Chapter Twelve #2
Laurie led Sasha to a marble tomb amid the long grass and eased him
down, careful to find him a patch free of moss. “There. What's
wrong? Are you ill?”
Sasha
gave it thought. Everything cold and clenched inside him was
expanding in relief. “No,” he said, hanging on to Laurie's lapel,
absently caressing the yellow rose. “I'm just hungry.”
“Missed-breakfast hungry, or...”
“No. The other type.”
Laurie
nodded in comprehension. Sasha had almost died of starvation on the
streets. Now he ate healthily, but there were times when old
desperations and damage caught up with him. Straightening up,
Laurie scanned the green where the marquee staff were struggling
with flapping white canvas. Beyond it was a little park, a handful
of stallholders setting up for the summer's-day trade. “I know just
what you need. Hang on.”
He took
the short cut out of the churchyard. He was a sight, Sasha
thought—a vision to take to the grave with you, vaulting the wall
in his immaculate dove-grey suit. Sasha watched him out of sight,
clutching at the tomb's marble edge.
He
returned more conventionally through the lych-gate. He was cradling
a paper-wrapped package in one hand, a cup in the other. “Here,” he
said, setting both down on the marble. “Sausage. Bun.
Coke.”
Street
food, immediate and hot. Sugar and caffeine to wash it all down.
Glancing at him apologetically, Sasha unwrapped the package. Laurie
had brought paper napkins to protect the beautiful ivory-coloured
trousers, and between them they placed these strategically. “It's
all right,” Laurie told him. “It's safe. You can eat.”
It was a
dead-serious business. Sasha, who had never abandoned his manners
even in his darkest days of homelessness, tried to make it a tidy
one, but he knew that for a minute or two he was nothing but a
ravenous animal, with every mouthful staving off death. By the time
he'd consumed two thirds of the hot dog he was calming down, and
sheepishly nodded to his lover, who'd watched the process
indulgently. “Thanks. Sorry. Want a bit?”
“A bit of what? The wrapper?” Nevertheless Laurie accepted the
last piece of sausage, popped it into his mouth with an absurd
vaudeville wink. “Better?”
“Mm. God, yeah.”
“What a wolf-cub.” Laurie reached out and smilingly wiped
ketchup from the corner of Sasha's mouth. “Now, the question
is—do you want a
bit?”
Sasha's
brain was clearing, but still slow. It took him a moment. He looked
around the churchyard, eyes wide. “We couldn't. Could
we?”
“Well, it's still early. And I know it's holy ground,
but...”
“Everything you do to me is holy.” Sasha was getting to his
feet, fears and objections evaporating. He helped Laurie out of his
jacket then took off his own, folded them neatly over a gravestone.
Maybe he did know how to make up after all. What better way than
this? His conflict with Laurie had strained him away from his
natural place in the world: now the rebound was coming, hard and
sweet, fuelled by additives and relief. He put out a hand. Laurie
took it, and they ducked beneath an arch of late-blossoming lilac
and ivy into the shade.
There
was a fallen tomb cover in the corner of the churchyard, so old
that its carving had worn out to nothing in the rain. It was
sheltered from the world beyond, the hot-dog sellers and shouting
marquee staff, from deals with Hollywood devils and harsh
immigration laws. They had perhaps a minute. They exchanged a
glance which acknowledged that their finery would come second best
in a fight with the moss, and quickly, in fast-breathing silence,
kicked off shoes and socks, unfastened trousers. They balanced one
another to strip them off, hands gripped to elbows. “Shirts too, I
think,” Laurie whispered. He undid Sasha's tenderly, then lifted
his own off over his head with a moan of impatience. “God, look at
us. Rampant as a pair of wolverines. Is it the thrill of the
forbidden, I wonder, or...”
“No. I just missed you.”
“Oh, Christ, me too. Let's never quarrel again. You'll really
come with me?”
“Haven't I said? Come here. Lie down.”
“You get on top, love. That stone's gonna be cold, and you're
not well.”
Sasha
resisted, but Laurie turned him in his arms, subsided onto the
lichen-daubed stone and hauled him down after him, a lean-muscled
avalanche that brought Sasha down full length, gasping and
laughing. They were belly to belly, cock to engorged cock. “Not
gonna last thirty seconds,” Sasha warned, rubbing his brow against
Laurie's chest.
“Just as well.” Laurie thought he'd heard the crunch of tyres
on gravel. It didn't matter. Stefan Petrica wouldn't show up here
in a vintage Rolls with a ribbon, and Laurie could deal with anyone
else. He wrapped his thighs round Sasha's hips. “Give it here,
handsome. Come on.”
Sasha
braced a hand to the moss. Every muscle in his spine contracted in
the pleasure of a first strong thrust, driving his shaft tight
against Laurie's. He cried out, a muffled explosion of delight.
