terrible as an army with banners

For all that Cornelius is free with his mouth when it comes to expressing his dissatisfaction, he has never heard Mr. Hickey express his pleasure in quite such an immediate fashion as this– when the two of them come together there are grunts of satisfaction and the unavoidable sounds of flesh, and from time to time a good word once the heat has faded, but he has never before heard the sounds that Hickey might make if he were truly abandoned to his throes. The man is simply very good at maintaining his silence under this specific circumstance and no other.

This is the way to puncture such cold reserve; here he has proud Cornelius in a position of vulnerability, and that in itself is enough to make his prick leap in his trousers. Hickey has had him in a similar position many times – flat on his back, with his knees in the air. At first it is like what a man might do with a maid, if such a maid had her legs in the air and her skirts pulled up to her waist; he worships at Mr. Hickey’s thighs with their prickling hairs until the skin glows red from his kisses.

Hickey must have come here fresh from the basin, and he smells like the same low-grade soap that is issued to all the men, the stuff that might as well be hewn off some great gray-green block stashed below decks like a chunk of suet. But there is the smell of his skin as well, the close intimate fragrance of the naked body, and the salt-smell of sweat and hair.

Gibson teases without meaning to do it; his first motions are uncertain but he can feel Hickey shift to admit him in closer. Even the passing heat of his breath seems to make Hickey jump and quiver, as if the whole territory from prick to arsehole has become one sensitized and responsive organ acting in concert. He traces broad swaths with his wet tongue, until his jaw aches and it seems as though the very root of his mouth will tire – mouthing at the seam of Hickey’s balls to feel them squirm in their hairy case, and flitting the tip of his tongue across the ring of Hickey’s tight hole until its owner, gasping, yields.

Hickey’s voice cracks and quavers in a manner that makes him sound like a perfect innocent – as if it is Gibson who is forcing his pleasure on him, even as he pleads that’s good or please, Billy or other incoherent sounds of broken enjoyment. He’s made Gibson beg for his pleasure often enough before, he’s made him plead with a palm clamped over his mouth.

He wants to hear Mr. Hickey grow abandoned to his pleasure, and to see it with his own eyes – he wants to see Cornelius panting and undignified, he wants to hear him beg for release, he wants to see whether those small pink nipples flush and grow hard at the inpouring of a different sort of pleasure than a brisk frigging with your trousers up and your ears attuned to the faintest footfall. A tongue can broach the interior of a man as certainly as a prick and not be minded – Gibson is at first tentative with that knowledge, and then bold. Sodomy is a filthy matter for just such a reason, and if they were to be discovered like this no doubt they would both hang for it – not because of any law but for the sheer shock of two men joined tongue-to-tail.

He loves the sweat and the unspoken filthiness of this lewd enterprise, as loath as he’d be to say so, even under strict duress – he loves Hickey’s vulgar mouth and prick and bunghole too, all the parts of him that stink and sweat and stir up trouble. Here he enjoys private access to the most unspeakable parts of a man – he knows him now closer than a surgeon, closer than the man who cuts apart the condemned, closer than any man Mr. Hickey may have ever known.

Gibson can tease and pierce him, pressing into him with his tongue and making him pant for mercy – his prick is throbbing, and Gibson can squeeze it in his hand while his mouth works to savage him with pleasure. He wishes he could bite him and tear him, he wishes to rip him into little pieces – that is the heat of the desire that passes between them, he does not know how such a painful crush of appetite can be remedied except through total destruction. This is the impulse that makes madmen run through public streets slashing at women’s bottoms with knives – the confusion of appetite and its exercise.

Hickey cries out his name and spills his spunk just as Gibson is raising his head – and that’s a foolish thing to do, did Billy mean to speak some words to him or to suck him off properly now that his arsehole is good and lacquered with spit? The white stuff anoints Gibson’s cheek and lip, smelling of the salt-sea, and he is nearly brought to some sort of paroxysm by that alone. Hickey is groping for his face, to clasp his cheek or to tousle his hair, and Gibson tastes his seed in the corner of his mouth. The tremor running through his thighs is laughter.