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  “What did you mean?”

  Gil sighed. “Look, if you don’t like fucking, that’s fine. And if you like it, that’s fine too. It’s all fine if you’re happy. It’s just, you don’t look happy.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “No, I don’t, you’re right. Fair enough. Are you happy?”

  Vikram blinked. It looked like a question he hadn’t expected to be asked. “I...have a fulfilling, busy life.”

  “That’s not what I asked. I’m not trying to give you a hard time, Vik. I just think, if there’s something you want, you might as well try to have it. Everyone else does.”

  “I’m a lawyer. I know what everyone else does because it frequently brings them into court. And what do you mean, something I want?”

  Gil put down the photograph he held. “What I mean is, I don’t see any harm in taking pleasure with people who choose to take it with you. That’s all.”

  “Yes, but these people”—he waved a photograph—“didn’t choose.”

  “You don’t know that,” Gil pointed out. “I’ve met plenty of people in this line of work. They aren’t all victims, and you don’t get to treat them like tragedies.”

  “But if people are forced to this degradation by financial need—”

  “Like I was,” Gil filled in for him. “Yes, that happens. Life’s hard. Does that mean I never get to enjoy myself again?”

  “Great Scott, Gil, how can you treat this so lightly?”

  “Why do you carry everything so heavy? What’s wrong with saying, ‘I’ll do as I please, as long as it pleases whoever I’m with’?”

  “And doesn’t that matter? Don’t you care who you’re with? Isn’t that important?” Vikram’s lips were thin with tension.

  A small voice at the back of Gil’s mind was nagging at him, pointing out how much of a disaster this conversation could become. If Vikram walked out again— But he wasn’t going to walk out, Gil was sure. And it was his Vik, right here, after thirteen years, still weighted down by too much thinking. Gil had spent years of his youth trying to get that expression off Vikram’s face. He looked so much better laughing.

  “What’s important,” he said carefully. “For me, what’s important is that you give each other a good time when you can. Carpe diem, as they used to say at school. Take your pleasures where you find them, while they last.”

  “And do anything you like, because it doesn’t really matter?”

  “Being alive matters,” Gil said, on a sudden wave of something like anger. “It matters that I’ve got a warm room and a full belly, and I know that because I went a while without those things, which I’ll bet is more than you ever did. It matters that I’ve a pal with me, and there’s something I reckon you’ve been missing. It matters to be happy instead of miserable.”

  “You can be all those things without—” Vikram gestured at the photographs.

  “True, you can. Or you can be them with, and have a lot of fun that way. Fine if that’s not what you want, but if it is what you want, what good is it to pretend you don’t? Who’s that helping?”

  “It’s not that easy,” Vikram said. His eyes were locked on Gil’s now. So deep, so dark, so revealing. How could Vik be a lawyer, telling lies to judge and jury, when Gil could look into his eyes and see everything?

  “It’s as easy as you want it to be.” It was easy for us before, Gil almost said, and didn’t. Something had changed since before, if only that they were older, and worn, and Vikram’s youthful enthusiasm was weighted by all the legal, moralising bollocks people let the world put on their shoulders. “Look—” He leaned forward. Vik stiffened, almost flinching, his crouch suddenly seeming more like a hunch, and Gil thought, Ah, hell.

  He came round, stepping over the spread of photographs, and knelt by Vikram’s side, putting a hand on his shoulder, in a way that he was sure couldn’t be read as anything but comfort. “It’s only me. Look, ignore me. I just thought—forget it.” The tension in Vikram’s shoulder made it solid under Gil’s hand. Christ, was he frightened or something? “Don’t be a neddy. Nobody’s making you do anything you don’t want.”

  “The issue is not that I don’t want anything,” Vikram said through his teeth. “That is not the issue at all.”

  Gil hadn’t thought it was. He was beginning to feel he’d splashed into waters a great deal too deep for comfort. “Well, then...” Well then what? He was entirely unsure how to extricate them both from this conversation, or if that was even what Vikram needed him to do. “Christ’s sake. Is there anything you don’t make difficult?”

  “No.”

