Chapter Four #2
Time passed. Seconds. Minutes. Laurie didn’t know. All he
could feel were Sasha’s hands on his shoulders, Sasha’s tongue in
his mouth, probing so gently it brought tears like meltwater to
Laurie’s eyes. As if he had been the one freezing half to death on
the pavement; as if he had been dying of cold. He shuddered and sobbed, took hold of
the edges of Sasha’s dressing gown and pushed them back, blindly
feeling for the shapely collarbones beneath. Sasha moaned, a
rippling vibration in Laurie’s mouth, and they broke apart for an
instant, only long enough to exchange a startled glance, before
pushing urgently mouth to mouth once more. Laurie felt his eyes
close. Burning down his spine was a signal he had seldom
experienced and never at this intensity: the knowledge that he was
about to become erect, not at the controlled, controlling touch of
his own hand, but in response to another living creature—a creature
like himself, another boy. He cried out, half in fright, and felt
Sasha’s hands come to rest warmly on either side of his face,
steadying him, a silent reassurance.
His
bedroom door clicked. Laurie froze. He opened his eyes and met
Sasha’s, surely as wide and scared as his own. “Oh, God,” he
whispered, feeling the prayer shape itself against lips still
pressed to his.
But he
would not allow the fear. Laurie would not let anything happen to
Sasha. If this was the time—right now, apocalyptically, when he had
to stand up to his father, so be it; the old sod could kill him and
toss him out the window if he wanted. Twisting around, Laurie got
to his knees and then his feet, shielding Sasha behind him just as
he himself had been protected against all odds beneath the bridge.
He heard his own voice ring out, levelly, unfazed. “Who’s
that?”
“Me. I’m sorry, Laurie.”
“Clara.” Laurie swallowed convulsively. “You know, I swore to
your mother I wouldn’t swear in front of you, but fucking
hell, Clara!”
She
pushed the door tentatively wide. “I know. I won’t tell. I was
having bad dreams, or I wouldn’t have…” She trailed off. “Laurie.
Do you know there’s someone in your dressing gown?”
Laurie
sighed, dying adrenaline shivering off him like glitter. “I’m aware
of it. Yes.” He took an unsteady step back, seeing Sasha unfold
from the rug and rise to stand beside him. “He’s Sasha. He’s…”
Laurie thought quickly. If he asked her to keep quiet, she would do
her best. But she was so clear, so straightforward, that the truth
would fall from her over the breakfast table straight into her
father’s lap. Ask her to keep a romantic secret, however, and she’d
probably take it with her to the grave. “He’s a gypsy prince.” He
heard Sasha’s faint choking sound but forged on, deadpan. “And he’s
in exile, so you mustn’t tell anyone he’s here.”
Clara
gazed at them both, her eyes enormous. “A prince? I won’t say
anything. I swear it on my life.”
“Just a promise will do. Well, Clara, this is Prince Sasha of
Romania. Sasha, my sister, Lady Clara Fitzroy of
Mayfair.”
“Enchanted,” Sasha replied with impressive solemnity and
stepped forward to give her a courtly bow. “I’m sorry to hear you
have bad dreams.”
Laurie
watched with a painful tightness in his throat while she tried
visibly to rise to the occasion. “Oh, they’re nothing,” she said.
“A childish phase, apparently. Forgive my intrusion.” Bobbing him a
neat convent-school curtsy, she began to back out.
“Wait, Clara.” She was pale, Laurie thought. He’d assumed she
was too young to feel the constant low-level sense of oppression in
the house. Assumed she’d been happy enough with her father. God
knew what she took in, what she knew. “Hannah’s with you, isn’t
she?”
“Yes. Snoring.”
“You can wake her up, you know, if you have
nightmares.”
“I know. But she doesn’t…”
“Doesn’t what?”
“She doesn’t know Reduced Shakespeare,” Clara whispered, going
paler still, eyes filling with tears. Laurie forgot with instant
totality any shreds of irritation, strode to her, and swept her
up.
She said
to Sasha over his shoulder, as if making apology for somebody else,
“Oh, dear. I’m not normally such a nuisance.”
“Not a nuisance at all,” Laurie said, sitting down with her on
the bed. “Which one in particular doesn’t she know?”
“King Lear, I think.”
