“Laurie, ves’tacha!This way!”
Bramblescaught and tore at them both unnoticed as they pelted into theoutskirts of low woodland.A tangle of oak and beech, remnant ofthe great Buckinghamshire forest that once had clothed the heath.It was colder out here, the leaf litter beginning to crisp up withfrost.Their breathless arrival sent wood pigeons clattering upfrom their roosts.Watching their wild ascent, Laurie missed hisfooting, slipped, and crashed down with a yell into theundergrowth.Reflexively he turned the fall into a roll, and by thetime Sasha had stopped and come dashing back, face a pale blank ofconcern, he was ready for him—grabbed him, laughing, and dumped himinto the ice-patterned ferns at his side.
Sashasurged up straightaway.He propped himself on one elbow and stareddown into Laurie’s face, laughing and struggling for breath.“Oh,clever,” he panted.“All right.I’m caught.What do you want to dowith your prey?”
Laurieswallowed.His chest was still heaving, the air like glitteringlight in his lungs.He knew, of course.He had played it out adozen times in his head, but in those yearning fantasies hadglossed straight over certain details because… “To fuck you,” hewhispered, then shuddered at himself.“Christ.That soundsawful.”
“Does it?”Sasha kissed him gently on the mouth, as if toredeem the word.“Not to me.Not from you.”
“And I’ve never done it before.”
“Well, I’ve had it done to me twice.Once I was stoned, and thesecond time was business.So you don’t have much competition, andeven if you did, I want you so much—” he stopped as Lauriestruggled up to kiss him, then to roll him onto his back, coveringSasha with his warm weight—“so much I could come from just thinkingabout you.I want you to do it.It’s okay.I’ll show youhow.”
Lauriefelt Sasha’s arms close around his neck.Laurie seized him in histurn, and they briefly fought, a gentle, impassioned struggle.Coldscents of crushed grass rose up, and a deeper tang of earth andtheir own warming bodies.When Sasha twisted in his embrace androlled to lie on his side, Laurie sat up and stripped off his longwinter coat.“Here.”
“What?Don’t be stupid; it’ll get filthy.”
“It’ll wash.”Laurie spread the coat and guided Sasha tostretch out on it.“Don’t you understand?”he asked unsteadily froman aching throat.“I’d pull the bloody sky down for you if Icould.”
“The old star-eaten blanket?”
“Yes.Yes, love.”
“All right.Take mine off too.I want to feel you whenyou…”
“Oh, don’t.You’ll be cold.”
“You’ll keep me warm.In fact…” Before Laurie could stop him,Sasha had struggled out of the parka and his sweater too.Underneath it was one of Laurie’s own T-shirts, the remains of hisambassadorial disguise, left behind in their hurry to escape thehouse.Laurie watched, entranced, as he stripped this too over hishead and sat there, skinny and lovely, warm brown skin catchingsunset light through the trees.
Gooseflesh started to rise.“God, come here.”Laurie gaspedand pushed him down onto the coat.For a moment all he could thinkabout was fending off the cold from the exposed flesh, but Sashawrithed under him, taut backside pushing up.Their hands met underhis belly, and they fumbled for the buttons of his jeans.Sashamoaned in assent as Laurie got hold of the waistband and hauledthem down.“Sash, are you…are you sure?”
“Gonna kill you and bury your body out here in these woods ifyou don’t.Right.Pull my coat back a second.In the pocket:condoms and some stuff to make it easier.”
Reachingfor the parka, Laurie pulled out the packet and the tube.Yes, thiswas the part he had glossed over in his dreams.He was ashamed thathe had left it to Sasha.
“Will it hurt you?”
“Not if you just get me ready a bit first.Listen, ves’tacha.Ihad my tests.A doctor comes out to the camp.I’m clean—God knowshow—but the rubbers are there if you want them.”
“I feel so bloody ignorant.”
“Don’t.You’re not.It’s just a first time.”He put a hand backblindly and seized Laurie’s for a moment.“Here.The tube.Open itup and put some on you, then some on your fingers, and…” But hereeven streetwise Sasha ran out of words and instructions.He layflat and buried his face in the crook of one arm.“Please, Laurie.Just do it.”
