stuff i like

Volt then spent the majority of luncheon unabashedly staring at Eddie’s lips—it had been Eddie who couldn’t take it anymore: he closed the distance between them in the middle of the meal. Volt pulled away with the taste of sharp cheddar.

“I must say, I won’t mind very much if these luncheons take on a different flavour.”

Eddie put down his food and scooted over. “I wasn’t done,” he muttered. And so Volt found himself being kissed senseless on the stone bench outside.

The food had gone cold by the time they came around to finishing it.

Later, Volt followed Eddie to the kitchen to put away their plates in the sink.

He pressed his hips to Eddie’s—Eddie swivelled around, put his arms around Volt, let himself be kissed senseless in return.

They were kissing, pulling away, smiling.

Meeting again, coming apart for breath, stroking, making pleasurable noises.

Embracing, holding each other, their hips pressing.

Shifting, rubbing, writhing against the counter.

“Volt—“ Eddie whining, his hand finding the edge of the countertop.

“Darling, you look so good like this.” Volt moaning, pressing against Eddie, warm and hard.

Good. ”Volt, Volt, I’m—“

Eddie clinging on, stunned, overwhelmed, feeling the solidity of Volt.

Volt putting a hand between them, feeling a faint throbbing, stroking Eddie through his trousers.

“Baby, if you don’t s-stop I’m—”

“Then do it.”

Volt not letting up, his hand coaxing Eddie to completion, his voice coaxing Eddie to do it for me, darling.

He felt a barely perceptible wetness against his palm.

Eddie turned so red that Volt had to stifle a laugh.

“Fuck, I… I have to change. I’m sorry, I’m sorry—“

Volt stood there waiting for Eddie, a little pleased with himself. He ran the tap and washed a fork.

Eddie emerged from the bedroom in a clean pair of wool trousers. “Jesus. You make me feel like I’m fourteen again…” he said sheepishly.

Volt grinned in unbridled satisfaction.

And so.

This afternoon, as they walked deeper in the woods, with the leaves softly crushing under their boots, Eddie didn’t know that all Volt could think of was the way his trousers slightly showed the outline of his cock, a teasing thing, a jutting bulge to the left, modest, unconscious, but unignorably apparent if one knew where to look.

Eddie didn’t know that since the cottage, it had become a trigger to greedy thoughts in Volt. He also didn’t know that Volt had been trying (and failing) not to check for it whenever he glanced at Eddie—didn’t know that Volt checked for it now, in a woozy half-second that he soon felt a little embarrassed by.

It seemed positively indecent to him now, now that he had seen Eddie naked. Volt couldn’t help but think that his whole look—with the tousled hair, the rough stubble, the open collar, and the way his sleeves were always casually pushed up to show his muscled forearms—was actually so provocative as to be obscene, and was somewhat at odds with the bemused nonchalance of his outward manner.

None of this Eddie knew as he walked with Volt.

And so it surprised him, when they finally got to the clearing, deep in the forest, when he was pushed against a tree, lips pressing urgently to his own.

“Volt,” he exclaimed, a little yelp of surprise.

He felt Volt’s hands start to wander, traveling down his torso, to the hard lines of his thighs, between his legs.

“I can’t take it anymore,” Volt muttered against his lips, hand slightly shaking on his inner thigh, tentatively tracing the line of his cock with his fingers. “I…I don’t think you know how obvious this is to me now.”

It was all Eddie could do not to turn them back and lock the cottage with Volt in it for all eternity. But here, in the clearing, so far away from the rest of the estate, all he could do instead was kiss Volt back, his hands settling on his shoulders, moving down, running soothingly up and down his back.

He said, amused, “Yeah?”

“Yes, I… yes,” Volt laughed, a little breathless, a little in disbelief at the insistence of his hands on Eddie, “Let me show you.”

He started undoing Eddie’s belt, then knelt before Eddie, his knees cushioned by the soft leaves. He pulled at Eddie’s trousers, pulled them around his knees, and tugged Eddie’s half-hard cock out and started to slowly stroke it.

Seeing his cock again made Volt almost sick with desire—the thick veined shaft a vivid memory from the other night.

