Page 56 of The House of the Red Balconies

“All right,” said Zo finally, gathering himself up and pulling his robe around him. “It’s your turn, my love.” He reached out a hand invitingly.

Hylas started, swallowing a mouthful of pastry. “You don’t have to call me that—and you don’t have to—to—But you probably want to. You’re very considerate. Don’t get up, though. I’ll⁠—”

He sprang to his feet and pulled his tunic off over his head. He was bare underneath.

“You!” Zo was laughing. “You came out here with no⁠—”

“So did you!” Hylas shot back, his cheeks flaming red.

“I’m a seductive and highly trained companion—you’re a man who never had sex before yesterday!”

Hylas swallowed convulsively. “It won’t always be like this,” he said, and perhaps he was partly trying to reassure himself. He looked down at himself, naked and half aroused in the sunlight. “I’ll be able to just sit with you the way we used to. But right now—I feel as if something has burst inside of me. I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day yesterday. How it felt to touch you. I hope I am not making myself tedious.”

“I never got to be part of anyone’s initiation before.” Zo got up from his chair and crossed the little space between them. He ran his hands down Hylas’s spare, pale body as he spoke. “It’s tremendous fun. But wouldn’t you like to lie down on the grass?”

“I—I—would you like that? I would,” he amended hastily, “if it’s not uncomfortable for you.”

Zo put his hands on Hylas’s shoulders and gave him the slightest little push backward. Hylas’s eyes went wide as he fell willingly back. He sank down awkwardly onto the grass, and Zo dropped down to join him.

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” Zo admitted, touching Hylas’s chest. “Outside, on the grass.”

“You’ve only to say, my prince.” Hylas covered Zo’s hand with his own. “I am at your service.”

His tone was light, his expression serious; he meant it, but not in the way another man might have meant it. Zo stored the moment away to muse on later.

He lay down, drawing Hylas to lie beside him. It was still slightly too cold for this, so they twined together, and Zo tugged his robe around them both. He explored Hylas’s body lazily as he kissed him.

“Someday I will make you tell me what you’ve always wanted to do,” Zo murmured. “And then I’ll do it to you.”

Hylas groaned, half-covering his face with one hand. Zo laughed and rolled them easily over in the grass so that he was on top of his lover, Hylas’s lean thighs under his. He was getting hard again, as if making love to Hylas filled him up with vitality instead of draining him. He rubbed against Hylas, nuzzling with his lips at the fingers covering Hylas’s face.

“Move your hand, I want to see your loveliness when you come.”

Hylas made a noise between a sob and a laugh, but he did move his hand, reaching up to thread his fingers into Zo’s hair. And he was lovely when he came, with Zo riding the swells of his pleasure. He squeezed his eyes shut and cried out, clutching at Zo’s hip and bucking under him.

Zo moved his wet hand to his own cock, giving himself a few quick strokes to see if he had another climax in him. To his surprise, he did, a small but sweet one. He collapsed on top of Hylas, his head on Hylas’s chest, delicious warmth spreading through his limbs. Birds sang up on the mountain, and the wind moved in the olive branches.

“I remember now,” Zo mumbled after they had lain there for a while. “This is why I like sex. Because it can be like this.”

“It’s not always?” asked Hylas thickly.

“Mm. Not in my experience, no.”

Hylas’s hand was on Zo’s back, stroking him through the fabric of his robe.

“You came twice,” he remarked. “Does that happen often?”

“Almost never, for me. Making love in the morning after a good night’s sleep seems a clever idea. Or maybe it’s just making love to you.”

Hylas kissed the top of Zo’s head and shifted under him. “I can pour you some tea, if you move a little.”

They moved, laughing, rolling onto one side so that Hylas could reach for the tea tray and fill Zo’s bowl without breaking their sticky embrace. Zo propped himself on one elbow.

“Is it common to feel … a little silly afterwards?” Hylas asked.

Zo sipped his tea, which was still just warm. He’d never heard it put that way before, but now that he thought about it, feeling silly afterward would explain a lot of the bedroom behaviour he’d observed in some past lovers. The hasty retreats, the weird insults that came out of nowhere; it was how a certain type of man acted when he felt you’d made him look foolish.

“Mm. I think so, probably. But you don’t have to. You’re with a friend.”