Page 102 of For Real

There’s this pause. Tiny but infinite. Eye-of-the-storm type thing. My brain finally finds enough spare oxygen to make a thought happen. I’m about to tell him I’m his, or he’s mine, or something, when he whispers, “Tell me you love me.”

“I love you.” I think I might be scary close to actually crying. I know he wants me in a sex way, but this is so much more than that. He wants me. “I love you.”

There’s a remote in my pocket with a button that lets me implode him. I was kind of meaning to press it the moment he got close, but I just forget. I forget everything except what he needs to hear from me, and he comes, not in a wild roar, but so gently, trembling, as he holds me and I tell him over and over that I love him.

We don’t exactly get an afterglow. We get a hasty pulling up of trousers and an inept deruffling of hair. We’re both kind of wobbly, and not quite embarrassed, but self-conscious. Still open to each other, like we’re still having sex.

Laurie has to use his pocket square to clean me up and mop the spatters from the stonework, and as he bends down, he winces.

“Toby, I have to… Please, can I…? I’m kind of sensitive.”

“Oh God. Yeah. Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I just need it out.”

He limps through the archway towards the New Building, and I trail after him, a bit guiltily. There’s a toilet hidden in the bushes—like, for real—and he dashes into a stall, slamming the door behind him.

“Uh, can I help?”

“No. Absolutely not. Can you wait outside?”

“Sure.”

I wait outside, and in a few minutes Laurie emerges, looking close to normal.

I gaze up at him anxiously. “You’re okay, right? I didn’t do anything bad?”

“You made me wear a butt plug to a formal dinner. Yes, Toby, you did something bad.” I think he’s smiling. “But it’s all right.”

“I didn’t hurt you?”

“No. It’s just having you watch me remove a butt plug crosses a line.”

Suddenly, I notice something. “Uh, what happened to it?”

“I’ve thrown it away, darling. I’m not walking around with it in my pocket.”

I slide my hand into the crook of his elbow as we wander through the moonlight. “You’re just trying to get out of wearing it again.”

“You got me.”

Yeah, I think. I do. I lean against his shoulder, sleepy and content, but not wanting to bring my magical night of ancient traditions, good food, and cloister-banging to an end.

He untangles us and puts his arm round me instead, and that’s even better.

“Is it over?” I ask. “Are we supposed to go back?”

“We can if you like. Most of the guests will have drifted away, but not everyone.”

“No. It’s okay. I like this more.”

We make our way back through the cloisters and into the front bit. Our footsteps ring against the stone.

“There’s a lot I don’t know about you, isn’t there, Toby?” His voice as he says it is quiet, just for me.

It’s odd, because I’ve been kind of desperate for him to be interested in me, and now that he is, I’m not ready. I’ve got too much to lose now. He’s given me too much to lose.

Today has been…better than anything. Being with him. Being part of his world, his life. Being someone he wants enough, values enough, to be jealous of.

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