Chapter 18 Saturday 21st June 2025 #2
My mind plays the word “email” over and over in my brain. When was the last time I sent my folks an email? Maybe never.
“I got you tickets and left them on your laptop,” Lando says.
Warwick whips his head towards the computer sitting open on one corner of the desk. On the other edge is a pink envelope with “Dad” written in big, loopy letters.
For some reason, a painful lump builds at the back of my throat, and my nose feels like I’ve snorted swimming pool water. Warwick would have moved the letter to use his laptop. He’d have seen something that said Dad on the front and simply cast it to one side.
“God, I’m sorry, Orlando,” he says, raking a hand through his hair and furrowing his brow. Again, I can’t tell whether it’s real. He looks genuine, and it’s messing up everything I assumed I knew about him.
Lando shrugs. “It’s fine. How long are you here?”
“At least three weeks this time.” Warwick plasters on that confusing smile again. “Is that okay? How do you fancy grabbing dinner with your old man one night?”
Wow, one night. Is that all Lando gets from him?
“Sure. Did Juliette come with you?” Lando asks.
“Your mother’s out riding,” Warwick replies.
Lando glances at me, and in his expression I hear his silent words, “She’s not my mother.”
“So, who’s your friend?”
“Boyfriend, actually,” Lando says. I flinch, but don’t contradict him. “This is Harry Ellis. He plays for the Cents.”
“Oh, you play for Bath, do you? Main squad? Fantastic.” Warwick rushes forward to shake my hand. “Lovely to meet you, Ellis.” He turns to his son. “Orlando, take a picture of us?” It’s a command disguised as a question.
Lando removes his phone from his back pocket, and Warwick puts his arm over my shoulder.
I’m acutely aware of his clean, pressed to within an inch of its life shirt rubbing against my filthy jersey.
Lando snaps a quick photo. I may have forgotten to smile.
Seconds later, Warwick’s mobile buzzes on the desk and the screen lights up.
“Well, boys, I’ll let you get off now.” Warwick smiles at me, but when he turns to his son, his face falls into something a lot more serious. “Please keep your physical contact to a minimum. You know how I feel about that type of activity under my roof.”
Holy shit. What?
I realise my mouth is moving far too late to do anything about it. “Don’t worry, Mr Oakham. We’ll just touch ourselves in front of each other.”
It takes Warwick a long moment to process what I’ve said.
The cogs are turning behind those amber eyes, but his son has already looped his arm around mine and is pulling me out of the office.
I half expect Warwick to give chase, but he doesn’t even bother to reply before Lando kicks the door closed.
“I can’t believe you just said that,” Lando says, pausing at the bottom of the steps and grabbing me by the shoulders to stop my adrenaline from flinging me up them. “That was incredible.”
And then he kisses me.
It’s slow but urgent, soft but intense. Exactly how I wanted him to kiss me on the pitch. Like I needed him to.
He stops abruptly and pulls away. “Is this okay? Oh my god, what am I thinking?”
I fist the front of his Team Boss shirt and pull his mouth close to mine. “We can just be friends who occasionally snog and cum on each other’s faces.”
Lando laughs. “You’ll be the one doing the latter, but I’m very much looking forward to it.” He kisses me again. This time it’s a teasing, gentle kiss. “Hey, do you want to see your surprise?”
“Does the pope clap asses in the woods?”
“It’s on my bed. Come on.”
“What the hell?” I say, frowning down at Lando’s black cotton sheets and the two items placed in the centre.
One of them is a plushie. It’s about seven or eight inches long, about an inch wide, green, has a little smiling face, and is shaped like an asparagus. The other . . .
“Is that what I think it is?”
Lando picks up the second object, flicks a switch on the side, and it buzzes.
Yep, it’s a vibrator. Also shaped like an asparagus, with a bulbous green head and knobbly bits all down the shaft. Thankfully, this one doesn’t have a little kawaii face.
I burst out laughing.
“Thought we could continue our lessons tonight?” he says.
“I . . . um . . .”
“Have you ever had anyone massage your prostate before?”
I’m still smiling. “Not with an asparagus, that’s for sure. Also, aren’t we supposed to not be touching each other?”
“Fuck that,” Lando says. “New plan: I want you to be as loud as possible.”
I sit down on the side of the bed. “Why did you tell him I was your boyfriend?”
