For Real (Spires)

2 Toby

Oh my fucking God, I’ve pulled the shark. Well, not pulled. Whatever it is when some guy goes to his knees for you in the middle of a club and then offers to take you home.

And it’s like nothing and everything I’ve imagined.

My hand on his throat. My foot against his cock.

I don’t know where I found the courage to do this. But I think it’s because of how he’s looking at me while he kneels there.1

He makes me feel like I could do anything.

I hold out my hand to help him to his feet, because it only seems polite somehow, but he ignores it, and he’s up, whoosh, so graceful, and all I can think is how badly I want to strip it from him. Make him give that to me too.

I’m not graceful, and I’m never going to be. Mum says it’s something you grow into, but she’s been saying that for about ten years now. It kind of sucks: the moment you look in the mirror and you realise that there isn’t going to be any more growing out of or growing into or growing full stop. That this is it. What you’re stuck with.

I mean, it’s fine, don’t get me wrong. I’m not Quasimodo. But in my head I’m about six foot two, and I’m hot and dangerous and definitely not fucking cute.

If I got to choose, I’d want to look like he does, and that’s a weird thought. Like there’s a confused zone of lust-envy where wanting to do someone spills over into wanting to be them. Or the other way round.2

I don’t even know how to describe him. I’m not even sure there’s a word for it. Not one I’ve ever heard before anyway. I run through them in my head like I’m helping him try them on, but none of them stick. He’s not handsome. He’s not pretty. And beautiful isn’t right either, because he just isn’t. I think he might be a bit ugly actually, but somehow looking at him makes my stomach fizz like paracetamol in Pepsi.

He’s sort of stern and wolfish and chiselled and kind of too much, like his nose is too long and his mouth is too wide and his chin is too sharp. There’s a bit of grey in his hair, and when he’s in profile he looks really crazy harsh, all lines and angles, full of locked-up secrets.

And there’s this weird distance to him. He’s not cold—not exactly—but there’s this sense of wildness almost, like when you’re watching a nature documentary and you see a tiger and you’re all like, God, that’s gorgeous and God, that could totally rip my face off at the same time. It’s not something you can put your finger on, like height (though he’s taller than me) or strength (though he’s stronger than me), but there’s something there. This power. Like being ordinary is just a mask he wears.

I’ve been watching him all night. Like literally unable to stop staring.

Wanting. Imagining this constant depraved porno of all the messed-up shit I want to do to him.

Never for a moment dreaming he might let me.

Certainly not when his first impulse appeared to be reading me a lecture.

But. Oh. My. Fucking. God.

My cock is dying of joy. Birthday, Christmas, Easter, Boxing Day, May Day, even, like, Pancake Day all come at once. I really shouldn’t have worn my pulling jeans. Because right now they’re my strangling-my-knob-off jeans.

I hobble after him, trying not to care that people are staring. Though, actually, not caring isn’t so difficult. Because nobody in that club mattered a damn the moment he came in, looking so passionate and uptight and angry and sad all at the same time. And so perfect, so fucking perfect. Like he belongs on his knees, waiting for me to hurt him.

My gaydar is genuinely defective—I didn’t even notice the gay one in Union J. But I’ve got this other thing. I don’t think there’s a word for it—subdar sounds crap—but sometimes it gets pinged so hard, usually by the sort of people you wouldn’t think would ping that way. Except they do, and I’m usually too chickenshit to do anything about it.3

He’s waiting for me by the front desk, calling for a taxi. On account. It’ll tell you what sort of a fucking ridiculously sheltered life I lead because that’s just about the classiest thing that’s ever happened to me. Last date I was on, we had to ring his dad for a pickup because the Tube had stopped running, we were both shit scared of the night bus, and neither of us had any cash.4

He tucks his phone away. “Get your coat.”

“Didn’t bring one.”

Next thing I know, he’s dumping his full-length, silk-lined, cashmere-wool blend over my shoulders. For such a big coat it weighs practically nothing at all, and it trails along the ground behind me like I’m a really short-arsed emperor. I want to tell him I don’t need it, but I don’t know how to do that without sounding like a petulant kid. And I really, really don’t want him to think that about me. At least, not until he’s knelt for me again. It’s silly, but before he did that I just sort of fancied him, and I didn’t really care what he thought.5

But now I do. I care really hard.

I had no idea it would be like this. That having someone on their knees for you would make you so vulnerable.

I guess it’s because there’s nowhere left to hide from what you’re into. And that’s a pretty naked feeling, standing there with a boner and all this hot, tight need inside you, desperate for somebody to understand.

