The Quirk (45 page)

“Really? Did he want to get you away from Nicole?”

“No. I think he thought I needed girls on the side. He thought I was queerer than I’d admit.”

“Are you?”

“What would you say?”

“I’d say you’ve admitted to quite a lot with me, darling. Cock sucking among men
is
generally considered a bit peculiar.”

They burst out laughing together. “I guess it is, but I also want to fuck you–
and
girls.”

“Perhaps you just have a nice healthy interest in sex.”

“I hope that’s it. I don’t see why I shouldn’t have sex with anybody I feel something special about. You. I can’t believe there’ll be many others. I don’t think I’ll ever be promiscuous like you.”

“Touché, darling. Have you forgiven me for the other night?

“I know you behaved outrageously, but it’s all pretty hazy. Forget it. I want you. I’m glad there’s nobody else around for you to want. Look at it now, sweetheart.” He moved his hand secretly, insinuatingly along silken skin and watched with fascination as the contours of the prince’s burgeoning erection grew more and more imposing. “It’s so heavy. It’s enormous already, and it isn’t really hard yet. It’s about time for you to offer to bring it up here to me. This time I’ll accept, even though it’s something guys who like girls don’t do. You are beautiful. Sex rampant. Being with you is so marvelously physical. I’ve never been so excited and relaxed at the same time. Now, sweetheart, I want to feel it getting hard in my mouth.” He put his hands on the back of the prince’s thighs and drew him up until knees were gripping his shoulders. Rod punched the pillow to make himself comfortable. The head of the prince’s cock was resting on the side of his neck. He lifted it and drew it into his mouth and felt it surge up, swell hugely, harden. After a few moments he released it and let it swing up and stand commandingly in front of him. He laughed. There’s no denying it. A girl couldn’t give me a thrill like that. All of it wanting me. That’s what I like to see.” He put a finger on its base and prodded it gently, making it sway with heavy rigidity against his face. He looked up at the prince around it. “I wish I could have it with my mouth when I’m fucking you.”

The prince smiled down at him. “You can, darling.”

“Really? How?”

“How lovely. I still have things to show you. My wee cock is quite long enough for that trick.” He dropped forward and slid down Rod’s body, scooping up Rod’s erection between his thighs as he went. When their eyes were level, they met and gloated over each other. Their mouths opened, and their tongues played over their lips. The prince fell away onto his back and rolled Rod up on top of him.

Much later, when their bodies were no longer joined, Rod slipped away to the bathroom. In a few minutes the prince joined him, trailing a towel. “Here you are, darling. What bizarre sanitary arrangements.”

Rod turned from the sink, drying himself. When the prince reached him, he laid his fingers lightly on the side of Rod’s face and fixed him with his wide blue eyes. “All yours at last. What utter heaven. Is it good for you, darling?”

“More than that. You’re untying all the knots. I think you may be making it possible for me to go on living. The other night I remember being shocked by it happening with two such big masculine guys as if doing it with a girlish boy made it more normal. I don’t understand it all yet, but I guess if you like it with a guy, any guy, that’s that. You somehow make me feel it’s perfectly natural. Man to man, doing fabulous things with our bodies that we could never do with a girl. Narcissus, maybe, but dammit, discovering that my cock can hold its head up in such awe-inspiring company does give me a thrill. We both take what we want. Neither of us is giving in to the other. There’s nothing very feminine about either of us. That’s all part of it, I think, part of what makes it so right and–and so damn
satisfying.
We understand men’s orgasms and how cocks work. We’ve come four times together, and we still have a long way to go. I’ll probably have more to tell you in the morning if you’re interested.”

The prince leaned forward and kissed him lingeringly on the mouth, and Rod stepped closer and held the big body against him and felt its power under his exploring hands. The prince drew back with his angelic smile. “Why don’t you go peep into that hamper and see if there’s anything you like? I’ll splash about for a moment in this adorable tub. If the evening’s just beginning, we should snatch a moment for nourishment.”

