Chapter Twenty-Six
Marcello
“Look at you,” Giles says from the bedroom door.
I bend my arm behind my head. “Like what you see?” I tease.
There’s a flash of something that changes Giles’ face, his eyes changing colour like they magically seem to do, or maybe it’s the briefest of frowns. Just something. But then it’s gone and he gives me a smile that I imagine is as playful as my own.
“I see that you do know what you want.” He walks towards me, towards the bed.
I slow my strokes because just watching him move into the room, all stocky hard muscles that flex and pull under his polo shirt and trousers – has my dick hardening and a new delicious tension tugging on my balls.
“I want you,” I say and it’s there again in his face. That flash of… something. Except this time it stays there and I start to think I recognise it. Confusion. Or uncertainty. Or maybe some kind of turmoil, and it twists my stomach that that’s what Giles could be feeling.
But then he pulls his T-shirt over his head and all my thoughts and concerns evaporate.
I wonder if I could ever get bored of seeing Giles’ body.
Even before I’d started questioning exactly how heterosexual I really was, I could appreciate a well-crafted masculine physique.
It’s possible I’d have been as mesmerised with Giles’ defined abdominal muscles and solid pectorals then as I am now, but I don’t think I would have felt my mouth water or felt more hot blood rush to my dick.
Or maybe I would have, had I just let myself.
Because that’s what it feels like this whole experiment has been about. It’s been about giving myself permission to feel whatever I feel, to want whatever I want. It’s been about discovering the freedom that comes when you learn more about yourself.
Giles has given me that. He doesn’t know it, and maybe I’ll never be able to tell him, but he’s given it to me. And I want to thank him.
“Come here.” I take my hand off my dick and reach for him.
He hesitates for a second and that unnameable expression of his grabs my attention again, but then it melts into a smile. His hand finds mine and I yank him down onto the bed next to me.
Rolling onto my side I reach for his hip and dig my fingers just under the waist of his trousers.
“Are you ready?” I ask.
“Yes.” He smiles shyly at me but fails to meet my eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he says but there’s a bit more air in his voice.
“But…”
“Nothing, it’s nothing.”
I pause, checking that what I want to say next isn’t going to come across any other way than what I want it to.
“I don’t want to keep asking, or keep pestering, but if you’re not okay with this, with what I want to do, you have to tell me, Giles.
I know these lessons are for me, but that shouldn’t mean you don’t enjoy it too.
In fact, that’s what I think I want most of all. I want you to enjoy what we do.”
I watch his jaw work as he swallows. Still, he avoids my eye contact.
“I do enjoy what we do together,” he says finally. “I enjoy it a lot. I just… Look, this is probably asking too much but it helps put my mind at ease.”
“What?” I ask eagerly. I’d love to be able to put his mind at ease. To never see that confused look on his face again.
“Can you… Can you not do this with anybody else?”
“What? Anal?”
“Yeah, and other stuff.”
“All the stuff we do in our sex lessons?” I ask for clarity.
“Yeah.” Giles finally looks up and into my eyes. “It’s more of a safety thing too, you know. Like, we’ll use condoms and I’m on PrEP too—”
“PrEP?”
“It’s a preventative medication to stop you getting HIV.”
“Oh, right. Should I be on that?”
Giles pauses and while he is still looking at me, it’s like his eyes cloud over with another one of those confusing looks.
“Maybe,” he says. “If you plan on exploring this side of yourself more after… after our lessons are over.”
A sinking feeling plummets to the base of my stomach, like a heavy anchor being dropped. “I’ll look into it,” I somehow manage to say, almost normally too.
“I guess I’m just saying that I would prefer it if we didn’t see other people while we’re…” His gaze drops again and it feels like I’ve lost something.
“Doing the lessons?” I offer hoping he looks up again.
“Yeah, that.” His blue-green eyes stay on an indeterminate spot on my chest. Probably an in-growing hair.
“I don’t know what you think of me, but I am not exactly a player. Before you, I hadn’t kissed someone in, well, years.”
“Years?!” Giles’ eyes dart up to mine and it would feel like a win if there wasn’t so much shock in them.
“Yeah, it’s been a while.”
“But how? I mean, why? I mean…”
I laugh. “It’s not a big deal. Or maybe it is. Maybe it is a bit worrying. I guess at times I thought it was—”
“No, it’s not… worrying. Or a big deal. I’m just surprised.”
