“No,” he says. His voice, however, is a bit thin.
“I don’t want you to suffer,” I say with a little laugh.
“I am a beast. I should leave you.”
“I don’t want that.”
He aligns himself with me again, obeying my preferences. However, I can feel the extent of his arousal. He is steel against me.
I turn towards him, so that we are face to face.
He looks vexed—with himself, I know—and I want to soothe him.
I reach down to touch his cock.
He stops me, grasping my hand.
“No,” he says. “I know when you want it—and right now you don’t.”
I can’t argue with his conclusion. It is true.
Then an idea unspools across my mind.
While I don’t feel like being touched myself, I am not adverse—no, not at all—to watching him touchhimself.
“You could self-pleasure,” I say. “To relieve yourself.”
His brow furrows. “In my own chamber?”
While we have been sharing my bedchamber, Alfred technically has his own on the other side of the wall.
“No. Here.”
“I—I am not sure it is a good idea. You aren’t in the humor.”
“While I don’t care to be involved, I am happy to watch. I’m sure it’s an image I will cherish later.”
“Still. It won’t work.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighs. “I don’t know how.”
“Alfred, don’t be ridiculous.”
“I am being serious.”
“You have never taken yourself in hand?”
“Not in a long time. Not since I was a boy—and I was caught. And I was told what a terrible sin it was. You saw what I did instead.”
I know what he means—the way he rutted himself against his own trousers.
“Who caught you?”
“A maid. And she told my father. And that is when it began—William Acton, and lectures, and books on self-abuse.”
“Poor Alfred. I wish I had known you when we were young. I would have shown you all about pleasure. I wish I had met you at sixteen rather than Frank Holster.”
