The Quirk (44 page)

“Don’t worry. It’s good for me to get used to the fact that he won’t be coming back. I’ll probably be fine tomorrow.” He turned. She stood in front of him. He reached out for her again and held her and knew that it was too soon. He wanted her still but not with the blazing intensity he wanted somebody else. They exchanged a kiss that to his relief she kept chaste and affectionate. They released each other, and she gathered up her bag and a light coat, and they moved to the door.

“Very well, dearest. At least you have a telephone now. That’s a comfort. Mr. Mather gave me the number. I won’t bother you, but please call when you feel like talking. For what it’s worth, I love you very dearly.”

“It’s worth everything. I don’t deserve it, but I’ll try.” He wanted her to go. What could he say to her if he didn’t know how he could live with himself, let alone anybody else?

The instant he had closed the door behind her, he shed his jacket and started pulling off his tie as he returned to the living room. His thoughts flew to the prince. His body was burning with a need for the prince’s body. His need had suddenly lit his disjointed consciousness a few days ago, and his mind had been clearing ever since. It was a simple reality around that he could reassemble his thoughts. Something appalling had happened to Patrice. Nicole had become a terrible question mark from which he shrank. His work, the future, whatever Mather had been trying to communicate to him–they all lay outside his power to control them. His body’s need fell within the possible. The prince had marked him in some way he couldn’t quite reconstruct. He had to repeat the experience to learn everything he could from it. He knew he had never felt anything like it with Patrice. He loved Patrice; he could never love the prince. He remembered a moment of revulsion against all queers, but he didn’t know what had prompted it. If he were one of them, he would have to think again. Patrice was the most wonderful person he had ever known, but physical need had come slowly. His need for the prince had apparently remained in him since he had first grappled with his body. Holding Nicole briefly had told him that he might need her again. What did it mean? He couldn’t start living again until he had finally penetrated this mystery in himself. The never-ending discovery of self–a life force, the only hope of salvation.

He continued to shed his clothes until he stood naked by the sofa. Thoughts of the prince had aroused him. He looked down at himself and wished he remembered the prince’s erection more clearly; it was the key that would unlock the mystery. He wanted to see it standing up for him again, choosing him unequivocally, stretching out with desire for him. He had not yet adjusted to having such thoughts and found them bizarre, perhaps even shameful, but he welcomed their healing power; they were prodding him back to the reality he had sought to flee. Had Patrice turned him into a cock worshiper?

He dropped onto the sofa, and his body was racked again with silent sobs. “Oh, God,” he gasped when he had them under control. “Why, monkey?” He spoke aloud to the presence he felt vividly all around him. He had wanted to kill him, but it was a comforting presence. Patrice’s infidelity still jarred–it had been a definitive reversion, not a haphazard relapse, an abandonment of all the values he had chosen for himself, a failure–but he would encourage him to be unfaithful every day if he would come back. What would life be without him? That was what he was going to have to find out.

He reached for his jacket and pulled the prince’s card out of his wallet and went to the new instrument and dialed the number. His heart began to beat rapidly with anticipation. He recognized the charming voice as soon as he heard it and felt himself lifting into full erection.

“Hello. Phil? Thank God you’re home.”

“Phil? No. Can it possibly be? How heavenly. Nicole said you weren’t well. How are you?”

“Better. I’ve got to see you. I called as soon as I could.”

“How sweet of you, darling. That’s the best news I’ve had in months. I was afraid you were displeased with me. I wouldn’t blame you if you had been. However, we can talk about that later. When shall we meet?”

Rod hesitated, feeling suddenly ridiculous. He didn’t know how to court a man. “Now? I mean soon? I suppose you’re busy.”

“I have a drinks date in half an hour and a dinner later. I’ll cancel everything and be with you in ten minutes. Will that do, darling?”

“Wonderful. You don’t know what it means to me.”

“And to me. You’ve turned me quite giddy again. Will we be seeing each other with nothing on?”

“I haven’t got anything on right now. Well, I’ve got a hard-on to be exact. If you want to make a night of it, you might bring some wine and anything to eat you have around the house. I’ve just got back.” He gave him the address.