“Because I’m so hot?” I slap my belly and it wobbles.
“Well, yes,” Giles says as serious as a car crash.
A heat rushes to my cheeks. I don’t think he’s taking the piss. He’s just being polite again. Kind and complimentary and encouraging like he is in the gym.
“The point is,” I say, wanting to move on. “I’m not exactly bombarded with other offers right now, and even if I was, I wouldn’t be accepting them. If that’s what you want, for safety reasons, then I’m all for it. It’s not a problem for me.”
“Okay, and I’ll do the same.”
A little rush of joy surges inside me for a reason I can’t fathom.
“So Tony isn’t going to get called.”
Giles rolls his eyes. “No, he isn’t.”
“Poor Tony,” I say. “But his loss is my gain.”
That brings a smile to Giles’ face and if I didn’t know any better I think he has a bit of a praise kink. I lock this hypothesis away.
“Now can we fuck?” I slide my hand around his back and pull him closer to me, our chests touching, my only slightly softened dick rubbing against the cool cotton of his tailored trousers.
“We can fuck,” he confirms and I am glad those are the last words he utters before I attack his mouth with mine.
I like kissing Giles. Fuck, no, I think I love it.
In the past, kissing was never much of a big deal to me.
It was always a means to an end. The end being fucking.
Not that I disliked it. I just didn’t give it much thought.
It was a bit like brushing my teeth, or washing up, or mopping the café’s floor; it was something I did where I could let my mind wander, as it often does, but I couldn’t actually get fully and physically distracted into doing something else until the task was done.
But when I kiss Giles I am completely present and while I am thinking about what happens next – my dick certainly is anyway – I’m also not in a rush. I actually think I could happily kiss Giles forever and for somebody with my brain that is saying something.
So I enjoy his nips and bites. I enjoy the way he sucks my bottom lip and flicks my tongue. I enjoy how he moans – deep and low – into my open mouth. I enjoy how our kiss slowly builds and builds and builds until he’s climbed on top of me and he’s rutting his body against mine.
I reach a hand down and find his dick which is straining against the tailored material of his trousers. He groans louder.
“I like making you hard,” I tell him as I move my mouth to trail kisses up the edge of his jaw.
“I like that too,” he admits with a soft laugh. “Obviously.”
“Even if I don’t really know what to do with it.” I squeeze him and his breath hitches. “Or maybe I do.”
“You know enough,” he gives me and he’s on my mouth again, while thrusting up into the palm of my hand.
I love this too. The banter. The teasing. The camaraderie.
Was it ever like this with women? With Kris?
Sex with Kris was never lacking, but on reflection maybe that had more to do with my expectations than anything else.
In that, I didn’t really have any. I was happy with what we had, what we did.
I didn’t expect a lot – quickies every few weeks were fine for me – and I thought the fact that we enjoyed doing other things together more – video games, watching films, cooking together – was a sign that we were in a real relationship.
The only times I didn’t enjoy sex with Kris was towards the end when I felt her pull away, when I could tell that something didn’t feel good to her.
Passionate, occasionally rough, sometimes a bit kinky, sex after Kris was what I did on one-night stands or during situationships that lasted a little longer.
But with those women, I didn’t have the other side of the equation.
I didn’t find myself wanting to spend time with them after we’d both come.
I didn’t always ask them out for dinner or drinks, and if I did, it didn’t shatter my heart when they said no, or if, like that date with Daisy, that only resulted in me realising how little we had in common.
But this feels different. Yes, it feels different because Giles is approximately twice the body weight of anyone who has ever laid on top of me, and his is the first erection I’ve had thrust up against me, but there’s so much more to it.
I feel like we have both: the sexual connection and the friendship.
We get on together. We enjoy each other’s company and then there’s this…
this passion between us. Maybe this is what it’s always like for Giles.
Maybe this is what it’s like between all men everywhere, although I seriously doubt it.
And I don’t want to think about that. I want to fool myself that it’s only like this between us.
That Giles doesn’t have this kind of connection with just any guy.
“Can I fuck you, Giles?” I ask him, because suddenly I’m desperate for him. I have to know that he wants this as much as I do. “Do you want me to fuck you?”
“Yeah,” he says so breathlessly it sounds like a song. “I want you, Marcello.”