Page 70 of By Any Means

He’d been so inside his self-centered head that it hadn’t even occurred how they might find August there. In what specific context. And could that be—? He mentally recoiled. “No,” he said again. “So, you do have sisters?”

“Mhm. Three of them. We’ll think it through, then. Closed-door trysts he could’ve already had. Been having. Yeah?”

Chary stared. “How do you know everything?” he asked, somewhat defeatedly.

“Part of it has to do with having eyes.” Laurie winked. “So… no use bustin’ doors to massage rooms.”

Chary nodded, then shuddered. “I hope not.”

Laurie grinned. Then came a sudden, soft, but unmistakable groan from the corner; Laurie’s grin slid a bit, and his eyes widened.

“More about your brother,” he said, clearing his throat, “before this towel really does embarrass me.”

He turned into the main room, the one that had a swimming pool and plaster frescoes. Chary followed. It was louder there, echoing, and would’ve been brighter from a distant skylight if it hadn’t been midnight. The cooling room was filled with all kinds of white men: some lying in nearly flat lounge chairs, some sitting on benches; some leaning against silver railings, some swimming, waving their arms forth and back in the aquamarine water, holding on to rope loops with an arm. Over to the left, there was the hot room, partially divided from the plunge by a stunning amount of plate glass.

“Chatty, isn’t he, your brother?” Laurie said over his shoulder. “Friendly?”

“What?”

“I’ll be friendly,” offered one man, straightening from his lean into Laurie’s path. He was mustached, fairly young, and totally nude beneath a loose shirt. “Or his brother.”

Laurie laughed. “Maybe later, friend,” he said easily, sidestepping; the man shrugged away. “My instincts tell me the Russian plunge,” he said, to Chary. “He’s here for the social half of it, at long last. I don’t see him here; do you?”

Chary glanced back to find he couldn’t tell even which man had made Laurie his offer. All of them looked vaguely the same, mustached, bearded, groomed; nor, he thought meanly, were they any of them striking enough to be worth a minute of Laurie’s attention.

For shame, he reprimanded himself. And where would such shallow estimation place you?

No August present, either, though, nor Raberding. “No. Let’s try the cold plunge, yes. He has a fondness for them. There is one?”

“By the needle showers.” Laurie pointed.

Laurie was stopped and propositioned twice more before they reached the other end of the pool. Part of it seemed to be their direct beeline, backward to the usual flow and out of place amidst the boneless relaxation, part of it Laurie’s general beauty, part of it… something else. Laurie seemed to realize what it was all at once. He halted.

“We don’t look claimed,” he muttered, sounding irritated. “Invested. Neither of us.”

Claimed? “Would that matter?”

“Dunno for sure, but I’d like to stop drawing glances.”

“I don’t think that will be possible,” Chary said carefully. Was there no mirror in your dressing room? You’re wearing only a towel, and those thighs⁠—

Laurie cursed. “I’ve been stupid. Not thinking. Can’t work a damned room. But of course we’re dry—tense—don’t look like we’re running off to fuck, even. Y’know what I mean?”

“We don’t?”

“No. Only look around. They ask where Victorian decency went; well, for sure I can’t see any. Everyone’s exposed as Adam.”

This seemed like a rather judgmental, un-Laurie-like thing to say. For a moment, Chary felt the old fear, that Laurie was a vice-society man, very undercover, hired by Raberding to expose him—vice men were known to partake, so to speak⁠—

“We look,” Laurie said, with a wry twist of his lips, “like normals.”

Chary suddenly understood. No wonder they were getting stopped every three feet. His fears were every other man’s fears. Laurie didn’t look like a man after a soak in a bathhouse, he looked like a man after a man, and in the worst way.

“Perhaps you look⁠—”

“If Raberding’s goons are around, we’ll stand out like sore thumbs.” Laurie turned his way. “Can I touch you?” he asked, eyes bright and blazing.

Chary lost his breath and the capability of his tongue to one swoop of his gut.