The Professionals Circuit Archive - First Night, Last Night	    First
Night, Last Night

 

by Sebastian 

  
 "I dunno what the hell I'm doing here."

"Come for the free beer, Doyle, like always." Bodie's smile glittered, and
the look he bent upon Doyle was one of great charm. But Bodie was not,
Doyle noticed, in the sweetest of tempers; the lashing flippancy had an
edge. Why, he didn't know, but in any case he didn't care. Didn't care
about anything. He was cushioned from the here and now by a champagne
cloud; and the world was a rose.

He dropped his head back against the settee and regarded his difficult
partner through half-open eyes.

"Why did I come?" he continued to lament. "I could be layin' my head on a
softer chest than yours by now."

"Don't be too keen. Play hard to get," Bodie suggested. "Best way to keep
'em on the simmer, y'know." His eyelid dropped in a leery wink.

"You are talking," Doyle said, eyes closed, "about the woman I love."

Bodie groaned. "We know, we know." He feigned a yawn, struck an attitude.
"Raymond Doyle--in love. Again."

Doyle's eyes snapped open. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing," Bodie said. "How long have you known her? Two months? And
already she's got you dancing around with a ring. Oh, she must be laughing
all the way. All the way to the alimony courts, most like."

He was halfway to his feet, saying, "If you're going to be like this, I'm
going," when Bodie pushed him back down again, making an exasperated face.

"Don't be like that, Ray," he said, wounded. "Just joking."

Doyle eyed him, hard. "Yeah? Nasty sense of humour you got, matey. You
wanna get that seen to."

"Beer? Scotch?" Bodie interposed elegantly, one eyebrow quirked.

Narrow-eyed, Doyle asked for a cup of tea. In a speaking silence Bodie
traipsed into the kitchen and began clattering. Doyle sighed and shut his
eyes. Instantly the party whirled around him again, faces, lights, the
thump of music, Murph's hard fingers pinching him to the bone--

He opened them in a hurry. "Where's me bloody tea?" rescuing his body from
its slumping position, his head swimming. Must have had more than he'd
meant to drink. That was the trouble with booze, slipped down so easily at
the time then whacked you in the nerves and brain all at once.

"Just coming, my flower," Bodie sang out, entering with two mugs. He
handed Snoopy to Doyle and kept Woodstock, taking a noisy sip as he sat
down. Impossibly long, black lashes flickered over a blaze of darkest blue
as he remarked:

"Wonderful party tonight, Ray. Really good. Thanks."

"It was okay, wasn't it?" Doyle said, nettled by Bodie's tone. "I mean,
that's how these things go, isn't it?" Certainly it had cost him an arm
and a leg. The drinks bill would be coming in at the end of the month.

"Oh yeah," Bodie remarked gloomily. Another sip of tea. "Been to one CI5
party, you been to 'em all. Everyone drinks too much. Talks too much.
Thinks too much."

It sounded like poetry. 'A Party'--*drinks too much / talks too much /
thinks too much*--Doyle was trying to think of a witty last line to toss
at Bodie when Bodie made his next comment:

"And how do you feel, Ray? No last minute doubts? Feet still ever so warm
and raring to go?"

"Of course," Doyle said, amazed that Bodie should doubt. "She's beautiful,
isn't she? Beautiful, intelligent, attractive." He addressed his
fingertips with flying kisses.

"So?" Bodie shrugged, looking morosely down at his mug.

Doyle stared at him. "That's a start, isn't it?" he said, heavy with
irony.

Bodie swallowed down a mouthful of tea. "All your birds are like that,
Doyle. No need to marry 'em all though, is there?" He stared at Doyle
unreadably. "There's something unnaturally desperate about you, Raymondo.
Like you've got to pin one down. It's some kind of musical bumps or
something, and you're scared you're going to be the last one to sit down."

"So you're saying," Doyle said slowly, "that I'm making a mistake."

Bodie muttered, frowning, "I'm saying I think you rush into these things
without giving 'em a bit of time."

Doyle stared at him. He set his mug down with a delicate thump. He was so
angry his hand was trembling. "But what would you know about it, after
all?"

He stood up. Bodie watched him out of one eye. "Well, no need to get all
in a fuss about it, Ray. Sit down. What the hell's it matter what *I*
think? You know yourself best."

"Even you'll have to give in sometime, you know," Doyle let fly at him.
"Can't be the eternal playboy forever. Even you."

"Why not?" Bodie shrugged this one off.

Doyle grimaced at him in disbelief. "Because one day you'll realise you've
left it too bloody late, that's why."

"Nah," Bodie demurred softly. "I'll still be beatin' 'em off. Be plenty of
widows around--divorcees coming up for their second crack at it." He
drained his tea to the dregs, set the mug down on the table beside
Doyle's, propped his arms behind his head and stared at his partner
without expression. "You staying? Or going?"