And, after all, itwaseasy.Laurie lay for a while, listening to thecalls of roosting blackbirds—the cry of a first twilight owl,haunting and wild across the heath.Wind in the trees, althoughdown here among their roots, the air was still.He could hearSasha’s ragged breathing and his own.The rest of the world hadstopped for him.It ended where the woodland melted into dusk, afew yards away all around them.Everything he needed was here.Heuncapped the lubricant tube, clumsily covering the fingers of hisright hand in the sticky gel.Sasha twitched as he slid the touchinto the cleft of his backside, and Laurie reached up his freehand.“Sasha.”
“Why am I frightened now?Been screwed over a car boot by asix-foot skinhead; why—”
“Ssh.”Laurie pushed an arm over Sasha’s shoulder, down acrosshis chest.Sasha inhaled softly as if surprised at the embrace,then seized it and hung on.He opened his legs, drew one knee up alittle, and in the space his movement opened up, Laurie suddenlyfound the tense little circle of his entrance.It felt too small toadmit anything.Holding his breath, he rubbed the tip of his middlefinger across it, circled it, pressing gently in, until Sashashuddered in his arms and the tiny muscle ring gaped.Fightingdisbelief, Laurie kept up the pressure, closing his eyes in Sasha’shair as he slipped his finger inside.All the way.The boundarybroached, Sasha did not resist him, and he groaned in what soundedlike relief when the penetration increased.Lost in wonder at thefeel of it, the strangeness—that tight, guarding circle, thenbeyond it, the heat, the silky space rippled through with musclecontractions—Laurie pushed at him, and then when Sasha buckedagainst his hand and made a frantic sound of encouragement, did itharder, bringing his index finger into the hole.A firm movementand that went in, his anus fluttering wide to admit the inwardthrust—then closing, clenching hard, tearing a cry out of both ofthem.Terrified that he had hurt him, Laurie tried towithdraw.
But theconvulsion ceased, and Sasha was suddenly warm, melted satinbeneath him, around his hand.He let go his bruising clasp onLaurie’s arm.“That’s it,” he whispered.“I’m ready, ves’tacha.Ican take you.Fuck me now.”
Laurie shuddered, but his cock had come up so hard inside hisjeans that he could hardly breathe, and there was no denying thator Sasha’s slow, sensuous shift onto his hands and knees.Laurieknelt behind him, easing his fingers out of Sasha’s backside.Awkwardly, gel-slicked grip slipping, he undid buttons and zip.Didnot dare touch himself.He was close, hot electrical flashesrunning down his spine, so ready he knew his own grasp would melthim to orgasm.His shaft sprung straight and hard for the target,and he wondered with his last coherent thought what the fuck wasmeant to beunnaturalabout this.Glancing down, he saw in the silvery, uncertainlight how the head came to engagement, how Sasha eased back againstit, a movement of welcome, as if Laurie had been lost and was atlast coming home.He thrust, burying himself deep in Sasha’s flesh.Now the rippling contractions that had squeezed his fingers ran upand down his cock, the muscle ring clenching and releasing with hismovements, the pressure at once almost painful and unbearablysweet.
Sasha,braced on his arms, swung his head around to look at him,whispered, “Laurie, make me come now,” and seized the hand thatLaurie had clenched on his hip bone to steady him.“Hold me.Makeit happen now.”He dragged the hand down, and Laurie got the idea,reached under his belly and seized his cock.A few morethrusts—half a dozen jerks of the rigid shaft—and he was there;they both were.Laurie threw his head back.Through a red haze, hesaw stars blazing out in the treetops, caught in their strippedtwigs.Sasha blazed out like a star in his grasp—climaxed inopenmouthed silence, bursting in his hand.Laurie sobbed rawly,thrusting and spending inside him, until Sasha went limp underneathhim, dropping them both down flat and gasping onto the rumpledcoat.
When hecould see again, Sasha was leaning over him, tenderly pickingleaves out of his hair.Laurie lay flat on his back.His breathwould not settle.Every time he found a pace for it, he wouldremember some detail of what they had just done and break intolaughter or fractured gasps.
“Are you all right, ves’tacha?”
