His Gift

Steven Macklin wakes up in a ditch one morning in foul, wet weather with no idea where he is or how he came to be there. Seriously injured he struggles across bleak heathland to find shelter. The only house he finds is weather-beaten and deserted, although he’s too sensible a guy to fall for the cliché of a haunted mansion - isn’t he? But when he collapses and is taken in by the handsome Eliot, Steven finds himself in a very disturbing situation and also in the bed of this strange, possessive man.

WARNING This ebook contains sexually grpahice scenes and adult language including male/male intercourse. Store your ebooks carefully where they cannot be accessed by underage readers.

His Gift

Clare London

Aspen Mountain Press His Gift Copyright© 2008 Clare London

This ebook is a work of fiction. While references may be made to actual places or events, the names, characters, incidents, and locations within are from the author’s imagination and are not a resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, or events. Any similarity is coincidental.

Aspen Mountain Press

PO Box 473543 Aurora CO 80047-3543

www.AspenMountainPress.com

First released by Aspen Mountain Press, October 2008 www.AspenMountainPress.com

This e-book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal proscecution and upon conviction fines and/or imprisonment. The e-book cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this e-book may be shared or reproducted without the express permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-60168-144-7

Editor: Sandra Hicks Cover artist: Tuesday Dube

His Gift

I woke up lying on scrubland, flat on my belly, my face pressed down into the short, harsh grass. I was totally exposed to the dark, storm-filled skies and an increasingly high wind. It was also raining heavily, a steady beat on my back, clawing its way through my shirt and running in rivulets down my sides to the ground. There were trees away in the distance, I saw them out of the corner of my half-closed eyes, but the only things in the immediate vicinity were turf and soil - sparse, grimy and slick with rain. I shifted slightly and my knees scraped against gravel. When I moved my leg in another direction, something tugged in resistance; I heard the deep, sucking sound of wet mud at my ankles. I seemed to be half in a ditch and I hurt. A hell of a lot. With difficulty, I struggled to my feet. I couldn’t believe how long it took me. My limbs were both exhausted and wayward, and the pool of mud was equally reluctant to let me go. It clung to my clothes, seeping through the fabric in cold, clammy trickles. My shirt was torn in several places and my jeans were sodden from hip to hem. Every time I moved, there was a fierce pain at my hip that made me shudder. When I put a cautious hand to my side, there didn’t seem to be any blood, but something that excruciating had to be really serious, didn’t it? If I’d had the energy, I’d have cursed, too. When I was finally upright and looked around, I saw a deep ridge in the soft mud, the width of a man’s body and running back down from the solid ground into the depths of the ditch. I’d obviously dragged my body up from there. The rain beat fiercely at the mud now - the traces would soon be obliterated. I had no idea where I was, or what had happened. In fact, for a very frightening moment, I struggled to remember my own name, I patted down my back pocket for my wallet, dragged it out and flipped it open. It was soaking, like the rest of my clothes, but I could read the name on a library card. Steven… Steve Macklin. Of course, that was my name. I was stupidly relieved. So things weren’t that bad, right? I could remember who I was. I tried to recall other things, like what day it was or what I was doing here, but I couldn’t concentrate properly. The effort made my head hurt. I heard noises and twisted around, trying to find company in this godforsaken place. I quickly realised it was only the rain splattering on the stones in the ditch, combined with the remnants of my own laboured breathing. The whole area was deserted; I couldn’t see any sign of life, whichever direction I searched. I knew I had to get under cover somewhere, though, and examine where I was hurt; how badly I was hurt. Then I could think more about how the hell I got here in the first place.

I peered over at the copse in the distance. The rain dripped off my hair and ran down my nose, but beyond the trees I reckoned I could see the beginnings of a proper, man-made road. That should mean civilisation, right? Houses, transport, telephones. I couldn’t see any further, but it was likely there’d be a town, or at least a small community there. Someone who would help me. I put a foot forward and winced as pain shot through me. No other choice but to keep going, I told myself, through gritted teeth. I shuffled the other foot to meet the first, and gradually I built up a rolling gait that got me going.

****

It was a road, all right, though built with shallow cobbles set into the bare ground rather than decent tarmac. I guessed it led to some kind of a farming community, set out here so far from anything else. I walked it anyway, staggering along as best I could, the pain in my side still severe. But the setting grew more pleasant; the grass on either side was higher now and lush, a stark contrast to the barren scrub I’d woken up on. The trees were thick with leaves, dappled with all the shades of nature’s green. Even the rain eased off, though the sky was still a brooding grey and the wind whipped at my limbs. But the air smelled fresher, as if the water had washed any pollution away. I stumbled over the edge of another path that wound away from the road, and that’s when I saw the first sign of habitation; the remains of a barn just off to the side, half hidden by the trees. For a second, my hopes were raised, but then I saw that the roof had fallen in and most of the walls were broken. There was no shelter for me there. I took a few steps on to the path, regardless—where else was there to go? My body ached and my mind was thick with misery. The vegetation thinned out as I faltered on, the smell of pine and damp soil getting stronger in my nostrils, the uneven surface gradually easing beneath my feet. Then the road twisted around to the left and stopped being a country path, transforming into a driveway leading to a large country house. I was light-headed from my efforts and still confused about what had happened to me. Was I hallucinating? But even after blinking several times, the structure was still there. I was a few hundred yards away, and until my path had changed direction, everything had been hidden by the trees. A rough stone wall ran around its perimeter, and a large iron-barred gate was set into the brick, right in front of me. It was wide open. I wandered through on to a surprisingly smooth and well-tended walkway, the small stones of its gravel crunching under my feet.

The house was built of dark stone, with narrow pillars at either side of the door, framing its two storeys. The windows were many but small, the entrance door high and thick. It was imposing rather than attractive, and I approached cautiously. Parts of the building were shrouded in shadow from the nearby trees, and its bricks seemed uneven and ragged in many places, as if they’d hurled defiant protest at the weather a few too many times. I assumed it was deserted, like the barn obviously had been—but the house was an astonishingly stately, incongruous building to find here beyond this wayward copse. I looked around for any sign of industry but there was nothing else in sight; no other buildings, no vehicles, no people. Something made me hesitate to go further, though I didn’t see how I could trespass when there was no one to trespass against. This was my only chance for rest and some kind of recovery while I worked out what to do. I was struggling too much with pain and fatigue to carry on much further. I encouraged my exhausted feet a few more steps, and reached the door. I leaned on it, almost half-heartedly. It’s bound to be locked up, I thought. I didn’t know if I was up to breaking in, however much of an emergency this was… And then the door – heavy, wooden, strapped with metal studs – swung ajar.

****

I stood there for at least a minute, my progress halted. I needed to lie down. I needed a lot of help. But I also knew from somewhere deeper than my misery and discomfort— much deeper—I was scared to go in. I scolded myself. For God’s sake, Steve, what’s up with you? This was an abandoned house, not some damned horror movie! I needed heat, and blankets, and access to a phone, and there was a serious lack of that kind of stuff outside. Anyway, I’d never believed in spooks or vampires or whatever...all those stupid teenagers, in those even more stupid movies, screaming at a scrape on a windowpane! But I felt cold and suddenly fearful, and I couldn’t blame it all on my soaking, chilled body. All it takes, is for a guy with a hunch to appear, and some wacky types in Transylvanian transvestite gear to dance past… And then I saw movement behind the door in the darkened lobby. Heard a soft whispering and noticed a disturbance of the thin film of dust on the front step.

I was startled and tried to calm myself. Hell, I was in no state to run away. “I—is anyone there? Can I come in?” Was it just a wild animal? Then I realised I’d seen none of them during my long, miserable walk. No rabbits, no birds. The rain had obviously scared everything into taking cover. The movement became a shadow, and the shadow took a familiar form. It was a person, though still too far back in the dark to identify. I tried to ignore my thudding heart; after all, a person meant food and warmth and clean clothes and communications— “Enter.” Did it speak? The sound was soft, though low and strong enough. It sounded like a man: a young man. I peered into the hallway. “Have you got a phone? I...think I need help…” I took the first step through the door, and in that instant everything got the better of me. The cold and the wet; the dreadful exhaustion throughout my body. Everything combined to create a hideous, bewildering mixture of numbness and hurt. I retched suddenly, and my body shuddered as if the ground under me were slipping away. There was a sound in my head like metal tearing— a terrible shrieking—and an escalation of the agony in my side as if someone had slipped in a thin sword and sliced upward with all their strength. My eyes couldn’t focus in the dim light—my eyes hurt, god dammit, and so did everything else, and my head rocketed with shards of vicious pain and explosions of red light… “Yes…” came soft syllables, echoing around my shattered mind. “Enter.” I passed out on the threshold.

