Jasim managed to slide a hand between their bodies, wrapped it around their cocks and jacked them off. Ru cried out as he came, and his come lubricated Jasim’s fingers enough that he brought himself off a moment later. Electricity shot down his veins, liquidising his bones as stars erupted behind his eyes.
Ru fell on his back at Jasim’s side, his chest heaving. “You know when you saidI don’t haveand I interrupted you? Were you going to say you didn’t have any tissues?”
Jasim laughed, then licked Ru clean.
Jasim drove back with Ru’s hand on his thigh, his fingers drawing circles and figures of eights. “Is there another place to stop?”
“You need to take a leak?”
Ru took hold of Jasim’s hand and put it on his crotch. Jasim laughed. “Are you evernothard?”
“Not around you.”
“Oh God.” Jasim pulled his hand away. “And I thought you were an innocent child.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No, but you are innocent.”
“Notthatinnocent. I’ve seen your…peepee. More than seen it.”
“Not innocent and you’re calling it that?” But Jasim laughed.
“My aunt used to call it my tinkle.Don’t forget to wash your tinkle. I hope you’re not playing with your tinkle.I sometimes was.”
Jasim smiled. “I’ve not heard that word used before.”
“I like the word cock. It’s sort of strong and…cocky. I suppose it’s because of the way a rooster struts around and when it gets excited, the wattles on the back of his neck swell up and get brighter. But a cock doesn’t have a penis.”
“They don’t?”
“Nope. Roosters do the foreplay bit by prancing around the hen and clucking a lot. They mount the hen but there’s no penetration when they transfer sperm. I wonder if they get any pleasure from doing it? I suppose they must. Or maybe it’s like scratching an itch. Just some instinct that makes them want to make hens have their offspring. We had chickens for a few years but they’d all died by the time my uncle had his accident.”
“Otherwise, I’d have been buying chickens too, would I?”
Ru rested his head on Jasim’s shoulder. “I was less attached to the chickens. Those that didn’t lay got eaten. It wasn’t wise to give them names.”
“Ah.”
“Are you a Muslim?”
“Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know. I just wondered.”
“That’s a difficult question. I was born a Muslim, but once I realised I was gay, that excluded me from the faith. Maybe one day, I’ll feel differently, but so much was damaged between me and my family in the name of Islam that I don’t see me feeling differently anytime soon. Do you have a religion?”
“Catholic when I was a small child. Though we only went to church occasionally. My aunt and uncle were Catholic too. My aunt used to make me read the bible to her, but my uncle left the room if she did. Looking back, I think that he felt some measure of guilt for what he’d done while my aunt lived in blissful ignorance. I replaced the son she’d lost so her world turned as normal, except of course she was mentally ill.”
“I’d have thought she’d have treated you better because she believed you were her boy.”
“Sometimes she did, but her mind wasn’t right. I never knew what I’d wake up to. A lovely cooked breakfast, or nothing. I felt sorry for her. I tried to be good. I stayed longer than I should have partly because of her.” He sighed. “Well, it’s over now. I won’t ever see her again.”
“Do you want to?”
“I don’t know. I thought I didn’t, yet so much of it wasn’t her fault. But I don’t see any benefit to either of us in me seeing her.”
When they got back to the field where Ru had left his bike, Jasim waited until Ru was cycling back to Benning Park before he followed. He worried Ru wasn’t safe at night on a country road, but when he made it back to the gate, Jasim waved and drove on. He wished he could trust his staff to keep quiet, but he couldn’t. They might not mean to let something slip, but it could happen.
