Asking
Asking
He couldn't ask for it. He could never ask for it. Not when it was so wrong.
But there were ways, ways without words and so he used those.
The first time had been easy. They were both drunk and a friendly tussle for the bottle had turned into something else, something new, something he hadn't even known he wanted until then. So he just waited for the next time they were drunk, alone together, and made it happen again.
Only thing was, Doyle wasn't going to be treated like that, made it plain the only time either of them had ever spoken about it. Sober or not at all. Bodie wasn't sure why and didn't want to ask. So he found other ways, wordless ways.
He never thought about it beforehand, never planned it, never mentioned it next day. He couldn't. What they did was their secret; why they did it was his.
So here, tonight, in a shabby B & B near the Hull docks, he had to find another way to ask. In the twin bed under the window, Doyle was settling down for the night, in his usual grumbling ritual of tossing and turning and pillow thumping. Doyle would never make the move, though Bodie didn't know why - perhaps he liked to be asked. It certainly wasn't because he was afraid of what he wanted.
Bodie hadn't intended to ask tonight, they were both dog-tired, but as soon as he lay down he knew he would. As the movement stilled behind him, he sat up in bed and took off the T-shirt he was sleeping in. He hardly ever went naked, hated doing it with birds, never did it around blokes, so when he did it meant something.
He lay down again, his back to Doyle, and waited. Gripped by the usual fear that this time Doyle wouldn't hear, this time he wouldn't cross the few feet of stringy carpet between their beds.
There was a silence and then, before he could lose hope, the sound of blankets and footsteps. Cold air rushed in as the blankets were lifted, then the mattress dipped as Doyle slipped in behind him. He shuffled over to the very edge of the bed, making room. If they'd been anywhere they might be called out, he'd just have kicked the old joggers he slept in down to his knees; but they were alone and would remain so, so he wriggled out of them, thrusting them out of bed with his feet.They didn't speak.
He leaned over slightly onto his stomach, raising a knee, presenting himself,
bracing himself with one hand on the mattress base. His cock lay as it always did at these times, between the raised knee and the cheap towel he'd snagged from the hand-basin and laid over the nylon sheet. He was already hard as he rocked against the rough cloth and knew he would get harder still.Doyle was red hot behind him, the whole length of him.
One bony arm snaked round him to hold him and he pushed back, eager for the first feel of him. No lube, he didn't want lube, he wanted to feel it all, the bite and sting as well as the smooth pleasure of movement. And Doyle would be careful, not gentle, he didn't want gentle, but careful, or at least careful enough.The first wet dab at the base of his spine. Doyle was always ready for him; he wasn't sure whether
that was good or bad, but he shuddered as the hardness behind him painted its way between his buttocks. He began to shiver, the way he always did, as Doyle settled himself and began to rub against his arsehole, waking up what had hardly been sleeping, the place that was waiting for him.
A shift backwards, getting into place, and then the first nudge. He pushed back eagerly but Doyle merely retreated from him. His way or not at all -- strength, all the strength he needed -- but not brutality. Again the nudge and then the blissful rocking began, the tiny careful movements that edged the cock he had never seen further and further inside him. Oh such small advances for such great pleasure. He felt the first tiny pain, the first sensation of parting, of splitting open to receive. Yes oh yes.Harder now, the movement firmer, deeper, longer and there was more to come, so much more to come.
They were moving in unison now, advance and retreat, advance and retreat, the slap of skin against skin muffled by the blankets. His head dropped forward as his spine arched and he twisted, pushing back, asking without asking, what little discomfort there was felt not as a pain but as an intensifier of the pleasure, a thin high grace note above the rough music in his blood.
He heaved upwards, pulling his knees under, bracing himself on all fours, shivering as hot breath pressed against his back and neck, breath with his breathing. Then and then and now, the dagger's point of pleasure deep inside him with every thrust and there were no words, no thoughts, only His name, chanted silently in rhythm with breath and press and push. A hard hot hand grasped and pulled in syncopation with all the rest and it was there, the rush and surge and man-made joy as he flung back his head and threw his pleasure over Doyle's hand in skeins of liquid silk.
The last thrust, Ray silhouetted on the wall by the streetlights, his back a great arch over the body beneath, a whispered something that might have been his name. Then down in a heap, the welcome weight above him, the thick presence inside him that faded all too fast, kisses to his neck and shoulders, fervent and gentle, as breathing and the mad hammer of his heart calmed.
Then he waited, for the words he craved and dreaded and couldn't shut out because Ray's mouth was close to his ear, Ray's body pressing him into the bed, Ray's hands holding him as the words spilled out of him; so easily, how could he say them so easily?
"Love you, Bodie," he whispered, his voice husky with sex and strained with the effort of silence. "Never gonna stop loving you. Gonna wait, gonna wait as long as it takes, because you're worth waiting for, you are; worth anything, anything in the world."
He could not reply, he never could, his only answers in the common coin of everyday, the funny, the mock-stupid, the cutting. He had no words for this new thing and knew he lacked the courage to find them. He buried his face in the pillow.
They separated. The bony arm beside his head flexed as Doyle prepared to leave this bed, leave him, leave him alone again until next time they shared a room; next week, next month or, given the life they led, maybe not ever.
A last kiss pressed against his hair and the shift of weight, cold air rushing over the heat of his back and he acted without thought. He grabbed Ray's hand and pulled him back down, felt resistance and then surrender and the pillow was rock-hard and the bed was too small but he was holding onto Ray's arm and Ray
was holding on to him, and he realised that, even without words, there might just be enough room for the two of them.
The End