Also, his coat is really nice, and it turns out I’m a bit cold. So fuck my principles.

“And phone someone. You’re going to Addison Avenue.”

Wow, it’s really hard to believe he ever smiled at me.

Knelt for me. Looked at me the way he did.

“Okay.” I go outside obediently and pretend to make a call.

Come on, who am I actually going to tell? Hi, Mum, went to a kinky sex club, and now I’m off to the house of a complete stranger so he can get on the floor and I can jerk off over him, because that totally turns me on.

She thinks I’m staying over at a friend’s. Except I don’t actually have any friends anymore because they’re all at university, growing as people.

Truthfully, I probably could have told her. I’ve yet to find something she isn’t cool with, which should be good, right? But there’s still stuff you seriously don’t want to tell your mother about your sex life. Wants to shag boys, I can cope with her knowing. Wants to shag boys while they’re tied up and crying, just no.

So maybe I’m about to do an incredibly stupid thing. And tomorrow morning I’m going to be a headline. Achingly PriapicGay Teenager Found Floating in Thames. But if this guy was dangerous, he wouldn’t be doing all the safety stuff, right?

Right?

The taxi comes and we get in, and we sit there in silence because I can’t think of a single fucking thing to say. He’s looking out the window with his face turned away, so all I’m getting is this glossy mess of shadow and light over his profile. Makes me feel miles away. Like I don’t know him at all.

Which I don’t.

Shit.

We stop outside one of those white fairy tale houses. They’re reasonably common in the posh bits of London, but they’re so pretty and costume drama-ish that it’s hard to believe they’re real and that people really live in them. I honestly half expect a rosy-cheeked, honey-blond woman to come round the corner wanting to know who will buy her sweet red roses.

He unhooks the little iron gate and I follow him up the steps to the front door. It’s so weird. Stairs on a street-level house. But there’s a sort of basement-type thing underneath, I guess for the servants you’d have had if you lived here in 1812 or whatever.

In the hallway, I give him his coat back, and he hangs it up in a cupboard before leading me into what I guess would be a sitting room in an ordinary house, but is probably a reception room in a place like this.

Even knowing precisely fuck-all about interior design, I can tell it’s super nice. Clean and cream, and during the day I guess it’d be so full of light from those big arched windows. I wonder if this is where he’d sit in summer, all sleek and golden like a lion pretending to be tame.

God, I really want to see him naked.

But we’re not even talking, just standing a polite distance from each other in the middle of this gorgeous room, and I have absolutely no idea what he’s thinking.

At last he breaks the silence, because I sure as hell can’t. “We can do this wherever you like.” He sounds so perfectly collected. Like this is normal. Maybe it is. For him. “Only not in my bedroom or the locked room on the top floor.”

“That’s really Bluebeard of you.”

“Sorry. I don’t use it anymore.”

I’m not going to ask about the bedroom. Don’t need to. No getting ideas above your station, Toby. And I’m honestly not sure if I’m meant to be prowling about the house, seeking an appropriate wanking zone. It’d totally serve him right if I went for something weird like the closet, or the loo, or the pantry. Instead, what comes out of me is, “But what about your carpet?”

Argh.

Don’t laugh at me, don’t laugh at me.

But he meets my eyes steadily, and I suddenly remember why I liked him so much. “I don’t care about the carpet.”

“How about here, then?”

In your living room. God. Fuck. Fuck.

He nods, crosses to the windows, and pulls the curtains. Bedroom or not, that seems intimate, like we’re closed into our own little world. There are dimmer switches, so the artificial light is mellow somehow, not harsh. Magical, as he goes to his knees again. And this time it’s for me, just for me, and it’s even better than before.

Better, and still nothing like enough.

“I want to see you naked.”

Holy shit, was that me? That was me. Shit, I’ve gone too far. I always go too far.

He doesn’t move for a moment, like he’s thinking about it or struggling with it, and I can’t tell if he wants to do it or he doesn’t want to do it, and I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m clearly a bit bobbins at this, but I want it so badly that I kind of don’t care.

Then he’s on his feet again. And he’s doing it. He’s actually doing it. He’s taking his clothes off. His hands aren’t quite steady, and that makes me feel good, so fucking good.