Lando simply shrugs, but it’s okay, because I think deep down I already know why. Emails as the main communication method, no hello hug, the three-week pit stop, wanting a picture taken with a semi well-known guy instead of your own son, the fake smiles and apologies . . .
Lando’s attention starved. That’s why he said we were a couple. He was trying to get a reaction out of him.
Suddenly all of Lando’s nighttime escapades make a lot more sense. Why wouldn’t he seek attention from other guys when there’s nothing at home for him?
“Okay, yeah, let’s do that. Show me what that magic button can do.”
We shower together to start, and scrub away the sweat and mud from today’s match.
I wash Lando’s hair because I’m desperate to be nearer to him and to feed that human contact he craves so badly.
It’s the most intimate thing I’ve ever done, even more so than painting his face with my jizz outside Owen Bosley’s pub.
I wash my hair, which is much shorter than Lando’s and takes a fraction of the time, then I scrub his back with the loofah.
“You can’t smell it, but this shower gel is heavenly,” he says with his eyes closed.
The rainfall water hits the back of his bent neck and rushes down his chest and abdomen.
Lando has an incredible ass. I reach my hands out and cup his cheeks, and I wait for some kind of approval sign before I explore. He moves his head to the side, as though saying, “Yes, it’s okay,” but my anxious mind needs the verbal confirmation.
“Can I?” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says.
I begin softly stroking his buttocks, feathering my fingers along his lower back, down his thighs. Then I press between his shoulder blades, guiding him forward, bending him over a little. I drag my hand up between his cheeks and work my thumb over his hole.
The instantaneous urge for more is almost crippling. I stumble into him and moan and have to bite down on my fist to stem the noise. I need more of him, to be closer to him, to wrap myself up inside him.
“Push it in,” he says.
I do as he asks and slide my thumb into his hole, curling it. My fingers cradle his balls. I have no idea if I’m anywhere near his P-spot, but Lando whimpers, and I’m pillowing my forehead against his back to stop myself from humping him like an un-neutered chihuahua.
When we step out of the shower, I’m rock hard.
Lando isn’t, which is to be expected, but he’s definitely looking fuller than when we first got in.
He wraps an enormous towel around me and scrubs my hair dry.
Then he drapes a towel over his shoulders, locks his fingers with mine, and guides me to the bedroom.
“You ready to try something new?” he says, glancing down at the most obvious indicator of my readiness.
“Can we put a towel down or something? I’m just very self-conscious of . . . stuff leaking out of there . . .”
Lando shrugs the towel from his back, catches it one-handed, and spreads it out in the centre of his antique four-poster.
I crawl onto the bed and set myself down on the towel. It’s damp from his shower water. Lando joins me, settling beside my extended legs.
“Have you ever tried this yourself?” he asks.
“Once or twice in the shower, but . . . right, my butthole was so tight that I couldn’t really . . . It kinda felt like things probably shouldn’t be going inside there, you know?”
He laughs. “It gets easier, I promise. You just have to remember to stay relaxed.”
I breathe out a sigh.
“Let me know if you need me to stop,” he says. I nod. “Now lift those thick as fuck rugby thighs, and spread those cakes.”
I do as he asks.
“You never skip leg day, do you?” He rubs his hands up my thighs, and my cock twitches when his fingers skim close by, like it’s trying to jump into his palm. “This is going to be easier if you lie back.”
“Okay,” I say, breathless, and fold my arms behind my head, flattening my torso.
Lando’s fingers skate over my buttocks. With one hand, he presses down on my pelvis, bracing me against the bed, and with the other he caresses my hole. It tickles, and I’m overcome with the fear that I might fart in his face.
“Unclench please, Mr Ellis.”
I breathe out and relax my muscles. “I’m just worried I’ll . . . embarrass myself.”
He shrugs a single shoulder. “So? Shit happens. It wouldn’t be the first time this bed has seen that kind of action.”
That wasn’t actually what I meant, but now I have a new fear.
He leans over and grabs something from his bedside table. It’s a bottle of lube, and he squeezes some onto his fingers, then spreads it over my asshole. It’s fucking freezing. I suck in a breath of air and squeal.
“Ready?” Lando looks up and catches my eye. I nod, and he gently pushes his middle finger inside me. So gently it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t feel wrong, in fact . . . it feels . . .
