Page 30 of Ship of Fools

“Can we just…?” I shouldn’t even suggest it. But I still do. “If you help me prep lunch, and we get the meat in the oven, then shall we pop over so you can… ehr... get some clean clothes from your flat?” I can barely get my voice to sound normal, with my head already making up scenarios what I could demand. I want him to blow me. I want to tug at his hair, make him go deeper. I want to feel him squirm as I fill his mouth. I want. Fuck, I’m a sick bastard.”

“You’re already in the scene.” He says softly, “I can see it in your eyes. What deprived fantasy is going on in that head of yours?”

He reaches up and pulls me in. Hugs me, as his hands roam over my back.

“We need to talk about things like… stuff you don’t like...”

“We need to talk about a lot of things.”

“You need to say stop if I go too far. You need to tell me what too far is.”

“Don’t hurt me for real.” he says, suddenly surprisingly confident. “Don’t injure me. Don’t put me in danger, in any way. Don’t humiliate the real me. Just the fantasy me. And if I say stop, I mean it.”

I have to breathe. Take it all in. Stunned by the words coming out of his mouth. It’s too much responsibility. Too much freedom. Too much to take in.

“You have really thought about this, haven’t you?” I feel breathless. Lightheaded. Very-much aroused, yet in awe of his honesty.

“I know myself, and I know what turns me on. I have spent a lifetime trying to find someone to give me what I need, without making me feel like a freak. I don’t worry about it, I won’t let anyone shame me, and I have let people take advantage in the past, hoping that they understood what I was asking for. People never do, and before I know it, they have gone too far, and I get too scared to say stop. I promise you, it’s not a place I ever want to be in again, especially not with you. But I trust you. You won’t hurt me, you said so.”

“I won’t hurt you.Ever.” I promise.

“Then, let’s go in and meet your dad, so I can fanboy all over him and ask him all kinds of weird questions whilst you get your whatever lunch-meat-thing prepared. Even that sounds dirty. Can we come up with a meat scene? You can be some mean butcher or something. No, hang on, that might be... messy. Scrap that. So, we're cooking. And having a meal? Will there be presents? Do you think the petrol station on the A road will be open? Does your mum like chocolate? I mean, I could probably buy her a pint of milk and a meat pie, but that would be like the crappiest present ever. If I make gift cards? Would that be acceptable? I could, like, draw out the store logo and what I am getting them. I want to get Bea this jumper I saw online, it saysMummy Powerin all glitter and stuff.”

“When did you have time to Google that?”

“Told you, I had lots of time when I was making your breakfast this morning, Your Highness.”

“Don’t.” I warn.

“Oh, absolutely. We have to do the Prince and the servant. Or the King and his consort.”

“You are... impossible.”

“No.” he says, looking me straight in the eyes. Stroking my cheek. Kissing my lips. “You are perfect and wonderful and so handsome and… perfect. You know that, don’t you?”

I don’t know what to say back to that. I’ve never been so confused in my whole life. Yet, I—in the strangest way ever—feel calm. He calms me, just by looking at me. I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect how he would make me feel. All this confusion, yet he’s still here, and I let myself sink back into his arms.

Andreas

I had a plan, and now it’s gone completely to hell. I was going to get him to wait in my tiny hallway, so I could a) make the bed, and b) get cleaned up and get a nice jockstrap on. That was as far as the plan had played out in my head, and after that I couldn’t quite decide on the valeting fiasco scene, or a new one that had popped up in my head when I was peeling carrots in the Germano kitchen.

I officially love my new father-in-law. I also love how Don Germano declared that I was the son-in-law he always wanted. A young man who knew a thing or two about cars, and also took an interest in cooking. He says I can do no wrong now, and must immediately marry his wayward son. Don Germano speaks perfect English, but he put on this fake accent, waved his tea towel around the room like a lunatic and it’s kind of hilarious how hard he tried to put me at ease and make me feel at home.

I met Anna, who was still delirious with lack of sleep, and then I got roped into building an IKEA cot with Luca, which in a way was the perfect way to spend Christmas. Mama Germano, whose name I never figured out, never stopped kissing my cheeks and calling me darling.

Anna is just like Luca, grumpy and serious, and then suddenly she declared she adored me, which made me insanely happy. We laughed. We checked on the meat. Luca and I kissed under the plastic mistletoe, and everyone gave us a blow-by-blow never-ending account of Bea’s labour, to the point that we all had to beg Anna to stop with the grizzly details. And we managed to build one perfect cot, complete with mattress and bumper. Although I googled the bumper thing, and Luca and I agreed to disagree on its safety record. I might speak to Bea about it and see what she thinks, because she is the Mum-expert person after all. Baby Bob needs to be safe, and I take my Godfather duties very seriously.

Then Luca's dad made us assemble a huge Tiramisu and we packed all the Christmas food into little plastic boxes, and crammed ourselves into two cars, and then we weren’t allowed to all sit with Bea, so she left Baby Bob with the nurses, and we all had Christmas Dinner in the hospital waiting lounge. If anyone would have told me I would have had the best Christmas dinner of my life sitting in a hospital waiting room, then I would have told them they were crazy. But that was one amazing dinner, and the company was just perfect.

It should have rated as the weirdest Christmas ever, but instead, it was what it was. We had no presents, because, well, the Germanos all said they would do them when Bea was back home. Perhaps on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps. And nobody made me feel like I was not supposed to be there, which was… comforting in a weird way. I smiled. I laughed. I held Luca’s hand when I felt unsure of what on earth I was doing, and he hugged me when things became a bit weird. Because they did, and I’m still a fool. I’m the captain of the Ship of Fools, because I’m in over my head here. Twenty-four hours after getting hijacked, and bribed, and threatened with violence and death by a pregnant woman I had never met, I am now being mauled by her oversexed brother, who has apparently struggled with an intermittent erection since before lunch.

And I’m not exactly helping myself, rubbing my back all over him as I am putting the key in the door of my flat, and Luca already has his hands down my jeans, cupping my arse and making me feel slightly nauseous, as the belt is cutting off the blood supply to my stomach. It doesn’t help that I had two portions of Tiramisu. And a full Christmas Dinner. This was apparently the English one, and tomorrow they are doing Italian Christmas all over again. And Luca says there will not be a single piece of pasta in sight, despite me pleading for lasagne. Instead there will be home-made bread, antipasti and Italian olives, that Luca says will have me orgasming at the table. I doubt it, but I will definitely give the roast pork with fig sauce a go, because that? Might just do me in. I don’t think I have ever eaten this much food, despite it all being served in plastic takeaway containers.

“Luc…” I moan, as he licks a line up my neck, and my skin is suddenly prickled with delicious goosebumps of anticipation.

“I told you to look after my car,” he grumbles in my ear, as his fingers are unbuckling my belt. “I told your supervisor that I was quite specific with the care of my car, and I spotted not only one, but two scratches on the bonnet. I spoke to your supervisor, and he said...”

“I’m so sorry, Sir—” I squeak out, cut off as his hand grips my dick. He strokes and I let a deep moan escape. He’s... ridiculous andI’m so bloody easy. One stroke and I am all over this like a sex-starved slut. He can call me that too, in this fantasy. I’m seriously not only sailing the Ship of Fools, but I’ve made myself the captain of it, as well, and probably making another mess of it, pushing him to play along, which at this rate? It could easily go straight to hell.

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