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“Are you ever serious?”
“Not really, no.” Not serious. But not exactly funny either. Just sharp and evasive and more precarious than I could bear anyone to see. I pressed against him a little, remembering the scent of him from when he’d carried me into the boat. It shouldn’t have been familiar—I hadn’t known him long enough for that—but part of me…wanted it to be? To cling to a man who smelled of wood and soap, cold mornings and warm nights. “Of the two things I’ve ever been serious about,” I said, “one closed its door in my face. And the other, I walked away from myself. Now take me to bed.”
It was meant to sound sultry or commanding. Anything,basically, that wasn’t pleading. I couldn’t have told you how well I succeeded with that, but Leo just nodded. And in an ideal world, what would have happened next was that I would have climbed him like ivy up an oak tree and we would have staggered into his bedroom in a frenzied pornographic tangle. Unfortunately, there wasn’t space and my ankle, while better, still wasn’t bearing weight easily.
So I hopped and we shuffled, first through the bathroom—which I was expecting to be grim but was actually fine, better than fine, gleaming even—and then into his bedroom. This too surprised me because it hadn’t occurred to me you could fit a small double bed onto a narrowboat. It left only limited space for passing by, but I had no interest in passing by. I was—rarely—where I wanted to be. Even the part of me that was waiting to feel trapped was temporarily subdued by the part of me delighting in a space that was about ninety percent blankets.
“I need to see to the stove,” said Leo as soon as he’d got me settled on the edge of the bed.
I curled my good leg around him. “Do you?”
“Yes, because if it goes out in the middle of the night, we’ll be freezing.”
To my leg, I added a hand to the collar of his T-shirt, pulling him down. “Kiss me first?”
His beard was, indeed, soft. And his mouth. And his kiss. Which I allowed for a moment or two before I shucked him open like an oyster and showed him exactly the sort of sex I intended for us to be having. I drew back before he did—a little needing is goodfor a lover—and enjoyed the sight of him with his lips swollen and his pupils blown, his hair ravaged by my fingers.
“The stove,” I reminded him.
“Right,” he said.
And stumbled away like a man in a dream.
4
I took advantage of Leo’s absence to undress. It was never something I liked anyone else to be involved in, and after the debacle with my jeans, I was glad for an opportunity to regain some control over how I was seen. That was the thing about bodies. Clothed or naked allowed you all kinds of choices. The middle was just a mess.
Leo’s bedding was a pragmatic flannelette in a blue-and-grey tartan check, over which he’d draped a woollen throw in herringbone slate. That I immediately dispensed with, intending to be heat enough for him tonight, and then sprawled out against his pillows. Tucking one hand behind my head, I used my other to stroke myself from partial to full hardness.
This section of the boat was fairly dark, but the boathouses offered a scattering of gold as hard and haphazard as broken porcelain and, through the glass-fronted doors to the bow, came a stream of dusty moonlight that drifted over me like a wedding veil. I looked good in gold and silver, with the shadows gathered in the concave places of my ribs and hips and collarbones. A little too thin, as ever. But nottootoo thin—I’d been there before and missedit sometimes, unspeakably. Moving through the world, hollow and hungry like the wolf.
“Fuck me,” said Leo, finding me exactly as I’d intended.
I smiled at him, finding my wolf not so distant after all. “That’s the plan.”
“Oh, I…” He vanished briefly into the bathroom, returning with lube and condoms, and then standing—blushing—at the bedside as if he wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next.
“I do like a man who’s prepared,” I began, “but—” And then I remembered my phone was at the bottom of the Thames.
“What’s wrong?”
“I have an app that’s got all my details on it.”
“Your details?”
“Yes.” I made an impatient gesture. “You know, when I was last tested and what the results were.”
“Then you’re a lot more prepared than me,” said Leo, putting down his supplies and pulling his hoodie over his head. Distracting me with smooth, still summer-golden skin and the kind of muscles you only got from work. “Looks like we’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way.”
As if the sight of him half-bare was going to make me want him anything other than bare in every way it was possible to be. “I’m on PrEP if—”
He shook his head. “I’m negative and it’s been years. You still shouldn’t take the risk, though.”
“I like taking risks. It makes it more fun.”22
“Marius—”
“Oh, come on. This isn’t the ’80s or the ’90s or whenever. John Hurt isn’t telling us we’re going to die anymore.” I passed my thumb over the precome that had gathered upon my cock and licked it lazily clean again. “I’ll wear a condom if it makes you feel safer. But only for you. Not for society. Not for shame. And certainly not for fear.”
