Chapter Twenty-Three
Laurie
The storm had left the graveyard soft and covered in puddles, with flower petals spread out across the grass where they’d wandered from their graves.
I walked around it in the early morning light, collecting flowers that had drifted and sodden cards with ink that had run too much to tell who they’d belonged to.
It wasn’t my job to clean the churchyard, but whenever I spent time there, I found myself tidying as I went.
I frowned as I bent down to pick up some empty beer cans and crisp packets that seemed to have been dumped there rather than blown in on the wind.
I wished people would have more respect for the dead and take their fucking rubbish with them instead of throwing it on the ground and leaving it for someone else.
Besides, it wasn’t as if they had to walk far to the nearest bin.
There was one on the pavement on the west side of the churchyard, just outside the wall.
I took the rubbish over to it, keeping my eye out for anything else as I walked. So far, I hadn’t seen any bones that morning, which was both good and slightly disappointing.
It was something many people didn’t consider, but in a graveyard as old as St. Michael’s, which had been burying the dead for hundreds of years, the occasional bone did surface due to shifting soil, inclement weather, and the fact that many of the older graves were tightly packed, with several coffins stacked on top of each other where families had bought one plot and their cheap coffins had finally rotted away.
When I did find them, Fred and I would quietly rebury them and Fred would say a few prayers.
Like all dead things, bones had never bothered me. In fact, I found some skeletons to be beautiful. I’d once nearly bought a treated fox skull on a stand to sit on my office desk, but then I’d thought better of it.
Theo said I should’ve gotten it anyway and we could have put it on the mantelpiece next to our growing collection of stuffed mice and Lord Featherby.
Perhaps I’d treat myself for my birthday at the start of November.
Once I’d deposited the rubbish in the bin, I walked back into the graveyard and headed towards my favourite spot.
St. Michael’s was located at one of the high points of Heather Bay, with the small church sitting at the highest point of the plot and the graveyard spreading out around it down a slope.
Like many rural English churches, St. Michael’s had stood in the same spot for hundreds of years and was a beautiful building full of history.
I had been inside numerous times for Christmas carol services with my grandparents while growing up and remembered being bundled up in layers one year because the heating had broken, and my grandfather setting fire to his carol sheet another year because he’d been holding a candle and had forgotten his glasses.
I regularly attended funerals there and knew every bump and crack in the old flagstone floor by feel.
On one side of the church, there was an ancient yew tree that hung over a collection of old graves, whose owners’ names had long since faded, and a gravel path.
Under the branches there was a wooden bench looking out over the town, down to the beach, and to the sea beyond.
Fat drops of water clung to the seat, but I’d remembered to wear my long wool coat and wasn’t too fussed about possibly getting a wet bottom.
I sat down in the middle and gazed out at the view, watching the last of the morning mist evaporate off the bay.
The branches above occasionally dripped onto my head, sending cold water running down the back of my neck.
The graveyard was quiet, apart from the chirping of songbirds, and I felt totally at peace.
Last night had been strange in more than one way.
I wanted to feel embarrassed for crying all over Noah and Spencer, but it felt like it had helped in some way.
For years, I’d pushed down a lot of my feelings or closed myself off from people, even if we were friends, because it had just been easier than being open.
I’d clung to Theo more than I wanted to admit, but maybe it wasn’t a bad thing.
I loved him, and I wanted him to love me.
Now I just had to find my courage and admit it to him. There was always a possibility he’d reject me, but with everything we’d been through and everything we’d been doing, I had to hope he felt the same way.
“There you are!” I glanced around to see Theo walking along the gravel path around the edge of the church.
My heart ached with joy as soon as I saw him, and I smiled.
But that might have had more to do with the fact that Theo was wearing a bright yellow raincoat with matching wellies and carrying his yellow duck-face umbrella under his arm.
He was wearing a blue skirt that peeked out from under the bottom of his coat, and I could see a white bow around his collar.
