He wasn’t generally a big drinker, and so Harry’s walk back to the hotel was a little clumsy, his coat thrown over his arm to spare him from the warmth of the evening’s weather combined with the heat the drink was spurring under his clothes.

Young Mr Riggs had only had one drink with them before he’d retired to his and Larry’s lodgings to get things set up for his return. The conversation had been something of a gentle interview on their parts, asking him guiding questions and encouraging him to speak about his work of recent, skills he was interested in acquiring, the books he had been reading, how his mother was, and his sisters.

Afterwards, he and Ulysses had gone on talking for some time about anything and everything, in the manner of any two close friends. It was natural enough to share the foibles and strengths of their respective employers – for Harry to speak with both affection and frustration as to Alexos’ mysterious disappearance with Larry before finding him in his absurdly well-outfitted mechanic’s shed; for Ulysses to deplore the state of one of Mr Samuels’ friends, Cricket, and his habit of letting loose all manner of creepy crawlies in their home, including worms, ladybirds, ants, and woodlice, and the fact that Samuels had an inexplicable affection for the ridiculous man.

“He’s been doing full portraits of late of all his friends, has been making an album of them,” Ulysses had said toward the end of their evening together, when they were finishing up the dregs of their glasses. “The one of Mr Kidd is alright – rather too accurate to be flattering, mind you.”

“Am I wrong in supposing he’ll be wanting to sketch me, next, or is he only drawing the gentlemen?”

“No doubt he’ll want to,” Ulysses had said, and he’d hesitated a moment as he loosely pulled his coat over his shoulders and buckled it at the neck as a cloak, not sliding his arms into the sleeves. “He won’t speak about it, even with me, but his nightmares have been troubling him again of late. Perhaps if you might visit soon, or extend us an invitation, it’s the sort of thing he and Mr Fox might talk about.”

“Full portraits of his friends,” Harry had said. “To remember us by, if some other catastrophe starts picking us off, as happened in the War?”

“If you want to voice that estimation in Vincent’s earshot, Harry,” Ulysses had said, with a sad but genuine smile, “you are a braver man than I.”

Still, they’d parted with a little laughter between them, wrestling a little on exiting the pub, each of them broad enough that they eclipsed the doorway on their own, though they still played at trying to go out at the same time.

When Harry saw the tie over their hotel door, he subtly turned back in the corridor and took a seat in the lobby, reading the paper until he heard the door close down the corridor, and then he got to his feet.

The beautiful, delicate creature that slipped out from his and Alexos’ room for the night was so lovely, in a pretty hat and woman’s coat with a fur ruff, that Harry might even have mistaken him for a woman, if he didn’t know better. He was a lovely little thing with glittering blue eyes and two little marks tattooed on his upper cheek, and he moved with a dancer’s sashay on graceful, slippered feet.

“Good evening, Miss,” Harry said pleasantly, touching the rim of his hat.

The young man’s eyes flitted up to Harry’s face from under the rim of his hat, then traced down Harry’s body, lingering for a moment about his middle.

The sound he made was convincingly feminine – Harry had had his share of sea-queens, and he knew at a glance that this one was likely familiar with sailors and men at port – and quite derisive.

“I don’t think so, ducky,” he said in a soft, lilting voice, accented, and Harry chuckled, turning to the side to give him sufficient space to move down the corridor without so much as brushing shoulders with him.

It was something of a pleasure to watch him go, narrow as he was – his coat moved quite fluidly from its place on his shoulders, and wafting in his wake was quite a pleasant lady’s perfume, subtle but impactful, mostly lilac with the barest hint of lavender.

Harry opened the door to their room and slipped inside, latching it behind him.

“Oh, Harry,” Alexos said softly, smiling up at him. “You were quick. Were you waiting long?”

“Not too long at all,” he said richly, pouring a glass of water and bringing it over to Alexos, who sipped at it. He was sprawled on his back in bed in just his vest and pyjama trousers, misted over with sweat, his hair mussed. A little of the pretty thing’s lipstick was staining his lips, although more of it was on the side of his neck and under his ear. “Have a good time?”