“Good. A cheerful one.” This was easier than opera, Laurie
thought. He’d been to see the whole Reduced Shakespeare Company
series twice last year, not that it had taken much time—they’d done
tragedies one night, comedies the next, and grouped together
histories and mysteries on the third. He’d reduced them still
further for Clara’s benefit on his return home, and they’d become a
frequent choice for repeat performance. Settling her on a pillow,
Laurie darted an apologetic glance at Sasha, but he’d gone back to
sit by the hearth once more and was watching him with smiling
curiosity. Laurie took up a position roughly central in the room
and bowed to his small audience. “There once was a mardy old
king…”
The
performance took less than ten minutes in limerick form. It
required all of Laurie’s ingenuity to leap from wicked Edmund to
doomed and dim-witted Cordelia, and he almost sprained an ankle in
the mad scene on the heath, but the effort was well worth it. The
shadows left his sister’s face—and, to his astonishment, when he
glanced across the room, he saw that Prince Sasha of Romania was
curled up by the fire, tears of silent laughter streaming. Giving
the ending his usual twist, Laurie had the old king and his
daughter tango offstage together, alive and well and discussing
their plans for revenge.
He
emerged, sweating and trembling with exhaustion, to noisy applause.
“Ssh, both of you, for God’s sakes. Lady Clara, will that do for
you?” She was too far gone to reply, but he took her weak nod for
assent and gathered her up. “I’ll be back in a minute,
Sasha.”
She was
almost asleep by the time he shouldered open the door of her room.
He took her quietly over to the bed and laid her down beside
Hannah, who was sleeping the sleep of the innocent but smiled
vaguely and threw an arm around Clara when she felt her weight. He
straightened up, ran both hands through his hair and stood in the
streetlight for a moment trying to convince himself of her
safety.
In his
own room, Sasha was waiting. He stood up as Laurie reentered.
“You’re a good, kind brother,” he said, holding out a hand. “And an
amazing bloody actor.”
Laurie
walked into his arms.
The bed
was narrow. Their limbs tangled, awkward, Laurie’s now colder than
Sasha’s. They sank down wordlessly, no time even to pull back the
duvet and blanket. No time to divest Laurie of more than his
sweater, though he almost died of fright and excitement when Sasha
seized that and pulled it over his head. Sasha lay looking up at
him, then ran both hands across his naked chest with a dry sound of
longing and hauled him down to lie beside him. In the dark they
found again the interrupted kiss, picked it up with bruising
urgency. This time Laurie felt Sasha’s mouth open to admit him, and
flickered his tongue uncertainly inside and back. “Oh, God.
Sasha.”
“Yes. It’s all right.”
“Is it? Am I doing it right?”
Sasha
gave a soft, half-choked chuckle. “Yes. Doing it fine. Come on;
come here.”
Moaning,
Laurie obeyed him. It was as easy as obeying gravity, easy as
falling. He pushed his hips forward and felt Sasha shove back hard
against him, then subside before pulling him up to lie on top.
Together they undid his dressing gown’s belt and opened the garment
wide. Then Laurie held breathlessly still while Sasha deftly undid
his jeans—hesitated for a moment, as if he had shown too much
expertise, dark eyes troubled, seeking Laurie’s in the amber
streetlight. Laurie said, in his turn, “It’s all right,” added
incoherently, “Please,” and shuddered in relief when Sasha
understood him and shoved jeans and boxers down around his
hips.
Their
bodies met, hard and hungry. Laurie cried out at the feel of
Sasha’s cock against his own, a hot, dry slide. He wondered
fleetingly if he ought to be doing something more sophisticated
than this, more than thrusting for contact as if his life depended
on it, but Sasha didn’t seem to mind—had opened his thighs as if to
welcome and direct his efforts. His hands on Laurie’s backside were
firm, his face rapt, lips parted on quickened and quickening
breath. “Oh, Laurie,” he whispered hoarsely, beginning ragged
thrusts up to meet him. “Come on.”
Laurie
gasped. He’d thought he was fully erect, but the whispered command
sent a surge through him. His movements took rhythm, barely
voluntary, some ancient music that had been there all the time only
now becoming audible to him. He briefly longed for his cock to be
enclosed—he knew what gay men did, though it seemed barely
feasible—and Sasha, as if reading him, reached a hand down between
their bodies. “Lift up a sec,” he murmured, hot against Laurie’s
ear.
The
brushing caress of his mouth, his sudden clasp on Laurie’s cock,
almost brought Laurie over on the spot, but he hung on; the touch
was full of intent, pushing his shaft down so that at his next
thrust, it was caught and clenched hard between Sasha’s thighs. He
heard his own astonished cry with shame. That was it; that was the
grip he had needed.
Instinct told him it was vital to keep Sasha with him, not to
let the soaring pleasure take him yet. If he came first, he might
leave Sasha thinking he had only served him, like
a…like a client.
The words whispered coldly through Laurie’s mind, and he pushed
them away.
No! Like lovers, like lovers.
He shifted, and smiled down at Sasha. Waited until Sasha’s
next movement had brought Laurie’s cock to lie between their
bellies. Now when he thrust, they would both feel it, both have the
heat, the pressure, and the refuge of one another’s flesh. Sasha’s