“Okay,” I say. “What position would you like me in?”
His face falls. “Shit, I hadn’t thought about that. The article didn’t say anything about positions. And also, isn’t there only one position men fuck in. You know, doggy?”
I can’t help my smile. I only hope it’s more adoring than patronising. “Men can fuck in nearly any position they like.”
“Oh.” Marcello’s eyes reduce in size. “Well, what is your favourite?”
I’m stunned into silence. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked this before and I don’t think I’ve ever given it much thought. But I have an immediate answer for him. I want to be under him, on my back. I want him on top of me and for me to be looking up at him, watching him. I want his golden-brown eyes on mine. I want to study him so I can see if maybe, maybe he feels a fraction of what I think I feel for him.
I want that, which probably means it’s a terrible idea.
“Take me from behind,” I answer. It’s not a lie if I don’t answer his question directly.
“Okay,” he says and immediately moves.
I try not to mourn the loss of his warm body next to mine and instead, I also get up off the bed. Marcello moves to the end of it, giving me space to kneel in front of him. I feel unusually self-conscious when I bend over, and I’m all fours in front of him.
“Fuck, Giles,” he says but his voice cracks, making me so confused about what he means that I look back over my shoulder.
He places a hand on my right butt cheek and follows its curve with his palm. With his eyes fixed firmly down, he doesn’t seem to be aware that I’m looking at him. So I keep watching as a small smile curves his pink lips. A few hairs have escaped the knot at the back of his head and they fall over his face making me wonder, yet again what he’d look like with all that rich brown hair around his shoulders. Slow, measured breaths lift his chest and stomach and I watch, mesmerised.
“You’re a work of fucking art,” he says to my backside, and he practically takes the words right out of my mouth.
“Touch me, Marcello,” I tell him. Because I can’t stand any more of this admiration. It’s too much. It’s not right and it’s too much. “Play with me.”
My order, which is more desperate than anything else, seems to spur him into action. I hear the click of the tube opening and I wait to feel cool liquid on my butt.
But it doesn’t come. I look back again and see he’s squeezing it out onto the palm of his hand. He looks up and sees me watching.
“What?”
“You can just squeeze it on me.”
“Oh, right.” He looks down at his hand, then at my backside and then at my face. “I was going to apply it to you with my fingers. Is that not the right thing to do?”
“That’s perfect,” I say and I turn back to face my wooden headboard.Too fucking perfect, I add to myself.
“Okay, so do I just put it on you?”
“Yes, and you can play with me to spread it around andget me ready.”
“By which you mean, stretching you, yes?” Marcello sounds like he tsks himself. “I’m killing the mood aren’t I? With all these questions.”
I shake my head. “I don’t mind. It’s what you’re here for.” I say that as a reminder more to myself than him.
“But I still want it to be good. For you, I mean.”
“Don’t worry, Marcello. It will be,” I say and even that small statement feels like I’m revealing too much.
“Okay,” he says, not sounding at all convinced. “Here goes nothing.”
His fingers touch me. Slick and cool, they follow a circle around my hole. And then they do another one. And another.
It has an effect on me, for certain, the nerve endings there firing up, but I can’t help but notice how tentative his touch is and how that contrasts with how he touched me earlier.
“You don’t have to do this,” I tell him. If he’s having second thoughts I want to know about it now.
“I just don’t know what to do. The article didn’t go into specifics.”