  Gil spluttered, and Vikram’s shoulders gave a single responsive shake. He said, sounding a little less tense, “I don’t take things casually.”

  “Course not.”

  “And you don’t take things seriously.”

  “Not so much. You’ll break your heart that way.”

  “I remember that,” Vikram said, very softly. “I remember not taking things seriously, and I liked it. Everything seems such a responsibility now.”

  “I tell you what, the world would be a better place with more like you,” Gil said. “There’s nothing wrong with being responsible. But you aren’t responsible for me.” He put his free hand out, his right arm crossing over his body to cover Vik’s right hand, felt the tension in the strong, slim fingers, and a shiver of response. “Look, do what you want, and nothing that you don’t. Only—” To say this, or not? What if he did, and Vik took the hump? What if he didn’t, and Vik went off in this seething state of wanting he didn’t seem to understand? Men got in trouble that way when they plunged into a world of which they didn’t know the rules. Gil didn’t like to think of Vikram’s desires becoming a danger, not when that could be avoided.

  Right, so any approach would simply be a safety precaution. Who was he trying to fool?

  God damn it. They were grown men. He’d say it outright and Vikram could do as he chose. “Look, mate, it’s simple enough. If you feel like a bit of fun, like we used to, you know where to come. That’s all.”

  “If I— Why?” That wasn’t an aggressive demand. It was almost a whisper.

  “Ah, come on. You must know you’re fit as a butcher’s dog. Or maybe you don’t, but you can take my word for it. You grew up well.”

  “Taller than you,” Vikram said, with an effort at a smile.

  “Rub it in, why don’t you.” Gil pressed the hand he held. It was meant to be a friendly gesture, maybe a comforting one, but Vikram’s fingers flattened under Gil’s, inviting more pressure, and Gil pressed his own hand down harder, sliding his fingers between Vikram’s, feeling the shape of the slender bones. Vikram swallowed audibly. Gil pushed a little harder, and then again, press and release, setting up a familiar rhythm, and heard Vikram’s breath quicken.

  He probably shouldn’t be doing this. Vikram was a bundle of rigidity knotted by nerves. But he was also sodding lovely to look at, with those bottomless eyes and the curve of his lips, fulfilling a promise that his awkward boyhood hadn’t offered, and mostly he was Vik. It felt right, that was all, even though a part of Gil’s mind was telling him it really probably wasn’t.

  Well, if he’d listened to that part of his mind much, he wouldn’t be where he was now. Of course, that was in Holywell Street, but this still felt right, so he increased the pressure, flexing his hand over Vik’s as though he was touching something a lot more sensitive, and watched his lips part and move in silence, his eyes half-shut.

  He still had a hand on Vik’s shoulder. He ran it up, into that thick hair, fingers over the scalp, and felt Vik’s head come back, pushing into his palm. He had a bloody nice throat, strong, slender-boned, the Adam’s apple not too pronounced. Gil would have liked to get his mouth to that but who knew if that would send Vik into a panic. He couldn’t recall if they’d used to kiss as boys, or work out if Vik would want that; some men recoiled at stubble, or intimacy.

  Vik didn’t look like he’d fear intimacy now.
His mouth was open now, his eyes shut, his breath hot and hard— Christ, he looked like he was going to spend from having his hand touched, just from the pleasure of that rhythmic pressure, and Gil wanted to see Vik come more than he could recall wanting anything in years. He was poker-hard himself just from kneading another fellow’s hand, or from the promise, the awareness, the feel of Vik’s skin under his.

  Vik wouldn’t appreciate dealing with the mess after, if he spent fully clothed. Never comfortable, a bit embarrassing, and indignity was probably not something Vik laughed off easily. Which meant Gil really ought to take things in hand. As it were.

  “Vik,” he murmured. “Can I touch you?”

  Vikram nodded, but his fingers closed urgently around Gil’s. Gil shifted himself awkwardly sideways and round to face him, bringing his free hand down, and trailed it over Vikram’s shirt front. Vikram inhaled desperately, a little panicked gasp.

  Christ above. When was the last time anyone had laid a hand on him?