He was wearing his sailor dress.
I always thought he looked utterly adorable in his sailor dress.
“I wondered where you’d gotten to,” Theo said, stopping in front of the bench. His smile exuded nothing but delight and it felt like the sun had come out. “I woke up and you’d gone.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, moving slightly to the left so he could sit next to me. Theo sat, his body pressed up against mine. “I left a note. Did you see it?”
“I did. I just missed you.” He looked up at me and smirked. “Plus, you didn’t tie me this morning and now I feel deprived.”
I pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “I’m sorry. I can do it when we get back if you want.”
“I do. Can we use the blue rope, please? Or the yellow? That’ll match my dress.”
“Of course.” I thought for a second about what I might do.
Perhaps something with nautical-style knots or with bows.
I still hadn’t had a chance to try the heart ladder that ran down the outside of the thigh, but that would also require a garter belt to go with it, and I wasn’t sure we’d have enough time.
I could make time, though. I wanted to experiment with more corset and belt ties, especially because they’d give me both a way to control Theo’s movement during sex and something to hold on to, and if I wanted to do that, I had to actually start practicing.
“Why did you come out so early? Did you not sleep well?”
“Not really,” I said. “I just… had a lot to think about.”
“Want to talk about it?” Theo asked, taking my hand and squeezing it tightly. “Is it related to why you went out last night?”
“Sort of. I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately.”
“Bad things? Or good things?”
“Both. But mostly good.”
Theo nodded. “I’m glad. I don’t want you to be sad.”
“I’m not. I never am with you around.” I looked down at him, my heart welling up with emotion. How could I even begin to put my thoughts into words? It would take me a lifetime and I didn’t think I’d ever succeed, no matter how hard I tried.
“I never am with you either,” he said. “You make me feel safe and wanted. I’d never felt wanted before I met you.
With my MyFans, I feel cute and desired, but that’s different.
Like, my fans want me but it’s because they want to fuck me, or pet me, or play with me, and I kinda love that because it makes me feel sexy as fuck.
I love that they want me but they can’t have me.
But it’s a different sort of being wanted when I’m with you. ”
My fingers were shaking as I reached out to brush some of the stray hairs out of his face.
“You will always be safe with me, Theo, and I will always want you, and it’s not just because you’re pretty either.
I want you because you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met, inside and out, and every day is better with you in it.
I want you because you’re you, Theo—the sassy, bratty, demanding, zombie-killing, taxidermy-loving centre of my universe, and I love you, not just as my best friend but as my everything.
You’re all I’ve ever wanted, Theo, and I want to love you for the rest of my life and beyond. ”
“I… I love you too,” Theo said as tears welled up in his eyes. He threw himself into my arms and kissed me fiercely. “And you stole my line because you’re my everything too. I wouldn’t be anything without you, and I don’t ever want to be without you. I want it to be you and me, forever.”
“It will be, my darling. If you want forever, it’s yours. My heart, my soul, my whole life—I’ll give you all of it.”
“Only if you’ll take mine too.”
“If you’ll give them to me, I’ll gladly accept them.”
“Good, then they’re yours,” Theo said. “I’m yours, and you’re mine. Forever.” He grinned at me. “We should seal it with a kiss, though, like they do in all the stories.”
I cradled his face and drew his mouth to mine, kissing him sweetly. “There. Sealed with a kiss.”
Theo giggled. “It’s permanent now, no take backs.”
“I wasn’t planning on taking it back,” I said, sheer joy and lightness filling me from head to toe, banishing all my fears with a radiance brighter than the sun.
“You’re mine now. My precious, beautiful brat.
Maybe I should get you something to mark the occasion.
” Theo opened his mouth and I quickly added, “Something that isn’t dead and stuffed or warm, fluffy, and squeaking. ”
“You’re not leaving me with many options,” Theo said, sliding back onto the seat next to me and pouting. He leant against me and I put my arm around his shoulder.