****

I had no idea how long it was before I awoke again. I found myself lying on a couch of some sort in a large room. I had to assume it was inside the country house and I’d been carried or dragged there by the mystery guy. At least I was indoors at last. I still wore my torn clothes, but they were drying out slowly, and, surprisingly, I didn’t feel cold any more. Peering around, I couldn’t see any method of heat nearby. The pain still hammered through my head, a dull background ache now, and I sat up, gingerly. My legs felt stronger, and although my side throbbed, the pain was bearable. I had no idea of the passage of time and wondered why I didn’t feel hungry. There didn’t seem to be any urgency about it; I had a raging thirst, though.

I looked around more carefully now. I was in a living room of some sort. Despite the bleak aspect of the outside of the building, I was startled to find the inside furnished, and with reasonable comfort. The room had a high, vaulted ceiling with sculpted roses around the perimeter, and the walls were papered with a covering that was dark, thick and, presumably, expensive. Heavy rugs covered the floor, and full-length drapes were drawn across the windows so I couldn’t see anything outside. There was little furniture - just a dining table against the wall behind me, covered with a heavy cloth and with a single upholstered chair at each end. An open fireplace dominated the far side of the room, but apart from that, there was only the couch I lay on. There was no sign of a fire having been lit in the hearth, nor was there evidence of central heating radiators. Yet the room was very warm. And where was the light source? I couldn’t see any light fitting, recessed or otherwise, yet the room was bathed in a pale, dim light. I shook my head gently to try to clear my thoughts, but all it brought was a sudden, jagged spike of headache pain. Then he was there, standing beside me. The man who’d been at the front door. I must still have been groggy, because I’d been sure I was alone. I certainly never heard him come in. I know people say their heart sank – I always thought it a melodramatic exaggeration. But that’s how it felt then. A huge, lurching drop in my gut; sweat springing up on my skin like dew. I felt him before I actually saw the form of a man beside me. So did my inner fear, sending trails out along my nerves, quietly whimpering a warning. It’s shock. I tried to calm myself. You’re in shock. And guys creeping up on you don’t help. I glared up at him, mustering my attack. “What the hell’s going on? You scared me!” He was young. Young and, quite possibly, the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. What a ridiculous thing to think, though! I’d seen plenty of beauty in the movies and on TV, plenty of models on magazine covers, plenty of attractive men all around me, throughout my life. Many had natural beauty; others worked out and artificially tanned and used whatever surgical or cosmetic enhancements they could afford. But this guy was beautiful in a very different way; so beautiful that it took my angry, blustering breath away. He wasn’t self-conscious, he wasn’t so perfectly groomed you knew he’d hate you touching him. He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who knew all he had to keep your attention was his looks. What he was, was real. And gazing at me. He looked a similar height to me, though he was slimmer and his shoulders weren’t so broad. He held himself well and very confidently. From the way his hands rested carefully at his sides, I got an impression of underlying strength and excellent physical control. And his face—well, I stared, there’s no other word for it! I could only blame my rudeness on the extraordinary circumstances.

His flawless skin was darker than mine, with a slight Mediterranean cast to it. It was astonishingly gorgeous. His profile was smooth and with a nose I guess they’d call ‘patrician’; his mouth was wide, formed by full, dark red lips. He had dark hair that gleamed with that shade of black that was almost purple in a certain light, and it curled in to his neck. Locks of it fell casually on to his broad forehead. They were fascinating; they provoked every tactile sense I possessed, and then some more. I even felt my fingers stir as if to reach up, to check if the hair was as soft as it looked. And his eyes…they were bright, dark blue, and deep. Very deep. I stared into them, seeing sparks in the irises that reflected back to me, and I shivered. The man was, in popular speech, sex on legs! I always laughed at that phrase when I heard it aloud, because I thought it trite and demeaning. But facing its personification now I understood its power. This man wasn’t demeaned in any way by such an aura— he surely revelled in it. “There’s no need for fear,” he replied. “I’m Eliot and you’re here now.” His voice was calm and low. Amusement rippled beneath it, and also an obvious arrogance. I thought him a similar age to myself, and despite my underlying nervousness and shock, I felt an immediate antagonism. But I remembered that he’d helped me. I drew a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I...I’m just a bit confused. Um...Eliot. Look, thanks for your help, I just need to get in touch with someone to come collect me, take me back....” Back where ? My mind was still reaching for memories that mischievously eluded me. Where had I come from, where was I headed? He shrugged, an elegant, graceful gesture. “But I told you. You’re here now, and you can rest. There’s no need for confusion.” “Where am I? Where is this place?” “It’s here. You’re with me,” he said, and for the first time he smiled. It was slow, and it was sensual, and, my god, it really lit up his handsome face. My gaze locked on him, and my hands actually did lift, the muscles straining to touch the lips that curved upward in front of me. I was astounded by the strength of my own reaction. I clenched my fists and huddled back into the couch, shaking off a sudden tremor. What the hell was happening to me? “I need a drink.” I saw a jug and glass on the side table. “Any reason I shouldn’t have some of that water?” There was no way I should have been afraid of food and drink, but I looked at the jug and my stomach clenched.

Eliot glanced at the table and frowned. “Water…” he said, slowly. He gazed at me, making no attempt to hide his continuing amusement. “Whatever you see, that’s what it is. You seem to need it, so drink. Do it.” I did, though not without keeping an eye on him while I reached for the glass. There was something about the tone of his voice that subdued me. He was young, yet he was in charge. The words were common enough, but they conveyed his orders. I couldn’t understand the subtle weakness I felt in my body every time he spoke. I took a full draught of water, the cool liquid running down my parched throat. And then I took another. The glass was slippery and my hands still shook. When I went to put the glass back on the table, I nearly dropped it. Eliot was startled and we both reached out – but just milimeters away from touching it, he pulled back his hand. I caught the glass myself and righted it. When I looked back, he was staring at me. “Where am I?” I whispered, my throat refreshed. He shrugged and repeated, “You’re with me.” His whole attitude was as though there were no need for any further explanations. “You have been delayed, but now you’ve come. You are my gift – I asked for you.” I laughed at his weird talk, but something in his eyes made me bite the sound off quickly. “Your gift?” What did he mean? “Asked for me?” “That’s enough for now. Come to your room,” he said, dismissing my garbled questions. “You must sleep for a while.” He moved nearer to me, and held out his hand. It wasn’t a friendly gesture or a helping hand being offered – I might still have been groggy, but I recognised a command when I saw one. I obeyed, instinctively. I stood and placed a shaking hand in his, trying desperately to ignore the warm thrill that shot through me as I touched his cool palm. He folded his hand around mine, and it was like a trap closing. He shivered, very slightly, looking down at our joined hands. He looked both shocked and excited. “No, wait. Eliot, I ought to call someone… you know. Where’s the phone?” “Phone?” I frowned at him. “Someone will be worrying about me. I should call them.” “Who will that be, Steven?”

I hesitated, and in that moment I realized I didn’t really know. I knew I must have a home and friends and family… everyone did, didn’t they? A job… a car. Places to go, likes and dislikes, hobbies and sports and parties to enjoy. I was young, and I was sure that kind of life appealed to me. But, to my horror, I couldn’t remember anything specific. My heart hammered again in my chest. When I paused, trying to calm myself, it was enough of an advantage for Eliot, and he tugged me toward the door. “Enough for now, I have already said so. Follow me. It’s ready for you.”

