Chapter 16 #2
‘Yeah.’ His voice didn’t sound like his own. ‘I want that.’
Rory moved fast after that. Bedroom. Both of them naked, Rory’s hand on the back of Neil’s neck, guiding without pushing. The bedroom low-lit. Lamp on. Bed unmade from this morning.
Rory opened the drawer. Condom. Lube. The cap click that Neil now associated with this room and this man.
‘On your front or your back?’
‘Back. I want to see you.’
Rory’s face did something. A crack in the confidence. A softness he hadn’t expected and couldn’t disguise. He covered it by kissing Neil again, pushing him onto the mattress, his body over Neil’s.
Rory tore the condom wrapper. Rolled it on. Then the lube, warm, he’d held the bottle for a moment, palm around the plastic. Slicked his fingers.
Rory’s hand between his legs. The first touch at the opening, slick, pressing in slow circles, and Neil’s body clenched before he could override it.
‘Breathe.’
He breathed. Rory’s finger pressed in. The intrusion was alien. His body gripped against it, every muscle saying _out_, and his mind said _stay_.
‘Push against me.’ Rory’s mouth at his ear. ‘Like you’re pushing me out. Trust me.’
Neil did. The counterintuitive motion worked. The muscle released and Rory’s finger slid deeper and the wrongness shifted into pressure, unfamiliar, enormous, the fact of being entered in a way he’d never been entered.
‘All right?’
‘Keep going.’
A second finger. The stretch burned. A specific burn, localised, and Neil’s hand gripped the sheet and his teeth clamped together and Rory waited, didn’t move, two fingers inside him and motionless until Neil’s body decided to accept them.
Then Rory’s fingers curved. Found it.
The sound Neil made was not a sound he’d made before. A detonation. It started where Rory’s fingers pressed and bloomed upward through his pelvis, his stomach, his chest. His cock, which had softened with the discomfort, surged hard against his stomach. His hips jerked.
‘That’s it.’ Rory’s voice. Steady. His fingers moving now, a slow rocking pressure against the spot that was rewiring Neil’s nervous system in real time. ‘That’s what it feels like.’
‘Christ.’
‘Good?’
‘Rory, I can’t...’
‘You can.’
A third finger. More stretch. Neil’s breathing ragged, his hands fisted in the sheet, and Rory’s other hand flat and steady on his stomach. Not on his cock. Nowhere near his cock.
‘Don’t touch yourself.’ Rory’s voice had dropped. Rough. His own cock still hard, flushed dark, pressed against Neil’s thigh. ‘Let it happen.’
Neil didn’t understand. His cock was aching.
Every instinct said _grab it, finish it, now_.
But Rory’s fingers kept that rhythm, steady, unhurried, pad of the fingers dragging across the prostate on every stroke, and something was building that wasn’t like any orgasm Neil had felt before.
Not the sharp climb towards a peak. A wave.
Low and wide and rising from the centre of him.
His legs started shaking. Not the tremor from the burn. A different vibration, deep in the muscle. His stomach contracted. The wave kept building. His breathing went short. His vision narrowed to Rory’s face above him, the blown pupils, the lip ring, the concentration.
‘Let it go,’ Rory said. ‘I’ve got you.’
The wave broke. Not a peak. A flood. His whole pelvis seized, the muscles around Rory’s fingers clamping in rhythmic contractions, his cock jerking against his stomach but nothing coming out.
Dry. The orgasm rolled through him in pulses.
His back arched. His mouth opened and a raw, broken noise came out that was nothing like the sounds he made when he came from his own hand or from Rory’s mouth.
Some room in his body he hadn’t known existed.
Rory moved fast. Fingers out, Neil gasped at the emptiness, lube on his cock, one slick stroke over the condom already in place, and he lined up and drove in.
Hard. One thrust. All the way. No pause, no inch-by-inch.
Neil’s body was open and mid-orgasm and Rory buried himself to the hilt in a single stroke that punched the air out of both of them.
Rory angled his hips and thrust. Hard. Targeted.
His cock wider than the fingers, thicker, and the prostate already firing took the full width of it.
The orgasm that should have been fading surged back.
Rory’s forehead dropped against his, a sound punched out of his chest by the grip of Neil’s body around him.
His hands were on Rory’s back, nails in skin. Nobody was touching his cock and his cock didn’t care.