After a moment Doyle sat down with a sigh. Bodie was just speaking his
mind. Had a right to his opinion. "Just be a bit sweeter about it, will
you? Night before I get meself engaged, my best mate and all. You could be
passin' out the odd congratulation or two, nothin' too heavy, just 'all
the best, Ray,' might be nice."

"Sorry. "

"For chrissake, Bodie, you're acting like you're jealous or something."

Bodie said nothing at all. Doyle eyed him, bold and a bit provocative.
"Gone a bit quiet now, have you?"

"I was just wondering," Bodie said, with a long-lashed stare, "if you
meant that seriously." His voice was remarkably untainted, of anger or
surprise or anything at all.

Doyle turned a querying palm outward. "Wouldn't be so surprising, would
it? Lovely girl like her. Naturally you'd be a shade on the green side."

He noticed, halfway through speaking, a smile cross Bodie's lips and then
fade out again: and then Bodie said, easily, "Is that what you meant? Ah
no, mate, you got it all wrong. I don't envy you your luscious leggy
lovely. Got plenty of those in my own stable, thank you. You fancyin' a
proper drink now?"

Doyle had a think about it. "Yeah...okay." Bodie pushed himself to his
feet and sauntered off to the bar, whistling. Cheering up, Doyle thought,
pray god. "Better stay the night," he decided. Shouldn't have driven back
here, really, not with all that party sparkle under his belt.

"You do that, mate," Bodie agreed amiably, sitting down beside him and
handing Doyle a chunky glass a quarter full of amber liquid. As he sipped
from it he nodded towards the TV. "Want the box on?"

Doyle took a squint at his watch. "Nah--just in time for the closedown
blessin'." It was, unbelievably, just after midnight. He clinked his glass
against Bodie's extended one. "Cheers. Better turn in after this."

"Yep." Bodie smacked his lips reflectively, savouring the whisky taste
after the tea. "Else Cowley'll know we've been bad boys. Dunno how he does
it."

"It's his crystal ball," Doyle said.

"A crystal ball *and* a wooden leg? Christ, the man's been unlucky."

Doyle chuckled evilly, raking one hand through his curls, crossing his
booted feet in front of him on Bodie's glass-topped coffee table. Beside
him the black leather of Bodie's jacket creaked as he leaned forward to
set his glass on the table. It was late and they were tired; they sat
together in silence, each one lost in his own sphere of thought.

"Your last night on earth as a bachelor," Bodie broke the reverie at last.
"How's it feel?"

Doyle jerked out of his semi-doze. "Not quite." He frowned at Bodie
through half an eye. "I'm getting engaged tomorrow, not married you know."

"Small difference," Bodie shrugged, his eyes dwelling curiously on Doyle.
"'S only a matter of time and degree, old son."

Doyle pulled irritably on his tie to loosen it. "Bodie, you keep on makin'
it sound like I'm about to start servin' a sentence." His partner smelt of
sweat and aftershave, luring a powerful tactile memory to the fore:
Murph's idea of a joke, no doubt, pushing him into Bodie's arms not two
hours ago, his fingers locked around Doyle's wrist and on Bodie's like
steel: and as he yowled, his party hat slipping over one eye, Bodie's
mouth had come to rest on his for a scant second, kissing him coolly and
briefly before letting him go. Weird.

"Funny sense of humour, Murph's got," he said obscurely; but Bodie seemed
to know what he meant because he chuckled.

"It's his Masonic upbringing, y'know."

Bodie seemed now as he had seemed at the time: unperturbed, and yet Doyle
had found the incident curiously disturbing. Not because of anything Bodie
had done: the kiss had been swift enough, pure enough, and yet somehow his
own body had let him down, lighting up like a Roman candle. Ridiculous.
Men kissed each other all the time in France. Not to mention on the
football field. Didn't mean a thing.

So: Big Deal.

Indeed.

He tossed down the rest of his whisky, felt it start up some little inner
glowings. Thumping his hand down on Bodie's knee he said, "You've been a
good partner."

"Sound as if you're divorcing me in her favour," Bodie said, amused. "Is
that how you see it?"

"Don't be daft," Doyle said, keen to reassure. Fool: he hadn't realised.
Of course Bodie would be feeling a touch insecure, as if his partner's
coming marriage would mean an end to things. "She won't come between
us...I promise you."

That sounded a mite more intense than he wanted it to; Bodie's mood was
odd enough as it was, and he had meant to play things down, not charge
them up.

"Sounds intriguing," Bodie drawled on cue. "No chance of a threesome, you
mean?"

Doyle grasped for the allusion of this, caught it, chuckled anxiously.

