“Oh fucking Christ!” he gasped, his expression horrified. “Fuck, sorry. No, no, no.” He slid so fast into reverse, he landed with a thump on the floor, then was up and stumbling to the door while I still had a death grip on my cock, willing it not to explode.
“James…” I jumped up, narrowly avoiding him slamming the door into my nose. The bathroom door lock clicked into place, and I could hear his harsh breaths and garbled curses as he ran water into the basin.
“James.” I knocked softly on the door. “It’s okay. Please don’t be upset.”
There was some low mumbling, nothing I could make out, then a clearer, “Please go away, Edwin.” He sounded anguished.
“I can’t do that, love,” I said gently. “All I want is to keep you safe and happy. You’re not happy right now. I get you might feel embarrassed, but I promise you, it’s all right.”Why is he so freaked out?
Silence.
“James, please don’t make me force the lock. I need to know you’re safe in there. My anxiety is rising with every moment you stay quiet. I’m sure you don’t want that.” I did a quick mental count of how many windows we had open. I couldn’t whisper as he wouldn’t hear me, but I didn’t want our private business overheard by anyone, no matter how remote the chance. Luckily, today Trace was busy off at some market or other, so even if I raised my voice a fair bit, hopefully only James would hear me. I tried again. “Look, can we at least talk about it? You obviously feel awkward, but I don’t get why it’s bothered you so much.” I smiled to myself. “I’m flattered, honestly.”
There was a strangled curse that could have beenfuck’s sake, then the lock scraped and James hurtled out, knocking into me as he turned sharply towards the living room, not the bedroom. I followed him, puzzled, my libido now relegated to Things That Don’t Matter. Something was really bothering my shadow. I’d thought, hoped, he’d been doing better recently, but this concerned me.
He stood stiffly in the far corner, his back to me, the knuckles of his fingers bone white as they clenched in his hair. I approached him carefully, unsure if he would register my bare feet on the rug and unwilling to creep up on him when he was already upset.
“James?” I’d never been in this position before. Iknewhe found me attractive, and I’d been fairly sure his feelings for me ran considerably deeper thanlikefor some time,even if he didn’tyet feel able to verbalise them. So why was he so mortified? All three of us had been getting closer, or I thought we had, and James loved being watched — he couldn’t fake that. I could tell he really got off on it, even if his blushes could have powered the national grid. My supernatural hearing could also confirm he sometimes wanked — thank the gods for noise-cancelling headphones to avoid eavesdropping, no matter how tempted I was — so really, this wasn’t much more than that, except he was probably keen to change into clean pyjamas. Unless I was missing something.
I advanced a few more paces. “It’s okay, you know.”
“It isnotbloody okay!” Eyes blazing, he whirled around, fists flying up in a defensive stance. “Nothing about this isokay.”
I took a step back and raised my own hands palms outwards. “James, it’s me. You’re safe here, it’s okay. You had a hot dream and jizzed in your jammies. It happens. You’re not the first. I swear, I didn’t think it was a come-on. You were asleep.” I chanced another quick smile. “Like I said, I’m flattered.”
“You shouldn’t be! I wasn’t fucking dreaming about you!” His chest heaved with emotions that appeared impervious to all my efforts at lessening the tension in the room. He seemed poised to fight me or collapse and I honestly couldn’t tell which way it might go.
I decided to aim for levity with a note of seriousness on top. “It doesn’t matter, love. It was a dream. Nobody cares what you get up to in your sleep.”
“Icare.” His bottom lip trembled. “I care,” he repeated. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”
Oh hell, I really hope it wasn’t some fucked-up sex dream about Cormack. I don’t reckon there’s a therapist in the land that could deal with that.Praying he wouldn’t recoil from me,I closed the distance between us and roped my arms around him, pulling him to my chest. “I repeat, nobody is going to judge youfor a dream.” I waited a few seconds. “Do you want to tell me about it or…?”
He arched his back, but didn’t entirely break himself free from my hold. His eyes bleak, he thumped half-heartedly at my rib cage with loose fists. “I was dreaming aboutTrace.” He shook his head. “I like him. I really do. Except I want to be with you. I know you treat me like a boyfriend and say you love me, but I know it’s not real, because it’s a stupid fantasy, isn’t it? I’m pathetic. A washed-up, ill-educated loser who was an easy target, first forhim,and then as a source of blood on tap.”Okay, that one hurts, James.“We don’t even fuck because I’m a messed up, useless virgin, but I have a sodding sex dream about our on-off house guest who fucks you because I can’t. He’d be a much better boyfriend than me. But Iwantyou. Why didn’t I dream aboutyou?”
