Maurice

Maurice

Chapter forty-three and a half

(Falling between chapter forty-three and forty-four of E. M. Forster's Maurice. After meeting at the British Museum the lovers, Maurice and Alec, take a room, their second night together.)

Far from sordid, the hotel was respectable enough, though the rooms were modest and the beds narrow.

The two men contrived Maurice would see to the necessities of front desk and Alec would linger, entering after the gentleman had been shown his quarters. Maurice's heart pounded as he approached the clerk at the desk. Nerves, surely, at keeping his true objective from playing on his countenance, but he wondered if some of the tension wasn't simply from being parted from the other man.

Once installed Maurice approached the window and, indeed, the roaring in his ears grew louder, faster. Would he look to find the man gone? Lost his nerve? Or regained his sense? His heart skipped about like a bird in a cage as he pulled the sash, but there, at the edge of the park opposite, the other man stood looking up, as directed.

Maurice waved. The man touched his cap and even at this distance he could see the brilliant smile overtake his face.

Maurice was to throw by hand sign the room number they were staying in, but here, something they hadn't considered: How do you indicate 24? Two flashes of ten followed by four fingers? Or two from one hand and four from the other? He held one finger up, indicating to pause, but the boy misunderstood and confirmed the one digit back to him, looking confused since plainly he wasn't on the first floor. Maurice shook his head violently and held his whole hand to say wait while he looked about the room, and stepped away from the window. Does he mean go? Has he got spooked? Alec thought. Then Maurice reappeared at the window. He held a sheet of stationary up to the glass and on it was written the number 24.

Alone together in the room at last, they fell upon each other. Maurice in particular was frantic, he tore at their clothes, layer after layer, jacket, tie, vest, hastily pulled off, collar, cuffs, he was bedeviled by button upon button, why were they so locked away? He wanted and wanted and wanted, as if he would know peace if he could just get at him and yet everywhere his seeking hands fell they met another frustration. He pulled the shirt from where it was tucked into the other man's pants and yanked it over his head, only to find his undershirt waiting underneath. "Carfeful with my buttons!" Alec cried, "I don't think you'll be the one mending em! It'd be Fetch Scudder, have Scudder repair em!' is what you'd say!" He scowled though his face was merry. He peeled the undershirt up and off and finally reaching bare skin, he stilled. He looked at the man in front of him. Took a long draught of him with his eyes. As he took him in, as his eyes finally met the other man's, he kissed him passionately. "It's yours," Alec soothed gently into his ear. "It's yours, it's for you."

They started slow, like rain, a summer shower. Tiny drops that preceded the storm, then heavier, they kissed harder, till it felt like the skies opened up and poured all they could down, tiny mouthfuls, small and numerous, which became a flood of deeper kisses, mouths wide, open to each other, drinking from deep within the other till the downpour at last subsided, only to start up again.

Wasn't this the sweet science, Maurice thought? Not boxing, but kissing. Boxing was neither and kissing was both. The way the mouths moved together, each as if they were created for the other, a matched pair that could only compliment its mate fully, the speed, tempo, strength and depth all calibrating to the other, and what they produced, could anything else call itself as sweet?

Alec broke off and moved lower, kissing the other man's neck, the sturdy Adam's apple, the hollowed out bowl at his collarbone. Lower, he laid kisses along his chest, so firm, solid. Could this man possibly be a stockbroker? He looked more like the university men he saw at their drills, strong from their rowdiness, and sport. These men filled Alec with a twinned sense of desire and resentment, so clean, well-groomed, well-fed and fortunate. Maurice came from this club, possessed of many of the same virtues: large and long, rangey in his way. He'd seen his skill on the cricket lawn, he was talented, strong, well-coordinated, shy of hulking but only just. Alec pressed his face against the chest. He closed his eyes and smelled him. Salt. Salt and soap.

Alec kissed more and moved further down, he pulled the pants open and freed what was within them. He pulled the underclothes down, and Maurice was before him, a column, thick and long. The part matched the man: solid, formidable, splendid. Syrup coated the head where it flared, and with no hesitation he took him in his mouth.

He held him firm with his lips and tasted the nectar, teasing his tongue against it the split were it leaked from and felt Maurice shudder. Pursing his lips he moved further down and immediately began nursing, his head bobbing up and down the length of his manhood. Perhaps one of the reasons he took to his indecency so readily, with such little regret, was how naturally, how innately he took to this one specific act. He was comforted by the action of suckling, perhaps pulled too soon from the teat, maybe that set him about on so lurid a life, craving the sweetness he could only coax forth with his mouth, his tongue, his lips, the powerful motor of his suction.

Maurice's hands were in his hair but he didn't push or hold him down as some other men had, just coiled his fingers through his curls. He looked up and found Maurice not with his eyes closed, transported to some internal world, but staring down at him, and in such wonder. Alec blushed, warmth in his cheeks, spreading all through him, feeling adored. All at once Maurice's crisis was upon him. A grunt escaped him and Alec's mouth suddenly filled. A metallic taste, but wasn't this the honey, wasn't this the milk that craving led him in search of?

A gentleman, Maurice's hand, the one at his head pulled as if to prevent him from swallowing the spill, but Alec latched on fiercely. After the spasms stopped and the other man's legs shuddered he continued, taking long pulls, trying to wring the organ out, there would not be a drop that would go to waste.

At last he pulled off, satisfied, joy folded in with usual satisfaction he took from attending to a labor and seeing it accomplished well.

He looked up and Maurice was crying.

"What?" He said, "No..." and rose.

"I'm sorry," Maurice said, but a sob choked out. "Foolish... I don't know why I'm crying," he said and brought his palm to his eyes. Alec thought he understood, however, as if they were the same creature. Wasn't his own pain the same? A species of loneliness. Not just loneliness, but longing, for something, someone else, unsure, as if reaching out in the darkness, uncertain there would be a person to discover at the other side of that outreached hand. But weren't the tears also of relief? Had the hand fumbling in the dark found something at last?

He lowered Maurice gently back, laid him on the bed. He pulled off the pants, the stockings, attended to him till he was finally nude, and turned to hang the pants when Maurice called from behind him, "Don't go."