And, wow, his body. He’s not a gym bunny, but that always looks kind of pretend to me anyway, and I want to be like, Stop trying so hard. Eat a muffin. But he’s strong and lean without being intimidatingly ripped, and the light catches the hair on his chest and stomach and forearms so he sort of glows a bit. I love that, and I know I’m staring at him, but what would be the point of asking him to take off his clothes if I didn’t look? Oh, and he’s hard as well, just from this, and I love that too.6

It’s kind of embarrassing to tell the guy who’s way hotter than you how hot he is, but I have to. I can’t not. And it’s totally the right thing to do because he gets this gorgeous dark slash over his cheekbones—which isn’t quite a blush—and I get to see his throat work as he swallows. And I can suddenly remember how it felt under my hand.

At last, he’s kneeling again. Same as before: hands behind his back, knees slightly parted, as though he’s just waiting for me to nudge them wider.

Except this time he’s looking down.

Because it worked at the club, I try, “I want you to look at me.”

I wonder if I should mind that he hesitates when I tell him to do something. If this was porn, I’d probably be all, Do it now, bitch, or something. But I can’t say that to him. Jesus. Why would I want to?

And—is it weird?—I like the way he hesitates.

Everything I say, a choice he makes, a step he takes.

Which is how I know it’s real for him. And that makes it real for me.7

He lifts his head.

Wow.

It had been too dark at the club, but he’s got these…what do you call it…heterochromatic eyes. They’re winter-day grey all the way to the inside edge of his irises and then, bam, there’s this ring of gold.

And I love his mouth. It’s got secrets, just like the rest of him. Carefully severe when he’s not reacting or speaking, but right now it’s so soft I want to kiss it.

I don’t.

Instead I sort of fish out my cock, which is totally ready to go, and try not to feel too silly, standing there holding it.

Then I remember something. “Shouldn’t we have a safeword?”

Maybe this isn’t the right thing to say because, at last, he replies, “I’m kneeling at your feet while you wank. If I don’t like it, I can stand up and walk away.”

Well. I guess he’s got a point. But I kind of wish he hadn’t said that. And my cock isn’t madly keen on it either because it actually sort of shrinks a bit, like it’s trying to tuck itself back into the foreskin where nobody can make it feel awkward.

Then I wonder if he’s feeling awkward—even though he’s so amazing down there, naked and golden and supplicant and mine—and maybe he’s trying to protect himself. By making it less. A game we’re playing.

When it’s more than that.

Which is how I remember that what felt realest of all was when I was talking to him. That’s what brought him to his knees, really. Whatever I said. Or some part of it because I said loads.

So I talk. I stand over him, and I talk. It’s stupid, but I tell him everything.

“You know…I…kind of…like, I wanted you from the first moment I saw you in that boring-arse club.” Something happens to his mouth. Something…light, not quite a smile, but its own little yielding.

And, weirdly, everything gets easier. The more I say, the more I find to say, my hand stroking my cock on a kind of lust-fuelled autopilot. “It was like this short circuit in my brain, and all I could think about was you and getting you like this. All these crazy, impossible fantasies. Like maybe if I could sort of…kidnap you, or something, and you’d find yourself cuffed and naked and at my feet in some dark room.”

Oh fuck. Now he probably thinks I’m psycho. But he doesn’t flinch away or jerk to his feet, and whatever I see reflected in his eyes isn’t shock. I’d been about to blurt out that I wouldn’t really, but suddenly I know I don’t have to say that. Not to him. So, instead, I just plough right on with the dirty talk.

“So…there you are…all helpless in front of me…but I don’t think you’re scared…or maybe you are, but mainly you look angry. Like you’d fucking kill me if you could get loose, except you can’t, so you’ve got no choice but to…like, submit, I guess, to whatever it is I decide I want to do to you.”

He makes this sound, deep at the back of his throat, like it’s a different sound he’s swallowed.

I’m insanely hard again. Like, do you want any pictures hanging hard.

Exactly like him.

And he…well…wow… My cock is just, y’know, my cock. It’s fine. Does the job. Feels good when I rub it against things. But his I could be kind of obsessed with. It’s really…beautiful, all strong and straining, needy and aggressive at the same time, and sheathed in gleaming skin, with these drops of moisture crowning the tip, like tiny perfect opals. I think they’d taste of heat and salt and tears and him. If I got a hand round the base, he’d be so exposed, all the tender places, vulnerable and at my mercy. I could run my tongue up those blood-bright, writhing veins. Get under the ridge. Into the slit. Make him scream with the softest of my kisses.8

Oh God. Oh Fuck. Oh Godfuckyes.