  This was unnerving. Gil wasn’t used to inexperience, and didn’t like it. He’d hardly ever fucked anyone who didn’t know what they were doing, and on the couple of occasions he had, they’d been eager to learn.

  Vikram didn’t look eager. He looked—Gil wasn’t even sure how he looked. Like a sacrifice. Like a statue. Like the loveliest thing Gil had set eyes on in a long time, like a well-off lawyer with a rock-hard cockstand, like Gil’s best friend who didn’t quite know what was going on.

  “Fuck,” Gil said aloud. “Vik?”

  Vikram opened his eyes. They were strained, and dizzy, and hungry, so hungry. Gil waited till they met his. “Mate,” he said, and heard the thickness of his own voice. “I need to know you want this.”

  Vikram nodded, a tiny movement. “I— Yes. But Gil, could you, could we...”

  Gil hoped he was more articulate in the courtroom. “I’ll do anything you want if you tell me what it is. I don’t read minds.”

  “I, uh...” Vikram hesitated a second more, face tense with uncertainty, and then he leaned forward and got his mouth to Gil’s. You couldn’t call it a kiss, exactly, with noses in the wrong places and faces at the wrong angles, but that was what he was going for, and Gil shifted into it to get it right, and—

  Of course they’d used to kiss at school. Of course they had, when he’d shoved Vik backwards into a cupboard or a dark corner and they’d frotted against each other, mouths locked, all sweat and spit and spending. The familiarity swept over him in a dizzy rush, like he’d stood up too fast after a few too many gins, and the urgent, startled grunt in Vikram’s throat suggested he wasn’t the only one falling on his face in Memory Lane.

  Gil grabbed for him, felt Vikram’s hands on his waist, hauled him backwards so they were sprawling on the floor. They kissed frantically, Vikram’s mouth gaining confidence, his body heavy in all the wrong places as if he wasn’t aware that a man’s weight on another fellow’s groin could put quite a crimp in proceedings. Gil shoved and rolled till they were both on their sides, and got his hands to Vikram’s waistband. Vikram was gasping and panting and kissing, and very definitely all right with this, and Gil worked his hand through cloth to the hard, ridged length of Vik’s stiff prick...and stopped. Just stopped, so they were lying body to body, mouth to mouth, hand to cock, like that one desperately daring night when he’d come to Vikram’s house in the holidays and crept into his room and his bed.

  God, he’d been happy then.

  They were both still, holding the quivering, silent moment, and then Gil curled his fingers around Vikram’s stand, gave it a long stroke. Vikram made a noise of agony, so Gil did it again, this time running his thumb over the head, caressing every inch, and Vikram groaned as he came, thrusting in Gil’s hand.

  They lay together a moment longer as Vikram’s shoulders heaved. Gil’s own cock felt like an unpricked sausage sizzling in a pan, about to burst out of its skin. He gritted his teeth against the urge to do something about it.

  Vikram’s eyes fluttered open. Gil watched his face as he gently disengaged his wet hand, saw his weak smile.

  “You all right?”

  “You haven’t changed at all,” Vikram said. “Have you? You can still wrap me round your little finger.”

  Well, that was that, then. Gil began to sit up. Vikram tugged him down. “No, stop. I didn’t mean that as a rebuke. I— Great Scott, Gil.”

  “Are you going to start worrying about things?” Gil asked, somewhat warily.

  Vikram shook his head, then added, “Or, I shall try not to, at least. But that... Oh, the devil.” He put his hand out, tentatively, to Gil’s arm. “I missed you so much. It was all so easy, and it all seemed so right, and then you vanished. And I’ve never—with anyone—since, because it seemed so hard after that, so—”

  “Whoa. Wait. You haven’t fucked since school?”

  “I haven’t—” Vikram supplied the verb with a slight motion of his hand “—since you. You are the sum total of my experience, I’m afraid.”

  Gil attempted to get himself round that. “You’ve never fucked anyone? In thirteen years?” Vikram shook his head, flushing slightly. “Sweet King Jesus!”

  “It’s hardly that unusual.” Vikram sounded a little nettled. “I’m not married, I don’t choose to exploit unfortunates, and I don’t want the clap. So I exercise self-control. Except just now.”