****

Such strange speech, I thought, as I stumbled after him, out of the living room, across the hall and up wide, carpeted stairs to the second floor. Very old-fashioned. A bit like his clothes – he wore a loose-fitting shirt that was made of cream coloured silk, with an open neck and a few buttons fastening it across his torso, down from the middle of his chest. It had long, flowing sleeves, and the generous fabric was caught in at his waist with a wide leather belt. The buttons must have been gilded like the metal of his belt buckle because they glinted as he moved, reflecting the muted light source that followed us along the way. His pants were also of a soft, flexible fabric, molded tight against his thighs and tucked into knee-length boots. The leather of the boots looked soft, yet well worn – looked damned expensive, I thought, becoming acutely conscious of my sodden, scraped sneakers. The whole setting had the air of an idle country life, a privileged family riding to horse and hounds, a faded elegance… my stomach clenched again. I’d never been relaxed in the presence of either aristocracy or wealth. Call it jealousy; call it inverted snobbery; call it lack of my own confidence. Call it whatever you damned well pleased, that was how I felt. Yet Eliot’s hand was secure around mine and I followed him willingly enough. He led me along a silent corridor, its windows draped with similar curtains as before, the doors of the same smooth wood, all tightly closed. There was no movement from the other rooms; no other people I could see. I fell a little way back, but never far enough to lose him; I never managed to break free of his grip. I was unnerved to realize I had no wish to. I watched his back as he moved – he was graceful, but not in a girlish way. Instead, he was stealthy; smooth. Feline. Or feral? His legs were lean and he took a long stride. His butt was something else, rounded and muscled inside the close-fitting pants. I wondered what the hell I was doing, watching that.

He stopped at one final door and pushed it open. He showed me in to another large room, with a high ceiling like downstairs, but furnished more warmly, with velvet drapes, a thick brocade carpet and an over-sized four-poster bed. A decorated bedspread lay over it, and many thick, plumped pillows were piled on top. I’d never seen such a thing outside of the cover of a romance novel. This was some kind of a joke, surely? Or a wild, baroque dream. And then it was as if the room around me slipped into a different focus. Now I saw the whole damned place was out of the wrong time! There were lights here, but they were a type of gas lamp – no switches on the walls, no electrical points at the skirting board. The furniture was made of heavy wood, ornately carved. There was no sign of modern heating, just another fireplace, and obviously a working one with ashes in its hearth and wood stocked in a copper-plated bucket to the side. There was a large porcelain bowl of water on the bureau at the side of the bed, and I just knew it was for washing. Christ, I thought, there was going to be a chamber pot under the bed if I dared to look…. “Clothes... my clothes are wrecked.” I didn’t really know what I was saying. The fear was back. I didn’t want to stay here, but damned if I could remember what I should do about it. Eliot moved closer, his face now in front of mine, inches away. I couldn’t smell much sweat or cologne from him, but my skin prickled with goose bumps at the mere thought of it. I imagined I could feel the heat of his body against mine, and it crawled over my battered body, binding us together; seeping slowly, inexorably along my swelling veins. How ridiculous! How unsettling…. “You don’t need clothes,” he murmured. The smile was back on his lips: the plump, arrogant lips. I couldn’t tell if they were sneering or sympathetic. I couldn’t make sense of it all and I opened my mouth to protest. “Sleep now,” he whispered. And then he’d gone, just as strangely and as suddenly as he’d arrived.

****

He came back, in the middle of the night. I’d obviously settled well enough into that luxurious bed, because I awoke suddenly from the depths of dreamless sleep, cushioned on the sumptuous mattress. I was aware of Eliot,

standing at the side of the bed and watching me. The lamps were all extinguished and he was a different shade of shadow in the dark room, backlit by a sliver of moonlight from a rare opening between the curtains. His eyes shone in the gloom, a dark, brittle gleam. “What are you doing in my room?” I gasped. Stupid thing to say, when there were so many other things crowding my disorientated mind… “It’s my room as well,” he replied, his voice sounding disembodied in the darkness, only the silhouette of his body in clear sight, only the white teeth of his smile glinting. “You’re my gift, so I keep you in my room.” What ? Had he been sleeping here as well? Underneath the sheets, I stretched out a hand, wondering if I could feel the evidence of another body beside me – and the mattress was warm. I realised that I was nude; I felt the cool linen sheets clinging softly against my skin. All of it. Oh shit, what was going on here? I felt thick-headed, as if I’d been drugged, but as far as I could remember I’d taken nothing but water since I arrived. For the first time, I wondered if this place was as alien to me as I’d originally thought. Had I been on my way here, in the first place? It would explain how Eliot seemed to know me, to expect me…although I had no recollection of him. And what was this thing with the bedroom? My skin crawled with a mixture of astonishment and excitement. He undressed you. Undressed you, and lay beside you in this huge bed… I need answers! I thought, with a flash of spirit that I dragged up from somewhere in my bemused brain. I need to know where the hell I am, who this guy is, what he wants with me, what he’s done with my clothes…. Eliot smiled again. I felt the heat of his gaze on me, and somewhere along the way I lost the will to ask any of my questions. It was like he knew exactly what I’d been thinking; knew exactly how I was feeling. I felt stripped bare of far more than my ruined shirt. “You don’t need clothes,” he said, softly, confirming my suspicions. “You’re rested now.” “What the hell’s happening?” I moaned, my hands tightening on the edge of the sheet. I struggled to find the energy to get up. He leaned forward and his face came into focus, the eyes as fascinating as before, his skin dappled with the shadows. Stretching out a hand to my face, he smiled and sighed, his soft, padded fingertips touched at my lips, hushing me. “I want you. I asked for you, and you arrived. Someone beautiful, I said – someone I can love. Just for me. Someone like you. Some one I can touch….” His eyes glistened, as if with tears. “And now you’re rested, and ready for me.” He climbed on to the bed beside me, the mattress dipping beneath his weight.

I saw he was naked as well. The world spun like a drunken top. My whole body flushed. My throat dried up and my hands clenched – only the thin sheet draped across my lower body protected my cock, which was waking up as swiftly as I had, swelling with a painfully fierce arousal. His body was as gorgeous as his face! I hadn’t seen such a provocative sight in all my life. Long, lean limbs and his whole skin was rich with a dusky hue. The flesh was smooth across his torso, the muscles flexed in his shoulders and neck with an innate sensuality. His thighs were taut, his legs bent as he knelt on the bed, and at his groin, rearing up from the nest of crisp, dark curls, was his cock, jutting up toward his belly. It was thickly swollen; rich with a damp sheen that glinted in the dim light; proud with luscious promise and hungry for attention. Mine . And I knew instinctively I welcomed it. Whatever my confusion remembering what had happened to me, I realized I had no such problem recalling what kind of man I was. The memories flooded back at the sight of Eliot’s fabulous, predatory body. I hadn’t had the time or the enthusiasm to gaze at other young men for a long time – every nerve in my body told me this, as well as the echo from my dusty memories. I’d known I was gay from a young age, of course, and I had no problem with that, but I’d always been fairly circumspect about my sexual preferences in front of others. Not everyone can cope with it being heralded from the rooftops. I’d always been content to keep my private life to myself, and to wait to judge whether I wanted someone in my life that way. It seemed to me I’d had more than my fair share of disappointments in that department. It wasn’t that I was unattractive, or so others had told me. Or unsociable; or unwilling. Just that I was cautious. With men; with sex; with love. I didn’t have a very worldly experience to judge this by; I didn’t often encourage…welcome. But I couldn’t remember the last time there’d been such a welcome as this! My blood rushed down my body, far away from any sense left in my head, and my fists clenched to keep my hands from eager wandering. I knew that any man in his right mind would be horny, faced with this guy. This was unreality at its height. And yet…it had echoes of familiar fantasies. I was terribly excited, despite myself. “I don’t know who you are, or what the hell you think you’re up to...” I began. It was as if he hadn’t heard. He placed his hands on my waist, just inside the sheet, and he pressed gently into my flesh. It was right on the place I’d been injured, and I winced. “Hey, watch it…” “You’re hurt, Steven. I’ll be gentle this time. It will heal soon.”