Alec turned, smiling. "And where would I go? Where in the world would I want to be but here?" And saying so, joined him in the bed, pulled up the covers around both of them, kissed him and wrapped himself around the other man.

•

Maurice, though he drowsed, did not fully sleep.

He looked at the man in his arms. Handsome, the nose somewhat broad, the ears a little too large. His brow was thick, long and straight and his lashes were dark and long, almost like a child's. He had noticed straight away the boy was fair but looking at him now, he seemed half divine. Had he always been so, or was this somehow a distortion of the affection that wedged deeper and deeper into his heart?

Where Maurice was sinewy, the other's muscles were plump, full. This arms and shoulders bulged, as did his calves. He was the butcher of Osmington's boy, no question. Thicker than most men, swollen, though not a rough -- his cheeks, now so flushed, rosy, in sympathy with the full lips, sensual, pre-Raphaelite.

With the back of his hand Maurice caressed the cheek. A smile came to the gamekeeper's lips, though his eyes did not open.

He brought his hand down the thick neck, following with his fingers the pattern of the hair at the edges of other man's chest. Crowning each pectoral was a tiny, blush colored jewel, smaller than Maurice's own, redder at the nub. He drew a circle first, tracing the rose halo then softly he fingered the pebbles, catching them in forefinger and thumb and making small, delicate circles. He laid his head on his chest and went back and forth like this, raking his fingers through the whorls and patterns of hair and tenderly exploring the other man's nipples. He felt the bellows of his chest rise and fall and listened for the deep, echoing rhythm of the other man's heartbeat.

Clive had been fair, after his fashion. An easy sight on the eyes, in his own way, but also tense. A room where the furniture was crowded, one half perhaps lopsided, the arrangement was symmetrical but fell somewhat short of graceful.

Maurice never considered this a shortcoming, so powerful the draw of his affection, but Clive would have never lay with him like this, repelled as he was by the vulgar. But was this vulgar? His eyes flashed down to the Gamesman's piece, still ferocious. It should be smutty, he had seen pamphlets, circulated among school boys, images that were obscene and here, next to him, yes, it was lurid but didn't it also spring forth at the root of Alec himself, connecting to the man and running all through him? It was a cock, yes, but Alec's cock, and therefore not obscene.

Nights he would weaken, his imagining returning to men he had seen, fancies he had taken in idle moments, on the coach perhaps or in the baths and later in his private moments they would growl at him and drop their drawers wagging their cocks at him, "want it, don't ya?" and "what would you do with it?" they'd leer. What would he do with it? But the gamesman, here, not wagging but in front of him all the same, but it didn't feel obscene.

He leaned over, kissed you youths stomach. It trembled. Slowly, he made his way in tiny kisses down, down the nest of ferns that sprung up below his navel, further down till that hair thickened into tight, dark curls. He smelled them, rich and earthy. He put his face to them, he kissed, plowing through to kiss the skin under all that coarseness. Maurice own curls were thin, somehow neat. They sprung up at the base where his prick hung in a clump and dissipated slightly above the pubis, but the other man was a thick, dark nest. The contrast excited Maurice though he couldn't say why, he pushed more of his face in it and loved it.

Their first night together he handled the man. Scudder had slipped him in his own mouth then as he had now, but they reached their crises kissing, hands on each other, a moment like a long sigh escaping both of them.

He had never taken a man they way Scudder had. He had only the abstract sense of it, in his fantasies the men exposed themselves and wagged their pride at him, but the image was potent enough he didn't need then to describe the action he would take with them, once presented.

He thought distantly if he did take this man in his own mouth, some threshold would be crossed. But hadn't it already? Certainly his first night with the gamekeeper, but before, with Clive, if not by way of the crude instruments of flesh, wasn't the barrier the heart first, that the body then acts upon? Hadn't the Rubicon already been crossed?

He grabbed the other man's cock and ran the length of it with his hand. Crooked, it veered to the left and curved, almost to drag it downward. It was heavy and darker, olive, like the rest of his complexion. The head was somewhat out of proportion, larger, ornery, like a Bull Mastiff. From the tiny slit at the head a long, dewy strand of the man's honey spilled forth and Maurice started there. He licked and it was salty, like stock almost, but not bad. He kissed his way down the shaft, as he did the wayward crook of the other mans member kept itself against his cheek and he nuzzled it as he covered it in kisses to a steady stream of "oh sir" from the gamekeeper. He got down to the root, back in that thick forest of hair. With his hand he hefted the man's sack, weighing it like a pair of hen's eggs. He liked how they fit in his hand. In truth, he loved the way his own filled his hand, holding them in the shower, or sometimes, on cold nights, in his bed. He would roll them gently together and thrill to the pleasure and he did that now to the other man. He kissed, first the skin, then pulled one into his mouth. The flesh of the sack was loose but the ball itself resisted, and Maurice enjoyed the playfulness of teasing it. He then tried the other, and ultimately both though that proved uncomfortable and the boy squirmed.

He brought his mouth back to the damp head, now leaking, rivulets running down the shaft. Alec ran his tongue to catch them and the boy shuddered and moaned and he closed his mouth around it whole, and there, he though, it's done. Keeping his mouth fixed around the organ, as if to caress it with his lips instead of hand, he slid down the length of it. He felt a slight discomfort as it widened at the base, his lips felt pushed too open and his mouth felt too full, so he withdrew slightly and tried again, and now slick it proved a somewhat easier enterprise and he got courageous, intending to swallow the whole thing, but he sputtered and his eyes watered and he gagged.

"Slow, slow, let your mouth get used to it," He said.

Maurice slipped it in again, and in slow circuitous motions he advanced and receded, slowly fitting more and more in and deeper into the cave of his mouth.

He felt the other man wrap his own mouth around him and they were fastened together, like a pisces. What the other man affected Maurice felt and reciprocated, a closed loop of pleasure, a complete circuit. This could only happen with another man, he thought. The direction could be matched between a man and a woman, but not the symmetry. The elegance of this design somehow impressed him as both an argument for its naturalness and a debate against the acts indecency.

