Thomas fell back, gasping, still pleasure-stricken though Micha no longer touched him, and waited for his breathing to steady, his heart to slow, and the world to return to some semblance of normality. But, no, his dazed eyes beheld the brightest sky, the reddest trees. And the light came down through the branches like spears of gold, as though it wanted to build a pagan temple to their desires. Micha had half-turnedaway, but Thomas, heedless suddenly of his earlier remonstrance, caught him in his arms and pulled him back down, so he could drown the last shudders of the ecstasy Micha had given him in the man’s skin.
Micha’s body was cold and unresponsive, except between his legs, where his cock burned and throbbed against Thomas’s hip. Thomas slipped a hand between them, wanting to give Micha what Micha had just given him.
“No.” Micha sounded so ferocious that Thomas immediately drew back.
Though he still refused to be touched, Micha did not pull away, so Thomas accepted that as well, whatever it meant, simply glad for Micha, as he was. The violence of completion was fading from his flesh. He sighed, shivered, bliss-wrung, grateful, and fragile. His beauty-dazed eyes blurred with a sheen of moisture, hastily blinked back, and he gave a shaky laugh. “You must think me the most callow of lovers. I can only apologise for ...” Thomas did not quite dare to give the act a name “... so gracelessly upon your hand.” He tried again for mirth, but it was hard to know how laughter sounded when his breath was suddenly so uncertain. “Perhaps I am in need of practice ...” It was no use. He swallowed hard, but his eyes felt as painful as if knives had gathered in the corners. When the first tears escaped, if not for the shame that he wept, it could have almost been relief.
Micha jerked away from him as if scalded by their closeness. “Oh no. Don’t do that. Don’t you fucking dare.”
Thomas sat up, trying to smother tears on his fingertips. “I’m so sorry.”
Micha was kneeling on the leaves, like a vanquished knight, his head bowed to conceal his expression. “Look,” he muttered. “It was just frigging. I’m sure God wouldn’t count it.”
“No,” said Thomas hastily. “No. That is not what occasioned this foolishness. It was simply ... the moment ... I suppose one release led to another.” It was too embarrassing even for words. He hid his face in his hands. “Please forgive me. My experience of these matters islimited, but I am more than reasonably certain that this is not the usual aftermath of physical intimacy.”
Micha snorted. “You’d be surprised.” Then he went on, in no kinder a tone, “But what is the matter with you, if not religious hypocrisy?”
Thomas moved across the leaves until he was kneeling as Micha knelt. He reached out a hand and, with careful, gentle fingers, lifted Micha’s chin so that he had to look at him. “Micha, you must believe me when I tell you I have no guilt for this. No shame. I cannot. I can only thank you, with all my heart and soul.”
Micha’s eyes skittered away. “All right, all right. Calm down. It’s sex, not the creation of the world.”
“Yes, but I had no idea it would be like this.”
“Wait. What? You’ve never . . . ?”
Thomas shook his head. “I have always tried to live in accordance with my profession. Until I met you, I did not even realise I was made this way.” Micha was staring at him with utter incomprehension, so he kept on talking. “And it has been quite the loneliest discovery I have ever made.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I felt so set apart. So lost. Knowing there was a part of me, an unchangeable part of me, that would make others hate me. You must know how terrifying that is. But today you showed me it need not be so.” He smiled into Micha’s frowning face. “I can’t begin to tell you how it feels to know that you are as I am. And that you like me too.”
Micha dragged his hands out of Thomas’s clasp and sprawled backwards on the leaves, laughing. It was not a happy sound.
Thomas leaned over him. “Did I say something odd?”
But Micha kept on laughing, his whole body shaking with it. “Forget it,” he said finally, somewhat breathlessly. “It’s nothing.”
Since Micha seemed disinclined to move, Thomas lowered himself onto an elbow at Micha’s side.
“What are you staring at?”
Thomas flushed. “Just at you. I ... I think you’re very beautiful.”
“Stop that. We fucked. There’s no need to get sentimental over it.” But then Micha rolled over so that his position mirrored Thomas’s. They were face-to-face, breath-to-breath. And, after a moment, he slid a hand lightly over Thomas’s flank and left it resting there. “It would have been different if I’d known. You should have said.”
“I had no opportunity with your mouth on mine,” said Thomas primly, earning a sour look from Micha. “Besides,” he added, his voice softening, “it was perfect. And you are perfect.”
“You’ve no metric to judge.”
“I need none. I know.”
“You’re an idiot.”
Thomas risked putting a hand over Micha’s hand, and, although Micha glared at it, he did not shake it off. “How remarkable,” Thomas murmured, “that in the vastness of the world, we should find each other. Some benevolence must have guided us together.”
“I don’t know about benevolence.”
“It still feels like a miracle to me.”