"You ever done that, Ray?" Bodie added, one flying eyebrow arched, dark in
the shadows and unsmiling.

Doyle shook his head over a swallow of whisky. "Never seen the point. Less
for everyone, I'd have thought."

"It can be better than that."

Doyle eyed him coldly. "No way. No way at all. She's not that sort of
girl."

Bodie chuckled, banged him on the shoulder. "That's okay, sunshine. I
wasn't hinting. I'm not that sort of boy, either."

There was a little silence. Every time Doyle's eyelids fell the party
started up in his head again. "Anson was drunk," he accused blearily.

"Yeah. Good job Cowley decided on an early night."

"Absolutely."

"Especially when Murph got out his Swedish cards."

"Not to mention that funny weed we found growin' among his mustard and
cress and brought in to show us."

"Dried out a bit though, hadn't it?"

Doyle took another sip of his whisky, savouring the last warm drops of it
now, the glass cradled on his chest. Okay. He was mellow. He was going to
ask. "Bodie."

"Yeah." Bodie was slumped beside him, the same pose.

"What's it like then--how d'you go about it?"

"Go about what?"

"A threesome." Doyle nudged him in the ribs. "C'mon, you brought it up.
You might as well tell me. Do you both--"

"Both what?" Bodie seemed vaguely amused, twirling his glass around in his
hand.

"Do both of you go in at the same time? Or what?"

Bodie appeared to take this seriously, looking around into Doyle's eyes.
"Depends on the lady. How--accommodating she is." Doyle blew out a long
breath, feeling suddenly hot. And his condition was not helped when Bodie
leaned over and whispered in his ear for a moment, words which made his
skin prickle all over, "...and one up the back." He drew back, grinned at
Doyle's face. "That can be the best, Doyle. A real buzz."

That Doyle could imagine. "I'll bet." He shifted in his seat, and shut his
eyes.

"Too late for all that," Bodie said, looming in on him again. The
expression on his face was quizzical, almost tender, his voice soft as he
said: "Look at you, sunshine. A little bit of sexy talk and you're all up
for it. Doesn't she give you enough?"

He didn't know why it had hit him so hard, the way unexpected things did
sometimes: the tarty flash of a girl's white thigh, the crease in some
young mother's jeans as she knelt to tend an infant; Bodie's casual words
had had that same instant effect on him. He was even trembling a little,
painful with desire; but it would pass.

Bodie had noticed, of course; Bodie's sharp blue gaze seemed to miss
nothing about him. Sometimes the current of telepathy between them was an
annoyance to him. While at others--

He closed his eyes. Like this morning. Dockland. The peculiar barren space
of the area moved him, stirred him to a pitch of excitement as they ran
down their quarry, adrenalin surging in with every thundering heartbeat:
huge stilled cranes reared to the skyline over bleak warehouses; great
masts of ships clustered untidily along the concrete edge; wide open
spaces to be crossed between buildings, dangerous both for a hunter and
for a killer. Good sightlines for a rifle, a machine-gun, whatever.

He had hurtled around a corner, skidding to a stop, his hand jerking at
the big gun in a hurry, pulling out the spent cartridges and chucking them
away, pressing in others, fast and sure. And as he had done so he had
heard a noise behind him that had raised all the hairs on his neck with
horror.

Such a little sound. Just something stiffing the air, close behind him.

He had turned as if in slow strobe-lit motion to see their prey standing
there, a big man in biking leathers, the black eye of his gun wide open
and looking into his. Ready. To blink--

And at that very moment *Bodie*, scudding around the corner, throwing the
man against the wall with the whole weight of his body and yelling "Down!"
with all the wild force of his lungs.

Doyle dropped like a stone as the man's gun went off, kickfiring viciously
into the wall, Bodie and he thrown backwards by the force of it so close.

With his eyes closed, Doyle lay still and listened to the sound of Bodie
thudding the man's head onto the concrete floor.

When he opened his eyes again to the blessed air and light there was Bodie
sitting up, and picking bits of brickwork fastidiously off his clothes,
his mouth a moue of distaste, and the man slumped bloodily by his side.

He had shut his eyes again and laughed.

He opened them now and said, "Saved my life this morning."

It seemed a very long time ago.

Bodie had been resting with his head back, face blank, eyes closed. "Did
I? Oh yeah." As if Doyle owed him sixpence.

"Thanks."

"That's three times now, mate. Think I own your soul yet?"

"How did you know I was in trouble?"

"I always know when you're in trouble, Raymond."

"I mean it."

"So do I." Bodie opened his eyes and looked at him, the blue of his eyes
very deep.

Something very peculiar began to happen then.