The touch of his fingers on my wound should have been hideously painful, but somehow it wasn’t. I twisted in the dark, so close to him that I saw the gentle throb of his Adam’s apple; I saw a drop of sweat on his throat. Despite my nervousness, I didn’t throw him off. “How do you know my name?” Had I told him, perhaps in my sleep? Yet he’d called me by it downstairs last night, before I slept. With him. I wondered where my wallet was. Had he been through my meagre belongings, spying on me? “Open your mouth…” he whispered. “I want to kiss you. Give me your tongue.” Now I cried out, startled and shocked, and I tried to wriggle away from him. But his hands weren’t just caressing me, they pinned me to the bed. My strength had deserted me, was slumbering somewhere else. Instead, to my horror, my body was surrendering to Eliot, alert to every breath from him, reaching for him instinctively and aching in long-neglected places. “Are you insane? Leave me alone!” Eliot laughed softly. “That’s not what you want. You don’t want to be left alone. You’re ready for me.” His words were gentle, but to me they were like snakes, slithering softly around me, teasing and flickering their quick tongues within my mind. “Your body is hot, but it’s lonely; neglected. You are lost. You need me, and you want me to fill you.” That damned arrogance again! He shifted his legs to straddle me, still gripping hard. His knee pushed the sheet away from my body, and there didn’t seem to be a damned thing I could do about it. But why wasn’t I trying? “Who the hell are you?” I gasped. He frowned. “I told you, I’m Eliot. Your resistance is unexpected, Steven. This is still new to you, I know – but not for long, you should realise that. Now be ready for me.” “No…” I gasped, but I couldn’t take my eyes from him, from his fabulous body. He was very close to me now, and my eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark so I could see much better. I was mesmerised. The lithe, athletic way that he moved over my legs; the possessive trail of his fingers down my naked skin. He no longer held me down but I didn’t resist anyway. There was no ignoring my erection now. I felt the heat from it, heavy against my thigh, bobbing up toward my belly. Aching; begging. Or maybe some of the heat was from his body, from his own arousal, nudging against my leg, shining damply in the poor light. And – oh god – I wanted him! I’d never been into casual sex – I knew I was a man who’d turned down opportunities in the past, though the details escaped me. I was looking for something that touched my heart as well as my body. But now I felt as if I’d die if I didn’t have it; didn’t have him. I shivered with the emotion; chillingly hot with lust, and swamped with the humiliation. I had no words left to save me.

****

Eliot bent over me, his hot breath at my neck. What was happening to me? At the same time as I protested, I relaxed beneath him, fighting the desperate ache of my need. “I don’t know who you are, Eliot. I don’t know why I’m here—” “You’re here for me,” came his relentless reply. His lips dipped to my chest now; my lungs quivered under the ribcage; my breath shortened fiercely at the touch of his mouth. I let out the softest moan as he suckled on my nipple. “Eliot – oh god, no - are you alone here?” “Hush….” “No,” I gasped. Were there others like him, hiding somewhere in this huge, weird house? Would we be disturbed? Challenged? Was I in even more danger? “Tell me.” He sighed. “Yes, to all intents I am. They left months ago and I have had no word from them. All I can do is survive here, alone and patient. That’s why I asked for you. To be with me, to give me company. For me.” Who were they? There was no sense in his reply, yet I didn’t have the energy to question further. There was no logic, no reason to this situation. There was only stimulation and flesh and desire. His fingers stroked softly against my stomach, and his mouth continued to suck. His tongue flicked at the erect tip of each of my nipples in turn, sending golden threads of almost painful pleasure through my upper body and inexorably to my groin. “What are you doing to me?” I groaned. I slid back against the pillows, knowing all too well the answer. I waved a hand at his head, whether to strike him away or to drag him nearer, I had no idea. My arm felt insubstantial; ineffectual. “You speak very strangely, Steven,” he sighed. “But you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t be more pleased with my gift. I won’t be alone now. But you must relax.” His mouth was back up against my ear, and the hot, domineering breath was at my neck, at my cheek, making me moan aloud. “You want to relax, don’t you? You want me. You want to be mine.” God forgive me, but I do! I don’t know this man, this strange, anachronistic man. But I’m naked in bed with him beside me, hornier than I’ve ever been in my life before; he intends to do god knows what, and I want it—

He kissed me, then. It was inevitable, it was sweet, and it was the most indescribably delicious feeling I had ever experienced. When his lips pressed against mine, I felt my whole spirit consumed. When his tongue slid between my barely protesting lips, I felt my whole body open up to him. He gasped with delight, as if he might have doubted it, just for a second. My cock wept for him – I felt the damp trails of cum on my skin, and the ache as my balls swelled and tightened between my thighs. My blood pulsed for him. I kissed back. My tongue thrust into him like we were battling, at least, that’s how it started between us. But the difference now was that I wanted to lose. I smelled every inch of him, savoring it, the unfamiliar yet tantalising aroma of his skin. I heard his breath panting in my ear; felt his hand gripping the hair at the back of my neck, holding me close to him. In some strange, inexplicable way, he tasted of things I knew I’d never had in my life, not for any length of time – passion; devotion; obsession. “Beautiful…” he murmured into my mouth. For the first time in my life, I felt that I was. He made me believe it. I reached for him then, and took hold of his shoulders, twisting him down beside me. “You want me…” he sighed. He sounded relieved. His voice was low and it stroked at my nerves, hypnotising me somehow. “I’ve been waiting a very long time for you to arrive. Hold me, Steven. Take my cock – suck me.” I got up on my knees, turning to face his groin. He stretched his legs further apart, making his cock bounce eagerly on his thighs. It was magnificent. That’s another thing – I’d never been that keen on going down on anyone before. But now that was all I wanted to do, to take the thick, blood-red flesh into my aching mouth, and suck his seed out. I put my hands either side of his hips, and plunged down on him. Christ, I had so little control, his cock struck the back of my throat and I gagged. He gasped and laughed breathily. “Steven, you’re too fast, there’s plenty of time. Take me slowly…taste me, savor me….” I eased up my movements, but the desperation was unabated. Inside my mouth, the soft, wrinkled skin stretched around the swelling organ; I tasted the sharp tang of pre-cum on my tongue. Each time I ran my lips up to the tip, suckling the hard knob of its head, his hips bucked against me and I knew I pleased him. He moved as if he were fucking my mouth, teasingly; adoringly. Like no part of my body had ever been fucked before. My head swam and my body absorbed him, rocking with the rhythm of his thrusts. I thought I might pass out here again, silently and unnoticed, still sucking on his cock. I realised with a shock that I wouldn’t have minded in the slightest. But he moved then, sliding reluctantly out of my mouth. “Sit back up, Steven. I want to see your cock, begging for me. I want to see you.”

I wriggled back upright on my shaky knees, staring into his face. I felt very flushed. My lips throbbed with the memory of his cock inside them, a bead of his cum still sticky at the corner of my mouth. “Just us…” he murmured, his eyes hot on me. “Just you.” He held my gaze and lifted his hand to his mouth, sucking firmly on his fingers. Drawing them in and out, saliva glimmering its trail from his lush lips, wetting the fingers along their length and licking in between. His eyes were wide and greedy – there was a look in them of total desire, of total possession. Like he knew I would do whatever he wanted. Whatever he commanded. “Steven, lie back and open your legs. I want to see what’s mine; what pleasure I’m going to take from you. I want to touch inside of you – make you cry out with it.” I did just that. It was as if I watched some other man, some other time and place. But it was really me. Me, a man who dropped quickly to the sheets, spreading his legs wide and high, offering himself up to the other. I felt the shiver of lust creep from my balls to my ass. I felt it tease at my hole, encouraging it to throb; to ache. The muscles clenched and relaxed, and the pucker begged for a touch. I had never felt such a way before in my life. His hand stroked over my side, but there was no longer any pain from my wound. I tried to remember if it had been troubling me when I woke up, or whether these hot caresses were just distracting me now. I tried to remember anything at all, but all I could concentrate on was him. “You were hurt, yes.” Eliot acknowledged my thoughts again, although I was sure I hadn’t spoken aloud. “But it’s much better. It won’t worry you when I take you.” His voice was mesmerising again, tugging at my sluggish responses and soaking through any last vestige of resistance or distress. “I want you to enjoy it, Steven. You will enjoy it. You’ve been waiting for me, too….” Then he knelt up at my feet, and his smile overpowered me. His quick, damp fingers felt for me, up between my outstretched legs, finding the entrance with no hesitation. My flesh tensed in anticipation of him. My thighs strained to encompass him. A single fingertip teased slowly into my asshole. I sucked in a shocked, delighted breath. “You’re wanton, aren’t you?” The amusement was back, underlying his whisper, though there was plenty of delight for him there, too. “It will take very little to prepare you for me. You want me. You’re mine.” One finger, then two were slipped inside me, clutched inside the tight channel, moving slowly but firmly to stretch me. “Steven…” he hissed. “Such a smooth, beautiful way to touch you.”