All the fight went out of him as he suddenly sagged against me. “I’m not even really certain I fancy Trace.” A hitch in his breathing. “No, I do, that’s a lie. I do. I don’twantto fancy him because I’m such a useless wanker who can’t even fuck the man he’s sure about.” A ragged sniff. “Trace is really nice and I get on so well with him. He’s kind, and he’s hot, sort of—no, definitely. Oh God, maybe I just like his personality? Perhaps I do want to fuck him and I’m repressing it. Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me, Eddie? I just want to benormal.”
Oh, sweetheart.There was so much to unpick that my brain felt like it was boiling in my skull. I would have to deal with most of what he’d said later. My knees felt weak with relief that Cormack hadn’t been involved. The rest we could sort through given time, I hoped.
I drew him with me to the sofa and dragged him down to sit on my lap, enveloping us both in the blanket I now kept there for exactly this purpose.
“I’m going to hold you for a bit, then I’ll make you a cup of tea. You’ve obviously been bottling up a ton of shit, probably unconsciously seeing as you’ve totally overreacted to a wet dream, and given yourself a right shock by the looks of it, but we don’t have to deal with it this minute. Cuddle, then tea, all right?”
“Yeah, okay.” Reluctant, but I’d take it.
He curled himself into a ball on my lap, tucking himself under the blanket. I could hear his heart hammering, but as I ran my hand in slow circles over his back, his breathing evened out and his pulse rate returned to normal. He slept then, probably exhausted by his outburst. He was out cold for about an hour. I was content to simply hold him. My mind, however, didn’t stop whirring. How had I believed he was doing so much better than he evidently had been? I felt wretched. My poor boy. Guilt drenched me; how had I been so wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself about not getting fucked for a few days that I’d missed the signs that James was falling apart? Had there been signs? Surely there must have been.
When he stirred, he was confused at first to realise we weren’t in bed. Then, his pulse kicked off when he evidently remembered how we’d ended up in the living room. I kissed his sweaty head and waited for him to wake up properly.
“So,” I ventured, when I could sense he was calm enough to listen, “this business about you not considering us boyfriends, huh?” His pulse shot up again. “Why would you think you can’t call yourself my boyfriend? You already know I love you.” Another pulse spike. I recommenced rubbing more circles on his back, interspersing the movements with a light pressure over the knobbles of his spine.
Eventually, he said, under his breath and into my chest, “I can’t be your boyfriend. We don’t have sex.”
I huffed a silent laugh. “I was born in the 1800s, darling. Marriage came before fucking. Well,” I amended, “not all the time obviously, but it was theoretically supposed to. And wedohave sex, fuck, make love, whatever you want to call it. We just don’t do anything that involves anal. Which is perfectly fine with me, as you know, because I remind you I’m fine with it every time we remove our clothes. We can absolutely call ourselves boyfriends if you’d like. If you want to call it something more than that too, I’d be thrilled.”I already told you I’m in love with you, darling.
It felt like an eternity before he raised his head to look me in the face. “Really?” The naked hope in his eyes made me swallow hard. We’d been through a version of this before and I’d truly believed he knew I was sincere. What had caused him to doubt me, or Trace, or himself, this badly?
I didn’t know if we could change anything to help him believe me, but I already knew I’d agree to pretty much anything he asked of me. Since James had toppled through the doorway of Sorley’s flat looking like the victim of abuse he unfortunately had been, I’d known I was a goner. I’d even gone as far as to be deliberately callous in the way I referred to him — in front of him too, to my shame — in the hope I’d convince myself I didn’t give two shits about him. That plan had failed spectacularly. The moment my sire had arrived and I’d felt compelled to publicly claim James as mine, I’d known I was smitten. I was grateful on an hourly basis that he was at the very least physically attracted to me. Hearing him state we were like boyfriends had touched a part of me I’d long since thought dead. Academically, wewereboyfriends. Same as me and Trace. And Trace and James, because if you were using sex as a definition of a relationship, then stop fucking gatekeeping, because what about asexual folks? The affection was there, clear and true from Trace’s side, and I was positive James felt the same, even if he wasn’t ready tocall what we had love. He knew, I was sure he did, which made his wobble rather scary. I was out of my depth. But there was only me here right now, so I had to be enough.
