Page 68 of For Real

Because, truthfully, he already did.

We sat there for a long time, doing nothing except holding each other, Toby’s body curled into mine, utterly quiescent, almost as if he slept. But he was wide awake, and I sensed his eyes upon me, never straying. I half wondered what he was thinking. What he made of this man he had just made his.

* * *

Later, much later, we were hungry, so I pulled out the collection of takeaway menus Robert and I had long ago begun collecting and dumped them all in Toby’s lap, where they shone like a neon rainbow.

“Do you have a favourite?” he wanted to know.

Once. I shook my head. “Why don’t we… Why don’t we find one?”

The smile he gave me. God. As bright as a pinwheel against my skin, and I submitted myself to it, not perhaps gladly but without hesitation, and let it spark every nerve I possessed.

He picked up a couple of the menus. “How do you feel about wok puns? Do you, in fact”—he pulled out finger guns—“wok them?”

“I was about to say I could go either way on wok puns, but I’ve changed my mind.” I sat down on the floor at his feet, propped an elbow on one of the sofa cushions, and rested my head against it, which allowed me to look up at Toby as he sorted through takeaway menus. It wasn’t a particularly, or intentionally, submissive act. It was simply where I wanted to be right then.

“Not even…Woking on Sunshine?”

“That’s a lie. You made that one up.”

He laughed. “Yeah, but there’s some strong competition here. Wok This Way? Wok ‘n’ Roll. Wok Around the Clock. This one’s just called Wok 22, I don’t even know what that’s a pun of. It’s just a really random reference. Anthem for Doomed Woks.”

“The Grapes of Wok?”

In the end we settled on the Tasty House because Toby said he was susceptible to really blatant advertising. He stroked my hair and told me a story about being lost in Brighton after a night out clubbing, desperate for sustenance, and ending up in an eatery called FOOD simply because of the name. He rambled on easily enough, half hypnotising me with his voice and his fingers until I was helplessly content and as completely his as I’d ever been.

“Laurie?”

“Mmm?”

“Tell me something about you.”

I half opened my heavy eyes. “What sort of thing?”

“I don’t know. Anything.”

“That’s not helpful, Toby.”

“Well”—he pouted at me—“neither are you.”

“How do you mean?”

“You don’t talk.”

“What do you call this?”

He tugged playfully at my hair. “I mean, like, you say things but you don’t volunteer. You don’t tell me stuff. I don’t really know much about you at all.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but then I realised he was right. My friends had all known me for years, and to the sort of strangers I met, I told only my preferences, my hard and soft limits, my safeword. Somehow, I’d lost the habit of talking in the way he meant. Of sharing myself like that. It was a rather frightening thought. And lonely too.

My mouth had gone dry. “I’m not trying to keep anything from you.”

“So talk to me.”

Oh God. I had no idea how to begin. And suddenly, I found myself wishing I played the alto sax. Was that why Dom had told me that? Because he felt like this as well? “I can’t… I don’t… I want to but…”

What I wanted to say was help me. But I couldn’t quite form the words. I didn’t like to beg outside the bedroom.

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