Doyle felt his heart begin to thump oddly and heavily in his chest: he was
quite unable to drag his eyes away from Bodie's face. The world seemed to
be spinning around him, a vortex of some different dimension; and he saw
in a flash something so clear and so true he wondered how he could ever
have missed it before. And just as it came into his mind Bodie spoke it
aloud, his voice breaking in softly:

"Well now, that's what I mean, Ray," he said, watching Doyle all the
while. "Your lady. She's pretty. You like her. She's okay to spend a night
with, a weekend even. She's not part of you."

*The way I am. *

It hit Doyle right in the heart, swept away all his certainties. Desperate
now, he cast about for thoughts of her, tried to summon the feelings he
had when he was with her: but the truth was, and he knew it, that it was
pale stuff, just a shadow, held up beside this; and that whatever he felt
for her fell so far short of the electric bond he had with this man here
that it made a mockery of what he had called, to her face, love.

He sat quietly, tensely, thinking about it.

It was not so much that what he had with her was slight, a more trivial
thing than his relationship with Bodie, though even if that had been all
there was to it he would have had no business marrying her. No, the truth
was worse than that and by far: the truth was that what he had with Bodie
was so far at the other end of the scale as to make any comparison unfair.

In which case, he certainly had no business marrying her.

And his first thought was *Now what do I do? * and on its heels fast and
fleet came a worse one, *What have I already done...? *

"Well, I can't marry you," he said, with a sudden spurt of deep and
violent anger. "Whaddayou suggest, Bodie, I should set up home with you
instead?"

Bodie grinned at his partner's belligerent face, tapped his cheek with a
finger. "Might not be such a bad idea."

"Oh, don't be so bloody stupid, Bodie!"

He was not a coward. He faced up to this new and damning knowledge with
the courage to see it for what it was: the reason why. The reason *why* a
lot of things: oh, it was all adding up now, fast as binary maths. He
remembered, tense with hindsight, Bodie's mouth pressed to his, his
instinct to a wild response, the way he had had to hold himself back.

"Don't worry about it, Ray," Bodie said beside him, quiet and still, not
joking now, not at all. "We're not the only ones it gets to this way. Life
and death and sex--it's all tied up together somewhere."

The world had blown up in his face, and here was Bodie quoting
generalities.

"Oh, that's a great comfort," Doyle said bitterly, kicking out at the
floor, the table. "Thanks for thinking of it." Kick. Kick. "I know, you're
going to quote Alexander the fucking Great at me now. Well don't just
fucking bother, okay?"

"It's all right, Ray," Bodie said, watching him from beneath a carbon
tangle of lashes. "Forget it, if you want. Nothing's happened."

"That's not quite the sweet, fucking point though, is it?" Doyle said,
violent with control. "The point is, how the *fuck* am I supposed to get
engaged tomorrow, knowing--"

"Knowing *what*?" the voice of reason clashed with his, and Bodie's calm,
faintly humorous eye slid up to his face. "Nothing done, nothing doing; no
need to get in such a state about it. We had feelings we maybe shouldn't
have had. But we never did anything about it."

Still not the point.

"Did you want to?" Doyle muttered fiercely, eyes wide open, fixed on
Bodie's face. "Did you, Bodie?"

It took Bodie a long time to answer, circling one finger endlessly around
the rim of his glass, eyes hazy as he looked out and back into the past.
"Remember the Adams thing?"

"Yeah," Doyle said, though he could not think for a moment what Bodie
meant; and then it came to him. For ten days and seven hundred miles they
had poured their best, grittiest efforts into nosing out and hounding down
the man Cowley had sent them to find.

MI5 had wanted him too.

No-one could prove it was their men who had ambushed Cowley's two best
agents on their way back to HQ, but anyway the man got lost and remained
lost, despite intensive trying. It was one of their worst failures. Still
the memory stung.

Oh, they had resisted. Given a good account of themselves. But in the end,
caught on an open road so many miles from home and help, two men can't
hold off seven. Doyle had come off worst: bruised ribs and a streaming
nosebleed. Blood, sweat and tears. He had indeed had tears in his eyes:
not pain, but the wildest of angers.

Lounging here now with Bodie, moody and unhappy, he remembered all this;
but could not think why Bodie should have called this particular memory
into play.

"You stood there afterwards," Bodie said softly, "Like to kill something
just in the way you hurled a look at it. You were bleeding, rivers of it
everywhere, and you were cursing like a devil out of hell. You were in
such a temper I hardly dared look at you in case it was me you decided to
stamp on." He took a deep breath, sighed it out again, not looking at
Doyle. "And I wanted you so badly--" He stopped: then said into the
resounding silence, "I'd have died for you that minute, Ray, I swear I
would."

Doyle was still, remembering. Bodie had seemed strange, distracted. Not
that he had thought anything of it at the time. They had both just taken a
brutal assault by MI5's kidnap posse, seen their own brilliant work ripped
out from under their feet, had Cowley still to face with the news: a small
wonder he had not noticed anything about Bodie which could not be easily
be explained away by circumstances.