Eddie gasped, “Okay, okay…“

Volt secretly prided himself on being a very attentive lover—with Eddie, he wanted that to be true more than anything. He wanted to live up to his potential.

Above all, he wanted to please.

He remembered the face Eddie made when he first went on his knees.

He looked up at Eddie, taking his cock in his mouth and letting it rest on his tongue. He blinked slowly, a little exaggeratedly, his eyelashes fanning his cheeks in soft shadow.

In that moment, all Eddie could think was, God what a perfect fucking picture he made like this—

Volt rubbed Eddie’s cock in his fist, took it into his mouth, started to suck it.

“Oh fuck, Volt, I’m—“

He put his hand between Eddie’s legs and pressed on his backside, letting him push forward.

“‘M not going to last—“

Volt took him deeper, his head pushing into Volt’s throat.

“Baby, baby oh—”

Volt felt the slight force of Eddie’s orgasm against the roof of his mouth.

He pulled off, and Eddie distinctly heard him swallow.

Volt felt infinitely pleased at having made Eddie fall apart.

Eddie knelt in front of him.

With his tongue, Volt traced the line of sweat that slowly ran down Eddie’s neck.

Eddie sighed, “Fuck…”

Eddie undid Volt’s collar, then the buttons of his shirt, almost down to the navel.

He kissed his way down, from Volt’s jaw, down his neck, past his sternum, slowly down his chest, his teeth lightly grazing skin.

“I trust you can be less conspicuous about it this time, darling.” Volt hummed in pleasure. “It’s getting much too hot to keep one’s shirt buttoned all the way up these days.”

Eddie blushed and grunted. “Whatever.” Volt chuckled.

Eddie took a nipple into his mouth.

Volt moaned, his fingers tugging at Eddie’s hair.

“Oh, Eddie…”

He pulled at Volt’s trousers, prising open the line of studs, yanking it down.

He fondled Volt’s cock, hard in his drawers, rubbing him through the soft sustaining cotton.

“Darling—”

Eddie pulled his drawers down to his thighs. He gently rubbed at the base of Volt’s cock, wrapped his hand around it, his fingers finding a slow rhythm along the length, his thumb playing with the head.

Volt moaned, feeling particularly sensitive, and clutched at Eddie’s shoulder.

Christ, Eddie could polish him off at once, he just felt so damn ready—

“I’m— Eddie, I—”

“It’s okay, Volt.”

He pulled at Volt’s hair, made Volt look at him.

“Let go,” he whispered hotly in Volt’s ear, “for me.”

Volt did, spurting wildly on the soft patch of grass between his legs.

He groaned against Eddie’s cheek, the sound reverberating in the clearing.

“A-ah—God.”

—

“Would you like to spend the night in the house? As it is, I am unfortunately terribly lonely in the countless rooms there.”

Primly, Volt fixed the collar of his shirt, straightened the hem of his trousers, and smoothed his hair, like he wasn’t just on his knees on the forest floor.

He ran a hand through his hair again, a futile attempt to fix it.

“We could also wash off the grime from this little excursion.”

—

They entered the house from one of the side entrances, and removed their boots in the mudroom near the foyer.

From his weekend bag, Eddie procured the pair of worn loafers he’d taken to wearing during their nightly dinners.

Volt stopped by the gilt mirror in the foyer. Eddie peered at him.

“You do that.”

“Do what.”

“Stare at yourself then quickly glance away. Avoid eye contact in the mirror.”

Volt flushed. “For once I don’t like how observant you are.” He busied himself with fixing his cufflinks.

“It’s all yours, you know.” Volt looked up at that.

“Nobody else’s.” Eddie continued, “You don’t have to be guilty about it.”

He pushed Volt’s hair to one side, leaned into his space, kissed his neck.

He smiled at him in the mirror, gave a little shrug.

“You’re allowed to admire it, too.”

—

In the drawing room, Volt sifted through the correspondence from that morning.

“Oh, let me show you the telegram I mentioned. I believe the solicitor’s assistant will arrive tomorrow afternoon for the title I had drafted. Mr. