Chapter 15
Fifteen
Christian
Iwatch by the window as Asher sets about tearing the cellophane from a large canvas and sets it against his dining table.
Then he wheels the little trolley across the room and sets it next to it.
From his bedroom, he brings out what looks like a bedsheet and drapes it over his sofa.
He goes back to the canvas, looks at the couch and then me, and then goes back and removes the sheet.
He looks at me. “How do you feel about being naked?”
“Do you want me naked?”
He doesn’t give retort with any of his usual sass; he doesn’t even give me the kind of look he might usually to this sort of comment. He studies me carefully, seriously, as he thinks about it. Finally, he nods. “Yeah, I’d like you naked for this.”
“Then I’ll get naked.”
In his bedroom, I strip out of my clothes, hesitating over my underwear.
Naked, he said. I slide them off and fold them on top of my clothes.
He has a full-length mirror on the back of his bedroom door, and I take a moment to study myself in it, wondering how he might capture me.
It’s not something I do often, look at myself naked.
I know I’m in relatively good shape for my age (heart attack notwithstanding), but there’s softening around my middle that I’d rather wasn’t there.
A few wrinkles on my forehead that I’d prefer were less visible, and a smattering of grey on my temples—that I know some people find attractive, but in conjunction with everything else, only make me think about aging and death.
Asher is twenty-five years old. Almost twenty years my junior.
Felix had been, too. What did either of them want with a man twice their age, with half their stamina, and a quarter of their remaining life expectancy?
Ultimately, Felix had chosen a man his own age, like Asher should do, too.
When Asher is my age, I’ll be in my sixties, if I even make it that far, and though it isn’t the most scandalous age gap I’ve heard of, it’s hardly the most innocuous, either.
A knock on the door disrupts the spiral of thoughts about my own mortality.
“If you’re jerking off in there, you could have at least invited me.”
I pull open the door to find him in a torn vest top that hangs loose, showing the sharp lines of his collarbone and his muscled biceps.
He’s barefoot and wearing baggy pyjama-style bottoms, which are splattered with paint.
His eyes flash with unmistakable heat as he looks me over, his throat moving as he swallows.
“Well, happy fucking birthday to me,” he says quietly.
I feel my cheeks warm, and I lean in to press a kiss to his. “Where do you want me?”
His eyes are still travelling the length of my body, lingering on my cock. He clears his throat. “Um, okay, so maybe this is gonna be harder than I thought. Uh, can you lie on your front? On the couch.”
I do as I’m told and make my way across his living room, trying to ignore the very obvious fact that I’m completely naked.
“You know, you have a really nice ass for a politician,” he says as I go.
“But pretty average for a lawyer?”
“I have no idea. Never seen one naked before.”
“Well you have now.”
He’s grinning as I kneel up on the couch before settling forward on my front.
Asher starts by pulling the coffee table out of its place and across the room.
It’s not a natural position for me, and so it takes me a moment to figure out what to do with my arms and my head.
The natural position seems to be resting it sideways on my arms, which are crossed in front.
He arranges my legs, one across the other in a relaxed fashion, and then crouches down by my face.
“Thank you for doing this,” he says, eyes bright and intense. His cheeks have a delicate blush on them, and I note his breathing is a little quick. He looks down my body to my arse. “You look really fucking hot like this.”
“Well, that’s good to know. I feel a little silly.”
“Well, no one except me can see you. Until I finish this painting and sell it to a gallery downtown, and then everyone will be able to see you. Gonna call it ‘The Naked Ambassador’.”
This time, I know he’s joking. I give him a rueful smile.
“It’s almost like you want to give me another heart attack.”
“I mean, I do want to sit on your cock and ride you into next month at the earliest opportunity—is that what you mean?” He winks, standing to move back to the canvas.
My dick stiffens beneath my body at the image he’s just conjured.
It had been only moments I’d been inside him, but Christ, he’d felt heavenly.
Tight warm hole wrapped around my dick, lean firm muscle under my fingers, sweet breath hot on my cheek.
I want him to ride me into next week, and if I have another heart attack?
