to amuse themselves until thoroughly sated. They ate their food on the deck, followed by swimming for an hour or so. The first half of the afternoon was spent sunbathing, and then the eroticism of the sun on their skin and lying beside each other naked overtook them, and they’d return to bed, the sex inventive and visceral in the bright light of day. When they were done, Ben would usually head to the hotel for a run along the sweltering dirt tracks or to use the gym. Nikolas would accompany him as far as the air-conditioned lobby and then sit on the terrace with his laptop to use the wireless connection. He claimed he was working, and Ben didn’t call him on it. As darkness fell, they’d join back up, return to the hut, shower and dress and motor to the hotel to eat. By the time they got back to their hut, they were ready for lazy, sensual lovemaking in the darkness and green glow. Ben sometimes wondered if, with Pavlovian inevitability, he would always get an erection if he saw green, glowing light.

  By the end of the second week, no one left behind in London would’ve recognised them. Nikolas had turned a deep golden brown and his blond hair was streaked with highlights from the sun and the salt. His scars were far less visible under the new skin colouring, and he’d regained the weight he’d put on in Russia, appearing sleek and strong. Ben was dark, too; he’d not quite gone back up to his previous weight, but his diet of mainly fish and fruit suited him and had turned his body in a perfect anatomical model of muscle definition. That he spent an hour or so in the gym working individual muscles helped, of course, but when Nikolas lazily called him vain, Ben only asked pointedly which one of them enjoyed his body more.

  The best development for both of them was Nikolas had mostly stopped taking the pills the doctor had prescribed for him. He still got headaches, but they were manageable with resting or staying out of the sun for a while. He never mentioned the hallucinations or strange thoughts that’d plagued him, so Ben was unable to judge whether these were gone. But better still, he seemed to have at last overcome his dependency on his less healthy recreational activities, he didn’t watch other people drinking or smoking as if he wanted to eviscerate them. He didn’t have the restless, painful edge Ben had found so exhausting.

  Nothing in this paradise, Ben decided, could be restless or painful really. It was the most beautiful place he’d ever been, and the days passed with a dreamlike unreality to them. He felt he ought to be worrying about something, as if fate shouldn’t allow them to have this tranquillity. He knew Nikolas thought about these things even more than he did, but then Nik had more reason to feel fate ought not to be dealing him such a kind hand.

  Nikolas mentioned Gabby occasionally, which surprised Ben, as he didn’t want to think about her at all. He couldn’t get over the fact he hadn’t seen her passion for him behind the mask of the kind, motherly friend. Perhaps it was the association with mothering that made his mind veer off the thought every time it occurred, but while he’d been taking comfort from a hug, she’d been thinking…it was too gross to go there, so he didn’t. But Nikolas brought up the subject, usually when they were lying sated from sex, covered in sweat and semen. It seemed to play on his mind that he’d been left alive to enjoy this and she hadn’t.

  § § §

  When Nikolas saw the man falling from the sky into the deep sea beyond the drop off, he was, therefore, not especially surprised—it didn’t really matter whether this response was because he didn’t believe their lives could be so perfect and was waiting for things to go wrong, or whether it was because he was still having hallucinations more then he’d admitted to Ben. He saw it and was…curious.

  He was at the edge of the lagoon where the water turned from warm to cold. Ben had gone running, and Nikolas enjoyed the times he could swim alone, pushing himself harder than he would if Ben were there. He watched the falling, screaming man with great interest. After all, when you occasionally still saw your drowned mother watching you from the corner of a room, a falling stranger wasn’t particularly unsettling. When he hit the water, the man sank quickly, unnaturally so, as if sucked down, also leading Nikolas to believe he was merely imagining the whole incident. He was intrigued enough though to dive off the drop into the dark, cold water and swim down the face of the cliff to see if he could find anything. He couldn’t and concluded, as he suspected, that he’d been seeing things. Thinking he’d probably swum enough, and lying in the sun doing nothing would suffice for the rest of the time Ben was away, he swam back to the hut. If he turned around occasionally t
o see if a suited man was swimming behind with a maniacal, screaming face, he reckoned no one would call him on it.

  § § §

  Ben noticed Nikolas was quiet that evening as they dressed for dinner. He seemed distracted but when questioned claimed he had a headache, and to leave him be. Ben gave him a pill, which he took, and they went to eat. They’d still not overcome the feeling everyone in the room was picturing gay porn movies whenever they walked in, although, as Nikolas had pointed out, they were probably the only two people in the room who actually watched gay porn movies. As usual, they ordered water; although Nikolas was so well these days he didn’t mind Ben having the occasional glass of wine. Ben sometimes succumbed to the temptation, but not on a night when Nikolas seemed a little off already. So they drank iced water.

  Nikolas stared off into the distance over the lagoon, deep in thought. Ben kicked him lightly under the table. “You okay?”

  Nikolas nodded distractedly but brought his attention back to Ben. His eyes flicked down to the glass floor for a moment then back up very quickly, and he cracked a smile. Ben frowned. “What’s wrong?”