A peacelike nothing he had ever experienced before swept down on him fromthe van’s rust-flecked roof—a wild, rushing release of tension.Laurie fought it—he had things to do, didn’t he, people to carefor?—but there was no chance.Tears of relief suddenly spilled downhis face, and he had no more control of that than the softening ofrigid muscle all down his spine and limbs.“Jesus,” he whispered,and through rainbows saw Sasha reach for him, tenderly cupping theback of his skull in one hand, clasping his shoulder with theother, so that when he fell, it was gently, and his impact with themattress—and it felt like falling in slow-motion through a thousandfeet of sunny air—knocked him unresisting into sleep.
* **
Thincurtains letting in a thin gray light.For a long while, Lauriewatched it, only breathing.He felt as if he had been unstitchedand rewoven.As if all the meshing threads that made up his beinghad been gently untangled, laid out flat so that the grit, the dirtand broken glass had fallen out from them, and then unhurriedly putback together.
As ifhis senses had been washed clean too.When he listened, he couldhear with crystalline purity the early-morning sounds of theencampment.The burr of a generator coming to life.In the very fardistance, the silvery slither of Zaga’s chain.Oh, and he couldfeel… A shudder ran through him, deep and wonderful: he could feelSasha, warm and naked, curled around his back.Sasha’s arm wastucked under his head.The other was tightly holding his waist, andLaurie remembered that in his strange dreams of that night, thisliving safety belt had held him clear of monsters.“Sash,” hewhispered, the word a feather brush to skin in the palelight.
“Laurie?”
He putback a hand.He didn’t even want to look yet—just to feel the planeof Sasha’s hip.The bone was less stark now, the skin like dampsilk.He moved his hand down and felt his palm brush Sasha’scock—quiescent but responding instantly to the touch.“Yes,” Lauriemurmured, smiling against the pillow, taking a blind hold onhim.
“You’re not even awake.”
“I don’t need to be.Please just do it.Like we did…like we didon the heath.”
Sashakissed his ear.“You’re still stoned from Mama Luna’srotgut.”
Laurie,turning, gave him a look which he hoped conveyed full lucidity.Sasha’s shaft was now stiff and heavy in his hand.He couldn’timagine how it would feel inside.“Maybe a bit,” he admitted.“Butit wasn’t Rohypnol.Sash, don’t mess about.”
“I have to—just for a second.Hang on, love.”
Laurieclosed his eyes.He curled right over on his side, drawing hisknees up.Sasha must have undressed him after he’d fallen asleep,and he was glad of it.By the time he’d reached the camp lastnight, his clothes had been damp with cold sweat, acrid with fear.Now he was only warm skin beneath the sleeping bag.Ready.He heardthe crinkle of foil and recalled for the first time that, finally,he had not put a condom on for Sasha the other night on the heath.That Sasha was doing so for him tightened his throat with love andshame, and he drew breath to say something but lost the thought aswarm fingers parted his buttocks.“Sasha…”
“Yes.Yes.It’s gonna hurt a bit, even with thelubricant.”
“I know.It’s okay.”
“Oh, ves’tacha.You don’t know anything.”
Sashaput his arms around him again, that sacred safety belt, and he hadbeen right.Laurie knew nothing at all.He groaned and fought asthe pressure at his entrance became tight, then huge, thenunbearable, and then just as he thought he would rip apart or haveto beg Sasha to stop, some spasm of his straining muscle ring, somepart of his struggle, suddenly opened him up.He sank his face intothe pillow and felt Sasha move to cover him.His warm weight wasabsolute.Laurie heaved up against it in relief, choked criestearing from him.“Don’t let me go!”
“I won’t.Laurie, that’s it.”
Laurieseized the hand Sasha had pushed under his neck to support him.Hekissed it, sucked at its fingers, finally turned his face into itspalm and sobbed as the hot spear pressed deeper and higher insidehim.Convulsions shook him, reflexive efforts of repulsion, butthese only carried Sasha farther in—Sasha, with infinitegentleness, pinned him and began to thrust.Curled up tight, Laurielost himself in the rocking dark.The tidal movements hurt him fora short while longer, then, as Sasha groaned and drove into himharder, found a place in the depths of him that responded withuncontrollable pleasure.Laurie could not speak, could not get aword out to tell Sasha not to stop—that his life depended on thatmotion continuing, deep and fast—but then it wasn’t necessary; hisorgasm boiled up without warning, a detonation that took place asmuch inside him as in the place where his cock was caught andsqueezed between his thigh and belly.He felt Sasha wrap himselftight around his body.Heard him whisper, hot against his ear,“God.Now!”
Theirvoices lifted and wove incoherently together in the caravan’s dampair.Laurie thrashed, climax drawing out long, white-hot with theknowledge of his lover exploding and spending inside him.Hetwisted the pillow in both hands, feeling a bloodred darknessthreaten, the edge of overload.Then the pressure inside him eased,leaving him sobbing in loss and satisfaction and release, returninghim slowly to earth.
Hewanted to see his lover.Without thinking of anything else, hetwisted over onto his back.The movement tugged Sasha out of himawkwardly and hard, and both dissolved into pained laughter.“God!”Sasha said rawly.“Are you all right?”
“No.Ow.Yes, fine—better than anything, better than…” Lauriefell breathlessly silent, and they struggled into an exhaustedmutual embrace.
* **
An alarmclock buzzed, jolting them both back to the surface.Laurie groanedas Sasha reached to switch it off, breaking the warm, dampinterlock of their limbs.The room was brighter now.Had theyslept?He wasn’t sure.At the moment he was sure of one thing only.“Sash?”
Sashaburrowed back down against him.“Yes, love?”
“I don’t want to sound like a kid at the fairground, but can wedo that again?”
Sashabroke into laughter.He kissed Laurie’s brow, then for goodmeasure, his eyelids and mouth.“You liked the ride?I’m glad tohear you say so in daylight, because”—he hesitated, then finishedinto Laurie’s waiting silence—“because to fuck you while you had askinful of darozha was questionable at best.”
“Oh, no,” Laurie said.“No, I wanted it.I want itnow.”
“Ah, ves’tacha, we can’t.”
“We can.”For all his difficulty with the word, to hear thatsoft-voiced fuck from Sasha’s lips was a powerful turn-on toLaurie.He was getting hard again, and when he pushed up, he feltthe pulsing heat of Sasha’s response.“Can, Sash.”
“It’s not that.I have to go to work.”
