There Will Be Phlogiston (18 page)

“Yes. God, yes.” Jones glanced up, quite
unexpectedly meeting Rosamond’s eyes. “Ros?” It could, perhaps,
have felt a little odd to hear her name in such a context, but it
pleased her to know she was just a thought away from him. “In the
bedside table, there’s a vial of oil. Can you pass it to me?”

Oil?
But she nodded, and twisted round to tug
open the top drawer. It contained a jumbled and slightly peculiar
collection of items—among them, a battered copy of
Melmoth the
Wanderer
, and a rather beautiful glass object shaped not unlike
. . . oh. Was it intended for private use? She imagined Arkady’s
elegant fingers circling it, and then a further thought occurred to
her.

She looked up frowning. “What exactly
is
sodomy?”

Jones’s laugh was full of the wickedest joy. “Find
the oil, and we’ll show you.” She rummaged about until she found a
stoppered glass bottle, and when she held it up, Jones extended a
hand towards her. “Pour some for me.”

She felt the ripple that ran through Arkady, pulling
his body tight with anticipation. This was all very intriguing. She
made a neat pool of oil in the centre of Jones’s palm, and he
closed his fist, spreading the liquid liberally over his fingers
with this thumb until they shone like the tip of Arkady’s cock.
Like they had in the woods after he’d brought her to crisis.

His hand vanished between Arkady’s thighs, and the
man made a soft, delirious sound, his head falling back against the
pillows and his hips arching wantonly. She had to admit, he looked
rather splendid like that, abandoned to whatever lovely thing Jones
was doing to him.

“Is this sodomy?” she asked.

“It’s about to be.” Arkady dug his fingers into
Jones’s biceps, hard enough that his nails left pale crescents in
Jones’s tan. “Darling, enough. I want to feel you.”

“More oil.”

Rosamond was glad to discover that all those tedious
lessons in how to properly serve tea had finally come to
something—it turned out, she was very good at pouring oil into her
lover’s hand so he could make love to his lover. This time,
however, his hand went nowhere more mysterious than himself, and
her eyes followed because watching Anstruther Jones make his
delightfully hard cock all slick and gleaming was quite stirring.
Her interest in the proceedings had been temporarily diverted
towards more intellectual considerations, but the sight of Jones
kneeling between Arkady’s legs with that frowning, focused look on
his face garnered a far more bodily reaction.

Arkady reached down, caught hold of his own knees,
and pulled them back, exposing himself in a manner so bold it was
probably far beyond wanton. “Damn it, Jones, will you fuck me?”

Jones grinned wolfishly, all teeth and a flash of
gold, and stroked a possessive hand along the unprotected underside
of Arkady’s thigh, making the other man shudder uncontrollably. His
left hand was still on his cock, and as he pressed forward,
Rosamond quite abruptly learned what sodomy was.

Admittedly it was a little startling. She would
never have imagined such a thing was possible, let alone
pleasurable, but they both seemed to enjoy it immensely. There was
even something a little bit remarkable about it, the way Arkady’s
body was coaxed with gentle pressure and rocking thrusts to
encompass Jones, and their gradual progress to a completeness of
joining that made them groan in unison. After a moment or two,
Jones came down onto his elbows, Arkady’s legs curled around him,
and they lay like that, chest to chest, wrapped in each other,
exchanging increasingly frantic kisses, almost as if neither quite
believed that what they did was real.

Rosamond was truly baffled. This was the terrible,
unspeakable sin?

She would probably not have wished to participate in
it herself, but then she would probably not have appreciated it
overmuch if Jones stuck his finger in her ear. But what was one
appendage and one orifice over another? Why was this particular
combination outlawed?

Especially when it seemed to her a rather beautiful
union.

They were moving now, still entwined, the
sweat-glossy muscles of Jones’s back undulating delightfully and
his buttocks flexing as he claimed Arkady’s body in long, steady
thrusts.

Oh heavens. How very fine he looked. How strong and
. . . Rosamond shifted, unable to help herself, all her most secret
places alight with longing. Had she been in Arkady’s positions she
would have— His hands curled over Jones’s hips, pulling him
greedily against him, harder, deeper, the sound of skin against
skin mingling with their rapid breaths, the moans of pleasure that
seemed to ripple between them like an unending echo.