“I’ll bring heaps. Considering the size of it, that cock must need lots of nourishment.”

Rod laughed. He hadn’t laughed since the last time he had seen the prince. In fact, he couldn’t remember much laughter for some time. A tough, lean, and bleak period. Doubtless what he’d come here for–to learn that life was grim. “You should see it. If you don’t hurry, I’m going to jerk myself off.”

“Don’t, darling. If nothing else, I’m a perfect antidote to masturbation. I’ll be right there.”

Rod hung up with another burst of laughter and went about gathering up his clothes with a renewed little spring in his step. Life wasn’t all solemn drudgery. Hadn’t he once thought he was happy here? He went back to the bedroom and put things away. One of Mather’s henchmen had evidently been here; everything had been left in order. There were gaps on hooks and shelves where Patrice’s things had been. That was all right; things didn’t matter. Patrice was still here. Rod could hear his merry laughter as he started to put on a dressing gown and then tossed it aside. Patrice knew that Rod didn’t want to cover up for the prince.

He returned to the living room, but he avoided the studio area. He would make himself whole again and then discover what was left for his work. He stepped into the bathroom-kitchen to make sure that everything was clean and tidy. He took towels back to the bedroom and checked to see if the essential product was where he expected it to be. Mather’s men were certainly models of efficiency.

He heard the knock on the door before he expected it, and his heart bounced up with welcome. He strode down the corridor, eager to be swept up once more in the raw, liberating excitement that dominated his memory of the other time. He opened the door and closed it after the prince stepped inside. The prince dropped a hamper at his feet, and they were in each other’s arms. Rod ran his hands over expensive cloth, exulting in the bulk of the magnificent body that he would make his for a little while. They kissed deeply and broke apart with laughter. Rod looked into the limpid blue of the prince’s gentle eyes while his fingers worked down over the buttons of his shirt. “My turn to undress you,” he said.

He hesitated an instant before he pulled the shirt open and reached for the fly, finding it very nearly inconceivable as he proceeded that he had the right–that it was expected of him–to open his friend’s pants and free the startlingly big cock that thrust out into his hands. He dropped down and ran his tongue along the underside of it. He had done this the other time, but his memory of it was dim; he was sharply conscious of what he was doing now. He felt knotted muscle beneath infinitely delicate skin. He listened with satisfaction to the delighted cries he provoked as he opened his mouth to receive it. The prince was struggling to get out of his shoes, and Rod offered a hand to help. He pulled trousers and shorts down to the floor, and the prince stepped closer. Jacket, tie, and shirt fell around him. Rod coiled his arms around sturdy thighs and hoisted slightly, testing the weight he could bring crashing down on him. A thought of the wrestling match he had proposed crossed his mind; it would be an even contest.

He raised himself to the lifting angle of the muscular flesh in his mouth and felt explosive strength gather in it. The prince’s cries became a rhythmic accompaniment to the pressures of his caressing tongue. Hands fluttered over his face in light-fingered encouragement. He was stirring his friend to a passion of wanting him, taking total control of a man’s desire and a man’s ecstasy. The need to dominate some area of his life was appeased. His groin ached with the response of his own straining erection. He drew his head back and looked at the hard shaft of flesh that he had nursed into rampant potency and remembered that his was bigger.

He sprang up with breathless triumphant laughter and took a step back and stood with his hips thrown forward and his thumbs resting on his thighs, proudly offering it for comparison.

The prince’s eyes were on it. “Good heavens, darling. Bigger and better than ever. And I’m not exactly a midget, am I? We’re quite sinfully gorgeous together.”

“Yeah,” he said, surveying the great golden body, astonished that their nakedness and the candidly lustful display of their erections, even what he’d just been doing with the prince’s, should seem so natural and inevitable. Nothing challenged or threatened him. “I could stand here gawking all night,” he exclaimed. “Come on.” He sprang into action, helping the prince snatch up his scattered clothes, and they hurried back to the bedroom. They dropped the clothes and headed for the bed. Rod seized the prince’s wrists as they reached it and faced him for further appraisal. The aristocratic beauty of the head required no comment; it was there for all the world to marvel at, although the tension of desire in the wide blue eyes was thrillingly for him. The similarity of their physiques–matching height and weight (although the prince’s smooth, burnished full-blown flesh made him look heavier), matching shoulders, matching hand spans (although the prince’s hands were beautiful), down to the nearly matching cocks–contained a residue of uneasiness until he recognized the uneasy delight of equality. They were equals; neither could be responsible for the other. He fell back on the bed and pulled the prince down on top of him. He let out an exultant shout. “Oh, God. Your body all over me. I’m about to come. Quickly, sweetheart.”

They made love to each other with their mouths and had quick simultaneous orgasms and lay together with their bodies loosely entwined.

“Yeah,” Rod said with the prince’s tongue running around the corner of his mouth. Now we can roll along with it and have it all.”

“I feel as if I’d been struck by lightning. For somebody who more or less
doesn’t,
you’re a revelation,” the prince said.

“I’m a novice, but it’s awfully easy to let myself go with you.”

“I’m stunned. I mean, when I was flinging myself at you, I did seem to rather bounce off.”

“I didn’t know anything then. I didn’t even know I like to suck cock. I want to tell you. You know Patrice Valmer, don’t you?”

“Gérard’s Patrice? Of course. An utter sweetie. I was quite mad about him in my inconstant fashion once upon a time.”

Rod could talk about Patrice at last and knew that his need to do so was as great as his need for the prince’s body. His throat tightened. His vision dimmed. He took a long shuddering breath of release. “I’ve wanted to talk to you about him. I can’t with anybody else.” He told him about their odd life together. He told him how it had ended.

“Good God,” the prince exclaimed. “You mean, just the other day? When we were together? How ghastly for you. You must’ve made him very happy even when you were holding back. It’s hard for me to imagine. I’ve never had any doubt about what I wanted in bed.”

“If he’d had a body like yours, it might not have taken me so long to figure it out. It took you to show me what it was all about. I’m still finding out. I have to.”

“I’m so glad it’s me, darling.”

“It’s you, all right. Come up here and sit the way you were when you first let me look at you.” He ran his hands indolently over all the magnificent body as the prince lifted himself and straddled him and settled lightly on his stomach. Rod brushed his fingers through crisp golden curls and held the soft sex in the palm of his hand so that he could see it. “Fabulous. I can look at all of you now. The other night I couldn’t take my eyes off this. It’s pretty damned impressive even when it isn’t hard. If I ran into you in a shower, I’d definitely want to see how big it could get. I’ve never thought about that with anybody before. Do you know a kid called Christian? I think he lives with Thillier.”

“Oh, dear. I do believe I’m blushing. Christian and his incredible giant cock?” “Is it twice as big as mine?” Rod asked, thinking of something he had once said to Patrice.

“Really, darling, let’s remain within the limits of possibility. It’s bigger certainly. The biggest I’ve ever seen. Why do you want to know? I’m sure he’d be delighted to show you if you asked.”

“No. I just wondered. Patrice knew him.”

“Patrice knew everybody, and everybody loved Patrice.”

“I’m not surprised, but I had the impression he was rather ashamed of what he’d been before we got together.”

“Oh, well, the atmosphere at Gérard’s is fairly bizarre. Nobody’s allowed in the house who isn’t prepared to perform in public, and he can’t bear for any of his boys to be turned down, not that anybody often wants to. It’s a socialist dictatorship. Hardly the thing for a sensitive growing boy. I wasn’t surprised when I heard he’d walked out. Somebody told me they’d seen you together. You must be the only person he ever lived with on his own, in his own way.”

“Yes, I am.” He understood now. Patrice had done it for him, to win his way back into Thillier’s good graces. He remembered how odd he’d been when he’d come home that evening. He must have been sick with guilt if he had enjoyed it. Poor baby. “If he–he’d be pleased that this has happened with us. He wanted me to have boys.”