I heard his satisfied groans as he thrust them back and forth, a preliminary parody of what I knew he wanted to do to me in reality. His other hand cupped my balls, gently manipulating them, rolling them against his palm. “Please…” I whimpered. He laughed. “You don’t need to beg me, though it’s exciting to hear. This is what I asked for – this is what we’re both here for.” He moved closer to me, taking hold of my knees, and hitching my legs up around his hips. His damp cock bumped against my groin, nudging against my own arousal, and I moaned in agonised anticipation. His eyes held mine, and there was a look of such joy and triumph in them that I was fascinated. For a second I couldn’t hear my heart beating as I waited. Waited, with terrible, tormenting suspense and hunger for him to enter me. To take me. I thought my mind was unravelling. I’m a guy who doesn’t give it up this easily, aren’t I? Yet my need was so strong it swamped me. I worried suddenly about lube, and how long it had been since I’d last been fucked. I wondered how I could raise the subject of using a condom, and then worried again whether I’d be clumsy or naïve and he’d laugh at my attempts at sex, or whether it’d all come back to me, like they say it does. I felt like a nervous teenager all over again. Then the warm throb of his cock touched at my hole, and all my worries were overwhelmed with pure, unadulterated lust that swam in waves throughout my whole body. I arched up so high that I thought my back would creak with its protest. I was desperate to reach out to him; to draw him into me. To be his. Not that I didn’t care about anything else – but I knew that only he had control of this, that nothing was to be left in my hands. I was more than happy to surrender to that. He licked lips that were already sumptuously thick with our kissing – with his caressing of my body. “There’s no need for concern, Steven. None of it really matters.” What did he mean? Christ, had he read my mind? Had I cried out something aloud? “Relax, Steven…” he whispered. Hardly anyone ever called me by my full name, or so I seemed to remember, but it was a seductive, sibilant sound in his gentle tone. I wanted to hear it, again and again. His hands slicked his cock, massaging the remains of my saliva and his soft, sweet pre-cum all over it. Then his fingers returned to my hips and thighs, spreading me even further apart. The swollen flesh of his dick pressed at me; probed at my entrance. “It will be very, very good,” he whispered.

It was an invasion, despite my eagerness and his careful preparation, but it wasn’t something I resisted. It was exhilarating, like a triumphant conquering! The head of his cock forced me apart, and the shaft pushed in. It had, indeed, been a long time since I took anything like this inside me but I welcomed it without any further question. Strangely enough, there were no worries; no severe physical pain; no failure; no ridicule; no insecurities. I knew, without a doubt, that I would never have found this sensation anywhere else but with Eliot. I felt the initial discomfort, and then I relaxed and opened for him, and he sighed aloud with his pleasure. “Will you beg now, Steven?” he groaned. I did. I reached for him, tugging his head down toward me so I could kiss him, mimicking with my tongue the thrusting of his cock into my body. I bent my legs up high against my chest, tilting the angle so he could slide even deeper, so he could torment my prostate. He had an unerring instinct for it. “Christ…” I groaned. “Kiss me, Eliot. Do me, come deeper - fuck me, hard!" “Strange language,” he laughed, but his eyes darkened, and he forced in even further. He rocked in and out of me, and I felt the smooth, sweat-damp heat of his chest against mine as he slid back out each time, hesitating as if testing the sensation himself; relishing it. Every touch to my body felt exaggerated and enhanced: the tensing of the muscles in his thighs as he gathered his energy and thrust back in; his soft balls slapping against my ass; the tickle of his pubic hairs against my weeping cock as he ground close up to me. We were one together. I was out of my head. It was as near perfect as I believed it could be. I’d never had such sex before. He spoke again as if he read my mind. “You are perfect, Steven. You’re a beautiful lover. You’re what I desire more than anything. We belong together, doing this….” “I...want to come...!” I gasped. The throbbing suspense in my groin was agony, but my cock was trapped between our bodies, neglected and begging for the right touch. “God, Eliot...make me...let me....” “Wait, love,” he murmured. I saw the individual beads of sweat on his forehead; the faint line of veins at his temple. He slowed his pumping for a second, breathing shallowly. I felt the pulsing of his cock inside me, and I marvelled at it. He licked at his drying lips. “I can’t wait!” I cried.

“You will,” he replied, in that voice of command I’d heard before. He lifted himself up on one arm above me, his muscles taking the weight with their strength. He was panting heavily now, his eyes wild with passion, his cock still buried inside my ass. My own eyes were wide open; vulnerable; scared, even. But he drew the look up into his, and he mouthed my name with his rich lips. “Steven….” Then he reached down with his free hand and took hold of my desperate cock. “Hard,” I groaned. “Hard! Please!” “Come for me, love. I want to see you come.” “I want...to feel you shoot inside me...” I moaned, arching up again. His hand moved up and down my shaft, tortuously slow. It tugged at my tight skin; his fingers brushed over the wet tip. His body withdrew from me, and then he plunged back in with a grunt. Leaning back down onto me, his fucking started again, the thrusts matching the pumping of my cock. I cried out – a single, keening thread of a cry, as my climax approached. I swore I felt his fingerprints burn a brand on my flesh. He was absorbed into me – his cock, his groin, his stomach, chest…all tight up against me, our faces contorted with the agony of concentration, of abandonment to the sensations. I fell first. Fell from the greatest height, though I was flat on my back and crushed underneath him. But it felt like a leap from the highest cliff face, and about as terrifying. There appeared to be no control – not over the tortuous rush through my body, nor the shriek torn from me as my whole being concentrated in this single, pumping place. The cum burst out of me like something angry and bold, splattering hotly onto his hand and his groin, and dripping its surrender back down onto my stomach. I had never come so hard and so fantastically in my life. Never known such physical satisfaction – such a feeling of utter completion! He was seconds behind me in coming. I felt the change in the size and shape of his cock, responding to the sudden, instinctive tightening of my ass muscles. He was quieter than I was – who wouldn’t have been? – but his whole body shook with the force of his climax. He gave soft, mewling cries of pleasure as he pumped once, then again and again, until the final, fierce burst thrust deep inside me. His fingers gripped me brutally as the ecstasy drained out of his limbs, but I felt no anger, no pain. It was part of the experience. I was exhausted, muscles aching and protesting, ass stinging after the extraordinary joy of him inside me. Every nerve ending was raw; exposed. My heart screamed, my mind whirled – my senses were sharper than ever, and everything looked and smelled keener than before.

I’d never felt so alive in my life!

****

I lay on the bed, watching Eliot slide seductively out of his clothes, and I knew it was another night. I had no idea of the specific passage of time, though. I couldn’t have said what happened after Eliot fucked me the first time, because I genuinely couldn’t remember. I knew there had been many other times – that night; the next night; many nights after – and they had always been as exciting. I was so frequently naked that I rarely remembered being dressed. The room was always warm, the drapes always drawn closed. There was no sound except our panting breath – no other senses except awareness of each other. I had no further idea of where I was. Or who he was. But it never seemed to matter. I remembered occasional intentions about making my way home – I thought that there were things I had to discover about my journey here, about my life elsewhere. There was something always nagging at the back of my mind, calling to another Steven Macklin, a young man who’d never been here before, who’d never met Eliot…. But I couldn’t connect with that image of myself: it was as if I’d always been with Eliot. His voice would call me to him, and his hands would open me for him, and my mind would fill with only that. Night after night. “You say I was your gift. Gift from whom?” Eliot slid on to the bed beside me, now as naked as I was, smiling at me. “I asked, and you arrived. I deserved a gift, and I chose for someone like you to come to me.” I sighed. There were never any proper answers, yet I couldn’t do any better with the questions. “Who did you ask? Like Santa Claus? Like God?” My voice broke a little. He shrugged. He shifted to lie between my legs, and I felt the sensual caress of his hands along my thighs. The reaction it set up in my nerves was excruciating. “I don’t believe in God, Steven. I just wish, and someone – something – grants it to me. I can’t explain anything more than that.” He was below me now, lips at my groin, lapping my balls with his slick tongue. He always made it good for me, he delighted in that, but now he wanted me again, and I was to be ready for him. That was the way of it, every time.