Laurie ran both hands down his spine, briefly grabbed his backside,
then heaved up beneath him and clutched him round the waist as if
he'd been made of gold, or lost at sea and miraculously returned.
“Sasha! Let go now!”
No
choice. Ecstasy ripped up from Sasha's balls, from the shuddery
marrow of his spine. He rose up on his arms to get purchase for the
last few strokes. Laurie drew up his thighs, arched his back and
turned his head aside, as if trying to hide from his own pleasure.
He buried his face in the crook of his arm, mouth opening in a
silent wail. Sasha leaned over him, shielded him. His own climax
was fierce but not for one instant did he lose the sense of the
bright world around him. The shadow that preyed on the sun... He
whispered his lover's name. Laurie came back from his ecstatic
distance. They clung together, tracing out one another's features
in clumsy, tired kisses. A blackbird seized prime position in the
lilacs above them, and began to pour out a passionate midday
song.
***
“Sir Ralf called me in person.”
Sasha
pushed onto one elbow. Poor Laurie. For a man who'd got his way—his
ticket to stardom, and no more fuss from the other half—he didn't
look happy. “Was it bad?”
“Fucking awful. He wasn't mad at me—I wish he had been. He just
sounded like his favourite son had let him down.”
“Ouch.”
Laurie
recovered with a flash of forced brilliance Sasha had so far seen
only on stage. “My choice, though. Not your problem. I'll have to
sell the Merc, I guess, before Camden Council sends men to break my
knees for those parking fines.”
“I spoke to Jeff Davis. He just got a three-year ban for drunk
driving, so he's selling his car. He said he'd rent us his
garage.”
“Who's Jeff Davis?”
“Our neighbour. The one who tries to unlock our front door when
he rolls home drunk.”
“Oh.” Laurie brushed florets of lilac out of Sasha's fringe.
“You sorted that out even before you'd decided to come with
me?”
“I wanted things to be as easy as possible for you.”
“Bloody hell. You're one in a million, aren't you?”
“Not really. I'm as selfish as anyone else. I just... Oh,
Laurie. Let's not ever be apart.”
He laid
his head on Laurie's shoulder, and Laurie stroked his hair,
watching swallows weave patterns in the blue. Tyres crunched on
gravel once more—serious this time, not just someone pulling in for
oncoming traffic in the narrow lane. Gently dislodging him, Laurie
sat up. “Uh-oh. Quick, sweetheart. Clothes.”
They
were quick, but not quite fast enough. Laurie interrupted Sasha's
efficient knotting of his tie with a stifled gasp: there was one
person other than Stefan Petrica he wasn't equipped to handle. A
slender little figure, dark-haired as himself, trotting round the
outside of the church... “I don't believe it. That's
Clara.”
“What?”
Laurie put a hand to the top of Sasha's skull and pressed him
down. They hadn't got as far as the tie in Sasha's case, not by a
long chalk. “Baby sister. Clothes.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
They
adjusted one another as efficiently as possible in their lair,
Laurie watching nervously through the long grass. Clara's mission,
whatever it was, had carried her out of sight around the corner,
and once Laurie had dusted most traces of moss and pollen from
Sasha's clothing and his own, they emerged cautiously, hand in
hand. Sasha pulled ahead, but Laurie restrained him. “Hang on a
second,” he whispered. “Look.”
A neat
little hat and a pair of white gloves were lying on the grass, as
if flung there in irritation. A couple of yards further on, two
satin high-heeled shoes had been discarded, their owner's impatient
departure from them clear in their position on the path. Around the
corner, a small upright girl was poised by a gravestone, one hand
resting on it—the token support of the barre, Laurie realised,
smiling. He drew Sasha back into the shadows beside him.
Clara
went barefoot through her first five positions. Laurie couldn't
imagine the nineteenth-century gentleman whose grave she had chosen
having any problem with the press of those delicate feet upon his
turf. Then, having stretched herself thoroughly, she let go of the
gravestone and proceeded across the lawn in a silent, strange
routine.
It wasn't the Nutcracker,
that was for sure. Laurie tried to analyse it. An
idea came to him, and he crushed Sasha's hand in an effort not to
laugh. Three steps sideways, then a leap in the opposite
direction—five short syncopated skips, silk skirt flying, solemn
little face dead serious in spite of the absurd dance. She brought
a grace to it if anyone could, but it was still...
Laurie stepped out of his cover. “Clara Fitzroy,” he said
sternly, and watched in satisfaction while she whipped round to
face him, mouth open, eyes wide. “Are you dancing
Gangnam style?”
She came
to a dancer's perfect halt and regarded him seriously. “Yes. No.
What if I was?”
“Good answer.”