No!Like lovers, like lovers.
He shifted, and smiled down at Sasha.Waited until Sasha’snext movement had brought Laurie’s cock to lie between theirbellies.Now when he thrust, they would both feel it, both have theheat, the pressure, and the refuge of one another’s flesh.Sasha’sface changed—lost its mask, the faint trace of readiness to hidepain or sorrow, flushed up and contorted like that of any otherhealthy young man about to shoot to climax—and Laurie let go andpounded at him.Sasha closed a crushing grip around the tops ofboth his arms and hung on, writhing up, loosing a short, desperatecry at every thrust.Wet heat burst on Laurie’s belly, in the tightplace where they were locked together.He braced, the beginnings ofthe seizure almost too much, almost making him afraid.He didn’trecall coming with the girl.But this…thishe would remember until hedied.
“Christ,” he rasped out, shuddering,aware of the rush of his semen between Sasha’s thighs as the tip ofthe iceberg.The rest of him—from prickling scalp to curling,scrabbling toes—was caught up in the firestorm, incandescent,lost.
* **
Hethought he must still be glowing faintly in the dark.He lay,beached and wrung out, at Sasha’s side, listening to theirbreathing slowly lose its ragged edge, unable to think or to move.Yes, he must be luminescent, shining.Sasha too.If he opened hiseyes, blinked the tears from them, he would see Sasha, bright as anangel in an old tale, in the bed beside him.
“I…I should go now.”
Lauriesnapped back to his senses.He looked and saw poor Sasha was notshining at all—that his lights had gone out, and he was up on oneelbow, ready to get out of the bed and leave, as if…
“No!”Laurie whispered, reaching for him.“For God’s sake,please don’t tell me you thought that was…”
“Business?”Sasha finished for him, smiling weakly.“You thinkmy punters try to stop me leaving?The last one kicked me out ofhis car.It’s almost a pity, because”—he paused, voice catching—“Iwouldn’t have minded enjoying my work for once.”
“Oh, Sasha.”There were tears in Sasha’s eyes.Somehow thesight of them shocked Laurie to the core.“Hang on a minute.”Hescrambled out of the bed and gestured to Sasha that he should standtoo, just long enough for Laurie to turn back the duvet and thewool blanket that covered it.“There.Get back in.”When Sashahesitated, he gave him a little encouraging shove, stripped out ofhis jeans, and followed him, burrowing down with him into thewarmth.Their limbs laced together, Sasha, after a moment’s stiffawkwardness, grasping at him fiercely.“Stay with me,” Lauriewhispered into his hair.“Just for tonight.Stay.”
* **
Morningfound them locked together still.Laurie breached the surface ofhis dreams with a deep inhalation; they had been hot and sweet, andhis cock was hard, crushed to Sasha’s thigh.“Oh,” he rasped, asSasha woke too and turned smiling to look at him.“Sorry.”
“Mm,” Sasha commented, rolling to face him.He’d divestedhimself of the dressing gown during the night.
For along minute, the joy of being skin-to-skin with him overwhelmedLaurie, and he could only cling to him, blindly pressing kisses tohis throat.
ButSasha ran shuddering hands down his arms, down his sides, andsuddenly Laurie wanted more.Much more, as if in his few hours ofsleep he’d grown up, vaulted barricades out of shy, awkwardboyhood… An instinct rose in him, opened darkly like a rose.Heturned his back to Sasha’s gentle pushing, rolled to face thewall.
“Laurie, no.Not that.”
Sashahad gone still.His grip on Laurie’s shoulder, on the hand he’dflung back to him, was bruising, damp with distress.
“Why?”Laurie softly demanded, already half-aware the questionwas stupid.
“You must know.I’m not sure I’m clean.There’s a doctor whocomes around the homeless people sometimes, tests for things, butI…I haven’t wanted to find out.Do you understand?”
“Yes.”Laurie did, with painful clarity.He wriggled back overand pulled Sasha into his arms.“Listen to me.You can’t live likethis.Maybe you don’t have to, even if you’re illegal.Why did youleave Romania?”
Sashamoaned.He tried to escape Laurie’s grip, then subsided into it,letting go a ragged breath.“It doesn’t matter.Doesn’t make anydifference.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“My father was a political activist.Not much of one; he justwrote poetry.Made the mistake of trying to get it published abroadso that people would know what Ceausescu was doing in Romania, topeople like him—gypsies, intellectuals, anyone who disagreed withthe regime.”
Hepaused, and Laurie lay watching him, arousal and compassioncompeting for space in his mind.With an effort he dismissed bothin order to think about history, or the little he knew of it.Nikolai Ceausescu—that had been the mid-eighties, hadn’t it?Whenthe Romanian people had risen up and overthrown their Communistdictator in a bloody coup.“What happened to him?You’re only myage, aren’t you?You couldn’t have been born.”
“No.He was sent to the Pitesti prison in 1984.He was Roma,but he’d had his own house north of Bucharest, where there was abig gypsy community.He and my mother gave lessons in their livingroom, the only education most kids there got.They were doing allright, but when he was released after the revolution, hewas…different.Broken.He didn’t really care for anythinganymore—or he couldn’t.The state had stripped what assets he had,and…he and my mother went to live in themahalain Sofia, the Roma ghetto.Conditions there were terrible.Still are.I think becomingpregnant with me was the last straw for my mother.She waited untilI was born, and then she left me with him and camehome.”
“To England?”Laurie asked it softly, leaning on one elbow,running a hand over Sasha’s hair.His eyes were wide and distant,and he had told his story as if it belonged to someone else.“Didyou try to trace her?I don’t know how the law works, but if you’vegot someone here, a close relative who could vouch foryou…”
“I thought of it.I haven’t had the chance.I only got here acouple of months ago.”He smiled faintly and shivered, tugging atthe duvet.Reflexively Laurie moved closer, covering him.“Somebodytold me the winters were warmer here, you know.”
“You need shelter.I…I’d help you find your mother, you know.There’re ways, using the Internet.What about your father?Is hestill alive?”
“No.He died a long time ago.Look, Laurie—”
“Then you’ve been surviving by yourself in the—what did youcall it, the mahala?The ghetto?You might be a refugee.You couldapply—”