"I thought you'd taken a hit," he said, after a pause. "You were so dead
white, looked fit to be ill."

Bodie managed a twisted laugh. "Oh yeah, I felt sick all right. Sick
wanting you. Thought I was going to throw up." He added, into the still
and weighted pause, "Felt if I touched you--we'd probably both die..." and
then he tried to laugh it off, shrugging, "Stupid, isn't it."

Doyle looked at him curiously. "What did you want to do?"

Bodie ran a shaking hand through his hair. "Oh Christ, Ray, I dunno. Just
touch you. Cry on you. Wash all that blood away. Get inside you, I
suppose. As far as I could get...

Doyle was shaky too; he drew in a ragged breath. Sheer, naked curiosity
ran high in him: he said, "So what did you do?"

Bodie looked at him then, dark and dazed and blurred, dragging himself
back to now. "What do you mean, what did I do?" You know what I damn well
did. Nothing. Sat beside you and kept quiet while you wrenched the gears
and shot your mouth off all the way back to Whitehall."

"Such self-control," Doyle said with nasty irony.

But Bodie answered him quite seriously, "See, that's the point, Doyle. We
all have these choices come up from time to time. Feelings you know you
shouldn't have. Who hasn't eyed up some nubile bint sometime and not given
a toss if she's over the age of consent? We're only human, we can't help
the way we feel. Most of the time we don't act on it. However much we want
to."

True perhaps, but it didn't seem to help. Doyle still felt restless,
utterly disoriented. Stirred up, left to drift in the air with no place
yet to settle. It was far from over.

Suddenly Bodie said: "On the other hand."

"On the other hand, what?"

"On the other hand--maybe one night would cure us both."

Doyle stared at Bodie in disbelief. "What?"

Bodie smiled at him, reckless and tender, the smile of a man with nothing
to lose. "Why not?"

"Oh, that's brilliant, Bodie. Truly brilliant. That'd solve everything,
that would."

"Solve--?" Bodie stood up and stretched. Strong, warm leather creaked over
the knotting swell of muscles. "Solve nothing at all, probably. But think
of the fun, Ray. Think of the fun."

"Fun?" Doyle didn't think it would be fun. At the very least it could be
brutish and nasty: at the worst, it might swallow him up and eat him
alive.

Bodie shrugged off his jacket. Beneath it he wore a white poloneck which
suited his dark good looks. His holster banded his broad chest; the gun
hugged his armpit, cradling in the warm recess of his body. He began to
undo the buckles, slip it over his head. "Going to have a shower," he
said, and Doyle nodded. He watched Bodie leave the room, one hand coming
up again and tugging irritably at his tie, working it looser still.

It would not be wise to go to Bodie's bedroom tonight.

He knew that much: profane, clandestine things waited for him there,
better by far untold: a man might be put to death for knowing them. He
stared ahead of him, his mind in a dizzy whirl.

He should have gone to her flat tonight. He had known that even when Bodie
had invited him back here, with that half-jerk of his head: "Coming back
to my place, Ray?" and a look in his eye, that hard, disturbing embrace so
close behind them.

And yet, it was second nature to him to go along with Bodie, even to flirt
a little with Bodie. He wasn't an innocent. He knew quite well what he
wanted. He wanted Bodie's attention, and he wanted Bodie's eye to chase
him, always, wherever he was.

And what did that make him?

It wasn't too late. He should turn around and go, now. They could put it
down to the drink.

He jumped to his feet, inactivity suddenly unbearable to him. Even his
blood felt irritable, coursing around inside. He dragged on restless feet
through to Bodie's bedroom, large bed in the centre, black sheets, black
and silver duvet.

He could hear Bodie, noisy in the ensuite shower. Cheerful snatches of
song interplayed with the rush and splatter of water, the busy scrubbing
noises. Doyle could picture Bodie standing there, the translucent spread
of water coursing down his clear skin.

The shower slowed and stopped. Bodie stepped out of it, into the room. A
dark blue towel was whisked like a vigorous piston around his neck, back,
buttocks. He laughed out loud at Doyle, standing so silently there.

"Come on mate, cheer up. Cowley's aunt! Hope your lady appreciates the
mean and moody style."

The hairs at the nape of Doyle's neck stood on end, he positively felt
them do it as Bodie came closer to him, his frowning eye drawn to various
points of his body: nipples, thighs, cock. Bodie seemed unselfconscious;
he hustled himself nearer to Doyle and grabbed him. Just as he might on
any ordinary day, fooling around.

