The dining room is long and houses a fourteen-seater table. Despite the size of the table, the most notable feature in the room is the light fixture, orinstallation, as Damon calls it. Clara flicks the light on, and tiny lights dance around the room making it feel like a movie that’s gone from black and white to full color.
“The installation works in the space,” says Damon.
Clara makes sounds that give the impression she’s just witnessed the rapture. She raises both hands in praise, “Mm, the installationworksin the space.”
We trail through the study and the conservatory and finally, we get to my favorite part of the house, the kitchen. It’s amazing. I’ve spent most of the day in here, getting under the movers’ and decorators’ feet, but I couldn’t resist it. The cabinetry is oak and there’s an enormous island in the center of the room. There’s a farmhouse-style pot rack over the island with copper saucepans hanging from it. I think that’s what offends Damon most of all, but it’s a critical part of my dream kitchen. The hand-forged Japanese knives Damon got me for my birthday are displayed on a knife magnet near the spice rack. A pottery jar I found at a flea market holds the wooden spoons and spatulas. Some are used for cooking, some for other pursuits. I allowed Damon to have his way with the marble countertops even though I don’t think they’re especially practical. I felt like I had to because he gave in on everything else I wanted, and because I was positive if I pushed him any further, he was going to burst a blood vessel in one or both eyes.
“Well,” says Damon, “we did the best we could with the brief.”
“Mm, we did the best we could with the brief,” says Clara.
Two sets of blue eyes blink at me in mild accusation.
“The light’s good though, right?” I’ve heard them both talking at length about light.
Damon smiles the type of smile you usually give a child right before you say, “Good job, buddy.”
“The light’s great, baby,” he says.
“I’ll leave you two to explore the rest of the house on your own,” says Clara, as she and Damon air kiss elaborately. “Alwayssucha pleasure working with you, Becks. Your taste level is honestly out of this world. Wish all my clients could be like you. It’s not like you evenneeda designer.”
“I know,” he shrugs, doing his best impression of someone who’s humble, “I just don’t have the time to do it all on my own, you know.”
With that, she’s gone and it’s just the two of us in our new home. We go upstairs and peek into the guest bedrooms and the glittery pink and purple bedroom the girls will stay in when they sleep over, the media center and the home gym, and then we head up to our floor. It consists of our bedroom – not too big, and not too small – a gleaming ensuite that cost so much to fit out, I feel like I’m going to choke whenever I think about it, and a modest sized walk-in closet for me. The rest of the floor is taken up entirely by Damon’s wardrobe. It’s a testimony to what can be achieved using mirrors and white surfaces. He squeals and skips around joyfully when he sees it.
“I mean, I knew it was going to be epic, but seriously, this isepic, epic, right?”
“Mm,epic, epic,” I say.
He clasps both my hands in his, squeezes hard, and then leads me to the wrought iron spiral staircase in the far corner of our room. “So, are you ready to see the surprise?”
“I know it’s a sex room, Demon.”
He kisses me sweetly on the lips. “You always think you know everything, but you don’t. Now, close your eyes.”
He covers my eyes with one hand and drags me, half-tripping, up the narrow staircase. When we get to the top he kisses me again, even sweeter this time. So sweet that when he removes his hand from my eyes, for a second I’m lost in a stormy ocean of blue. He steps out of my field of vision, waving with a flourish.
“So, what do you think?”
The room is large, massive, in fact. The ceiling is high, vaulted and timber-clad. Four imposing windows are draped in heavy, vintage velvet curtains that pool gracefully on the oak floor. Every other inch of space is taken up by shelves. Bookshelves. The joinery is bespoke and solid, a good thing because if not, the shelves would be groaning under the weight of all the books in the room. A sea of books. A field of books. Books as far as the eye can see.
“D-did you build me alibrary?”
He looks terribly pleased with himself. “I found a woman online who calls herself The Pervy Librarian and I got her to curate it. I have it on good authority that you, Mr St John, are now the proud owner of one of the most complete collections of queer romance literature in all the land.”
He throws his arms around me, and the sound of his triumphant laughter fills the room. I’m so dumbfounded, I take a second to react but when I do, I wrap my arms around his waist and swing him around. As I do, I notice small bronze plaques on various shelves denoting the type of romance each section houses. I see books I recognize. Books I’ve read. Books still on my To Be Read list. Books I’ve never heard of. I take in the massive leather sofa in the center of the room and the tall, arched reading light elegantly lighting the space.
“Holy shit,” I cry, “is that one of those ladders we push each other around on?”
“Technically, it’s for reaching books on the top shelf, but hell yes, we can push each other around on it too, Beast baby!”
Hearing his voice like that, so happy because I’m happy, pushes me over the edge. I’m overcome. My chest and face feel hot and full and I get that wasabi feeling in my nose. My eyes start to sting and then they start leaking.
He holds my face in both hands and looks at me for several long seconds. Then he draws light semi-circles under my eyes with the pads of his thumbs, the way I always do to him when he cries. It’s the first time he’s done it to me. It’s the first time I’ve let anyone see me cry since I was a kid, but I don’t look away. I let him see. It hurts but it feels good.
I crush him to me and hold him as tight as I can. I feel everything. Joy, amazement, disbelief. I feel everything good and a huge sense of confusion about how something so wonderful could be happening to me. When I’ve recovered, I open my eyes and see shards of light bouncing off tiny particles of dust that float around the room. I’m filled with a deep sense of wonder until my eye catches something.
“I-is that a sex swing?”
