Page 46 of For Real

I woke close to midday with a strange, jittery, Christmas-morning feeling. And then remembered why. Toby was stretched out on his front, legs and arms spread like a wanton starfish. Very quietly, I groped around in the top drawer of the bedside table until I found a tube of lube and a condom. When I was ready, I covered him with my body and slid a slick finger into him.

“Good morning, darling. You owe me, and I intend to collect.”

“Oh fuck, yeah.” His voice was hoarse from sleep and burgeoning excitement, and he spread his legs even wider, bucking up against me. “Yeah.”

The muscle was a little tense, but I eased him and aroused him and got two fingers into him while he twisted and gasped and pressed himself into my touch. He was bed-warm and supple, a sprawl of floppy hair and languid limbs, and he smelled of sleep and sex and a little bit of me.

I kissed the tops of his shoulders—he had some acne there as well, small constellations of bright stars—and the back of his neck through the fall of his hair, fucking him with my fingers until he was writhing, breathless, and incoherent.

“Fuck. Yeah. That’s good. That’s so good.” Though when I nudged him with the head of my cock, he cried out sharply. “Wait, wait, want to see you. Let me see you.”

“Any way you want me.”

I rose to my knees and dragged him onto his back. He flung his legs around me as I thrust into him, without finesse, without control, my breath falling harsh and ragged against his skin. I’d prepared him, but his groan had an edge of pain, and through the haze of desperation, I flinched for him and at myself. I hesitated, deep in his body, trying to be more careful, but then he threw back his head and arched his body, offering himself to me.

“Yeah, yeah, like that, just like that.” His voice caught in the impossible space between command and supplication. “Come on, Laurie, fuck me. Fuck me. Really want it.”

Undone again, I obeyed.

I seized his wrists in one hand and pinned them over his head, stretching his body into a line of heat and urgency, and fucked him, hard and fast and frantic, holding him there against me, under me, so I could somehow bear it, all the pleasure, relief, and sheer extraordinary joy. Not a reward for last night’s submission and humility and denial, but a part of it, an extension. A culmination.

“Touch me,” panted Toby, twisting beneath me. “Want your hand on me.”

And of course, I did. I would have done anything he told me. Anything he wanted. His every delirious command was a spark beneath my skin. And I was going to ignite like a phoenix.

His cock was hot and damp, straining between our bodies, and he came with a ragged cry the moment my knuckles clumsily brushed him there. I fucked him through it, my responses lost in his and his in mine, along with all the boundaries of give and take, dominance and submission, conquest and surrender. Leaving only us and this, our bodies locked in ecstasy.

He gave a final, shuddery groan and went utterly pliant, his eyes opening after a moment to focus hazily on me. “Your turn. Want to watch you come apart.”

So I gave him that as well. Those last ragged moments of clinging to control, to self, to anything, and then the helpless fall. The pleasure was starless, annihilating and terrifying, the deepest surrender of all.

Soft touches—Toby’s hands on my shoulders, his mouth at my brow, the warmth of his breath—brought me slowly back. He held me through my silence and my shaking, murmuring things I shouldn’t have needed to hear, until I felt at least a little like myself again.

And while I lay in bed—my mind and body temporarily soothed to still water—he made me eggs and brought me tea. Showed me the bruises I’d left upon his wrists and, grinning, made me kiss them.

* * *

He left not long after. I didn’t think to ask him to stay, but everything was quiet without him. I wandered around the house in my dressing gown, a stranger of the moment, lost and almost at peace.

I thought about catching up with my reading, except Toby had left his mark even there, albeit accidentally. Not over my journals, thank God, but in a wild splash across The Acceptance World, Books Do Furnish a Room, and Temporary Kings. For some reason—though it shouldn’t have—it made me smile.

I carried the books into the kitchen—left contrastingly spotless by Toby—with the vague intention of cleaning them. They’d been Robert’s favourites all the time we’d been together, and I’d failed repeatedly to get into them, even taking A Question of Upbringing to Iraq in the hope I would be desperate enough to care. But I had loved that he loved them. I liked listening to him quote them and talk about them, leaning close to me, a laughing fanatic, trying to share his passion.15

He could have only have left them to forget. And I could only have kept them to remember. Bundling up the whole twelve-volume set, I took them to a charity shop, returning from a grey afternoon to a house that seemed to be full of new spaces waiting for Toby to fill them.

At least on Monday the realities of life and death would take over, and I would not have to think about him until he was here again.

6

Toby

Oh my God, I can’t stop thinking about him. My days go by in this blur of not-Laurie, his finger marks fading on my wrist. I feel stupidly fairy tale about everything, but at least this time he hasn’t dumped me on the cold hill side and buggered off. I can get back to his magic kingdom where I’m a prince and I’m happy and so very, very seriously, expertly fucked.1

Swoony sigh.

I’m totally crap at work. I burn things, I under-cook things, I forget how everybody likes their eggs, as if Laurie is now the only egg-eater in my universe. I try to make a carrot cake without any carrots. I refill all the sugar shakers with salt and don’t notice until a cabbie spits up a mouthful of tea.

I get a bollocking from Joe, but he doesn’t fire me. Just threatens me with it a bunch of times, which is, y’know, pretty usual. He probably actually won’t because Hairy’s still in this insane boot thing that makes him look like a robot, and I’m probably just as good at cooking as he is. Cheaper too, since I’ve got no qualifications and no experience, so I’m still on the minimum wage. Which wouldn’t keep a frugal monkey in Tesco-value peanuts.

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