“Rather a nice one,” said Alexos, laughing in a faint, dazed way. He reached for Harry with his free hand, and Harry stepped closer, letting the other man slide his palm over Harry’s thigh, resting with undisguised and unabashed lust on the plush meat of his side.

Harry’s lips twitched, wondering how their new friend in the corridor would feel about seeing Alexos’ evident desire for the body he had only just scornfully rejected, although he was more than old enough and wise enough not to take such matters to heart.

Nodding toward the door, he quirked an eyebrow. “How old was he? Nineteen?”

“Oh, God,” Alexos said, looking abruptly horrified and sitting up slightly on the bed, although this made him wince. His eyes were wide as he asked, aghast, “He’s surely not as young as that?”

Laughing, Harry said, “I shouldn’t think so, no, though I’m surprised you didn’t ask.”

“It hardly came up. I was… distracted.”

“No doubt. Run a bath for you?”

“Want to share it?”

“I might have a little dip,” Harry said flirtatiously – it was quite the joy, seeing how Alexos’ expression softened, how he took another gulp of his water before setting it aside and putting both his hands on Harry’s hips, tilting back his head until Harry took the bait and bent down to kiss him.

Alexos’ lips were a little bruised from kissing, but that only made them plumper, and he sighed in a sweet, though not entirely satisfied way. Harry was surprised indeed to find that when his hand slid between his thighs, resting against his crotch, he found the young master standing most of the way to attention.

“You’ll forgive me if this is a stupid question,” Alexos said when Harry gave him a questioning look, “but it’s not so unusual to have a bit of difficulty reaching one’s peak from time to time, is it?”

“Not unusual in the least,” Harry said. He felt full to the brim with warmth and affection for the man before him, for the room around them, for the life ahead of him. He’d been rather satisfied before, but a night of casual chatter and good drink had done much to further bolster his spirits, and something about seeing Ulysses and talking with him, comparing his partnership with Vincent Samuels to his own with Alexos… “Did he ride you?”

“He attended me with his mouth, first. Greedy thing, he was, too – he was about ready to have a tantrum when I dragged him off me. Then, I put him down on his back and drove into him as best I was able. He’s evidently something of a slut – I’ve hardly been up close and personal with many, but I’ve read a few pieces of erotica here and there, enough to recognise… He had such a greedy pinkness to him, less puckered than one might expect, the muscle just a little looser than the average man’s. Such a greedy pull within him, though, tight, fiercely wet, pretty and inviting.”

Harry oughtn’t have expected otherwise, knowing Alexos as he did already. He didn’t speak about this any differently than he spoke about poetry or baking or Aristophanes or the mechanism that moved a ribbon spool: it was casual, confident, authoritative, easy.

Alexos looked lazily up at him, smiling in a distantly satisfied way. His groan of pleasure was back in his throat, a quiet grunt, as he shifted up against Harry’s hand, his grip around Alexos’ cock through his pyjama trousers.

Harry was hard himself, and not just from a few ales and sympathy. Alexos’ easy manner, speaking on his partner, of fucking him, was delectable. He’d wanted to ease Alexos into more social situations, wanted him to make more friends – taking a pretty actor home from a social engagement and fucking him silly was certainly a show of extroverted outreach.

It was rather more entrancing than Alexos attending a museum exhibit or lecture with a new set of friends, or joining them for morning tea or a pleasant lunch – more arousing, in any case.

“Will you tell me all?” Harry asked softly, and Alexos’ smile was softer.

“Here are each of us, hard as diamonds,” Alexos murmured, “and yet your voice is rich enough for reading poetry. This evening will not amount to much by way of that.”

“Funny, that,” Harry said, and leaned forward. He was careful about where he placed his hands, supporting Alexos close to the joint of the knee and making sure he was gripping under the stronger one and not the more injured of the two, and Alexos gasped in a breath as Harry lifted him clean from the bed, against his breath.

