Junction X Erastes (best motivational books of all time TXT) 📖

Apart from his almost animalistic, shallow breathing, he was so very still that I became concerned.

Then it changed; he pulled forward a little, and I thought he was moving away. But he didn’t. Instead, he took a breath that took all the air from the room, from my own lungs and he pushed himself back, firmly seating himself on my cock. Then he did it again and some fire lit itself between us, under my hands—and deep inside where we both were joined.

I could have asked, should have said, ‘Does it hurt?’ How trite, how very stupid that would have sounded. But then, maybe he’d have known I cared.

I didn’t know, couldn’t guess as I finally began to fuck, falling up towards him, how important that was one day going to be.

Chapter 18

There is a stillness that happens after love. Not the hushed quiet of the deep breaths which slow in time, but a moment of perfect silence when both hearts stop and then a new breath is taken which leads to clothes and reality. The trick is to delay it.

There was no embarrassment. Well, to be honest, there was a little on my part. I had, after all, just sodomised a teenager, muttered his name into his neck as I spent myself within him. But he showed none. I had collapsed onto him, but had moved quickly, rolling on to my side and stroking his back. I remember a moment of panic that I had so forgotten myself in the ecstasy of his body that I might have hurt him, but his face—“beatific” sums it up nicely—quelled any fear I might have had. He curled into my arms as if he’d done it a hundred times before, nuzzled his mouth against my shoulder and looked at me with half-open eyes.

I touched his hair and something bright and fierce happened inside me.

“It hurt a bit.” He always had a tendency to answer questions I never asked. “At first. But once you got going…” The edge of his mouth tipped up on one side, and he reached down and gave my tender cock an affectionate squeeze. “Can’t complain.” Then he wrapped his legs around mine and shuffled closer still, opening his mouth, drawing me toward him. My stomach gave a little flip as his damp cock slid along my thigh.

I could describe every second of that first evening: the eggy-damp warmth cocooning us from the chill of the world; the look on his face as I sucked him, eyes screwed up and the biggest smile from ear to ear; the taste of his skin and the subtle differences in the texture of his skin, from place to place. The way, later, we went again and for longer, our sweat adding more stains to that horrible bed. But I am not going to do it. This isn’t really a story of my sexual conquests—however it might read like that. It’s a record of the reality that we shared for so few times that I can list them—and what a fine party trick that would make!—hidden away from the falsehoods we wove for ourselves in the world.

He betrayed his age when I started to tell him that it was time we were going. His complaints that we could have “five more minutes” were all too familiar to a father. I had to leave him in the bed before he was willing to pad after me into the tiny bathroom where we washed thoroughly, now strangely formal with each other, waiting patiently for a turn with a new white flannel, bought especially for the occasion. Funny, isn’t it, that a man will scrub the traces of his lover’s love from his skin, attempting to disguise the scent—and never consider what the fresh-washed smell of soap and water might say after a supposed long day at the office.

It took me another ten minutes to persuade him to leave, during which time we worked ourselves back up into a state where we could have begun all over again, but eventually, with kisses and promises of more, I closed the door on him. I turned off the light, opened the curtains and watched him walk across the snowy road. He stopped on the other side, turned around and waved with both arms outstretched, dark angel wings in the dim lamplight. Then he ran off, nothing more than a dwindling figure soon lost to the thickening snow. I didn’t move for a long time.

I took a lot of care with the room. Linen was my responsibility and I had newly bought sheets ready. I scrubbed valiantly at the counterpane and trusted that the stains wouldn’t show, or might at least blend into those already there. I checked that nothing had been left, nothing identifiable, nothing personal, turned off the gas and locked up behind me.

It was a lot later than I had planned when I finally got home. I was ravenous. The oven offered up a dried up offering of steak pie, hard peas and congealed gravy all covered with foil. I tipped it into the bin and made myself sinful cheese doorstop sandwiches heavy with mayonnaise, which I took through to the study. With a smile on my face, I watched the lights in Alex’s house go out one by one.

+ + +

A man who has never been unfaithful might stop and question this account, and I’d hardly blame him. But for all the guilt and the fear, once I’d got to the stage of having the flat at the Junction and once we were able to meet there regularly, it became as routine to me as going to work. The more you lie, I discovered, the easier it becomes. It seems nothing to say to one’s wife, “Yes, I like that hat” when, if truth be told, you’d rather see it shredded under the lawnmower. Small lies seem nothing—, and big lies—even the biggest—are no harder. They shrink with time and with repetition.

I