Rod did as suggested and found an assortment of exotic groceries–tinned duck and foie gras and smoked eel and other delicacies. He was even more impressed by the wine, some bottles of overwhelmingly distinguished Burgundies, plus a bottle of the most expensive cognac in the world. It figured. He couldn’t even pick up a boy who wasn’t a luxury item. His destiny guided him to the rich. Why fight it? Life had gotten completely out of control because of money troubles. Twenty-thousand dollars was hardly a fortune, but he would have done almost anything for it two weeks ago.

Their meal was an erotic banquet. They ate it reclining on the sofa, shifting constantly as they sought new visual and tactile thrills in the interplay of their bodies. They fed each other. They drank wine from each other’s mouths. The prince’s inventive abandon created a world of sensuality into which Rod gratefully retreated. He wallowed in rich food and voluptuous rose-gold flesh.

The night passed in fitful drowsing and renewed outbursts of desire. They turned the light out when dawn was beginning to turn the room gray. They slept heavily and awoke in late morning and again reached out for each other. Eventually, Rod made coffee, feeling vividly alive and almost complete again. The fragments were knitting together. He supposed that everybody was made up of fragments. If you could make them fit and mesh you became an acceptable human being. Everything was turning out as he had hoped it would; his desire for a male body was no longer a source of conflict but a recognized element of his nature. He had no more secrets from himself. That must be a good start for probing the riddles that still surrounded him. When the prince joined him in the kitchen, he used Rod’s toothbrush.

“Don’t I remember something about your not liking to use other people’s towels?” Rod asked.

“Other people. You’re not other people, darling. I’m not at all sure I haven’t got your teeth in my mouth. The least I can do is brush them.”

They drank coffee and splashed around together in the tub. Rod lay back with his legs draped over the prince’s and looked at him through lowered lids. “I remember your saying I was mad. I was. Literally. It had started when I met you, and you didn’t help. I can’t say that now. You’re curing me. I hope you don’t mind being used as therapy.”

“I know it’s something like that, darling. I’m so glad I could be here when you needed me. Does that mean it’s time for me to go?”

Rod grasped his knees. “Oh, no. Please. I want to be with you all day and all night. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to face real life.”

“I doubt very much that I will be if real life doesn’t include you, but I always feel like that when I’m with somebody I adore. Not that anything like this could happen more than once or twice in a lifetime. Still, I survive. I’d better make some phone calls if I’m going to be out of circulation for another 24 hours.”

They climbed out of the tub and dried each other and completed their morning toilet by shaving each other amid wild bursts of laughter. “That’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” the prince said as they ended in each other’s arms.

The prince made his phone calls. It didn’t occur to either of them to put on any clothes. Rod called Nicole and was able to assure her convincingly that he was much better and arranged to see her the next day. He hung up and turned to find the prince watching him from the armchair, a slightly troubled look in his peaceful eyes. Rod went to him and dropped to his knees in front of him and parted his legs to move in between them. The prince ran his fingers through Rod’s hair.

“She hasn’t told you her secret, has she?”

“Not that I know of. Has she a secret, Beauty? I said that was a silly name, but I don’t know what else I
can
call you. That’s what you are. Beauty.”

“It’s my secret too. She has to tell you sooner or later. What would you think of me if you discovered I’d known it all along? I don’t feel right not telling you. I don’t understand her. It’s really very naughty.”

“This is getting interesting. I always felt there was something mysterious about her.”

“A rather foolish little mystery. She’s my wife.”

Rod stared at him. “Your what?”

“She’s
madame la princesse.
We’re married.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I don’t blame you. It wasn’t much of a marriage, as marriages go. Still, there it is. It’s all to do with a tiresome old story about a will and a rather tidy bit of lolly that I couldn’t touch until I was married. I was in quite serious trouble, thanks to my usual folly. Prison gates yawned. The only way out was marriage, and Nicole obliged. We always assumed that we’d do something about it when the time came, but it hasn’t proved as simple as that.”