“And why do you dress in that weird way?” He shrugged. I felt the vibration against my thighs. “They’re only clothes, Steven. Yours are strange, too. But it doesn’t really matter here, does it? I want you to be naked for me all the time. I like to watch the light of evening move across the room, reflected on your bare skin. I like the way your hair falls across your shoulders when you shake your head underneath me. I like to see your sweat – your shivers. The way that your arm cradles your head when I suck your cock; the way that your strong legs clutch around me when I thrust inside you. The tension in your buttocks when I take you from behind….” I was hot in a way that a volcano itself wouldn’t have understood, yet I persisted in questioning him; in distracting him. “And you live all alone…?” He frowned. I saw the slight creases on his forehead. “Here it’s just you and me, that’s true. And I have been alone, in myself, in my heart. For a long time.” His lips tightened around one of my balls, sucking it gently into his mouth. “But now I have you.” “…in this weird old house….” “It’s not old, Steven. My family had it built in my grandfather’s time.” “So why the archaic style?” I snapped. “And what’s the story behind your family? Why aren’t they here, why don’t I meet them? It’s like you’ve been abandoned here….” Eliot paused in his caresses. I felt him tense up. “Steven, they’re away. They’re… they left me here to look after the house while they left to find help. I don’t want to talk about….” “To find help?” I interrupted him. “What’s wrong? What kind of help?” He sighed. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, for maybe the first time since I’d met him. “It hasn’t been easy for them. I have always been different. It’s like a second sight; I am aware of far more than they are. I am able to… see things in people. Their needs; their desires. Rather than celebrating this, it makes people nervous.” “Second sight? How the hell does that work?” I didn’t know what answer to expect. Did that kind of thing really go on in today’s modern world? Or was this all some kind of trickery? “My father built this house to give us….” He glanced up at me, his lips still hovering at the soft skin of my upper thigh. His eyes were strangely, pitifully sad. “To give us privacy. To give us… protection.” My heart contracted. “From…?”

“From everyone in the town.” His voice hardened. “I could not find a place there. There’s no one like me. When I thought to find friends, all I found were traitors. Traitors to me, and traitors to their own desires. No one would accept me, calling me a corrupter, when I just sought comfort. I just wanted truth. They called my ways an abomination, a crime….” What was he talking about? Did he mean being gay? Sounded like he’d been out, but the closeted town couldn’t cope with him. Even from my short time with Eliot, I knew how open he was, how easily he expressed what he wanted. He probably came over as some evil sexual predator, rather than a guy looking for a companion. Christ, I’d thought the world had moved on some small measure, that such persecution happened only in small wayward villages. Or in history books. “And so my parents made me come here; stay here. Now they have also gone, for a while… they say they hope to find a tutor for me, to help me.” He frowned, as if struggling to find the right words. “To help me assimilate into society.” I pulled up on my elbows, staring down at him. It was the first time he’d ever spoken of his family. “A tutor?” I was pretty sure there was no tutor who could treat Eliot’s particular condition. Maybe they were seeking a doctor or psychologist…or a gaoler? Had his family left him here for good, ashamed of him – fearful of him? I didn’t know whether I should be scared or sorrowful. A beautiful young man like Eliot, loving and needy. And so alone. “Eliot.” I reached for him, wanting to comfort him somehow. “I need to know how I fit into this. What the fuck I’m doing here…” His eyes flickered back up to meet mine, his expression a strange mixture of love and exasperation that I had come to know well. “That’s enough, now. Why do you continue with this harshness, Steven? You know why you’re here. You know that I can bring you the pleasure and the relaxation you want.” He kissed my thigh again, his tongue licking greedily under my balls, teasing the sensitive skin there. “This is the right place for you. You know it.” “I don’t!” I gasped. It was more like a sob, the pleasure washing over me, stealing my questions away again. “I don’t know anything!” He moved up the bed to lie beside me then, holding me, caressing me. I thought I felt his sigh in the breath at my neck, but I wasn’t sure of anything any more. “Eliot, tell me more. What I see. What you see.” He never answered. He didn’t need to, for his answer to me was the warmth of his wet, hot mouth over my cock, and his comfort to my sobs was the movement of his tongue along the

underside and over the top, flickering into the slit, tasting the droplets of cum that eked out for him. I shuddered with the perfect joy of it. It was as if he’d known my body as long as I had. And I surrendered all thought to the deepest, most uncontrollable sensations.

****

I think I actually wept, sometimes, though I didn’t think that was something I’d been prone to before. Often it was because Eliot brought me a climax that was so sharp, so deep and so poignant that I thought I wouldn’t survive it. Or maybe it was when the pain from my old injury returned, more vicious than ever, though there was never any real wound that I could see, and as soon as I woke with the agony, Eliot would be beside me, soothing it away. And sometimes I cried from the pure, unremitting confusion. “I don’t understand, Eliot. I don’t understand anything about this.” “You won’t let yourself understand. You only have to enjoy.” Eliot was there with me again, deep in the dark hours that must have been night, if I’d only had sight of a clock. He never seemed to grow angry with me; frustrated with my rambling. Instead, he touched me and caressed me and murmured to me, though his replies were more soothing than satisfying. “Come here and let me take you, Steven. Get on your knees. Draw your hair to the side so I can kiss your neck. Spread your long, strong legs. I like to look at your ass as I move slowly in and out of you.” “You’ll give me answers then? When you’ve taken me again? Will you?” His voice was muffled as he leaned over my back, suckling at the thin skin of my shoulder. Marking me. “I’ll give you what you need, Steven. What we both need. Why ask anything else?” He penetrated me, fiercely. He knew that was how I liked it, sometimes, and so did he. I gasped with the force, but my questions continued. “What’s the time, Eliot? What’s the date?” He spoke quietly. “It’s now, Steven. That’s what’s important for us. We’re together, now.” “How many days have passed?”

His answer was breathy; he was deep inside me, and holding his excitement to get the maximum pleasure from me. “Since you arrived? I haven’t been counting. Weeks, perhaps.” I should have known that; it shouldn’t have been such a shock to me, but I couldn’t evaluate what it really meant. Then his warm, skilful hand slid around to my stomach and grasped my aching cock, and he thrust in earnest. All I felt was his skin, slick against my back with sweat and passion, his breath rasping in my ear, and his hands tightly clenched in my hair. He dragged my head back so he could lick my neck and nip at the angry pulse there. My back arched; the skin of my throat was taut and stretched. I closed my eyes, sinking into the rising ecstasy of our superb coupling. He fit me by now—or I fit him. Preparation was rarely necessary. I was always ready for him.

****

Sometimes, he would lie beside me afterward, kissing me softly and stroking my chest, helping my pounding heart settle down to a more reasonable pace. Those were the times I felt closest to him. Despite the fierce, astonishing delirium of the sex, when he had time to relax beside me, we were two young men, alone together. We acted like we were in love. Did I love him? I’d never loved anyone in my life before, or at least I had no memory of this strangely obsessive, all-consuming need. But that was the way I felt for Eliot. It was all I could think of. Most of the time, it was all that I needed. “What’s happened to me?” I sighed. His face moved against my shoulder; his lips twisted into that slow, possessive smile. The bedding was crumpled beneath our bodies, his smooth hip was against mine; his lean, strong arm thrown carelessly across my chest. His hair smelled of nothing I recognised, but it was a heady, musky scent, and the thick strands tickled my neck as he moved. He never ceased to excite and enthrall me; he was a wet dream. Mine. My flesh immediately began to creep with a craving I could barely contain. “You came to me, Steven. I love you. You’re mine.” “That’s not what I meant…” I sighed again, but this time I smiled. And then the longing overwhelmed me, and the feeling of his bare skin against mine woke my need. I rolled on to my side, to press against him more closely. My hand slid greedily over his buttocks, my fingers tracing the dips of his muscles, running along the sweaty crease where his ass met the top of his thigh. “So good…” he sighed. “I waited so long.”