“Fuck me,” Alexos hissed under his breath.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No, no,” Alexos muttered – his cheeks were flushed, and he rested one hand against Harry’s neck, thumb against his collar. Harry was very gentle as he carried him away from the bed and through the narrow little door to the tiny little adjoining bathroom and its little tub. Certainly, they wouldn’t be sharing this one. “You’re carrying me like a bride,” Alexos murmured.

“I’m happy to call myself the bride between us to our friends, if you’d rather,” Harry said softly. “Who carries whom can be a private matter.”

Alexos’ laughter was a soft and handsome thing. “You seem terribly sentimental this evening.”

“I had drinks with a few friends this evening. I was accused of being a man in love.”

“Were you indeed?” Alexos asked breathlessly. He grunted quietly as Harry gently set him on the stool to sit and then went to run the bath, and he was looking at Harry with interest, focus. He looked so handsome in the brighter light of the bathroom, his eyes alight, his bruised lips parted. “I might have thought to accuse you myself, had I had the opportunity.”

“And you?”

“Me? In love? Quite fervently.”

“With Larry Kidd, I suppose?”

Alexos’ expression flattened, and Harry laughed as he poured salts into the foaming water, which was mercifully warm, late enough at night as they were, he’d been concerned there wouldn’t be enough hot water left.

“With you, you great fool,” Alexos said. “Though I’m sure I don’t know why.”

“My cock has something to do with it, I expect.”

“The piercings through it, maybe.”

Harry laughed, and he felt a great swelling of warmth in his breast as he went to undress.

“I enjoy how you talk,” Harry said. “How you talked of fucking that young man was much akin to how you talk of anything else – I was thinking to myself what a robust and confident man you are, how you give yourself over to that which you experience and whom. Your expertise, your intellect, your curiosity. You’re a frank and unforgiving man.”

“And you love me for that?” Alexos asked disbelievingly – it was meant to be wry, that theatrical disbelief, but Harry could hear the genuine quaver of doubt in it.

“Oh, yes,” Harry said, seriously, gravely. “How could I not?”

“Well, many people—”

“You know yourself,” Harry interrupted him. “Know what you want out of life, what you enjoy – and you share it so… so easily. You are unabashed in it, your knowledge, when it occurs to you to share it.”

“I’m arrogant, you mean,” Alexos said. “And unsubtle.”

“If you like,” Harry said. “Use whatever words you like – I love it. I love you.”

“Harry, we’re meant to be tugging each other off and sloshing about in our bathwater,” Alexos softly. “How are we going to do that if you have me bursting into tears from the sentiment?”

“I can tug myself off to your tears,” said Harry, only half-jokingly. The shiver that went through Alexos’ body was a delicious one.

“Henry Sutton, you are drunk,” he said, half-laughing, and Harry grinned back at him.

“With love!”

“With ale.”

“With ale,” Harry admitted. “But love too.”

“How was your evening?” Alexos asked. “You met with some friends, you said?”

“Andrew Cole Riggs did join us,” Harry said contentedly, swilling his hand through the water to check it wasn’t too hot before continuing to undress. “But he only joined us for one drink. It was mostly myself and one friend of mine of old – Ulysses Valentine. He taught me whilst I was coming up, and then we met again later. We write to one another, keep in contact.”

“What an excellent name,” Alexos said, and Harry laughed. “His parents are big on the classics, I suppose?”

“His mother particularly – she was a schoolmistress, and I’m given to understand he heard everything from Odysseus’ journey home to the Trojan War in his nursery, from his mother’s mouth. After the war, he became an agency valet for a period of time, and then went to valet permanently for Vincent Lucas Samuels.”

“Oh, Larry’s illustrator, isn’t he?” Alexos asked, raising his eyebrows and shifting slightly on the stool, extending his leg a little. “Larry said he’d invited him tonight, but he wasn’t able to make it. This young actress, Nina, seemed to be of the opinion he’s one of the most charismatic men alive.”

“He is quite charismatic,” Harry allowed, because it was true, and he really did like Samuels very much. “He’s a very confident creature – jubilant, almost. Big waves of beautiful blond hair, which he rarely ties up, very exaggerated red apples in his cheeks, blue eyes. In all honesty, he rather resembles one of his own illustrations.”

