Christmas

"Alright," I say. "I believe you." This has to be the way to make him stop. I get to my knees and shuffle back towards him. His hips wobble and tilt into the valley in the mattress that my knees make. I start to unbutton his shirt.

Three buttons, four, I've undone, and he hasn't stopped me. That's his stomach my knuckles are brushing, abs firm and silky as unripe plums. I undo another and that's all of them; I pull his shirt-tails untucked and push the sides of his shirt apart. I run my open hand across his belly. His face is too close to focus on, but his chin is tucked down, as if he's watching my hand.

I take his hand from where it's lying on his thigh, and move it to my cock. He has to stop me now.

His fingers curl around my cock. "Bizarre," he says mildly. He looks at my cock like he might an exotic bird at the zoo.

His hand starts to move. I bite my lip; bite back a moan. He's going to take it back, any time now he's going to take it back.

He watches my chest rise just a little too fast as I inhale, and chuckles. He says softly, "Bizarre isn't what it is to you, is it?"

"Oh come on, Sebastian," I breathe. "Don't tell me the workings of the human penis are some great mystery."

His hand and my cock make a soft, swishing sound. He's not taking it back. I reached my hand out and lay it, palm down, on his chest. I start to circle the pad of my thumb around his nipple. His eyes flicker, but he doesn't object. The nipple puckers.

I look carefully at him. I move my hand down. "You've got one too, don't you?" I say.

"Well observed," he says.

I unbuckle his belt and push down his fly.

I have his in my hand, all soft, elastic skin, firming and rising to my touch like a cat arching into a stroking hand. Warm balls and the hair beneath them fine and damp.

Then my own cock feels dangerously hot and filled-tight in his hand, and the crook of his thumb is smearing wetness on the head. "No, no no," I say softly, "no no."

I tug at his wrists. "Come on! Rubbers in the drawer."

He smiles like an asshole and goes for the drawer, but I can't care. My cock is cold without his hand. "Lube," I say, "yeah? You..."

"I know," he says, amused. And he already has it, and he's warming it on his fingers.

I lift my knees. He shuffles between them. His thighs cradle my ass, warm.

And it's rub, rub, rub against my hole, then he eases his fingers into me, smooth. "Don't you know?" he says. "There are a lot of Manhattan debutantes who'll only do this with a *really* special guy."

Snap of the rubber as he makes sure the end's sitting right. Then he's putting his cock in.

There's that moment when it feels like the cock is *compacting* your insides but your insides just can't give any more, and it's kind of sick and achy and fuck, fuck... and then the resistance gives, and he's sliding.

Those are his fucking balls nudging my ass.

He murmurs, as if about to speak, and I say, "Mercy! Mercy, man. Just shut up."

He subsides, and fucks me. It's tight and a little painful at first, like it always is. But I'm good and lubed, and the discomfort blends into the beginnings of pleasure from that spot inside.

I guess, beautifully confronting, how very stretched wide you are when somebody puts a cock in you. How your body complains.

I lie back, rock my hips gently and enjoy the view. His pretty rosebud nipples move back and forth. His supple little biceps clench and unclench.

He works me. Slowly, my muscles melt, until I can't feel the stretching any more. Till it just feels like warm honey.

He makes a sound. Something between an *mmph* and a vowel sound. It's unmistakably the cadence of Sebastian's voice. And it occurs to me that this is Sebastian above me.

I have this flash of him in tennis gear when we were ten, almost photographic quality. The realisation zips out in rays, shooting up my spine, down my legs.

My mouth is open, and someone is saying, "Oh Jesus, harder. Harder." I'm bucking my hips up to meet him.

And, with a gasp, he rides to meet the new rhythm.

Jesus, he knows what he's doing, this one. Never with a man before, but still. So practised, fluid.

We're moving so fast now, his hips slap as they hit my ass. There's a sharp smell of sweat, a zing of wheat and ferment. His chest, his shoulders are all lovely and shiny as they work above me.

"Fuck," he says. Breathy, but quiet.

I swear I can't see. I can tell there's visual data coming in, but I just... can't see.

Something comes out of my mouth, and I think it's "Oh, honey."

Then I'm nearly bucking him off, trying to get him ever so deep inside. Spurting onto my belly. Grabbing at him.

Right up in my ear, he shushes me. Waits for me to let go of his back, his ass. At last I do.

He starts to ride me again, briskly. Time passes. Though when it has passed, I'm not quite sure where I've been.

He stiffens, and with a nice, big, open-mouthed *ah*, he comes.

Sebastian, coming inside me. Behind my eyelids there is another sudden, bright second of... something. God. Halloween costumes, when we were seven.

He slips out, and lies still on top of me.

And I'm just having a nice time lying there under him, all available limbs wrapped around him, when he says, "Honey?" In a certain, very *Sebastian* tone of voice. Close to laughing.

"Hey," I say, "don't knock it till you've tried it."

Then I think about it some more. And all the limbs are already in place, so it's really very easy to roll him right over underneath me.

I prop myself up on my elbows and look down at him, hard. He breathes quickly from being flipped so fast. I watch his cogs turn.

"You wish," he says.

"Asshole," I say. But not like I mean it.

He trails his fingers across my ass. Trails them closer to the centre, where I'm still wet. "Whose asshole are we talking about?" he says. Sugary-nice as pie.

"Do you talk to your mother with that mouth?"

"I don't talk to my mother," he says, without missing a beat.

And even coming from Valmont, I think I'd better leave *that* one alone.

I drop my head onto the pillow above his shoulder.

After a while, though something tells me not to, I start to rub my forehead on his chest.

"Blaine, who would have thought you were such a faggot?"

We let that one sit for a minute.

I lay my ear on his heart. "No, there's really nothing in there, is there?"

But I can hear it beating. Regularly, calmly. The tiny vibration tickles the squashed cartilage of my ear.

"You defame me," he says. I'm listening for some catch in the voice, but there's not a false note. He continues, "I mean, do you know many old ladies I had to help across the road, how many orphans I had to succour to get where I am today?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." And there's the catch I've been listening for, only it's in my voice. I shift up his body until I can look him in the eye. Keeping a quirk in the corner of my mouth, I tell him, "I know exactly how few digits are needed to count up your good deeds towards the infirm. Might I suggest, if you want to keep me from releasing this damaging information, you'd best let me suck your dick some time?"

I wait as a smile spreads across his face. "You know, I find it very hard to entirely rule the possibility out," he says.

He cranes his head up off the pillow, laying his cheek against mine to speak more directly into my ear.

"But you do know, don't you, that..." He stops part way through. Valmont, lost for words. Leaving his cheek resting against mine. Possibly quite innocently... breathing on my ear.

God, is this kindness? From him? Jesus, it's awful.

He tries again. "You do know that I haven't... seen the light? Don't you?"

I think that little brush was his eyelashes against my cheekbone.

I turn on the nasal voice, the bullshitting-Greg voice. "Of course! Many are called, but few are chosen, after all."

And I'm up and off him, across the other side of the bed.

"Want a joint?" I say. Because Mother Mary and all the saints in heaven, I need one.

He's grinning at me like a loon.

Like a particularly evil loon.

It wasn't kindness. Jesus, let the games begin.

-end of "Christmas"-