My heart ached for him, painfully. “It must have been bad, Eliot. To be cut off from everything, to be left here alone… with no one of your own. No one to care for you.” He shook his head gently, as if he didn’t want to talk about it. Whenever I tried to get him to tell me more of his lost family, he would try to distract me first. I could see pain in his eyes; he looked much younger and more vulnerable. “All I ever wanted was someone of my own. Someone who didn’t look at me with revulsion; who could be mine.” “Eliot….” He caught my hand as it reached for him. “Enough.” He slid my fingers in between his lips, sucking them gently. “When I take you, I forget that time. I’m at peace with you.” I watched his mouth, moist and hungry for me. “When can I take you, Eliot?” I thought I’d like that, very much. Maybe in a previous life I’d been the one to part a man’s thighs, to slide between his buttocks and penetrate him…. “Am I always going to be the passive one?” “You are never passive,” he murmured, laughing softly. His tongue slipped out to lick at my wrist, my hand still caught in his grasp. “Listen how you talk to me! So bold. So different from me. And here in bed… you are as fierce as I am, in all the lovemaking. Your mouth sucks me – your fingers slide inside me and stroke me until I plead to enter you.” He knew how much I wanted him, even without feeling my aching arousal pressing on his belly, making it uncomfortable for both of us to lie still. “But I don’t think you can take me, love. It’s not for you. Don’t ask again, for I don’t want you distressed.” “What do you mean?” His eyes were suddenly dark and his face pale. It seemed I’d hurt him, but I didn’t know why or how. I reached for him, wanting to comfort him But then he was gone again, and I couldn’t recall his movement away from me.

****

Then came the day that I asked him, “What are you?” Would I receive any clearer an answer? “I never see you eating, Eliot, or working. Cleaning the house. Calling friends. Whatever you do when you’re not with me.” He raised a fine eyebrow and one of his slim fingers reached to my mouth, running across my lips. We were lying on his bed again. Our bed. “I do what’s usual. Of course I eat, and other things. You just don’t see it. I only call you when I want you.”

I groaned; I was restless. I tried to roll away from him, always in the bed, always in his arms… “No one comes here, Eliot. Don’t you have visitors at all? Tradesmen? Friends?” Other lovers ? I wanted to say, but restrained my jealousy. It was irrelevant, really. He shook his head, and I saw his expression twist with rare anger. “Sometimes I do. Visitors… they’re not for you to worry about, not here for you to see. And friends aren’t easy for me to come by, I’ve told you that. Don’t concern yourself with such things, Steven. I have you, now. We have each other. That’s all I need; all I want.” “What are you, Eliot?” I repeated myself in my frustration, I knew. “Why am I so bound to you? This isn’t reality, is it?” He laughed, although the sound was sharp. “What you think is real, is real. Steven, I know this to be true. I’ve lived with it all my life. When life has been cruel to me, I’ve created my own reality. You are here, in my house, my bed, my heart…you’re as real as…” He looked around the room but his gaze returned to me. “Tell me what you see on the table.” I frowned, but I glanced over. “The water jug. My glass.” He nodded, but his eyes were wary. “I don’t see anything there. That is your reality.” “What?” I remembered that first time, when I nearly dropped my glass. He’d reached out with me to catch it, then stopped. Had there been nothing there? For him? I stretched my hand out and touched him: ran my fingers along his hip, the flesh warm under my fingertips. “I can feel you,” he whispered. “But what you see and feel otherwise…I don’t see that.” “This room…” I looked around, wildly. The decorations; the luxurious bed; the many, deep pillows… “It’s always warm in here; the light appears so that I can see you.” He gazed at me, his eyes sad again. “I don’t see it that way; those things are for you, not me. You’re my reality, Steven.” “But what if I don’t want that?” Panic rose in me. “Why have we come together like this?” “I don’t know, Steven. Please be calm.” “How long have you been on your own, Eliot – how long has your family been gone? Where are you from?” I wanted to ask, when are you from? I was suddenly afraid. He sighed again, and started to stroke me with long, soothing movements, his palms running over my chest, catching my nipples and making them pebble with arousal. “You’re

talking nonsense again, Steven. I’ll show you what I am.” He rolled me back over on to my face, running his hands under my hips to lift me up for his use. “I’m just a man, you know that. One who needs you. One whom you want.” Yes, yes, my body moaned. “No,” I ground out, for I still clung to some independent thought. “You’re more...or less...than that. I don’t know. Look at us!” We’re a strange, mixed up, desperate couple. “I don’t think we’re of the same time...even the same century. I can’t explain it, and it’s torturing me.” The talk of his lost family, his social banishment… his abandonment here, on his own… his long time waiting for me; for someone. “Dear god, are you a ghost?” He gave a light laugh. He panted a little. His cool hands spread my cheeks, fingers probed at my entrance. Stroking the sensitive skin between there and my balls. My cock protested, painfully rigid and rearing up between my widening legs. It dripped a little onto the clean white sheets. But then, they were always clean; always white. “I’m not a ghost, Steven. Could a ghost do this?” And he thrust hard into me. “You see?” he gasped. I panted along with him, one hand gripping the sheets beneath me until they threatened to rip, as in fact they sometimes did. My other hand clenched my cock, stroking it furiously as it begged for the chance to release itself underneath him. He liked me to touch myself, to bring myself off. He liked to see my hips shake; feel my muscles clutch around him. Then he would relax his own control and burst up into me, prolonging my own climax, keening along with me. “Do you see, Steven?” “Yes, I do... uhhh –” My voice was nothing more than a groan, jerked from me along with my cum, spurting with pure relief across my hand and the sheets, hot and thick. I felt Eliot’s breath catch with pleasure as I came, and his cock swelled inside me, stretching me with the same thrill as always. A couple more thrusts, and I felt the familiar change of pulse; the growing heat. He shuddered above me, and his climax followed, his cum filling my channel. As he withdrew, gasping, trails of it escaped from me, sliding slowly and insidiously down my inner thighs. Leaving me irretrievably his. As always. “You are my gift, Steven. I’ve never had something that’s given me so much happiness. You are mine.”

****

I still struggled against it, and yet I couldn’t remember the reason why any more. I had never been so physically satisfied and content in all my life. I needed for nothing. I craved Eliot, and he was there for me, as often as I needed. His care was total and complete, and his lovemaking took me beyond contentment. It took me to acute ecstasy. Yet, still I questioned. In the moments between waking and Eliot coming to me, I struggled to capture memories that floated past me like cotton threads in the wind. I had lived elsewhere; I had been another man. “I must know, Eliot. I must know what happened to me.” “You don’t need to know,” he hushed me. “You’re where you belong now. It doesn’t matter where you were before.” Didn’t I have family and friends of my own? Why couldn’t I remember? Did his attention do more than excite me? It seemed to seep into my veins, to sedate me, to relax my already feeble resistance, making me perpetually welcoming of him… making me desperate for him. “I must go, Eliot.” His body stiffened above me. We were naked in bed again and I was at his groin, arm thrown across his hips. I had curled at his legs, had tasted his cock until he cried out and pumped his pleasure deep into my throat. He loved that very much. “To leave me? You can’t do that.” “No.” I had to agree. I felt his body under my hands, more familiar than my own, and I felt the throb in my heart that bound me to his every word, No, I didn’t see how it could happen. Then he sighed. “But you can go, if you choose to, just for a while. Whenever you like. I asked for you to come, Steven. I never asked to control your going. But I will call you back.” What ? I was stunned; suddenly aware only of myself. Just my own needs. He was offering me an escape where I’d thought there was none…! “My clothes…?” “In the closet, if you had looked. The shirt was torn beyond repair, but there’s another one that can replace it. The rest of your things are there.” “Eliot…” Everything had suddenly tilted to one side – my assumptions; my desires. What was he telling me? “If it’s what you want, Steven, you must go and seek your answers.”