The smell of clean wet skin rose to Doyle's nostrils, and the heat of
Bodie's nakedness pressed through Doyle's clothes right to his skin.
Bodie's arm slipped around him and held him in a grip of iron; his other
hand entwined itself in Doyle's applegreen tie and used it as a hook to
draw him closer.

And Doyle could only stand there, rock steady, and stare into his eyes;
every nerve in him seemed hypersensitive to the feeling of Bodie's cock,
pressing up against his thigh. It was just there by accident, but still it
was there. He shifted automatically. Bodie muttered something under his
breath, then gave a half laugh, shaking his head. He looked down at Doyle,
deeply and intensely, and murmured: "Christ, Ray. You're such a little
tart, aren't you?" in admiration more than anything. He gathered the tie
more firmly. Off-balance, Doyle flung his arm around Bodie's neck, his
fingertips curving around his shoulder, his eyes traveling over Bodie's
face in wonder.

Bodie smiled at him. "Well?" he invited, and for a second they were
perfectly, completely still. "Tempted?"

"It's not my thing, Bodie," Doyle said.

Bodie grinned at him again. "Not even a little?" and in his mind's eye
Doyle viewed a host of fleeting memories, every little thing from their
past which gave Bodie the right to hold him this way, the lease of
familiarity, the confidence that Doyle would entertain this, the fanciest
of notions. He had flirted about at the end of the line, laughing, meaning
to stay out of reach: now Bodie had hooked him out of the blue. One cruel
jab and he would be threshing in Bodie's palm. And it was nobody's fault
but his own.

He broke the hold, broke the mood, slipped back and away and out of
Bodie's reach.

"I think it takes more than a little."

He walked away, out of the bedroom, a blue-jeaned swagger which had lost
none of its flair. Bodie's eyes watched him all the way. Thoughtful. Not
displeased.

The sudden sound of smooth music in the air warned him, so that he
scarcely tensed when he felt the settee dip beside him, Bodie settling
there. His head was lifted onto Bodie's lap, resting on silk; Bodie's
midnight-blue dressing gown, at a guess, and nothing beneath. He didn't
open his eyes.

Bodie's musing voice drifted above his head, "I never met anyone quite
like you before, Ray."

"I could say the same about you," he answered, with distant irony.

Bodie's fingers sifted through his curls, lifting them away from his
scalp, a touch quite detached for all the intimacy of it. Just as if Bodie
took it for granted that to touch him would not annoy him, or excite him.

"And I never quite believed in esprit de corps."

"No. You wouldn't."

"I do now," Bodie said against his ear, and kissed him.

He had been expecting it for some time, was tensed up for it, and so it
even came as something of a relief. he opened his mouth to the arrogance
of Bodie's moist tongue, tasted dark secrets with a pleasure that arrowed
straight down to his cock.

There: everything was all right.

This would straighten them out. He could give Bodie what he wanted and
still have his girlfriend waiting. And along the way, not the least of it:
solve his curious, desperate longing in himself.

Bodie gave a little low murmur and stayed still, breathing against his
lips. Doyle slid both arms around his neck and settled himself into
Bodie's embrace. Bodie's caressing hand swept down his chest, over his
belly, and came to rest over his cock, which Doyle pressed up helplessly,
wanting, needing Bodie to take it in his hand, closing his eyes as
something sweet began inside; at that moment he felt responsibility flee
from him, like a shadow in the path of the moon. Possessed himself of
sophisticated sexual needs, he guessed that Bodie shared them, was also an
initiate, he need worry about nothing at all. With a little sound of
pleasure he raised himself up a little so that Bodie could undo his shirt,
begin a long slow caressing of his chest, and the delicate area of his
nipples. As Bodie's square fingertip stiffed them, dreams and longings
chased around in his mind, and his cock throbbed sweetly with life and
lust and power.

"Well?" Bodie murmured, his voice a little rough with passion, "How far
are you going to let me go before you scream?" And his hand slipped inside
Doyle's jeans; lying back as he was, flat in utter abandon, there was room
to manoeuvre. He felt with utter delight one finger circling the rigid
head of his cock, coaxing the slippery moisture it discovered there. He
shivered in Bodie's arms.

"Takes a lot to get me screamin', mate--ah!" He shuddered again at the
exquisite feeling of it. "But my money's on you," he finished in a
whisper. After a moment he propped himself up on one elbow so that he
could watch Bodie touch him; christ, the sight of his hard, colourful cock
in Bodie's pale strong hand, enough to make him come then and there.

He took Bodie's hand and held it still in his own. "Careful." And Bodie
wrapped him up in his arms and kissed him again, strongly and deeply and
hard; he could no longer taste the difference between them.

A long while later, gasping for breath, he pulled himself away again, felt
his lips sore and swollen and abused.

"Okay, you win. Let's go to bed."