I work myself ferociously, almost painfully, but it’s amazing, this harsh pleasure zinging all through my cock and from there to my whole body. Best wank ever. The room fills up with the sound of skin moving against skin, as I tell him, “There’s part of me still worries sometimes that it’s kind of messed up. Like a wire got crossed somewhere or a gear is bent, because I see someone like you and this is what I think about, this and other stuff like it. Bad stuff, I guess. Like hurting you. Making you cry. And beg. Except it doesn’t feel bad to me. Or it does, but in a good way. Does that make sense? Like it lights me up inside.”

Another one of those sounds. Stifled and naked at the same time, making me wonder what it’s like when he really screams.

“Fuck.” That’s what I say next. The only thought I can get out. “Oh fuck.” Because I’m wet with looking at him, pre-come sliding between my fingers as I stroke myself up and down, up and down, rough, then rougher, like I’d touch him.

Breathing sort of hurts, and the sound of me trying fills the air, ragged and raspy. And, underneath, there’s the echo of his, and that’s so hot, our bodies not touching, but our breaths all tangled up together. It’s nothing, it’s air, but it seems so visceral, and so there, like our mouths are fucking.9

The world has gone all shiny-sharp at the edges, like I’m an envelope coming open, and I feel so good, I feel so fucking good, that I kind of lose control of my mouth. And words are falling out of it that hardly sound like words at all anymore, just these jaggedy, groany things that I’m dropping everywhere.

“I’m going to remember this for, like, my whole fucking life. It’s going to be on me forever. God.” My hand tightens and so does the pleasure, twisting into corkscrews inside me…nearly nearly nearly. “Fuck.”

His eyes, his gorgeous fucking magical eyes, never waver. Because I’ve told him to look at me. Even though he’s shaking, and I mean really shaking, like it’s his cock I’m holding, and there’s sweat glistening on him, gathered on the tips of his hair, sliding down his skin, like he’s jewelled in all the tears I want to make him cry.

“And it’ll be on you as well. Because…because…you want it too.”

I’m not expecting anything, but after a moment he nods, blushing again, and that blush is the sweetest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. It makes me feel like I’m a million feet tall. Like I’m a king.

Because it makes this more than the physical. More than simply the act of kneeling down. And suddenly I know what I felt in the club was right: he’s raw in this wanting and in the rightness of it. We’re the same.

And just like that, in these frantic jerks like my cock’s been electrocuted, I come all over him. I try to control it—and where I’m aiming—but it’s all I can do to stop my knees folding up like deck chairs. I’m all over his chest, across his throat and jaw and cheek. I’d be kind of impressed at myself for the porno load if I wasn’t out of my head, fucking delirious and in that kind of weird pre-embarrassment stage. Where you’re still floaty, lost in the sparkly, amazing time-out moment of ohhhhhfuckingyeahhhhh, but you’re starting to get that vague sense that it’s going to be weird and awkward when you blink the stars out of your eyes, and you’re sticky and limp and drippy, and standing over a naked, kneeling stranger who you’ve basically covered in come.

Except that next bit is a long time coming because it’s basically been the best fucking orgasm of my tiny rubbish life. Like recognisably, definitively, memorably good. Like I’d better start a list so it can be at the top good. And all I can do is be stunned and happy and grateful, and at the same time, totally and completely wrung out. I’d probably be crying if I hadn’t spurted, like, literally all my body fluids everywhere.

When my heart stops exploding and I remember breathing is a thing I can do, I open my eyes. He’s kneeling. Still hard as anything. Still looking at me. And suddenly I get really stressed out about what he’s seen: me all goofy and babbling and helpless, coming everywhere.

Very slowly, he lifts a hand to his cheek. Runs one finger through the mess I’ve made.

Then he closes his eyes and sucks the finger clean.

The way he looks when he’s doing it… Fuck… I can’t… And I swear to God, my cock nearly comes back from the dead.

Afterwards, he opens his eyes again and climbs gracefully—always so damn graceful—to his feet. Which has to be some kind of weird little act because if I’d been kneeling that long on carpet, I’d have felt it.

I’ve sort of half forgotten how tall he is. And how remote, locked up again behind his wolf eyes.

“We’re done here.”

That’s what he says to me. “We’re done here.” And we really are. Because that’s all it takes to turn me back into a pumpkin. Not a dom, not a king, not anything special at all. Just some clueless kid who’s somehow got lucky. “Yeah…but…like…what…”

“There’s a taxi number and an account code on the board in the hall. See yourself out when you’re ready.”

He’s still stark bollock naked, but he leaves…he fucking leaves. Sweeps out of there with all the dignity I’ve never had. Leaving me alone in his beautiful living room, limp dick in hand, staring at the spot where he’d been kneeling.