Jones rose onto his knees again, his hips moving to
a different rhythm, slow, shallow, and lingering. Rosamond was
certainly no expert at the act they were committing, but she could
recognise a tease when she saw one.

Arkady, too, his mouth parting on a laughing gasp,
as he wriggled frantically and arched after Jones’s cock. “You
bastard.”

“That any way to talk to a man inside you?”

“Yes, if he’s not insi—” Jones drove forward, and
whatever Arkady had been going to say was lost to a sharp cry of
mingled pleasure and gratitude. “Oh God, yes. Like that.”

Jones had that intent and ferocious look again, his
eyes stormy as he gazed down at Arkady and at the place their
bodies met. It made Rosamond shiver. She enjoyed being the subject
of Jones’s attention herself, but at the same time she was a little
envious. Not because she wanted Arkady the way Jones did, but
because he yielded his body so completely, and revelled in it,
unabashed. And because his surrender did not look like weakness. It
looked like joy.

Jones wrapped a hand about the other man’s cock,
inspiring another spill of liquid, and a harsh, almost-pained groan
from Arkady.

His head tossed on the pillows, moisture caught on
his hair and on the tips of his eye lashes. “No, don’t . . .”

“No?”

“Just you.” An unsteady breath, something close to a
smile. “Is enough.”

Jones made one of his likerous, growly noises and
shifted his hold from Arkady’s powerfully rigid member to his legs.
He lifted them up to rest against his shoulders, and began to move
afresh, thrusting deep into Arkady with quite remarkable vigour.
Rosamond wasn’t sure if she wouldn’t have found such enthusiasm a
little punishing, but Arkady seemed to relish it. And Jones looked
wonderful that way, all feral passion and straining muscles, with
the sweat streaking him like starlight. The sounds of them together
had become profoundly and gloriously animalistic, colliding flesh,
and ragged breath, and other more intimate noises, the slick and
wicked kissing of secret places.

Arkady stretched his arms above his head, hands
clutching frantically at the carved rail, his whole body drawn into
a trembling harp string of need and incipient ecstasy. There was
nothing gentlemanly left in him. He was as wild as Jones, as
heedless. His mouth opened and his eyes fluttered, and he babbled
something that might have been
Jones
or
I love you
or
God
or
Fuck
or some combination of all of them. And
for some impossible fraction of a second, he was the still point in
a universe of skin and sex: utterly vulnerable, utterly exposed,
taken and loved and free. Then he was all movement, full of
shudders, his cock jerking as jets of pearly fluid spattered across
his chest.

“Oh Arkady, my Arkady.”

He blinked up at Jones, his eyes slumberously soft,
and murmured. “I want to feel you. Come for me.”

Jones threw back his head, eyes closing, lips
pulling back from his teeth in something close to a snarl. He made
an equally unrestrained noise, which, for some reason, rippled
across Rosamond’s most favourite particular place like a stone
thrown into a pool. She watched him, as avidly as she had that day
in the woods, as the pleasure took him, wondering what star-strewn
skies he found in the savage darkness of his release. And she tried
not to feel too disappointed the outcome was received by Arkady’s
body, for she rather enjoyed being able to witness the sudden
violence of his rapture.

Arkady was as supple as a cat in sunlight as Jones
came down over him again, purring with languid satisfaction as
Jones licked the evidence of their activities from his skin. Then
Jones mumbled something incoherent and collapsed completely, and
Arkady’s arms flopped over him in a clumsy embrace. They lay
entangled, spent in each other’s arms.

“Oh my,” said Rosamond, “sodomy is magnificent.”

Arkady wheezed out something she thought might have
been a laugh, and beat his palms against Jones’s shoulder.

Jones grunted and rolled off him with all the grace
of a felled oak. Lay in a lax-limbed sprawl, breathing hard, and
grinning. Rosamond gazed at him in some concern—men really did have
substantial physical limitations.

She had almost decided he had died of sodomy when he
cranked open one eye, threw an arm about her waist, and pulled her
down on top of him. “I love you,” he mumbled.