Well, it would be a transcendent way to leave this earth.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he studies me again from this new angle. “Can you tilt your head up a little, just like lift your chin toward me. Yeah, perfect. Is that gonna be comfortable?”
“It’s fine.”
“Great. Okay, I’m gonna sketch first, so if you can hold that as long as possible, that would be amazing.”
“I’ll try not to move.”
He nods, gives me one last look, and then gets to work.
An air of seriousness I’ve never seen comes over him, all playfulness wiped from his fae-like features.
The focus manifests in a creased brow and a straight mouth, eyes narrowing in study.
He holds out his pencil and measures something with a thumb, which he then marks on his canvas.
Then repeats the action a few times at different angles.
He works fast, or seems to, his pencil scratching across the canvas in wide arcs first, and then smaller motions.
He erases for a time, and then the wide arcs start again, seeming to be looking at me completely while his hand moves across the sketch.
There’s intimacy in this, not in the fact that I’m naked while he sketches me onto parchment, but in being allowed to see him like this; hair a wild tangle, mouth bitten lush and red with concentration, talent flowing from his fingertips.
He’s exquisite. Remarkable. Asher Fox, Thomas Lisowski, is a bloody marvel.
His quiet rebellion against the world that raised him, the wonder and joy he’d found in escaping it, the bold way he asks for the things he wants, the bare-faced courage with which he looks at himself.
He has a strength of character I’ve rarely seen in men twice his age, that I certainly don’t see in myself.
I understand something then, something critical:
I admire him.
I envy him.
And beneath all that, the more base understanding: I desire him. I want nothing more than to bathe in his light for as long as he’ll let me. Have it wash over me and revive me: heal me.
Later that night, much later, when I arrive home, I find Leo and Gael in the kitchen, talking quietly by the breakfast nook. They turn their heads quickly and in unison, before Leo slides off the stool and stalks toward me, looking angry.
“Where were you? I’ve been calling you all night.”
The look on his face and the tone of his voice, fatherly and chiding, is so absurd that I let out a burst of laughter. “Excuse me?”
“Dad, you’re bloody ill. You’re supposed to be resting. Not fucking off out to god knows where all day with your phone turned off.”
“I’m perfectly fine. I went to a movie and got some dinner.
I needed to get out of this house. I’m not used to being cooped up all day.
” I open the fridge and inspect the contents.
There’s a low churn of hunger in the pit of my stomach, though I suspect it’s a different kind of hunger.
Asher had been the consummate professional, but it was still extremely arousing watching him work.
As the light had begun to die, he’d set his paintbrush down and announced we were done for the day.
I’d gotten dressed, wished him a happy birthday, kissed him chastely, and then left.
“You went to the movies by yourself?” Leo looks astounded.
“No, I didn’t. Though there wouldn’t be anything wrong with it if I had. I do most things by myself.” Like most widowers do. “I went with a friend.” It doesn’t feel too incongruous to call Asher that. He is, on some level, the only friend I have in the city.
“A friend?” Leo says.
There are a few baby cucumbers in the veg box and so I grab a handful and a small pot of yoghurt, then move around him to get a spoon from the drawer.
“Yes. A friend.”
“Okayyyyy.” His eyes are sparkling with delight. “Well, I think that’s great, Dad. That you’ve got a friend, that is.”
“Well, thanks, son, your support means the world,” I quip. “Gael, is there anything I missed today?”
“No, sir. Though Ms Tevani called to confirm her meeting with you tomorrow. 10am.” Seema had taken it upon herself to come to the house every few days to make sure I was still breathing and to keep me abreast of anything important I ought to know.
I’d taken a week off from the foreign office once with a terrible bout of gastroenteritis, and the only difference I’d noticed between being at work and at home ill was the length of the commute.
This time it seems the embassy can actually function without me, and well.
And I’m grateful for it. I hadn’t had to review a trade export contract in over a week.
That would have left me feeling expendable and superfluous before, whereas now it feels like a perk.
“And there were a few calls from the UK. I left a note of them on your desk.”
“Perfect, thanks, Gael.” As I turn to leave the kitchen, I see Gael cast a long look from under thick eyelashes at Leo.
Though when I look at my son, he’s scrolling his phone and nibbling ferociously on his lower lip, his usual habit.
“Well, I’ll see you boys in the morning.
Are you running?” They’d been for a few runs together and had hung out last week; maybe there was something more I didn’t know?
If so, it would have to be Gael harbouring a one-sided crush on Leo, because Leo is straight as far as I know.
He’s had girlfriends. A lot of them. He has one now, the last time I checked.
“Uh, dunno.” Leo shrugs, casting a casual look at Gael.
“I am,” Gael says.
“Well, I’m going to be doing some very low-level stuff downstairs if any of you want to join me there. Night.”
“Night, Dad.”
“Night, Mr Ambassador.”
I take a quick detour past my office to grab my messages.
One from my accountant in London, another from Steve, an old friend from university, and a third, surprisingly, from Adrian Brooke.
I can’t imagine he’s calling to see how I’m doing.
Especially since the last time we spoke, I had the distinct impression he’d kill me himself if he thought he could get away with it.
I scrunch up the note with Adrian’s name and number on it and toss it in the bin beneath my desk.
I’m upstairs and undressing for bed when I receive a text message from Asher.
Z:
I had a really nice birthday, thank you x
Me:
I’m glad. Though you never got any cake.
Z:
Uh, have you seen your ass? *birthday cake emoji*
Me:
Well my 43-year-old arse thanks you for the compliment.
Z:
Your 43-year-old ass is welcome.
Me:
So, you’re in New Jersey on Friday?
Z:
Yeah, back Sunday.
Me:
What’s the name of the guy?
Z: You wanna Google to see if his ass is better than yours?
I chuckle quietly.
Me:
Something like that.
Z:
Okay I’ll tell you but I gotta warn you… he has a really big dick. Like monstrously big.
Me:
Why are you warning me? I’m not the one being fucked by him this weekend.
Z:
I just didn’t want you to feel self-conscious or anything
I laugh out loud at this.
Me:
Well, that’s very considerate of you. Consider me warned.
Z:
Cole Sanders
I navigate out of the chat and pull up my browser and type in his name.
I have to scroll past a few LinkedIn profiles to get to something that looks like a link to a porn site.
I click on it. The guy has a large, muscled body covered in dark hair and tattoos.
When he turns so that his whole front is visible to the camera, I almost choke at the size of his penis: it’s frighteningly large.
Imposing even soft. That is going to be inside Asher?
A surge of desire shoots through me as I imagine it being pushed inside his small, perfect hole.
His eyes closed in bliss, the sounds falling from his lips. It’s the sexiest thing I can imagine.
Soon, a smaller blonde joins Cole Sanders in the shower, and the spell is broken. I go back to our chat.
Me:
He’s going to wreck you, darling.
Z:
Hopefully
Me:
You’re going to look beautiful being stretched on his cock, I wish I could watch.
It’s a longer wait until his reply comes in.
Z:
You’ll be able to soon ,)
OR, you could come to Jersey with me and watch it live. I know Cole wouldn’t mind – he’s down for shit like that.
I laugh at the absurdity of it.
Me:
You know I can’t
Z:
Give me one good reason why not?
I have a hundred, a thousand. It’s madness. I’m a politician. I’m in the public eye. I’m almost two decades years older than him. It’s so ridiculous I can’t even wrap my head around the consequences of being caught doing something so bloody depraved.
But then, I picture it again.
Asher groaning from pleasure. Asher being stretched open. Asher being fucked well.
The burn of arousal it sends through me is incendiary. I’m breathless and rock hard, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather witness. Since I can’t fuck him myself, perhaps it’s only fair that I get to watch him be fucked instead. Pleasured the way I wish I could pleasure him, the way he deserves.
Clearly I’ve lost my bloody mind. It’s insane, I know it is.
Something in my brain has come loose since the heart attack, and I’m not sure I want to put it back.
I might also learn something. Maybe it is even prudent as an old dog to learn some new tricks.
I’m shaking my head in disbelief as I text him back.
I don’t recognise myself, my rehabilitation so absolute that it feels quite as though I’m having an out-of-body experience.
Me:
All right.