Alec moved slowly, instructing. He took a short length in, he would suck and as he did so pull more of the cock into his mouth then release it. Maurice mirrored this and as he sucked he could taste the nectar that was spilling at a constant leak from it and decided he didn't mind it. As Alec took more of him, he became more adventurous finally he had his nose the root of the man, feeling the dense hairs there tickle the top of his nose. His mouth was full and it was hard to breathe but it was also thrilling and satisfying and with ease Alec swallowed him completely, using the back cabin of his mouth to massage his partners organ, an advanced move Maurice did not feel he was up to matching. But he also wouldn't be outdone. He gripped the other man's sack, massaging the heavy balls within it. As he did, his fingers caressed the spot where the man's sack met his legs and the other man hummed and his mouth vibrated from moaning and so encouraged Maurice massaged it more firmly and all at once Alec disengaged crying "Oh, oh, oh!" and yanked his cock from the other man's mouth and all it once it wrenched and spasmed and his stomach, his chest, up to his neck was covered in spunk.

Maurice scooped a wad of it off the youth's belly and inspected it. There were supposedly a million more little Alecs within. Here it was, so simple, the building block of everything, this strange, miraculous substance. He licked it off his fingers. Tasting it first, a little finicky; there was the brininess he first noticed, it was thick, a little like a pudding, but he licked all of it off his finger and preceded to lick it from the gamekeeper's body as he howled, ticklish and delighted, panting, red faced and flush.

He writhed and babbled and Maurice laughed, but was also moved. Wasn't this everything? This closeness, this openness? Had he really missed this with Clive? Surely it could only be half a love, without this graceful concert of mind with body. They had denied themselves so much; surely, they had denied themselves everything.

"Boxcars!" Alec said, breathless. Maurice rose and brought back a towel, saw to the youth and Alec closed his eyes and purred.

Maurice sat at the edge of the bed and looked at the young man. He

was beautiful, bathed in the silvery, strange blue of the night it made his skin radiant. He looked like a youth from a Greek myth, some shepherd boy the moon had fallen in love with. He was in the full flower of his first youth, he was a trap set by nature. Maurice almost couldn't look at him full, it made him ache, to desire something so much. He grabbed the towel and rose to return it.

Alec opened his eyes. "Not goin' are you?"

"No," Maurice said.

The smile deepened and his eyes closed again. How his face brightened. Like his laugh, it was like being in a cheery room. Maurice slipped next to him, but did not take him in his arms, suddenly shy.

Alec wrapped his arm around him then, tight. Isn't this what he had wanted, to put his arm around him, hug him close like a dear friend, and here they were. A warmth spread slowly throughout him, and it took him a moment to recognise it was joy. They kissed. They closed their eyes, they were quiet and they slept.

•

Alec started to the sound of his own snore. His mouth open, he clamped it shut, ashamed, and looked to see if it had woke the man beside him. But hadn't he had been tired! The week he'd had, he was rung out. The sleepless nights at the boathouse, his emotions slipped out from under him like a rug.

What time was it? It was still night behind the curtain in the window. He nuzzled closer to the other man, there was still time. Maurice slept with his mouth open too, his breathing deep and regular. Quite a week for him too, though in the reverse; its negative. He considered again how similar they were though, despite station and class. Was his wound not the other mans? His pain the other man's pain?

And hadn't the longing driven him wretched? Blackmail! He winced. It wasn't just his wretchedness, the need to lash out, hadn't it been the desire to see the man just one more time? Was any gambit too desperate? And now, here he was, in this bed, in this strange hotel, in London, so far off his own map.

But could he trust this other man? He found it harder to square the man he had come to know with his earlier image of him as some gentleman having sport. Alec didn't see it in him. Maurice could be cruel, so could he for that matter, they tested that out in each other, but there was a melancholy in the man as well. A jolliness, certainly, but at its edge a seriousness that could break, like a squall. If he was honest Alec found he was, if not attracted to these qualities, intrigued by them. Ah, but wasn't it all folly anyhow? A game like this, and with a man of Maurice's station? Alec spent enough time working as a servant to chafe and knew his employers believed his class not just unfortunate, but inferior. Did Maurice, in his heart believe this too? He may not be the gentleman's sport, but would he ever be his equal?

But wasn't their queer fixation the wild card? Even if they were of the same class there was no way short of the extraordinary for them to be together. Not openly, certainly not here. So if all was forbidden, then nothing was off the table. Class be damned, the law be damned. That was how Alec felt, but did the gentleman feel the same? Probably they both supposed the same thing; three days hence Alec would be on a steamer bound for the Argentine and his fortune and this time between them a memory, like a dream, to grow distant behind them.

"Does the noise of the city disturb you?"

The other man was awake and it snapped Alec from his reverie. Now, for whatever guarded time this strange hotel afforded both of them, the other man was his, and he for him.

"No, it's exciting is all, sleeping like this. So close. It's like where your skin touches mine is a charge. It keeps me up, is all. It's a comfort, but it excites me all the same."

When they slept, Maurice's head was on the gamekeeper's chest, and now Alec sidled over him and began to caress the man's back and shoulders and God, wasn't it fine. Broad, strong, lust washed over him in a wave and fizzed through him.

The muscles, strapping, so defined as they played out in front of him, like the statues of wrestlers, of boxers that would fill his heart when he saw them. How he wanted to sport with them, to be them, to be bested by them, to surrender to them, to take them.

The gentleman dazzled against the gloom of Penge. So many of the squires' acquaintances could blur right into it, but not Maurice, handsome, reserved in his way, but bright-eyed. The scales were so precisely balanced Alec could have resented him just as easily as adore him; tall, handsome, a fine gentleman, so many of fortunes' little kisses had fallen on him. True, you couldn't miss him in a room, but he also brooded, his stare lingered longer than a proper gentleman's would. Alec could sense, detect on some special frequency that he was also attuned to, the man taking him in, appreciating what he saw. And hadn't that blasted his life to bits? Was there a moment since when he didn't scheme, contrive reasons to be near the gentleman. The empty hours when he couldn't. And the gentleman himself, so inscrutable, like he was flickering, there and gone, back and forth. Each time he saw him conveyed away he thought, there it goes, that's the last and his heart would fall, then out of nowhere the man would pop up again, as if out of thin air. And Alec would go through the whole process again, like a dog fetching a stick.

A cruelty deep within Alec rose up. Not a cruelty, precisely -- an instinct, a lesson his trade had taught him: Dig the hook in deep and the game will not escape. So he would do with Maurice. He may leave on his steamer on the weekend, but when he did he would have the gentleman's heart on a line dragging behind him and he would not let it go.

He continued massaging and very shortly his mouth replaced his hands and he covered the man's back in tiny kisses and moved down the man's spine. He reached the patch above the other man's buttocks. Maurice wasn't hairless but it was closely confined to small quarters on his body, but here, a thicket, Alec nuzzled it, feeling affectionate to this spot for no reason he could think of. To drowse here, his head in this soft field, to spend his days and nights.

His lips moved lower. Maurice had muscular buttocks, running to lean, though the muscles were large, well-shaped and pale as a fish's belly. The kissing became more involved, his toungue darted out, tasted, explored, tickled. Maurice stirred. It was time to strike. He moved down, where the other man's legs met, the soft depression, his tongue out he tested against it and against his urgings it gave slightly. Encouraged by a moan of pleasure from Maurice he dove in, snuffling like a hog for truffles, pushing his face deep between the man's legs and his tongue deeper still. Maurice shot up startled. "Oh no," the gamekeeper said through a wicked smile. "It's my prize and I will have it!"

He grappled with his friend, who tried to pull away. He hugged around his opponent's waist and the bed shook from their struggle. They strained, each fighting in measure to impress the other. Alec might be the brawnier of the two but Maurice had the education, the technique and broke easily from the other man's traps and captures. Alec however, would not be had and also would not be denied. Finally he had pinned the other man beneath him, legs securing him and pinning his arms to the bed. Both men panted. "It's mine... and I will take my prize!"

He looked down at the other man, grinning wide and though all was jolly, an intensity burned there too.

Where he sat, straddled over the other man's waist, he could feel the ragged rise and fall of his stomach, breathing heavily from his exertions. Alec parted his legs slightly, hugging himself against the man's midsection and Maurice's cock rose at the friction, pushed up against what Alec held down against him there.

He watched the gentleman. As he guessed, Maurice was innocent of what Alec had doing. You may have gone to university, my good man Alec thought, you may be smart and have proper airs about you, but in this, I've the upper hand. I've learned a thing or too my own self.

Alec ground against the other man and where he grew harder, where his prick flared, Alec's body gave. He was hot and silky to the touch against the tender tip of Maurice's spear.

Maurice looked up at the man, now pensive, "What are you doing?"

The power Alec felt made him woozy. Was the man so unsophisticated? That hard crag of cruelty in Alec rose up. He would dig the hook in deep, he would cross the ocean and he would drag what he caught behind him.

The nectar Maurice had leaked in a steady flow since their night began, indeed, the whole day together, lubricated where it touched and Alec received, though now he began to feel some discomfort, which would increase if they were to pursue the act more seriously.

"What are you doing?" Maurice repeated. Looking in the other man's face Alec thought he recognized what he saw there, the desire to surrender, but fear as well. Once there's no ground beneath you, where you will ultimately land?

Playful in his cruelty, Alec smiled, "Making you love me."

Maurice's held the man's stare, "You accomplished that well before we took this room." And Alec reddened somewhat, shamed slightly at being so cavalier in the face of Maurice's earnestness, but he would not drop the game.

"Then I'll make you love me more."

Maurice looked soft under him, vulnerable.

"Please don't."

Alec ground down against him, but the other man grew stern.

"You've got quite a few tricks."

"You've not complained so far."

"I didn't know there were so many," and he added sulkily "Or so many masters." Alec, however, delighted in his jealousy.

"Sure, a few here and there. I'm sure you've got some reason to think I'm wrong for it, to think me indecent, well what of it? The body gets hungry, but do we live on gruel? Is it so immoral to have an apple from time to time? To enjoy some sweetness for its own sake?"

"Yes, but pass around an apple and you'll find little left when it returns to you," Maurice replied, petulantly.

""You'd have me come to you straight to you from a nunnery!" Alec laughed.

"Is it so immoral of me to wish the orchard belonged to me and me alone?"

"And aren't these the same tricks you and Mr. Dunham got up to?"

At this Maurice grew annoyed.

"Why bring him up? Leave it. I told you, he's behind me."

"Oh I've no doubt!" and a wicked grin crossed the young man's face. "Oh, it's fine for the squire but when good old Alec wants a drink from the same bucket the well's closed!" And he laughed and the tension which worried at the edges of their conversation was relieved.

Alec rose up off the other man and eased himself backwards, between his parted legs, and taking each by his hand, lifted them. Maurice looked at him cautiously.

"Let me show you." Alec smiled and moved his head in, pushing the man's sack out of the way with his nose and gently guiding the mans legs wider apart. He moved his face in and this time the other man didn't flinch. He nuzzled, feeling the sack against his forehead. Even here, in his most private patch, the other man smelled clean. A faint musk, an earthiness, no more. He nosed in further and there, his friend's last secret, the tender place. There could be no secrets between them now; his understanding of him was complete.

This was what Alec craved. So much in his life was these stirrings, these feelings, with no right place to put them. It was like Maurice earlier, tearing his clothes off, in such a rage to just to get at him and wasn't this Alec's version of the same thing? Men might share with you, but not fully surrender, not all men gave so completely and what Alec wanted most was that withheld piece, so elusive and so carefully guarded. He wanted this from Maurice now, pleasure would be the key that would unlock the door.

The opening itself was small, like a pillow where the stitch held but the button was missing, a rosier pink than the man's cheeks, if he colored perhaps to match that blush. The hair around it was scant and fine, the skin so pale as to almost be bluish. Though much about him was sturdy and his physique solid, here he was almost delicate and Alec nearly swooned from desire for him. He firmly held Maurice's legs up and apart and wrapped his whole mouth around the opening and pushed his tongue forward, with such force, such urgency, to suck the very marrow out, and Maurice thrashed but Alec held him firm. He sucked, he ate, he worked his mouth, he kissed, he dove deeper, and Maurice opened for him. He gripped the bedclothes. Truly he had no idea, and the pleasure it gave him took him fully by surprise. Alec only foraged harder, letting his legs go but prying him apart, nothing would keep his pearl from him, he was nearly insane with lust, feasting on the other man, taking his fill, he could lay like this for days eating at him, he would never get full. Maurice could say nothing but quietly murmur his name over and over and how Alec loved to hear it. He could not get enough -- he'd withdraw, to finally give the other man reprieve and the sight of him, shiny from the groundskeeper's ragged appetite would overwhelm him and he would sink back down, pushing deeper in, straining his head, his neck, every cord and tendon to reach more, to drive Maurice frantic and to greater heights. He could spend his whole life just loving the bottom half of this man, but his mission was still incomplete, the hook sunk, but not at its deepest, so finally he disentangled.

"Now you me," he said.

Maurice's eyes flashed cautiously.

"You needn't love it as I do, but it primes the pump. Get it wet and relaxed, the attention will calm the resistance, you'll see. You'll like what comes next."

Maurice hesitated, surely another threshold to cross.

Alec took his head in his hands "Now you listen," his eyes held the other man's. "It's just you and me in this room. No one'll ever know what we get up to. We'll take it to our graves. Just me and you. And there's nothing you can do would shock me. There could be no wrong between us," and he kissed him, "There's no good or bad, there's no right and wrong in these walls, just my heart `n your heart, there's nothing could come from you I wouldn't welcome." He kissed him again and lay down, differently from Maurice, on his stomach.

Maurice took the man's backside in. It was white and the hair, which covered it full and lush was light, almost ginger. It dusted over the two fat globes and thickened at the seam, a furry trench. Maurice reached a hand out tentatively and caressed, the curve of Alec's rump filling his palm. He squeezed and felt the flesh give, it had bounce. He grabbed him now with both hands, squeezing, kneading it, loving the way it filled his hands.

The male appendage, for so many reasons, its luridness, its concealed nature, was enticing. Appreciating it was wholly understandable; it was the sex organ, it inspired sexual thoughts.

But a man's backside, why should it entice? And yet it did! Sometimes at sport, seeing the men as they showered, he would take in the bare asses, furtively drinking them in, appreciating it discretely. Some of the men would linger, walking around nude and chatting and he could more fully admire the sight that so transfixed, but couldn't wholly comprehend the spell it cast over him, the urges it inspired.

He was, of course, familiar with buggery, but only abstractly. It occurred to him as an indecent act borne out of depraved urges, not sensual ones. But wasn't what he other man said true? Here, with him, he could discover, he could explore.

He continued running his hands over the other man's rump, thrilling at its suppleness, then, suddenly rowdy, he slapped it, open handed.

"Hey!" Alec smarted, scowling over his shoulder at him, "That's not what it's for! Now kiss it better!"

Maurice good-naturedly bent over and placed a prim kiss on the reddening spot.

"No, you must kiss it with as much vigor as you slapped it."

Maurice kissed the cheek, and he tasted soap. The hair which covered it, which it was in fact quite lousy with, was a coarse texture against his lips. He nosed into the cleft, where it ran thick and full. He situated himself centrally behind the man and with a cheek in both hands massaged and caressed them as he traveled down the seam. Again he marveled at how the man's ass felt in his hand, so squishy, it was playful. As he kneaded, the tiny bare spot shimmered coyly in and out of its forest.

Maurice felt a quickening, his prick lanced up. His body reacted and he trusted its wisdom to guide him further.

Using his nose to part the dense forest, he explored tentatively the tender place. He ran his tongue along it, licking like a cat might. A metallic taste, not unpleasant; a slight tang. He explored with his tongue, pushing with it against the opening the man gave and moaned. Maurice liked this, it was his disposition to enjoy to please. He grew bolder, his tongue advanced and the boy squirmed against him.

"That's right," he said, breathless.

Maurice tightened his grip on the two thick globes he held. He pulled them apart revealing the tender spot. As he gripped them, as he pulled, it skin stretched, the opening dilated and he was entranced. He circled it with his tongue, over the slightly raised entrance, he licked the smooth skin where it stretched and he pushed in with his tongue, bullying in deeper, tasting more of the man. He pressed his lips in kisses against it, he pressed his mouth to the berm between the man's opening and his balls, he kissed this roughly, ran his tongue against it and Alec, so light and merry all evening grew quiet, panting. He didn't speak, some small grunts, but that was all. Maurice ran his hands up the small of his back and caressed him and worked his tongue within the man and Alec spread his legs wider, he offered and Maurice took.

"Get it wet," Alec grunted and he complied. Slathering, he dominated the man, the further his pushed his tongue into him, the more the small place in Alec opened, the further he wanted to go. His grip on the man's ass was almost painful, he felt hungry, he felt possessive.

He kissed the flesh where he squeezed it, he pinched the cheeks and bit them. He was woozy from the carnality, like he was drunk. His cock throbbed. Alec writhed under him and it made his cock throb more, his control ebbed, he felt desire and almost nothing else.

He grabbed the man's rod, Alec's ass raised as it was the grip was reversed and the hold put his thumb near to the tender place. It was moist there, as Alec had instructed, and edging his thumb slowly he massaged the opening, more pink skin was revealed and Maurice starting sweating, he rubbed his thumb over the pebbly bumps of the ridge, the caldera where it was slick and slimy from Maurice's attention. The boy shuddered and Maurice pressed. He was transfixed. He licked more, as he did he coated his thumb and the tender place and more of his thumb slid in. He started slavering, animal urges rising from within. Alec moaned and thrashed.

A long strand of honey ran from the head of Alec's cock in an unbroken thread. Pulling the organ back to him, Maurice reached his mouth to it, covering it and sucking the juice and as much of the head as he could fit. Alec sighed deeply, then grew agitated. "No, no!" He rolled over.

"Why do you make me stop?" Maurice panted, worked into a state.

"Not stop," Alec said, laying back. He held his legs around the other man.

Understanding spread through Maurice, like a current running through the disconnected string of events. He pictured the lurid French postcards some schoolmates passed around of a woman spread before a man enticingly, as he bore into her.

