Amberlough(13)

Cyril held his briefcase tight, cursing himself. Surely he could have gone around a back way, earlier. He could have come to his flat through the alley, or up the fire escape. At least he should have stayed sober. He’d been out of the field too long. What was Culpepper thinking, sending him back? He hadn’t even left Amberlough yet, and he was already bungling the action.

They crested a small rise and the trolley jumped. Aristide’s weight shifted. He was hard with wanting, and Cyril felt it in the dimple of his lower back. Aristide laughed and pushed, this time with purpose.

Queen’s sake, what a mess. Cyril leaned into the crook of Aristide’s body and shut his eyes. His thoughts wandered from fantasy to self-flagellation, until Aristide whispered against his ear.

“Our stop,” he said, “unless you want to ride it all the way to the P-P-Prince and Temple.” The famous brothel was a seething offspring of sex and theatre. It stood at the corner of the two bawdiest streets in Amberlough, from which it took its name.

“I think you’re about all I can handle, tonight.” Cyril let the leather strap free and put his hand to Aristide’s shoulder, steadying himself. “Come on.”

Revelers thronged the Heynsgate trolley stop, packing Baldwin Street Bridge. Aristide had changed his costume for street clothes that were only slightly less gaudy, and he fit right in. Cyril, dizzy and exhausted, wanted to close his eyes again. The river shone with reflected lights, cigarette butts flecking the ripples.

He lit his own, fumbling with the matches, then tripped on a paving stone. Aristide caught him, but not before he’d dropped his straight. He cursed and reached for another one, but Ari stopped him.

“It can wait,” he said. “Come on.”

It was a matter of four city blocks, and then the doorman was waving them in. Ari’s large, bony hand splayed at the center of Cyril’s back, warm even through his overcoat.

The sleepy lift attendant scissored the grate closed behind them. She very professionally did not notice when Aristide pressed Cyril into the corner of the lift and pulled his tie from its knot. Cyril’s briefcase knocked the wall, and he set it down, bracing it with his heel to keep it from falling.

As the dial wound past the first floor, Cyril grasped the back of Ari’s neck, pulling him down into a kiss.

“Second floor,” said the attendant, staring at a spot on the tile. Ari tugged Cyril’s arm, drawing him across the threshold of the lift. At the last moment before the grate shut, Cyril dove back, tripping on the edge of the carpet, and grabbed his briefcase from the corner. He didn’t have time to tell if Ari looked disappointed, because Ari grabbed his coat and pushed him face-first against the wall. Adrenaline jumped like electricity through Cyril’s veins, laced with desire.

“Is your evening getting better?” Ari asked, closing his teeth on a tender divot of skin at the back of Cyril’s neck.

“Even better—” Cyril’s breath was harsh, his speech slurred. He tried again. “Even better once I sit down.”

“Sitting?” Ari snarled, mouth against Cyril’s ear. “Try flat on your back.”

*

Ari’s rooms were dark, but neither of them moved to turn on the lights. Cyril dropped his briefcase on the sofa and covered it with his overcoat—painfully casual, but did his drunkenness make it obvious?—then tossed his hat aside.

Ari twirled Cyril’s wrinkled tie in lazy arcs. “Shoes,” he said.

Feeling petty, Cyril fumbled with one of his cufflinks.

“I said shoes,” snapped Ari, pulling the tie tight between his hands. When they were off, it was “Socks. Waistcoat. Braces. Trousers.” Then, “Shorts,” and, with satisfaction, “Now your c-c-cufflinks.”

Cyril set them on the end table with a clatter, hands shaking.

“Shirt.”

He flung it away and shivered at the cool air on his naked arms. In the yellow light drifting up from the street, the scar across his belly shone platinum.

“Your wrists, please,” said Aristide. Cyril held them together and let Ari loop the necktie taut. He could feel heat gathering between his cupped palms. Ari tugged, not gently, and Cyril staggered after him.

In the bedroom, he let Ari fling him across the silk expanse of the duvet. The woolen necktie scratched his wrists as Ari drew the loop apart. Cyril reached for the gilded buttons of Ari’s waistcoat, but Ari struck his hands away. “No,” he said, like iron. Then, more softly, “I’ll do it.”

Cyril lay back, grateful and furious, and let him do it—let him do everything—until Ari was leaning over him, slippery with sweat and gasping for breath. One of his hands was pressed deep into a pillow, the muscles of his arm corded with the effort of holding his weight. With the other, he was pulling himself off. He was close; Cyril knew from the cant of his head, from his crooked mouth. He was biting the inside of his cheek. Sometimes he made himself bleed, like that.

Unable to resist, Cyril grabbed two handfuls of those sinful curls and yanked Ari’s head back, stretching his skin over the sharp ridge of his larynx. Cyril drew the flat of his tongue up the deep groove of Aristide’s throat, where the tendon was thrown into sharp relief. The chemical bitterness of cold cream coated his mouth, and the alcohol base of Aristide’s cologne. Ari cried out, his supporting arm buckling. Cyril pressed his hips up. Ari’s buttocks gave against the ridges of his hipbones. Cyril’s jaw ached around his clenched teeth.