His voice came from somewhere else – he was no longer in the room. When did the door open? But I heard him as clearly as if he were still in my arms. “If it’s what you want. But I told you – I will call you back.”

****

I left the house to find it was somewhere around dawn. There had been no sign of Eliot as I dressed, or as I found my way back down to the first floor, or as I pushed open the heavy front door. I kept waiting to be called back, but there was no hindrance. Outside, the pale sun made my eyes hurt and the fresh air was startling. I didn’t know whether to laugh or shout or weep. I didn’t know how I felt. But I took a deep breath and stepped out on to the driveway as before, this time in the opposite direction. As I walked back across the lush parkland – tentatively; pathetically unused to the outdoors –my fear returned, like the first day I’d gone to the house. My sneakers felt alien on my feet; the silk shirt I’d found in the wardrobe was softer than anything I’d ever worn before. I felt like I’d grown out of everything since I arrived. There were no more signs of life than before, and no hint of the foul weather that had forced me here. The sky was pale and cloudless and the air dry. The trees were rich with leaves, but they were turning russet, as if my arrival in the stormy summer had passed long ago, the months now slipping into cool, crisp autumn. I had no clearer idea, nor realization of how long I’d been in the house. It was almost unnaturally quiet; nothing but a slight breeze moving the leaves of the trees, and the soft tap of my feet on the cobbles. By the time I turned out of the copse I felt nauseous. I thought it was pathetic for me to look back, to see if I could still see the house, but I did. And I couldn’t. I’d turned away from the sight of it, leaving it hidden back beyond the trees. All I could see was the scrubland ahead of me, the rough path I’d originally followed. My head hurt, agonisingly. I heard voices, yet there was no one around: they were inside my head. I heard the echo of my own voice, laughing and shouting. Arguing. Who with? Why? Someone was telling what not to do – to be careful. Not to be stupid. I felt a stab of anger. The listless, sensuous man who laid with Eliot every day and night and whispered into his ear… that particular Steven seemed far away. Now I felt the adrenalin course through my body, energy and disturbance flowing in equal measures. It was like a resurrection inside me.

I struggled on. My head ached badly, from the stress, I assumed. The pain in my side returned, though I’d had no trouble with it for a long time now. I stumbled out from the forest again, but something had changed in the view since I last saw it. There was a large object rearing out from the ditch where I first woke, a hulking mass against the pale sky. It was a stationary car. For a wild moment I thought it might be mine and I could drive home. Don’t drive . It was the voice in my head again. You’re an idiot. Fucking idiot. Look, I’ll apologize, if you want me to. If it makes any fucking difference…. As I got closer, I saw that this one was a wreck, and barely recognisable. It was half in the ditch, the front bonnet completely crushed, and the bodywork burned and rusting. Steve! He was nothing, right? Just some fun. Don’t run away like some kid, you knew what I was like when we hooked up. Christ, man, it’s only sex, and if you gave it up a bit more often I wouldn’t need to go find it somewhere else…. There was a fence post nearby, and a cluster of small bouquets of flowers propped up against it. You betrayed me; humiliated me. I thought you were someone I could trust and love…. There was a young man’s face in my mind, laughing at me, mocking me. I couldn’t remember his name but I could remember the pain inside me when I thought of him. I’d thought he was special. I’d been a fool. You love it, same as I do. Sex; fucking. But you won’t admit it. Won’t take the fun for what it is. Dammit, Steve, it’s like you’re living in another century, all these principles, all this angst! No one wants this love crap, don’t you know? They just want to get off, and you’re great for that. You’re the best looking guy I fucked for a long time. That’s why I played for you, said all the things you wanted to hear. Body like yours… make the most of it, right? One day you’ll be old and sick with no one interested in you. There’s no happy ever after for guys like us…. I stared at the bouquets, confused, my concentration wavering between the returning memories in my mind and the fresh air brushing my face. Why did people leave flowers where they couldn’t be appreciated? I always thought that a ridiculous thing to do, when there’d been an accident. Morbid; pointless. Why remember someone at the place they died, rather than at their home where they lived? An accident. There’d been an accident. Did I know the truth, even then?

Steve, wait up. You shouldn’t drive in that state. Listen to us, we’re your friends. He’s a shit, he’s not worth it, tell us something new! Okay, so we all knew he was sleeping around but how could we tell you…? Steve…. Wait! It was obvious now. The car nearby – the small trails of police incident tape, fluttering from the hedge. The sad little messages inside the flowers. A great guy… gorgeous… full of integrity… we miss you . Names, nicknames, wishing the best for the victim, in the future life. Names that I suddenly remembered again; that I knew. A victim that I knew. Steve …. I looked down behind the car, and I saw that there was no longer any trail from a body hauling itself along in the ditch. I looked down at my feet, and realised that there was no trail in the slightly soft ground behind me, not even from my footsteps today. I had left nothing behind here. Except myself. I may have cried out. I may have wept. And then I turned around and ran.

****

I arrived back at the house, panting hard. The delicate shirt was wet with my sweat. My trousers no longer felt comfortable and my feet hurt in the restricting shoes. I had run – fast; furiously – and got nowhere. Eliot was just inside the door, waiting for me. For a moment we just stood there, staring at each other. His face was unusually grave. I couldn’t see mine, of course, but I imagined the anguish and the shock there. There’d be plenty of that, wouldn’t there? “I want you, Steven,” he said, softly. “I asked for you to come; I always wanted you. And now I’ve called you back. Come back inside.” “How did you do it? How did you call me here?”

“I don’t know.” He looked sad again, though his gaze ran over my body, hungry for me again. “My need for someone was very strong. Sometimes I find that when I wish strongly… things happen.” “Your need for someone was that strong….” “Steven,” he said softly. “I think that yours was, too. Will you deny it now?” I stared at him. “You’re not the ghost, are you?” I cried. There were tears on my cheeks, although I didn’t know when I’d started crying. “No, I’m not,” he replied. “I am,” I whispered. I had died in the crash. I’d been so suspicious of Eliot’s activities, and yet now I knew I couldn’t remember myself ever eating here. Dressing. Brushing my hair. Washing. None of the usual rituals and necessities of life. All the times he’d left me, vanishing with a strange and inexplicable suddenness. I hadn’t understood it then, but I did now. It had been me leaving him, hadn’t it? “There’s no need for sorrow, Steven.” The deep voice had never sounded so calm, so comforting. And that was what I needed, wasn’t it? “I knew how you came to me; how you left your life. But I tried to keep you from that knowledge. I don’t want you to be upset. Ever.” “How did you know?” My voice rose, fierce and loud. Eliot was shaking his head slowly, and he looked distressed. For me. “Did you call me specifically, Eliot? Did you bring me here by name – or was I just the lucky bastard to qualify as your gift?” “I don’t know,” he replied, and I think I believed him. What had it been? Luck; fate; black magic? I didn’t know, either. Maybe my mind was as strong as his; my need as powerful, making this astonishing thing happen between us. I’d been betrayed and angry with my cheating lover, lost in the life I had, looking for another – had that allowed some obscene timeslip the chance to drag me away? I was chilled and grieving inside, and I ached all over. All I could remember was the rest and pleasure Eliot gave me. Back inside the house. In his world; in his life. It was another time, I knew that now. A different world, but with the same, steady emotions. Desire; devotion; dedication. And I’d found my place there.

“If I return, Eliot… how long will it last?” I didn’t really know what I was asking. But he did. “You can be with me as long as I wish, Steven. And I want you forever.” I took one, sorry step toward the doorway. “Enter,” came his voice, just like that first time. Every inch of my rational mind screamed at me to run away from something I didn’t fully understand. Every ounce of my broken heart wept for the loss of my mortal life. Yet every nerve in my yearning body begged to hold him again, the young man who had taken me in and brought out a passion in me that had been hiding; hibernating; waiting for the right man, all through my life. That passion was the gift I’d been waiting to bestow. I stepped over the threshold.

The End

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