Alec watched the understanding dawn in his friends face but at the last storms clouded it. "What is it? Do you not want me?"

"Have you? This...? With other men?"

"A time or two. By way of the other path, where you're at now. Not to receive it. Others, they've shown me... what I want to give to you."

But Maurice didn't move.

"Oh you're the limit Maurice Hall, the absolute limit. If I had known you were waiting in the world for me I would have saved every pleasure for you, would you shame me for being rough as I couldn't help, it being my nature? I've saved this much and I wish wherever you go in all your days you'll take it."

"Show me," Maurice said and Alec wrapped his arms around him and pulled him on top of him. He looked up at the man, suddenly vulnerable. He spread his hands against the other man's chest and shoulders.

"Are you alright?" Maurice asked.

"I believe it can hurt," Alec replied. "It'll be easier with my legs up," and he lifted them, resting them against Maurice's chest. He reached and held Maurice's endowment, and guided it to him. For all the gentleman's primness, none of the vigor had left him. Maurice looked down where Alec guided him and saw the flared head of his member against the soft depression between the other man's legs. Stickiness from one connected him to the other. He looked back to Alex's face, it was pensive, but excited. He nodded to him and Maurice thrust slightly. The wall offered no give.

Alec's body was tense. Once or twice an illicit partner had complained of his length, of the pain it took to handle him, and those men had ointments and salves to ease the burden. Maurice was generously equipped, they were evenly matched and he worried his own lack of worldliness would undo him now. He took a deep breath, pulling it into his chest and letting it out slowly. He focused on Maurice's face. He thought seeing the cool green of his friend's eyes would melt him but the other man stared transfixed between them both, almost slack.

"Go gently, like waves, push and back. Have you been with a woman?" Maurice shook his head. "It's similar."

"Will you bleed?"

"I hope not!"

The head pushed against him and Alec felt a warmth there and a slight sting. He ran his hands up and down the man's stomach and torso and said encouraging things. Maurice still stared between them, truly captivated. He reached between his legs and held his prick against the other man's opening teasing it with the head, the spill coating both his cock head and the place Alec meant to receive it.

There was a growing warmth between the two men where they met. Instinctively Maurice understood that as Alec's desire grew, that warmth would spread, the resistance would melt and he would be one with the man underneath him, and Maurice wanted that unity. He scooped his hand behind the youth's head and brought his face to his own and kissed him very passionately. He whispered in his ear how much he desired the young man, how beautiful he was, as he entered Alec's mouth he played with his tongue, teasing his lips with his own, and Alec wrapped himself more fully around the man on top of him. Maurice kissed his neck, he ran his tongue over it, swallowed the lobe of the man's ear and under these ministrations felt the restriction between them start to give. He pushed, more slid in, a deep moan filled his ear and he cock flexed uncontrollably. This led to more moaning and the other man opened up more. The warmth where they met was now heat and the barrier became soft, like butter in a pan, dissolving.

Maurice pulled back from their embrace and pulled the spear of his cock away and Alec gulped. He spat into his own hand and remoistened the head. He replaced it and guiding it with his hand, eased more in. From where he looked down it seemed than nearly all of the head was buried inside the crease of the other man. He loved the feel of the other mans skin against his own. He pressed and the Gamekeeper grimaced, bolts of a dull pain ringing through him. Maurice paused, he resumed kissing him and slowly, very slowly, the rhythm of one act began to speak in sympathy with the other. Alec closed his eyes and pulled in slow and steady breaths.

Alec grew wistful. Well there, he thought. It's done. I've nothing left to give. He looked up at Maurice and his eyes shone.

"Give me a second, just let me get used to it."

Maurice looked down at him, beaming and almost childish. He smiled and Alec smiled back. They were men, but they were also children. They would have to invent sex, as we all must. Maurice smiled and Alec smiled back. He caressed the chest on top of him, brought his hands up to the face he adored, caressed the chin, the cheeks, and they kissed, gently, but deeply.

Slowly the ache subsided, and a heat grew throughout him. Maurice had slowly, begun rocking at his hips, more of him sunk in, and this time the other man was warm, accommodating, snug around him, and inviting. Maurice plunged slow and steady and Alec lifted to accept him, finding it somewhat pleasurable at last.

Maurice pulled back, almost fully out and plunged in again. It was different with Alec this time, and he sighed. For Maurice, the man fit like a sheath and the silky caress of him drove him wild. As he pushed he felt the hood of his cock pull back, exposing more of the sensitive surface, the pleasure made him shudder. He began to seesaw more quickly and when he found himself deep inside the man, Alec would make a heavy grunt. Maurice pushed to go deeper, he'd draw back and then, driving with his haunches drive in further and the boy would moan. The sounds drove Maurice wild and the control with which he exercised these movements started to slip. He buried himself inside the other man, ground his balls against him, straining to go deeper, he levered his cock automatically, like a push-up, clenching his buttocks so he wasn't even pulling out, but grinding in, surely he could not go any further in, he had no more length to give, and the boy clutched at him and moaned, "Ohh!"

He withdrew and plunged, withdrew and plunged, he pulled his cock out entirely looking at it between their legs, the head scarlet and angry and Alec opened his eyes, dazed and said "Don't stop,"

He teased the angry tip of his spear against the warm opening and drove in and a gasp came from the youth.

For Alec a sensation began to emerge. When the other man was within, a third of the way down, not when the man's groin pressed fully to his, but near, a red glow would emanate, a peak in the pleasure. It was like being tickled, a little was nice, too much almost unbearable but Alec fastened on this sensation and rode the man, Maurice picked up on this somehow, wrapping his arms around him, holding him by the back of the head and kissing him forcefully. His mouth invading the boys in concert with the pounding he performed below, as he passed the spot within Alec the boy moaned and clutched at him. Maurice kissed him more fully, he wanted to swallow those noises. All at once Alec grew more frantic, Maurice sensed what was to come and pulled his mouth from the boy and pressing it to his neck and shoulders and hammered, deep, powerful strides into him "Oh, oh, oh" and a great wet warmth spilled between them. Alec pulled his face away to catch his breath and Maurice kissed at his neck and throat. The other man's pleasure seen to he picked up the pace, he had felt his own crisis was near and now he rowed towards it, battering the young man beneath him with abandon. The other man called his name and wrapped himself tight to him, and Maurice grabbed him, thrust in him, bucked and plowed powerfully into him. He kissed him, their head's knocked together and their lips mashed, Alec felt his lip bust, the other man was wild. Good lord, he thought, he's going to bust through the other side of me!

