Chapter 24 #3
‘And I’m glad I didn’t tell you and didn’t allow you to… What? What were you gonna do? Deploy your emotional parachute to fall slower? Or land elsewhere? Sorry, but no. Hell no!’
Loris forced that H so hard that Charles tasted it, and hell sounds good, considering Loris looks like a sin he’s aching to commit.
‘Breaking news, Charles! You cut the lines of my parachute when you stormed in here all drunk and honest. So how do you think I’m gonna function if you back away? The idea that you could have one foot out gave me murderous urges!’
‘You said pyromaniac urges.’
‘Whatever! My point is—’ Loris arches his back when Charles tries to press their lips together. ‘I’m not done yelling my feelings at you!’
‘I wasn’t done either! And I don’t know why we’re yelling!’
‘Then stop already!’
‘You stop! And take off your clothes!’
‘You take off your— Wait.’ Loris moves back again. ‘What?’
‘I’m not sure what we’re arguing over. And I want you, Loris. I want you so bad. I want a new first and I want it now.’
Desire flashes in Loris’ eyes as he grips Charles’ shoulders for what could be a push or a pull, so ends up being a tight hold.
‘If it comes from the impression that we’re running out of time, then you’re validating my decision to—’
‘It doesn’t! That’s all I’ve been thinking about lately!
I had excuses ready in case the night with your friends dragged on.
And I’m sure you didn’t display your drawing to be congratulated with a high five!
I’d love for at least one thing to go according to plan tonight, I love this energy you’re giving off right now, I love you, damn it, so could you please remove— Yes. Thank you.’
Loris takes off his jumper and t-shirt in one motion and reaches for Charles’ belt. ‘Fine! But for the record… I might still be mad at you.’
‘As long as I’m back to being irresistibly handsome.’
‘Who’s dense? You’re never not.’
Charles has learnt the map of Loris’ body by now.
His lips and fingers don’t need directives to make him tremble, tense up or mumble in French.
He draws an unparalleled sense of power from those reactions – all the more exhilarating that his minutes of control are numbered.
There’s no telling when Loris will take charge and render him helpless.
Tonight, Charles is dying to unearth the secrets Loris’ body still holds. Wary that their mutual knowledge might drive him over the edge before he makes it to uncharted territory, he props himself up on his forearms to bring their preliminary caresses to a halt.
Loris brushes Charles’ cheek with his fingertips. ‘Seriously, who sketched you? I demand private lessons.’
Charles crashes their lips together, shaken by too many emotions to find the words to express any.
When their kiss deepens again, he falls on his side. Loris rummages through the drawer of his bedside table and takes out a tube of lube. He squeezes some into Charles’ palm and coats his fingers with an inciting smile.
Charles quivers, his pulse about to break a new record of speed. He presses the back of Loris’ thigh and slides his hand up. Loris groans softly and Charles’ vision goes whiter.
To think he could have gone on without wanting to experience this.
He’s so grateful to the chain of events that gave him the chance to meet and trust Loris while it was possible.
He’s so relieved he didn’t let it slip through his scared fingers.
He’s so loved-up with this man, he would fight whirlwinds with his bare hands for his pleasure.
Loris searches the drawer again and moves back against Charles holding a condom.
His eyes are glistening with such impatience and want as he tears off the wrapper, it lights a prick of apprehension in Charland.
A flickering one, because Charles is half out of his mind with arousal while Loris puts the condom on him, but it’s here.
In theory he would fight whirlwinds to guarantee Loris’ pleasure, but what is he supposed to do? Is Loris expecting him to improvise? Or to ask and—
Charles lets out a moan that covers several octaves. Loris is rubbing him with lube and with the clear intent to get his full attention back.
‘What are you Ledwelling?’
‘I’m just… I’m a bit worried about… hurting you.’
Loris pulls Charles on top of him, trapping him between his legs. ‘You will, but it won’t, because you should.’
‘That clears it up...’
‘I’ll talk to you, don’t worry.’ Loris raises his knees around Charles’ hips. ‘Also, just in case my point got lost in all the yelling… I’m done falling. I’m face-down, bones-shattered, internally-bleeding in love with you. Dimwit.’
Charles’ heart bursts and blows his concern to smithereens.
He slowly thrusts into Loris, who scars his waist in ten different places as he rides out the pain he’s familiar with.
Charles has been wrong on many occasions lately.
He was wrong every time he imagined the evening that would lead them to take their relationship to the next level.
He was wrong the day he told himself it wouldn’t be earthshaking – in order to silence the apprehension that sometimes seeped into his fantasies.
He was wrong a few weeks ago, when he believed he could never feel as alive as he did while on his knees in the Sofia room.
Charles has been wrong a lot, but he was right to believe he had yet to meet the most devastatingly beautiful version of Loris.
His eyelids fall every time Charles pushes in a bit deeper, only to reveal new shades of blue when he looks at him again.
His gleaming lips are enhanced by his panting breath, broken by irrepressible grunts.
Beads of sweat highlight the painting that morphs on his face with the twitches and tremors of his body.
And his voice has never sounded as ethereal as it does when he reassures Charles, prompts him or begs him to carry on, his head thrown back.
And so Charles carries on, consumed with feelings that seem too huge for this world, already close to collapsing between Loris’ thighs, sensing the stirrings of an unprecedented orgasm in every particle of matter he’s made of.
‘Did you know that your beauty spots here and those above your mouth are aligned the exact same way?’ Charles presses another kiss on Loris’ V-line, then looks up at his amused brow. ‘Why are you mocking me?’