“When was all this?”

“Years ago. Seven, to be exact. We were infants.”

“How old are you now?”

“I was afraid you’d ask eventually. I’m 28.”

“I’m about to be 27. You look much younger.”

He looked up at the prince’s face. The small shock passed, and he burst out laughing. “Nicole’s two husbands.” He lifted himself and sat on the prince’s knees, his legs spread, facing him. “I must say, she has marvelous taste,” he said in a voice that trembled with laughter.

“I always thought she had,” the prince agreed, responding to Rod’s blatant invitation. Within seconds, the superior erection had lifted vigorously between them. Rod gripped the prince’s shoulders and let himself fall back at arm’s length so that his erection slapped against his belly. The prince took possession of it again. “Are you still mad about it?” Rod demanded, the laughter bubbling in his throat. “Of course you are. We’re mad about each other, but it can’t go on forever. I want to hear more about this marriage.”

You pick the most peculiar time for a serious conversation.”

Rod leaned forward and rested his forehead on the prince’s so that their noses touched. “Don’t stop. I love what you’re doing. Did you ever sleep with her?”

“Once. I went to bed with her boy, and he insisted that we should all get together. I didn’t expect anything much to come of it, but it was rather sweet.”

“And how does she expect to marry me if she’s already married to you?”

“That’s the question. She’d better not try it here. The Vatican and all that. If you do it in the States, I’m sure nobody will pay any attention. As I remember, she somehow managed to keep her passport in her maiden name. Can you imagine that I would make trouble? Of course, if you become very famous and have dozens of families, like Picasso, you’d be in the soup. But you’ll die eventually, and your children can fight it out.”

“Do many people know?”

“Not a soul except the drones who took care of the will.”

“Then that leaves us. We seem to have worked things out very nicely for ourselves.” He rubbed noses with the prince and watched him deliciously manipulate them both, holding them against each other in a way that emphasized Rod’s supremacy. “God, yes. Me first? Now.” He lifted himself hastily and uttered a cry as the prince took charge of his orgasm. He dropped to his knees again and bowed his head in time to receive the prince’s ejaculation. He swallowed it gratefully and sank down with his head in the prince’s lap, his cheek resting against the subsiding erection. Something slipped into place in his mind. He could marry Nicole now. He had let himself go completely with his male lover, but the prince hadn’t come between him and his girl. All his deepest instincts were attuned to what Nicole could offer him–stability, children, the labels that would make it possible to live in the world he knew and felt at home in. There would be boys (he accepted it tranquilly), but she understood about that; she had been to bed with the prince.

The more he knew about her, the more sure he was that they would be good together as soon as they had told each other everything. They had been living in a sort of dream before, but dreams didn’t help with everyday reality. She was a flesh-and-blood girl, not a fantasy of delicate ladylike perfection. She had certainly been exposed to his weaknesses and seemed to have come to terms with them. Best of all, he was beginning to think they could have fun together. He would marry Nicole. He lifted his head and looked up at the prince who was lovingly stroking his hair.

“Maybe it
will
go on forever. Why try to pin it down? I’m going to marry Nicole. I mean, I finally know it. I’ve just realized how important it is, thanks to you. I love you madly, Phil beauty.” He sprang up and reached for the prince’s hands and pulled him to his feet.

“There’s some less exciting therapy you can help me through.” He slipped an arm around the prince’s slim waist and started for the studio end of the room. He ran his hand down over the rich flow of the buttocks in motion. He moved it up along the muscles of the back and felt the light swing of the wide shoulders. He dropped his arm again to the waist and stopped and turned to him and held him close. He lifted a hand and traced the hard formation of jaw and cheekbone with his fingers and marveled at the exquisite modeling of the straight nose and full disciplined mouth. He felt the wide-set blue eyes gentle on him.