Maurice's climax was like a wave, drawing back away from the shore to gather itself and then overtaking him, pouring through him, swell after swell. Stars, bursts of color, Christmas cookies, snatches of music that moved him, every man who'd ever caught his eye or fascinated him flashed through his mind like a roulette, he could feel the moon high and fixed over both of them, spinning in its great orbit. As the spasms subsided he eased slowly out of the other man but would not let him go, in fact gripped him to him harder, burying his head in his neck, and held him thus as his panting slowed.

Alec was slick with sweat, his face was hot, it seared where his skin touched the other man's. Both men breathed ragged and Maurice, though spent hadn't relaxed his grip.

"Ease off," he whispered in the other man's ear, caressing his hair. "Ease off. I'm yours... I'm yours," he repeated and slowly the other man uncoiled. He lifted himself up on his arms and as Alec gazed up at him and tears dropped from the other man onto his face. "Why this? What's this?"

"Tell me you love me, Alec. Do you love me?" How pitiful he looked, so desperate. Fresh tears spilled over and onto the man beneath him.

"Love you? Have I been anything but sick from love of you from the first I laid eyes on you? Though it's wrecked my whole life and made it strange and queer to me! I don't even recognize it no more, look at me now! In London! I haven't slept, my dreams are troubled, have I had even a moment's peace from love? Those nights I lay up in the boathouse, every rabbit that broke, every fish what troubled the water did my heart leap, does he come, does he finally come?" His fist was at his own eyes now, "Only, do you love me, sir, is the question. Do you love me?"

"I feel like I'm not large enough to contain all of it. It's so much."

And there it was, the hook had indeed got in deep, surely could go no deeper, but the gamekeeper miscalculated, as it was now through his own heart too.

Alec struck his face again, wiping at his eyes "Stupid, carrying on like this when what has happened? Nothing but the sweetest thing. I swear it's our affliction, a little sadness creeps in, but not now! I couldn't be happier, look at us both!" And he hugged Maurice tight to him.

•

A convenience of the room was a private bath, unusual for a hotel of this sort, but it owing to its location it attended mostly travelers from the suburbs who used it as a pied-à-terre and appreciated this benefit.

The men untangled and rose for a bath. Alec sat at the edge of the tub as it filled with the stove-warmed water and steamed the room. He watched the other man through the mist. Fit and tall, a hulking Adam.

"This is how they must see you, those boys you teach sport to, walking about in the showers. Oh how hot and bothered you must leave them."

Maurice laughed shyly.

"Oh I bet I would. I know I would. 20 minutes of footie and 45 of showering is how I'd want it! You think all them boys is there just to improve their athletics? And don't you make `em suffer, I bet! First out of his towel, last to dress, walking around and showing off, it's cruel is what I think!"

"What I think," Maurice teased, "Is that some scurrilous, rascally sort love to ascribe their own indecent machinations onto other decent people, to camouflage their own scoundrel-like behavior."

"Oh, you haven't seen scoundrelry, believe me! I'd wait till you was in the showers then I'd steal your clothes! Then after a fair amount of time watching you wander around buckers a certain character would appear, his collar pulled up and face concealed "I saw the villain what stole `em good sir, good sir, now just follow me into this alley and I'll show you where they're stashed!"

"Officer there's the villain, I'm sure if you turn out his pockets you'll find my underthings!!" Maurice carried on the joke.

He sat at the other side of the basin. He put a leg in, then the other and slid into the bath. He motioned for the gamekeeper to join him, between his legs.

As he rose Alec checked where he sat on the porcelain to make sure there was no red there.

"Good lord that was a banging." the gamekeeper hooted. "I'm off that, though, don't you bet."

"Like a gambler swearing off cards..." Maurice laughed.

"Oh easy for you to say, you had the easy part. That thing's a terror. You're like one of them beasties we saw in the museum, what got an extra leg! Like to split me in two! Bad enough my poor jaw's gonna ache but I won't be able to sit right for a month. You can take the key with you sir, you're my first and last."

"I think you'd have whipped me with a riding crop if I slowed."

"To beat you back! Goin' at it like you're some kind of animal! I wanted to leave with some little love bites maybe not get my eye blackened!"

Maurice caressed the other man's shoulders, he delighted at how different the skin felt wet, how sensual.

"It was fine though. Once the going rough was passed, it was very fine, like... like if I closed my eyes I couldn't tell entirely where you began and ended."

"Yes!" the other man jumped, "It was like that for me, like we were one!"

"Was a nice feelin'. Like I've never been closer to anyone," Alec said and looked down. "Was it like that between you an Mr. Durham?"

"Oh will you leave him off, " Maurice said, splashing him.

"It wasn't... it wasn't like that. Clive felt that to join... physically... diminished the participants, somehow."

"What we done here?"

"And far less," Maurice smiled.

"Oh, he would! He's a cold one, that one. Can't imagine him kissing a goose. And you? Were you happy with that arrangement? Not sharing?"

"We were... of different temperaments, but I was happy with Clive."

The Gamekeeper squared his shoulders back, as if provoked. "Must have gone on a bit if you met when you were school chums. Must have liked him rather a lot to put up with that for so long."

Maurice found the youths' jealousy charming if ridiculous. What had they been, either of them to the other less than a fortnight ago. He paused though and imagined Alec in the embrace of some handsome Argentine in his future, however, and softened.

"We were together a while. I'd have continued being his man for as long as he wanted, till we both died, I expect. I was so contented with him. Any mundane thing I would endure, just to be in his company. Of course, I longed for more, nights we would sit close and I would, well I'd just throb, but you have to know how his very presence to me was a radiance. It could sustain, it was enough. I had the thing that made me most happy, why squabble over the details, but less became less. His feelings for me... changed. He didn't want me anymore. The radiance dimmed and then, of course, he found Anne..." he grew solemn. "You must know it pains me to discuss it," he rested his forehead on the back of Alec's head. "And I don't think you enjoy hearing about it either, in spite of your provocations."

