Page 75 of After Felix
“Go to sleep,” I command.
“You won’t leave?”
Eventually, I will, but I stupidly say, “Not tonight.”
Tension gradually leaves his body. He falls asleep between one breath and the next like an exhausted child. I don’t loosen my hold, determined to keep his bad dreams away with the force of my will. I stare into the darkness, listening to the clatter of the train on the tracks and feeling our bodies sway gently. Sleep takes a long while to come.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MAX
We stand on the platform at Venice’s train station as the Orient Express pulls away from us, taking the remaining passengers off to further adventures. Felix stares after it, and I indulge myself by watching him. The expressions crossing his vivid face are fascinating. Today they combine awe, excitement, and that wry amusement that’s never far away. What isn’t there is a shred of pity, which I’ve been looking for since we woke up this morning.
I’d been hideously embarrassed to find that I’d woken him with nightmares. Too many years of therapy have seen most of them off, but being with Felix seems to have stirred up old fears. The emotions weaving through the dream had been yearning and distress, and it makes sense he would inspire those feelings in me.
When I woke up this morning, my first thought was that the aftermath was a dream too. I’ve had too many mornings reaching for a lover who wouldn’t ever be there again. But then I’d moved and found him lying almost on top of me, his arms wound around me, and his head tucked under my chin. His wavy hair had been in my face, and Icould feel his breath on my neck. It had felt so gut-wrenchingly good. Back in the day, I always resisted staying the night and thought I was smart. Now, I recognise what an idiot I was.
I lay as still as a mouse this morning, savouring every second. In the old days, if he was naked and near me, I’d have rolled him over and fucked him, so sure was I of my welcome. In those days, he’d have laughed and moaned and sighed. Now, I just lay sedately and relished the scent of him and the feel of his skin against mine, the soft pouches of his balls snuggled on my leg.
Finally, he’d blinked sleepily awake and I’d watched as comprehension flooded his face. Then he smiled and asked when breakfast was served. I’d stumbled out an apology, and he’d cavalierly waved it off, insisting that I take him to breakfast.
Afterwards, he’d dragged me to a carriage where they had every board game imaginable, and as the countryside passed by us we ate lunch and drank expresso martinis, while he thrashed me at backgammon. Hardly surprising as I barely took my eyes off him for long enough to concentrate on the game.
Now, standing on the platform in Venice, I fill my senses with the picture he makes, the winter sun catching the mahogany strands in his hair and making them glitter like hidden gold. I drink it in like a breath of air, but school my expression before his eyes can turn sharp, and he gets the look of a man preparing to bolt.
“Well?” he asks, his voice clear and melodious. “What’s next, Ringmaster Travers?”
He startles a laugh out of me. “I like that. Maybe I should have business cards and a top hat.”
“As long as it’s not a whip, I’m fine with that.”
“Not my thing.”
“Have you tried it?”
“No. I’m just not comfortable with being restrained in any way.”
He shoots me a suddenly tender look. He fully understands my statement and its reasons, but as usual with Felix, he doesn’t pry. He never did. I’d simply told him more and more every time we were together, like I’d drunk an enchantment potion in fairyland.
“How about you?” I ask and immediately feel sick.I don’t want to know,I think savagely.Don’t tell me about your other lovers.
He laughs. “I know others like it and all power to them, but it’s not for me either. I had a bloke once who wanted me to pretend I was a schoolboy and spank my bottom. I pointed out that if he’d spanked my bum when I was a schoolboy he’d have been up on a charge, which put a slight dampener on the evening. He kept trying, but finally lost interest when I asked him to write his name on my pencil case and said I wanted to go for a smoke behind the bike sheds.”
My relieved laughter catches and holds on the air. “Come on,” I say lightly. “Let’s grab a taxi.”
We come out of the station, and he stops dead. “Jesus, is that our taxi?”
I nod, steering him over to the water taxi waiting for us, its wood gleaming in the winter sunshine and the flags on it snapping on the breeze. “No cars are allowed in Venice, so we’ll take the boat to the hotel.” I take his hand, helping him onto the boat as the driver deals with our bags.
When Felix disengages and goes to stand by the side, I immediately miss the warmth of his hand. I’m slightly mollified when he glances over his shoulder and calls, “Come and look at this, Max.”
The water taxi sets off, and a stiff breeze whips the air. Venice in the winter is beautiful but very cold, the sea winds blowing in off the Adriatic and seeming to get into every nook and cranny. He nestles slightly closer, pulling his jacket around his thin body, and I throw my arm over his shoulder.
“For warmth,” I say. “One friend to another.”
He nods, his expression slightly wary, but I stay close and relish the feel of him.
Venice is one of my favourite cities, and has views that I will never tire of. No grim industrial estates and boarded up shops here, like you see when entering so many other big cities. Instead, we slip into Venice on water that sparkles coldly, our boat jostling for space with the other crafts skimming the water and kicking up spumes of white foam.