Bodie looked a little disheveled, his robe unfastened, his hair mussed up,
but his eyes were dark with passion and his gaze burned into Doyle,
branding him with the fire of Bodie's possessive desire. He shivered a
little; Bodie took his hand, drew it upwards to his lips, pressed a kiss
onto his palm in a gesture almost sweet, almost to break his heart--

"Ah, don't look like that, Ray."

"Like what?" he whispered; he had little breath to speak.

"Like you're scared of me."

"I'm not."

Bodie held his gaze, a long, dark look. "I would never hurt you, Ray.
Don't you know that?"

He said it with a kind of wonder, as if there was so much more to know.
Doyle lost his breath again, his heart beating heavily, with dread as much
as anything. He was frightened all right, though not of Bodie; more at the
depth of what he sensed in himself. But it was too late to stop now.

"Come on." He bent to strip off the tangle of jeans around his knees.
Bodie took hold of him and pressed him urgently to the floor, wrenching at
his clothes as if he could wait no longer.

So: Bodie wanted him that much. How much?

After a while, his cock like iron, he bent his head to Bodie's ear and
whispered a question as his heart thudded and the blood rushed and sang
into his ears.

"I dunno, Ray," Bodie answered him, his voice low, husky.

"Come on," he persisted, and his hand squeezed Bodie's buttock, hard, and
squeezed it again. "Just muckin' about if we don't, innit? Might as well
go the whole bloody way." And when that failed he brought all his will to
bear on Bodie, crowding him into a corner, pressing in hard with all his
strength of mind and the precious allure of his body: "Come on," he
whispered, eyes shining in the dark, and writhed against Bodie, "Let me.
Bodie, please."

*Look at me, I'm desperate. * And Bodie gave in, as Doyle never doubted
that he would, found him some stuff, took him to the bedroom and kneeled
on the bed, propped on his elbows. The laughter had stopped, and the
kisses, and the sweet murmured things, and he saw that the joy had gone
out of this for Bodie; and yet it didn't seem to matter, nothing mattered
but the iron spike between his legs and the nature of his own needs. And
so, trembling, he gazed at Bodie's white arse with a hunger that
overwhelmed him; there seemed no perverse act in the whole of the world to
Ray Doyle right now, he would have done anything, anything at all, and
thought it the sweetest and most natural thing there could be.

Imagination, a false friend; the frenzy in his mind lost him the control
of his body, and Bodie, tensed for entry, felt only the muffled clotted
thump of Doyle's seed stealing forth like a traitor over Bodie's back, his
advance over before it had begun.

Anything would have been better than this.

Doyle kept his head buried in the pillow, pressed into his arm, and
ignored Bodie's persistent voice.

"Ray. *Ray*."

Bitter iron pride alone made him roll over and face Bodie's eyes.

"Flattered," Bodie said ironically, and then he swept Doyle up into broad
arms again and lay down with him.

"Doesn't matter, Ray."

"Not to you, no doubt," Doyle muttered, dropping his head back, shutting
his eyes. He felt tired, and cold, and vaguely dirty. As if they had done
something nasty. And yet that was a joke; they hadn't even come close.
Just two lads mucking about in the woodshed, that was all it had amounted
to. Didn't mean a thing. Pointless.

Bodie was leaning over him, pulling up the duvet over them both. Wrenching
himself away from Bodie's hands Doyle turned angrily onto his side, away
from him. Sweat was drying coolly on his skin, the sheets were cold. It
crossed his mind to leave. Go, as he should have done three hours before.

"This was a stupid thing to do," he snarled, shuddering with cold, vicious
with the need to lash out.

In silence Bodie finished sorting out the covers, practical and efficient.
"Did you hear me?" he let loose between chattering teeth. "We must've been
mad..."

"Yes," Bodie said. "Yeah, very likely." His voice, bleak and sober,
rescued Doyle from the lonely country he had banished himself to: he gave
some thought to Bodie, wondered bitterly how far reality had failed to
match up to Bodie's dreams.

"Sorry," he muttered grudgingly, "Not your fault. I knew it wasn't a good
idea, but still I--"

"Too late now."

"I know. See, Bodie, I thought maybe...I thought it would be okay. I
thought it would be an end to it."

"Well then," Bodie said thinly, ironically, from very far away in the bed,
"you were half right, weren't you?"

*In the morning we can pretend it never happened*, Doyle thought, and at
last, at long last, his troubled mind tumbled off a precipice into sleep.

But they never made it through the morning: the next time Doyle awoke and
blinked at the clock it read 2:59 a.m.

He was warm now, Bodie was lying close to him.

The memory flickered instantly in his mind. He winced away from it, but it
persisted, and in the end he faced up to it full-on.