"And why shouldn't it? When we played cricket, was there ever a pair finer? I ask you! Weren't we something and don't you say you didn't feel it too, I know you did. I thought now aren't we a match and better the world should watch out! And then he comes back and suddenly you're his puppy and it's who's Scudder, who's that bloke? One of me's worth a thousand of him! You'd have seen! The wretched house of his, it's a ruin, you hear me, a ruin! An him! With his airs and always talking down to you like you're a child, like he's figured every damn thing in the world out already and he's waiting for you to catch up, and who is he? What does he know?"

"Clive's the smartest man I know."

"Oh, is he? So smart he let you get away, is that how smart he is? 'Smart's not the same as wise' my old da use to say!" He sat up and put his head on his knees in a sulk. Maurice reached over to comfort him and he shook him off.

"I'm all right. I'm all right." He looked back at the other man. "And you, so fine and fit... with him? It makes no sense. His skin's like porridge, no shine like you have, sir, no shine at all."

Maurice reached out to him. "And I'm here with you, now."

He pulled the youth back onto him and kissed his forehead. "Was there someone like Clive of your own?"

"Not as you speak of. Just the fair weather kind, I s'pose. I mean it's lonely isn't it? Bein' like we are? So few's to choose from, when I was a lad I thought a guy had the look on me and I was so ready, what did I care if he was old as black pepper or ugly as a shoe, what else were there? It's that or nothing." But his pride rose at this, "Not that they was all like that, I've known some dashing men. You'd think! You'd say look what ol' Scudder can fetch," He bragged.

"I'm sure I'd rather not," said Maurice laughing.

"Down at the gymnasium, I could take my pick!"

"I believe you, I believe you!"

Alec settled back against him. "Is it the same for you?"

"Dashing footballers? No, old sport, you've got me there!"

"No, the other. The loneliness..."

But Maurice changed the subject, instead. "Why did you pick me?"

"You've eyes, don't you?"

"Is that all? You find me pleasing?" Maurice asked, testing.

Alec paused, he began, then stopped, and started again, differently. "You want to know? You spoke of dreams the last time we were met. So, when I was a boy, I had these dreams, since I was a boy, but as long as I can remember. Each different and nothing to speak of, no unicorns or faeries, just someone, sometimes he'd be older, doin' like what my dad should do, takin' me out to play ball, or walkin' with me in the woods, sometimes he's a lad like me. Each time he'd be different, except the eyes. The eyes would be the same an' I'd think it's him again, how queer! I suppose I might've had a harder time of it, with our affliction, `cept I thought, he's out there, somewhere. It's silly." He chuckled, then drew pensive. "When I saw you, when I first laid eyes on you... and our eyes met, do you recall?"

"Yes,"

"I guess I'd felt I'd met you before is all." And then he was silent.

•

Maurice toweled the other man off. Alec sat at the lip of the basin and Maurice rubbed the towel over his shoulders, down his arms. He rubbed the man's hair vigorously at first, then gentler as he massaged the head and neck. He knelt before him and massaged with the towel his chest and torso. Alec rose and Maurice dragged the towel down the man's great legs and brought it back, caressing the swinging organ and sack. He rose, kissed his forehead and wrapped the towel around the man.

He guided him to the narrow bed, drew the sheets, which were a mess open and lowered him in. He briskly toweled himself off and reached for his underthings.

"No," Alec said. "Lie down by me nude. I like the feel of your skin against mine."

Maurice joined him in the bed and drew the flimsy sheet over them both. He nestled in close, his head near the other man's. He looked, as he had done as he dried him, trying to take all the man in. Small blemishes to the skin, a scar or two, freckles which covered his shoulders, the reedy swirl of the hair as it spread over his chest, up his legs, bunched in the corners under his arms; the patches of skin at his elbows, roughened up and coarse, similarly at his knees. The tiny knobs of bone, at his wrists, his ankles, the collarbone that his long thick throat extended from, the large, round and slightly pointed oval of his adam's apple. The cheeks now a little sooty with a day's growth.

He continued his inventory, taking in the purple lightningbolts that run across the onionskin that covered the other man's eyelids where they draped closed. The eyelashes, so dark and lustrous. A small blemish, a birthmark, like a tiny point of ink just to the left of his right eyelid. A smile played happily upon Alec's lips. There was a small bleached flaw, some deep cut had been there once, what caused it? A fresher red swelling puffed slightly and he knew the source of that one.

"You looking so hard, like to draw my portrait?" the younger man said drowsily and opened his eyes, sleep fogged.

"I want to remember every detail." Maurice said and kissed him at the forehead, and down the ridge of his brow, back across the cheek now coarse with the pebbly texture of the growth there.

Alec guided his head to his chest but he preferred when the man put his to his own, Alec's chin against his crown, the other man's head nestled in the valley where the twin soft rises of the gamekeepers' chest nestled him. It comforted him, like all his life he was designed to be a home, not for all the heads of the world, but this head alone, so shaped like the key and Alec's chest the lock, none but this single key would rub correctly against all the tumblers, where it lacked, the other matched and Alec carrying this half, this piece to the puzzle not even knowing it's mate existed, that somewhere out there was a head that would lay so rightly, so exquisitely in place, that when it finally fell into its groove, Alec would know a completeness he'd never felt.

Did it feel that way for the other man? You go ahead and take it, put it where you must, you'll find, you'll only find this was your home. You can never say you weren't meant for me.

These were the thoughts that slowly dispelled and dispersed as he fell into a deep and satisfied sleep. Maurice stayed up watching the boy. Under the sheets they were one shape in the dark, the dark of the room and beyond it in the deep, rich dark of night, which settled over the city and reached up high into the dark heavens where, presumably, it came from, and then extended infinitely. It's like love, Maurice thought as his mind drifted, dark endless love all around him, but finally not alone and in that perfect sense of being his heart stilled and slowly he fell asleep as well.