“Maybe a necklace or a bracelet?”
“Like a collar?”
“You can think of it as a collar if you’d like,” I said.
I’d suggested jewellery because it seemed like the romantic option, but I didn’t object to Theo taking the more possessive, kinkier angle.
Either way, it would suggest permanence, which was what I wanted.
“But it should probably be quite subtle if you’re going to wear it to work. ”
“Yeah, we don’t want to give poor Jonathan a heart attack,” Theo said sagely. “And I don’t really want to explain it to Fred… although she’s pretty open-minded. I don’t think she’d care.”
“No, I don’t think she would,” I mused. “I think she’d just be pleased we finally got on with it and got it sorted.”
“Oh?”
“She, er, she may have been not-so-subtly encouraging me to talk to you.” I decided not to add that it had been a couple of months or that Fred’s side-eye had grown increasingly harsh every time she’d seen me with Theo.
He sighed dramatically. “Honestly, if they didn’t live in different places, I’d think Austin, Jake, Kai, and Fred were all fucking conspiring together or something!
They’re all so nosy. Thank God none of the rest of our friends got involved.
Can you imagine if we had all of them trying to push us together as well? ”
“In all fairness, they did all assume we were already together,” I said, thinking back to the conversation I’d had with Spencer not long after I’d first suggested shibari to Theo. “They were just too polite to bring it up. They didn’t want to make it awkward.”
“I don’t know why they thought that,” Theo said, sounding utterly bemused. “I don’t know why any of them thought it.”
I chuckled. I did understand, but I wasn’t going to say anything. I thought Theo probably did too, but it was easier to deny our years of unconscious pining and pretend it had been a recent revelation than do any form of deep, and potentially painful, self-examination.
“I don’t either,” I said. “But at least they won’t be wrong anymore.”
“They’ll like that. Austin will too. Ugh, he’s going to be so fucking insufferable next time I see him.
Especially because he finally proposed to Kanan, which means he has two things to be smug about.
” Theo stiffened slightly in my arms and when he glanced up at me, there was a deep line of worry across his forehead.
“If I keep doing porn, will that bother you?”
“No,” I said. “Why would it? I’ve never had a problem with it before. Why would I have one now?”
Theo gave me a soft, sad look and I wondered if I’d said something wrong. “You’re so sweet,” he said. “I love how sweet you are. You always think the best of things.”
“I don’t think that’s true, but please go on.”
“Not everyone is okay with having a partner who regularly fucks other people on camera or for money. I mean, I can see why. The whole societal idea of your person being just your person and that anything else is cheating, or that if I loved you, I wouldn’t need anyone else.
And people are complicated, jealousy is a thing, and so is comparing yourself to other people. It’s a pretty common reaction.”
I frowned. “But it’s your job and you like it.
I’m not going to stop you doing something you enjoy just because it involves you having sex with other men.
I’m secure enough in what we have to know that it’s not about what I’m not giving you but about what you need.
As long as you’re always open with me about who you’re with and where you are, then I’m fine with it, and those are things I want to know so I know you’re safe.
I trust you, Theo, and if you want to continue making porn, then I’m happy for you to do that.
Every relationship is different, and every couple needs different things.
You need to sometimes get railed by a bunch of giant men, and I’m fine with that. ”
I kissed him and breathed the last words against his lips. “You can fuck whoever you want, because at the end of the day, you’re mine. And you always will be.”
“Yes,” Theo said, leaning into my touch. “Yours.”
“Good.” I doubted this was the last conversation we’d have on the subject, because Theo’s concerns about my certainty were valid. After all, I was sure many men the world over had said they were fine with it right up until it happened and they weren’t.
But I was and always would be.
Because nothing would change how much Theo and I loved each other.
I looked out across the bay where the last of the fog had burned away, leaving only rippling seas under a bright sky and the start of something new.