Page 16 of For Real

“They’re not ugly, Toby.” I ran my fingertips very gently over a rash of spots just above his nipple. “They’re just there.”9

“Yeah, well.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Given the choice, I’ll take not there, thanks.”

“They’ll fade with time.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Well, then it’ll just be you and the other eighty percent of the country.”

He growled, clearly unsatisfied by this answer. His mouth was so close to mine. Kissing close. To distract myself—and him—I draped the towel about his hips and knelt down on the carpet. He made a rough little noise, his eyes growing even darker. I slid my hands about one of his ankles and lifted his foot onto my thigh. With the trailing ends of the towel, I collected and banished the water that clung to him. Each and every drop, one by one. I did the same to his other foot, then began working my way up his legs, through the crisply curling hair on his calves, over his knees, to the smooth planes of his thighs, their silky-soft interiors.

“Fuck.” Toby was shuddering against my hands, and his erection had become undeniable. “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.”

“Are you…all right?”

“Yeah. It’s just, like, this is the sexiest night of my life.”

And because it was what I had wanted to do before, and perhaps what I should have done, I slid a hand around his leg and let my head rest a moment against his knee. I closed my eyes. His fingers moving lightly through my hair, and everything was still and dark and silent. And good, so very good.

Time curled around us both and held us tight.

“Y’know,” he said at last, “my clothes are probably done.”

It was a long journey back to my feet, and I was suddenly exhausted. I drew the towel up and tucked it round his shoulders. “Would you like me to call you a taxi?”

He turned his face briefly towards the window, where greyish light seeped beneath the blind. “I reckon the Tube will be running again soon.”

“I don’t want you wandering around on your own in the early hours of the morning.”

“For fuck’s sake, I’m not a kid. I wander around on my own all the time. Nothing’s going to happen.”

About a hundred and seventy homicides committed in London per year on average. About seventy thousand assault-with-injury offences. Approximately four thousand incidents of gun-enabled crime, approximately twelve thousand incidents of knife-enabled crime. “I know, but I’d still rather you took a taxi. Or…” The word was out before I could stop it.

“Or?”

“Or…stay the night. What’s left of it.”

His eyes narrowed, and I realised I had once again made myself vulnerable to his unsubtle machinations. Worst still, there was no hiding the fact that I’d done it quite deliberately.

“Stay where? On your sofa?”

“I have a spare room.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll take my chances with the Tube.”

I made my voice as stern as I could manage. “Don’t manipulate me, Toby.”

He grinned at me, utterly unabashed. “I’m not manipulating, I’m negotiating. You don’t want me to get the Tube home. I want to stay with you. With you.”

Oh, but losing to him was its own terrible pleasure. “If you stay with me, nothing is going to happen.”

I’d expected (hoped?) that he might protest, but he just nodded, and so eagerly I wondered if I’d folded to an opponent with a handful of nothing. The idea troubled me less than perhaps it should have done. “All right. This way.”

And so I took him into the bedroom I had once shared with Robert.

Toby let out a low whistle. “God, man, your house.”

The time I had lavished on it seemed entirely lost. The hobby of another man. I gave him a little push towards the bed.

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