‘I’m not. I love your eye for detail.’
‘Pavel wrote that the point of portraiture is to bring out and share small treasures that the world hasn’t noticed before.’
‘And five pages later, he implied he was too possessive of Matthew’s face to paint it.’
Charles crawls up to run his lips across Loris’ pectoral muscles – a treasure he wasn’t the first to discover but intends to claim ownership of. ‘So… by his logic, you’re not possessive of my face?’
‘Sorry, I enjoy spreading my passions. That being said, I’m still not sure if I’m gonna be able to share my portraits of you.’
Charles twists his neck to peer at the drawing, whose photographic realism is even more puzzling from a distance. His reflection may be split, his friends would recognise him in a second. Fortunately, no one follows Loris’ account.
Unfortunately, no one follows Loris’ account.
Charles shouldn’t trust his reasoning in the direct aftermath of a soul-cleansing sexual experience, but he elects not to second-guess this conclusion.
‘You can upload it.’
He resumes kissing Loris’ skin, recalling how it burnt against his own, missing the sensation, craving for more. Craving for longer and freer. He’s only tiptoed around the new world he’s unlocked. Now that he’s familiar with what it looks, sounds and feels like, he can’t wait to lose himself in it.
The obsessive thoughts he already struggled to muffle during work meetings and family dinners will become a constant problem. But they might also be a salvation, keeping him from approaching another new world.
A devastated land, cold and plunged into darkness, because the sunlight won’t reach it from the other side of the Channel.
No. He’s doomed if his mind manages to go there while he’s still lying between Loris’ naked limbs.
‘What was the sigh for?’
Charles could kiss Loris and make him forget that he sighed. Or kiss Loris to forget why he sighed. But it’s wiser to save the kissing for later, to distract himself from painful answers.
‘What’s with the “three years in London” rule?’
Loris lifts Charles’ chin.
There’s no surprise in his eyes, no annoyance towards this odd-timed return to the topic of their argument. Unlike what Charles accused him of earlier, Loris knows who he’s dealing with.
‘Initially, I was here for only six months. If it’s any consolation.’
It should be, now that Charles is fully aware of what he would have missed. But the confirmation that Loris’ stay in London was framed by an hourglass from the start won’t work out in his favour.
‘I stayed because I enjoyed my life here, I made really good friends, I got involved in the rugby club. But there’s too much I want to do.
So spring 2019 is the deadline I gave myself.
Now, funny story, back in October my mum said, “Don’t meet someone now!
” A week later, a twat and his pen showed up. ’
‘You hadn’t met anyone in London before? Looking the way you do?’
Charles lies down on his side, his cheek on the pillow, and Loris wedges his knee between his thighs.
‘No connection worth sharing with her. Except one, but he turned out to be a self-obsessed entitled brat.’
‘Who was he? I probably know him.’
Loris caresses Charles’ skin around his pendant. ‘I’m not telling you, he wasn’t out.’
‘Great. Now I’ll wonder who you’ve hooked up with whenever I’m at a party.’
‘Just forget about it.’
‘You chose an all-things-obsessed brat, remember?’
Loris laughs, his eyes so fond and his fingertips so gentle, it dispels most of the doubts that have crippled Charles until this very look and this very touch.
Loris did choose him, and he loves him, for all he is and everything he’s not, rather than who he used to be or what he could become.
Charles is real, yet enough, for the one person he would be willing to change for.
He needs to turn this certainty into light to aim at the shadow looming over their tomorrow.
‘What are your plans after your cousin’s wedding?’
‘Some time home to begin with. Then in July, I’m gonna supervise a rugby camp in the south of France. In August, I’m going on holiday with a few friends. And after that, the idea is to move abroad again. My mind is set on Italy.’
The shadow darkens at the sound of a life away, when the previous projects were a succession of short-term absences. But Loris loves him, so Charles blinks some light at the news.
‘What’s in Italy?’
‘Incredible art to learn from and amazing places to make art of.’
‘Parli italiano?’
‘Solo un po’.’
‘I can teach you!’
‘Okay… But how did you go from “You’re not leaving!” to “Let me help you”?’
‘Sex with you. It reset my brain. Besides, your plan sounds great. I can’t argue that staying in London is your best option.’
Loris noses along Charles’ collarbone. ‘Do you know what else is great?’
‘Sex with me? Is it, really? You don’t have to spare me, I can handle constructive criticism.’
‘It was very promising. But I meant us. So can we roll out a new rug for the time being?’
‘I’ll try my best.’ Charles runs his hand down Loris’ spine. ‘I think resetting my brain again would help.’
‘Can we eat and talk first?’
‘How very promising was it if you’re choosing a slice of quiche that you won’t share over it?’
‘We’ve got to address everything we left hanging.’
‘Refresh my memory…’
‘You were quite upset by my lack of understanding. You called me a hypocrite. You said I was misleading. And dense.’
‘There were many emotions involved and not much reflection.’
‘Still, let’s make sure nothing rots under the rug.’
Charles grumbles, but he won’t wrangle over the benefits of good communication with someone who’s ten times better than him at human relationships.
‘May we cuddle a little bit longer, as an appetiser?’
Loris smiles and Charles closes his eyes when their lips meet again for a slow and lazy kiss.
They’re in love with each other.
He will repeat it to himself, over and over, in every language he speaks and the one he’s creating with Loris, until it introduces and punctuates his every thought.