  Oh, no, no. He’d lived like a priest of Rome, or whatever the Hindu equivalent might be, for all those years, a model of virtue and self-restraint, and he’d just let Gil toss him off on the dusty floor of a dirty bookshop?

  God in heaven. Gil could almost feel the appalling burden of responsibility sliding from Vikram’s shoulders to his own. He knew what he’d say to another man or woman. That was a laugh. Nice to have a frolic. Catch you round and about sometime. He couldn’t say that to Vikram, but dear Christ and all his angels, what the fuck was he supposed to say or do, knowing he was Vikram’s one and only? The panic closed his throat for a second. Gil didn’t look after other people: he looked after himself because that was how you survived when everyone else let you down and threw you away, and he had no idea at all what to do now.

  He needed to give some sort of answer. If only he had one to give.

  “Well. That’s...well... Bugger me, Vik, I don’t know what to say. If you want to pretend that didn’t happen, I can do that.”

  “I don’t think that would be very honest. I’m not quite sure I know what to say either. I didn’t imagine—no, that’s not true.”

  “It’s not?”

  “Let’s say,” Vikram said, picking his words, “I had rather persuaded myself that what we did at school was just the usual boys’ tomfoolery.”

  “Well, it was,” Gil insisted, though he could still feel the memory of Vikram’s lips on his, from five minutes and thirteen years ago.

  “Yes, but I’m not a boy now. So...” Vikram let that trail off, as though he wasn’t sure where ‘so’ would take him.

  “Look, people have wants. And act on them, all the time, for all the law and the moralising that says not to, and what that tells me is we’ve all got our natures and there’s no point making a fuss about it.”

  “I don’t think it’s quite that easy.”

  “Maybe not. But I reckon it’s easier than being like that magistrate I told you about, pronouncing judgement from the Bench then sneaking in here with a muffler wrapped round his face because he’s got an itch he can’t let himself scratch. I see a lot of people who twist themselves up for wanting what they want, and damned if I know what good it does. And anyway—honestly, Vik, thirteen years? You’d’ve probably been able to fuck a rock by now if you found a pretty one.”

  Vikram stared at him and then began to laugh, at first looking startled by his own amusement and then uncontrollably, curling up on himself, so that Gil couldn’t but laugh as well. “A rock? Did you say a rock?”

  “A pretty one,” Gil stressed. “Not any old rock.”

  “Tal
k about having a high opinion of yourself,” Vikram spluttered.

  “Whatever you say, rock-fucker.”

  Vikram howled at that, and Gil threw back his own head, feeling the momentary panic wash away in the mirth. Of course Vik could look after himself. He was a grown man, a clever one, nobody’s fool and nobody’s mark. He’d cope.

  Everything was going to be fine.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  If Vikram had been asked what his visit to Gilbert Lawless Bookseller would bring, he would not have imagined unlawful congress on the floor. He was just grateful the damned cat had been elsewhere.

  The whole business probably ought to have felt terrifying or bewildering or shameful. It didn’t. It had felt marvellous, frankly: the pure relief of his pent-up desires roaring free, the ecstatic thrill of physical sensation, the overwhelming closeness of kisses, so much more intimate than any other touch. It had been marvellous, and startlingly familiar, and right, as though he’d finally remembered something that had been nudging at his memory for years.

  And wrong, too, because his lost friend ought not to be a scofflaw in this sordid trade, but under the hardened exterior he was still Gil. Still understanding, still funny, still unquenchable, or at least refusing to be quenched. Vikram had depended on Gil at school, always looking to him for the grin and the joke that would make things better, and he felt a tug of longing to have that once more. Someone who made him happy, whose purpose was to make life easier and pleasanter. As though he existed for Vikram’s benefit. Vikram took people to court over that sort of thing all the time.

  “Damnation,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I think I just realised what a good friend to me you were, and how little I noticed.”

  Gil gave him an odd look. “What, because I tossed you off?”

  “No, you fool. Because you made my life better in a dozen ways all the time. You’re a great deal more caring than you pretend to be.”