“Holy shit! Oh my god!”
“Right?” He’s smirking now, like the cat who found a bath tub full of cream.
Okay, I cannot believe I have not been doing this more often.
“Lesson time,” he says, switching to serious teacher mode. “Finger banging someone’s asshole. Though I’ve heard G-spots are in a similar location, relatively speaking of course, so this could be universally beneficial.”
I’m not sure I can focus enough of my attention on his words.
“You’ll want to use lube. Not every guy needs it, but it definitely helps. Then you’re gonna use your middle finger.” He holds out his left palm, lifts his middle finger, and wiggles it. At the same time he mirrors the motion with his right hand.
I cry out. Roll my eyes up to the ceiling. Bite down on my lip.
“If you want to add another finger.” He pulls out of me and pushes back inside. It feels thicker, a little more stretched. “Then we use the ring finger, not the index finger. Like this.”
“Jesus, oh my god. Oh, fuck! That’s wild.” I have no control over my lower body any more and I’m thrusting upwards to meet his fingers, urging him to move faster. But he keeps things at his agonisingly slow pace.
“You’re so greedy,” he says, holding me still with a firm hand on my tummy. “Shall we try the toy?”
“I think it might be game over if we do that.”
Lando removes his fingers, and I immediately miss the sensation, the pressure, the warmth.
He squeezes some lube onto the asparagus spear, which aside from being pretty chonky is fairly realistic looking, and nudges it at my entrance.
The tip of the vibrator is wider than his fingers, and the stretch of my skin as it swallows the first few inches is noticeable.
I’m trying to decide if it’s painful or just uncomfortable when the spearhead brushes my P-spot and I forget all about any negative sensations.
It’s wild that I’ve been living alone for about eight months now, and I have not optimised my free will and bought myself a vibrator.
“I’m going to turn it on now, okay?”
“Yes . . . please,” I plead.
I’m bucking my hips, trying to claw non-existent friction from the air, but Lando ignores my aching cock, which is probably for the best.
The second he switches it on, I know it’s a mistake. I’m too far gone, too close to that edge.
“Oh my god, stop. No, actually, keep going. Fuck.” I throw my forearm over my face and whine into my flesh as my orgasm blindsides me and stripes my stomach.
I reach down and stroke myself through the tail end of it as all the tension leaves my body and I become boneless beneath him.
Lando removes the dildo, and I feel spent. In every sense of the word. Spent and empty.
“I think my king likes it,” he says, as I finally make eye contact again.
My asshole is slimy, and cum trickles down my hip. I sit up, and use the towel to clean myself as best as I can.
I clear my throat. “Are you feeling like you might need . . . uh.” Why am I suddenly shy? I just let Lando fuck me with a rubber asparagus spear.
“I’m good, but thank you for asking.” Lando looks down. He’s very obviously erect. “It does that sometimes. I’m sorry, but honestly . . . I don’t need sorting out or anything.” His cheeks are turning pink.
“You never have to apologise to me for who you are.”
He stares at me, unblinking and unmoving.
“Can we get under the duvet?” I ask. “Because I’m getting cold.”
Together we climb under Lando’s covers, and he flicks the TV on with the remote.
“What are we watching?”
“Oh, this new Netflix movie came out yesterday. It looks pretty good. It’s called KPop Demon Hunters. A Harry Ellis film if ever I saw one.” Lando lines up the movie, then runs to his walk-in wardrobe and comes back in wearing black-striped PJs.
He hops onto the bed, opens his mouth to say something, and closes it again. After a few more moments, he speaks. “Just because I don’t necessarily want things reciprocated, doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy every second of it.”
I shimmy down in the sheets and leave a big enough gap for Lando to slot himself into.
“You’re good. You don’t need to apologise to me, and you don’t need to explain yourself, okay?
You’re the first ace person I’ve known, or .
. . at least the first one I’ve been intimate with.
I’m not gonna question your motives. Whatever you tell me is up to you, so long as you promise never to do something you don’t want to because you think I want to. ”
Lando nods, then slides into the space in front of me. His hair is still a little damp, but I rest my cheek on his head and wrap my arm over him. “I promise.”
“You’re not broken either. I think you’re perfect, by the way. Exactly as you are.” I’m extremely glad he can’t see my face as I say those words, and that I can’t see his reaction.