“How old is he?”

“The same age as Ulysses, I shouldn’t think, or about that age,” Harry said. “But he was rejected from service after being conscripted – he has a mild case of scoliosis, which was significantly corrected as a young man with a set of braces, but he still can’t run or climb, and he struggles with his breathing in constricted or dusty conditions, can’t do vigorous exercise for significant periods of time, et cetera.”

“Doesn’t need a cane, I suppose,” Alexos murmured, and Harry looked over at him – he didn’t seem displeased or that upset. He was still smiling faintly. “I’m glad you had a good time. I’ve never been able to enjoy you so… relaxed before.”

“You haven’t even enjoyed me yet,” Harry said richly, stepping forward, and Alexos laughed quietly at Harry in front of him, now stripped of every thread – his hands slid greedily over Harry’s thighs, around his belly, gripping his sides before moving up to cup under his chest. “Tell me about him, that pretty little bird in the corridor.”

“Felice Garibaldi. Fell. He’s an actor – plays Luke in the production, the watchmaker’s son. Has a lovely voice, knows his classics. Can rattle off a good few soliloquys not only in English or Italian, but Latin too. And very pretty, as you saw.”

“Quite pretty,” Harry agreed. “And a slut?”

“Such a slut,” Alexos said, and Harry chuckled again, helping Alexos up and easing him down into the steaming water of the bath, settling under the swirl of the salts. He looked up at Harry lovingly as he was lowered down, cupping the side of his cheek with a tender hand. “Do you know who Alcibiades was?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Harry said, picking up a sponge and beginning to help Alexos scrub along his aching legs. It was wonderful, seeing the strain leak out from his body and dissipate into the water, seeing Alexos’ body relax like so much more liquid, not just into the bath, but into Harry’s hands, under his gaze. “A philosopher?”

“A statesman – he was an Athenian general, but then he defected to the Spartans, and after that, defected to Persia, and then went back to Athens before he was later exiled again.”

“What an excellent man,” Harry said immediately, feeling the warmth in his cheeks, feeling the weight of his hardening cock between his legs and looking at Alexos’ in the bath as it stood up. “The boycunts of the back-stabbing and two-faced are so often the tightest and greediest.”

“I don’t know how treacherous he is in his general life, but I would posit the same of Fell Garibaldi’s,” Alexos murmured, and then groaned quietly as Harry massaged gently under the back of his knee, then pressing down the back of his calf. “Well, Alcibiades was a student of Socrates – although as you have heard, he wasn’t very keen on the Socratic moral considerations.”

“Socrates fucked this Alcibiades, I take it?”

“One can only hope. He was quite an unruly student, one is given to believe.”

“And Garibaldi?”

“Not unruly by half,” Alexos said, and Harry watched his eyes flutter closed as Harry took his foot in hand and pressed under the soles with his thumbs, tracing the arch of the foot. “I think he had it in his head to be a brat, but he was far too eager to follow through on that – he was really quite well-behaved.

“And not like Larry, not— It wasn’t about being eager to please. He was just eager for more, eager to be fucked, to be pinned down, roughed up. A born hedonist, him, as Alcibiades before him. He had such a tremendously small cock, Harry, scarcely worth more than a mouthful – pretty little thing was made to be ploughed.”

“You had him on his back?”

“Mm, yes. Shoved him back and he spread his thighs wide – sucked on my fingers as though they were sweet with nectar, pinned his thigh up with my good knee, fucked him as hard as I could. A good job I put my fingers in his mouth – he might have woken up the whole building, otherwise.”

“Feel powerful?”

“Very powerful,” Alexos whispered. “And— and strong. I’ve never much concerned myself with feeling like a man. As a cripple, one is in many ways automatically emasculated, disregarded, less than, but fucking him… That melted away. Once I stopped him staring at the scars from my braces, anyway.”

