Epilogue
ONE YEAR LATER– NEIL
We’ve spent almost a year building up to the big event, planning, preparing, imagining how it would all unfold.
The hard work is going to pay off; I feel it in my bones.
Heaven my sensitive, lovely boyfriend is softly crashing and doing his utmost to hide it from me. For sure, my vision no longer reads the rhythm of his face as well as it did, but I’m as in tune with the touch, taste, and sound of my man as if I had a dozen sets of X-ray eyes in the back and the sides of my head.
I mostly sleep at his place, these days. He’s moved a few things around to make his flat more friendly for the visually impaired. I can’t fault his drawer layouts, his uncluttered spaces, or his tactile labelling. His deck’s not bad, either.
“Are you coming back here tonight?” Luke asks sleepily as my morning alarm sounds. “You don’t have to; I know stuff is still wild at work. I’ll be okay.”
“Do you want me to?” Looking directly at his pale, pinched face, I’ve already made up my mind.
He hesitates, thinking it through, weighing his answer as if he wants to get it right. We’re much more honest with each other these days. “Yeah.”
“Then I am. I just need to pop in for a few hours.” I kiss his cheek and tuck the duvet tighter round him. “Go back to sleep. I’ve put your meds out on the side for when you wake.”
While he drifts away, I fire off a voice message to Ezra, explaining my plans for today, tomorrow, and who knows after that.
Luke’s downers aren’t a secret. This is the second we’ve been through together.
My love and care aren’t deterrents or cures, but they help him feel less alone and see which way is up, even from down in the deep dark depths where the mushrooms grow.
That’s how I see it, anyhow. I like to think what we have is a damned good reason for him to want to take the next breath.
By the time I return, he’s still half asleep.
Stripping down to my T-shirt, I shuffle around in the bed a bit until his head rests on my chest. With my arms around him, counting each slow, soft intake of breath, I hold him like the treasure he is.
Though I’m over grieving the old Neil and his unthinking, sighted existence, I have plenty of obstacles ahead to still worry about.
But not seeing Luke’s beautiful face ever again, as my vision deteriorates, isn’t one of them.
I simply close my useless, ornamental eyes, and he’s forever there, smiling at me. Leading me by the hand.
THREE MONTHS LATER– LUKE
The grand opening of the reconfigured Heaven the new cocktail bar on the ground floor is fashion forward, moody, and unmistakably stylish.
Not dissimilar to its proud owners. In contrast, downstairs is scuffed and casual, spilling over with unrefined attitude. Also not dissimilar to its owners.
Neil’s chuffed with the whole thing; swagger is a great look on him. Excitedly, he drags me by the hand in the direction of the toilets, of all places. I guess some habits never die.
“Check out this layout.” Half way there, he stops.
“These routes here are the main ones to the bar and the bogs. The stools and tables in these areas are fixed, so they never end up in the path of someone visually impaired. Also, it means the layout can’t be changed, so someone—and by that I mean me—will always know exactly where these tables are. Oh, and feel this. Cool, huh?”
He rubs his booted foot across the floor tiles. I’d already commented on the attractive two-tone oak effect design as soon as I walked in. I hadn’t appreciated the way the darker tiles are stippled, so a person with a cane or poor vision can sense they’re on the right track.
“And these ones here match,” Neil adds with a grin, running his hand along a wall. “And the spotlighted area over here also explains the layout of the whole place in braille. There’s braille on all the major signs. The menus have audio and large print versions too. Check out this cocktail menu.”
I do, sliding the tip of my finger across the raised bumps.
I listen to the audio too, on Neil’s phone, and admire the large print version.
Thorough doesn’t even begin to describe it.
The only questions people with low vision are going to have about the cocktail menu is the name of the gorgeous loopy font and the phone number of the sexy dude growling out the hundred different gin options.
Even the glassware is tactile, with Heaven he’s right. And I fucking love this version of me.
Neil pushes his tongue into my mouth, sudden and filthy.
“You being already hard for me under these jeans now inspires me to sling you over my shoulder and cart you up my fancy new tactile stairs. Whereupon I’m going to fling you onto my sofa and fuck you until I’m not the only one of us who can’t see straight. ”
My rough exhale gives everything away. “Have we got time for that amount of inspiration?”
He checks his phone. These days, the numbers are enlarged enough for someone three miles away to read. “I’m the joint boss, remember? Trust me, Heaven I swear he’s sucking the cum from my balls.
“Are you deaf as well as blind?”
“Rude!” Neil snorts as I squirm against him. “I’m going to punish you for that.”
He hooks my shin over his shoulder. Hands pinning me down harder, his tongue laps against my hole, burying deeper. He teases the rim with little flicks and darts, tracing the edges, then pushing inside. I let out a shiver-laced exhale.
“Call that punishment? “
It took me a while to feel comfortable with him doing this, but now I can’t get enough. His mouth there? It feels like heaven, earth, and hell. Like everything I want and yet not enough. And the way I can’t help writhing up against his mouth? Neil knows it, the smug bastard.
When I hear myself begging, Neil sits up, pleased with himself.
Pleased with the wreck laid out ready for him.
I fumble for the lube. As I hurriedly prep my hole, Neil pinches some lube and puts on a show.
I love watching him stroke himself. Why wouldn’t I?
I love him, and I love his dick. I don’t have much to compare it with—nothing up close and this personal, in fact—but long, veiny, and thick, it’s the best dick I’ve seen in my life. And only I get to ride it.
“You want to stay like this? On your back?”
“No. I want to turn over. I want it hard.”
I scrabble around until my knees are spread, leaning over the back of the sofa. I’ve learned a lot about myself this last year with Neil; the most astonishing is how I like my sex. And how confident I’ve become communicating that.
With a jagged breath, Neil grips my hips, pulling them up. He spreads me even wider with his thighs. “Hold onto something.”
He skates the head of his dick up and down my slippery crease until I’m arching into him, chasing him.
Then he slides into me in one go. At the instant pressure and instant sting, I snatch a sharp breath, and then let out a long, deep groan as the bite recedes.
Glorious, glorious fullness takes over, so full I can feel it in my ribs.
As he waits for me to catch up, Neil’s finger runs around my rim.
“You are so bloody gorgeous like this, rash whisperer.”
Slowly, Neil fucks my arse, pushing himself in and out of me.
Sweat trickles down my temples. Sometimes—when we haven’t got somewhere important to be—he does this for what feels like hours, rocking me, drawing it out until I’m crying and aching and begging for release.
But tonight, he’s all greedy relish and with an eye on the time.
One hand gripping my shoulder, the other fists my clumps of hair, pulling my head back.
My arms shake with the effort of holding myself up, and I slip onto my elbows.
His control is weakening; he pounds faster.
With every thrust my dick drags against the back of the sofa.
I can come like this, from the friction alone, and Neil, pumping harder, knows it.
“You close? That pretty little cock going to come for me?”
“Yes,” I pant, as all the tight muscles in my body come loose. “Yes.”
And then I’m floating, falling, floating, falling. I’m still riding it when his breathing turns ragged and his hot release fills me. I’m still riding it when he flips me onto my front, blanketing my body in his own, dripping with cum and sweat and lube.
“Love you, rash whisperer.” He half-gasps, half-laughs against my skin before his lush mouth covers mine. Neil looks and tastes like sex. And lust. And us. But above all that, he looks and tastes like love.
THE END