It didn’t take long. Neil’s body locked and he came. Untouched. His cock jerking between their stomachs, hot against both their skin. His body clamped around Rory, hard, the contractions beyond his control.
Rory lasted two thrusts after that. His hips stuttered, his mouth open against Neil’s forehead, and he came buried inside him with a sound ground out between clenched teeth. His cock pulsed and Neil felt every throb through the condom.
They stayed. Rory’s weight on him. Both breathing like they’d surfaced from deep water.
Rory pulled out. Gentle. The condom dealt with. He dropped onto his back beside Neil. Stared at the ceiling. His chest heaving. His stomach slick with Neil’s come.
‘Well,’ Rory said. ‘That was embarrassing.’
Neil turned his head. ‘What?’
‘I lasted about ten seconds after you came.’ Rory put an arm across his eyes. ‘Just so you know, that’s not representative. I’d like to formally request a do-over on the grounds of extenuating circumstances.’
‘What circumstances?’
Rory moved his arm. Looked at him. The green eyes wrecked, the lip ring catching the lamplight, the half-smile back but shakier than usual.
‘You. Coming like that. Around me.’ He shook his head. ‘There was no surviving that.’
‘I didn’t know it felt like that.’
‘Now you know.’
‘I want to do that again.’
Rory’s mouth curved. The full smile. The one that arrived when his guard was down.
‘Any time you want. Preferably when I haven’t been edged for half an hour first, so I can maintain some dignity.’
‘Where did that come from?’ he asked. Quieter now.
‘Gemma’s chicken. And you standing in goal with Owen, letting Freddie score. And my ex-wife hugging you in her hallway. And the fact that I’ve spent six months being led and tonight I wanted to lead.’
‘You led.’
‘I led.’
‘You can lead whenever you want.’
‘I know. That’s the point.’
Thursday. Mrs Webb’s office.
Neil had been summoned by email, the formal kind, subject line _Meeting Request: Staffing_, the sign-off including Mrs Webb’s full title and the school crest. The email that meant a decision had been made.
He sat across from her. The office immaculate, desk clear, pens in a holder. She wore her reading glasses on the chain. The chain meant business.
‘Mr Ashworth. Thank you for coming.’
‘Ma’am.’
‘I’ll be brief. Your fixed-term contract expires in July.’ She removed the glasses. Set them on the desk. ‘I’m offering you a permanent position. Head of English.’
The room was quiet. The heating ticked.
‘Head of English,’ Neil repeated.
‘Mrs Farnham is retiring in September. You’re the strongest candidate on staff, and the only one I’d trust with the department.
Your work these past few years has been.
..’ She paused. Chose. ‘Exemplary. Year 7 writing scores. The Toby Marsh turnaround, which the SENCO described as “unprecedented.” I’m inclined to agree. ’
‘Toby’s been...’
‘Toby Marsh hasn’t been excluded once this term. He wrote a poem about belonging that made the deputy head cry.’
A beat.
‘That’s you, Mr Ashworth. That’s your teaching. And I want it in this building. Permanently.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I should add that the position is permanent and pensionable, and that I expect you to accept. The alternative is advertising externally, and external candidates require induction. I find induction tiresome.’
‘I accept.’
‘Good.’ She replaced the glasses. Picked up her pen.
‘One more thing, Mr Ashworth.’
He stopped at the door.
‘The mural.’ She didn’t look up. ‘It’s the best thing this school has produced in twenty years.’
A beat.
‘Whatever you and Mr Cavanaugh are doing...’ A pause. ‘...keep doing it.’
He walked into the corridor. Behind him, faintly: the sound of Mrs Webb uncapping her pen. Then, so quiet he almost missed it, Mrs Webb, laughing. Brief. Private.
The courtyard window. The mural, nearly complete, the canopy opening, the student writing pressed into its surface. The wall that had been blank when he arrived. The wall he and Rory had filled.
He texted Rory: _Webb offered me Head of English. Permanent._
The reply was immediate: _Fully deserved. Celebrate tonight?_
Gemma next: _Got the permanent contract. Head of English._
The reply: _FINALLY. Does this mean you’ll stop stress-cleaning?_
_Never._
_I raised a monster._
His mother last: _I’ve been offered Head of English. Permanent position._
The reply took four minutes. When it came: _Your father and I are very proud. Come for lunch on Sunday? The three of you._
_The three of you._ Neil read it twice.
The corridor was forty-seven steps. He’d counted them in September, when the counting was avoidance.
He walked them, not counting.