“You won’t get that with Valentine and Samuels,” Harry said, and thought for a moment about how it might feel, seeing Alexos bent over and taking Ulysses’ prodigious length inside him, or better yet, seeing him moan under Samuels, seeing the two of them kiss, hold one another, fuck one another. He’d never been one for buggery – he wasn’t a highly-sexed man, was generally more interested in being a voyeur than a participant, but when he did engage a partner, he was interested in every tactile sensation, moulding his body against another man’s, rather than pursuing penetration.

It was a lovely show at any time – he should very much like to watch Samuels with Alexos.

“I’ve just finished with one engagement, dearest fiancé of mine,” said Alexos through a soft laugh. “Do you have to fill my dance card up again so soon?”

“A man can dream, can’t he? And fantasise? I must fantasise.”

With a long-suffering but no-less-loving sigh, Alexos gestured magnanimously with one soapy hand. “You may fantasise.”

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said, holding Alexos’ foot with one hand and saluting with the other, and Alexos splashed water into his face. With a growl, Harry pounced halfway into the bath, straddling the narrow tub and dropping the weight of his belly onto Alexos’ chest, and Alexos muffled his laughter into Harry’s tits as Harry kissed the top of his head a dozen times or so, then hauled him into a kiss on the mouth.

For a few minutes, they kissed and fondled one another, sloshing in their water, and Harry gripped at Alexos’ cock, squeezing it and sliding his palm over the head.

“Harry,” Alexos grunted against his mouth, his voice strained, and Harry laughed.

“Not a problem with not reaching your peak now, is there?” he asked, greedily kissing the other man between every other word, and Alexos gasped.

“If you want to use this bathwater after me, surely you’d rather I not, ungh, dirty it—”

“I’m sure your jism is clean enough,” Harry murmured. “I know where it’s been, after all.”

“In and out of one hole and the next,” Alexos said, and Harry squeezed, leaning back to watch the expression on Alexos’ face, watch his mouth open and his head tip back, to hear the stuttered noise in his mouth and feel his prick jolt and pulse in his hand.

They kissed again, longer this time, slower, sweeter. This was less a delve of their tongues against one another and more a tender press of lips, Harry’s hand gently cradling Alexos’ cheek in his palm, one of Alexos’ hands against his breast and the other at his hip.

“I’m very excited to spend the night in bed with you, Harry,” Alexos said against their mouths when they broke apart with a quiet, wet sound, and Harry cupped his face with both hands now. Alexos gazed up at him lovingly, his lips parted. “I’ve dreamt of it, one time and another – the two of us in one bed together, sharing the same space, the same breaths.”

“It’s going to hurt your back,” Harry threatened. “My weight on the mattress is not what you’re used to – you’re going to sink into the middle and end up drifting toward me.”

“Oh no,” Alexos said sarcastically, his smile a dreamy thing. “How ever shall I cope with drifting toward you?”

“And tomorrow,” Harry said, “I thought we might take a walk along the pier.”

“Yes,” Alexos said, and his smile turned just a little shyer, his eyes flitting down for a moment. His right hand was stroking and idly squeezing Harry’s thigh and hip. “I had been thinking, uh, perhaps I might… Well. How would you feel about another tattoo?”

“I was just considering that matching tattoos might be a nice engagement—”

“Fell Garibaldi matched tattoos with his husband, I was just thinking it might be pleasant for us to pursue ourselves!”

“Something Greek, perhaps, or—”

“Wine,” Alexos said. “I want a wine bottle – you’re a butler. It seems apropos.”

“What should I have?” Harry asked, raising his eyebrows and smirking. “A corkscrew?”

“Subtle,” Alexos said. “But I’m far from opposed.”

“A pair of bottles, perhaps,” Harry murmured, more serious now. “Separate vintages – ’88 and ’93.”

“Oh, Harry,” Alexos said, and kissed him again, this time so tenderly Harry could weep. He closed his eyes, feeling it all, committing it all to memory – Alexos’ hands on his body, Alexos’ lips on his, the bathwater, the cool of the tile beneath his feet, the warmth and wetness of the room on his body, the lingering pleasure of the alcohol in his veins.

“Shall I help you out?” Harry asked.

“Unless you’d rather I suck your cock from here.”

“… Well. In that case…”