And found it, after all, unthreatening. Instead, comforted by sleep and
warmth and haze, it seemed not to matter at all. He looked back amazed at
his own defensive fury; for a woman might have mocked him, or pitied him,
but he was not with a woman, and any man should know just how it was, how
you had to fight against the tide, how easy it was to throw yourself in.
He had been so--

He had wanted Bodie, so much.

Bodie should be flattered, as he said.

Bodie was awake now, his eyes glinting in the dark, some electricity alive
between them and drawing them together. With an inarticulate murmur he
moved closer to Doyle, kissed his shoulder, his cheek, parted Doyle's lips
with his mouth. Doyle let his eyes fall closed as his tongue played with
Bodie's, a terrible excitement beginning once again to churn inside him, a
ticking clock set off and counting down now to some inevitable explosion.
Bodie's mouth broke away to kiss his nipples, his chest, his belly, and he
began to moan softly. And when he felt Bodie's tongue lapping delicately
at his cock he experienced a sweet, peculiar thrilling unlike any he had
known. It was really going to happen. The end of the world, inside Bodie's
mouth.

Bodie was speaking to him, low and intense. "Don't come, Ray. Tell me
first." But when it came to it he could not speak, Bodie's swirling
tongue, sweet suckling made too brilliant a magic for him and he tensed,
waiting without breathing for the catastrophe of orgasm.

Immediately Bodie pulled away, left him cold and lost and frightened by
his own temper; he wanted to hit Bodie, force him back to it. He calmed
himself with an effort, willing himself to, taking great, deep breaths.

Bodie grinned at him cheekily, amused by his state. "Don't worry, Ray:
think I'd leave you in the lurch? I'll finish you that way if that's what
you want. Thought you might want to try the other again, that's all."

And Bodie was right: that was what he wanted, more than anything, to fuck
Bodie through the floor. Because in a way he wanted to punish Bodie, who
had proposed this he had said, for fun: he wanted to teach Bodie that you
couldn't play these sort of games for *fun*, for a laugh, that you played
them for real. This time Bodie lay upwards and faced him; propped on his
palms Doyle looked down, very deliberately, into the dark of his eyes as
he bore down, closing them only at the slick tight shock of entry, opening
them again when he was in all the way.

The pleasure of it was devastating, a magnificent beast in the dark.

For a while he wrestled with it alone, and then he sensed Bodie there with
him, getting the feel of it, beginning to move. Touched by what Bodie had
taken on to give him pleasure, Doyle looked down into his face all the
while, seeing his strong partner shaded, for once, by a certain
vulnerability: it moved him intensely. Bodie had withheld nothing from
him: this was as much sex, the true thing, as it could ever be with any
woman, he was as close to the man now as he would ever get, moving deep
inside him with slow sweet rhythm. He cradled Bodie's face gently in his
hands, stroked back the feathery blueblack hair from his temples, moaning
as he sank deep, deeper inside him, and pulled out, and pressed home
again. The whisper and slide of skin on silken skin continued, picked up
speed; and this seemed like the last step, the ultimate in a lifetime of
trust. The sweet simple truth of it hurt him even as it thrilled him; he
gripped Bodie closely to him, fiercely, tenderly. Beneath his belly
Bodie's iron cock grew rigid, and Bodie whispered something, some lost
endearment, his eyes filmed with ecstasy, his fingers digging tight,
tighter into Doyle's shoulders, spilling forth the milky dreams he had
been hiding deep inside.

That was the last thing--

Doyle thrust home swift as an arrow and exploded in the violent glory of
orgasm, his mouth lying open against Bodie's trailing moisture, and a
picture flashed into his mind at the last moment of another face.

He could not even remember her name.

They said nothing afterwards; though Bodie held his hand very hard,
gripped it, beneath the covers.

Doyle shut his eyes.

Oh christ.

What have we done.

Tomorrow, he was due to pledge himself forever and for all time to a girl
whose name he had lost when he lost himself in Bodie.

And yet, she had seemed real to him. Until this.

He had been living in two dimensions. And if he had taught Bodie nothing
at all then he himself had learned: and there was no way back.

Beside him, sensing trouble, Bodie murmured some fierce comfort, but it
could not help.

He was alone on this one.

He thrust back the covers, sliding his hand away from Bodie's with one
last quick pressure. He got out of bed and went to stand near the window,
looking out, seeing nothing.

"Ray?" Bodie said from the bed, a soft, dark question.

"Yeah."

"You okay?"

He didn't answer that.

"Wish we hadn't done it?"

"No," he said, not to reward the sad bleak courage of Bodie's question,
but because it was true: you might as well wish for the sun and the moon
to be unmade.

"What do you want to do?"

Well, indeed. There was the question. What now?

The stars in his eyes were sharp as glass: they hurt him.

First night.

Last night.

Either way it was the end of something. 

-- THE END --

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