It took her entirely by surprise. She had known he
did, of course, otherwise his behaviour made no sense at all. Only
a man who loved her would have treated her as he had. Or like her
as much as he claimed to. She was under no illusions that she was a
likeable person.

It was probably not the context most young ladies
would have dreamed of hearing such a declaration. But Rosamond was
not most young ladies, and she found it was exactly what she needed
to hear, when she needed to hear it.

All the same. Her own delight embarrassed her.

“How kind,” she managed, with admirably calm.

And Jones laughed, and said it again—“I love you”—so
she tucked the words into some pocket of her heart to take out and
look at properly later.

He eased her into the crook of his arm and Arkady
curled into her side. It was very warm, and a little sticky, and
both men smelled very pungently of their previous activities. But
she had never felt safer, or righter, or more loved in her entire
life. Arkady slid a hand over her waist, and Jones reached over
her, and they held hands, and held her.

Arkady nuzzled his head into her shoulder. “I’m too
extraordinarily well fucked to be worried, so I’m just going to
assume you didn’t think less of me for that . . . and thank
you.”

“Thank you for trusting me.” She pressed a kiss
against his brow. “Frankly, you may do that as often as you
please.”

Jones groaned. “Give me ten minutes, maybe twenty.
I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“Good God.” Arkady gave a shaky laugh. “You may have
to wait a day or so before I can permit that again.”

“Well,” Rosamond offered helpfully, “Jones will
simply have to fuck me.”

Arkady was pressed so close that she felt the scrape
of his lashes as his eyes closed. “I think I might love you a
little too.”

They drifted in sated and companionable silence for
a minute or two.

“Is it always thus?” she asked. “Does Jones always .
. . and do you always . . .”

She had not realised it was a troublesome question,
but the quality of the silence shifted, and she felt Arkady
tense.

“I . . . have never . . . that is, I presume. I do
not think Jones—”

“As it happens,” said Jones, “I’m very fond of
taking a cock.”

This made perfect sense of Rosamond—clearly having
an appendage up the fundament was a delightful pastime for men. But
Arkady seemed oddly flustered. “Truly? But . . . are you not . . .
I would not have . . .”

“Love, I’ve lived too long in this world to believe
my masculinity lives in my arse.”

Arkady laughed, but his body was still restlessly
anxious against Rosamond. “I have never met anyone who would permit
me that. I might not . . . I might disappoint you.”

“Don’t be daft. I’d love it if you wanted to fuck
me, and I don’t care if you don’t.”

That answer seemed to satisfy Arkady. In more ways
than one. Rosamond was a little disconcerted as his member stirred
and stiffened somewhat against her hip. But then she recalled that
she had recently seen him dispense ejaculatory fluid all over
himself. So they were probably far beyond the usual social
awkwardnesses.

“How does it feel?” She had not intended to utter
the thought aloud—but there it was.

“What?” Arkady’s voice was slurred, as though he was
pleasure-drunk, already half-asleep.

“To have a man inside you.”

“Well, I rather enjoy it.” She thought that was
going to be all the answer he would grant her, but then he
continued. “Like you’re holding his heart in your hand.”

And then, nestled against her, he slept in
earnest.

He probably had the right idea. But even though she
had been up all night and—from the hazy light behind the
curtains—some chunk of the day, there was a pulsing energy at the
core of her tiredness that made sleep seem distant and
unlikely.

A nervous feeling crept over her like a shadow,
something that seemed perilously like the queerest loneliness she
had ever experienced, but then she turned her head, and found Jones
still awake as well, his eyes very blue just then in their secret
morning. He smiled fuzzily at her, and gently untangled his hand
from Arkady’s.

His fingers explored her idly, tiny, sweeping
touches that sent shivers chasing themselves across her skin. It
was an odd sensation, the warmth of him travelling through the
shifting linen of her chemise, but strangely pleasurable, two
softnesses moving against each other and upon her. She closed her
eyes, letting herself be touched, floating in it, while everything
else faded away. At last, his hand eased between her legs, and she
was a little shocked at how wet for him she was, how hot and
swollen and ready.