Page 117 of For Real

“Fuck.” He undid his belt, peeled down his jeans and boxers, cleaned himself up with the boxers, and then tossed them between my legs. The familiar scents of sex and Toby swept over me like the brush of his hands. “You didn’t even have to touch me.”

His fingers glistened slightly with the traces of him. It made my own cock drip and ache with wanting. “Can I…”

He grinned. “Fuck yeah.”

He wriggled back into his jeans, one-handed, and held the other out to me. I drew his fingers into my mouth and lapped up the taste of his pleasure, earned with pain. His eyes fluttered, and I made him moan for me, and I revelled in it. The power of pleasing, in this place where only pleasing mattered.

At last, he pulled away.

“Thank you, again,” I said.

“Yikes, your voice is wrecked. I’m going to get you some water.”

He refastened his belt and hurried over to the sink. I could have reminded him there was a water filter in the fridge, but I just didn’t care. On his return, he climbed onto the table, nestling between my legs, and held the cup to my lips. It was an awkward angle, but it was still the best, slightly lukewarm, slightly chalky tap water I’d ever tasted. And it turned out I was thirsty—which probably shouldn’t have been surprising, but there was something a little startling about being given exactly what you needed before even recognising you needed it.

Afterwards, Toby put the cup carefully to one side, and curled up against my sweaty, still slightly throbbing chest. An odd cuddle, perhaps, but I liked it. There was something comforting about it, the sense of closeness, even though I couldn’t put my arms round him.

He reached up and ran a hand lazily over my shoulders. “Do you need out?”

“Need?”

“It’s been about half an hour.”

I stretched—and winced. I was going to ache. But I couldn’t lie to him. “I–I don’t…need—”

“Good.” He smiled up at me, sleepy-eyed, soft-mouthed. “I like you like that, and I still have to make the meringue.”

“Oh God.”

He tipped his head back and kissed me under my chin. “Besides, I want to reward you.”

“By leaving me tied up on a table with a hook up my arse?”

“Pretty much.” He slithered down onto the floor.

“I’m sure this sort of thing is against all food hygiene regulations.”

“I’ll wash my hands really carefully.” He took the cup back to the sink and scrubbed himself thoroughly before taking his pie crust out of the oven.

Once again, he talked to me about what he was doing, but I was too far gone, too deep, too high, to be able to hold on to much of the meaning. There was just the rhythm of his voice washing over me, keeping me close.

His lemon filling was the colour of sunshine as he poured it into his golden pastry crust. And whatever went into meringues, the making of them was a vigorous business. The thin muscles of Toby’s mixing arm stretched and flexed.

“You seriously need to invest in an electric whisk. I’m getting wanker’s cramp here.”

But through determination and some strange alchemy, what had started as a bowl of thin white liquid thickened and formed glossy Alpine peaks. A few minutes later, Toby’s lemon meringue pie was fully assembled, and he was putting it back into the oven.

“The trick,” he explained, “is not letting your curd get cool.” He put the two bowls down on the table beside me. “You sometimes get this weird wet layer between the lemon and the meringue, but if the curd is still warm, then it cooks the meringue from the bottom so the layers stick together better.”

I’d seen Toby passionate before; I’d seen him certain and in control. This was the first time it hadn’t been sexual. “You’re really into this, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “Yeah. It’s cool.” Then he ran a finger round the rim of the bowl, gathering some of the gleaming, yellow curd. “Want to try?”

“I want to suck your fingers. If they’ve got lemon curd on them, I can live with that.”

“If you don’t respect my pie, I’m putting those clamps back on.”

I thought he was joking, but the terror was real enough and dizzyingly sweet. “I’m sorry. Please don’t.”

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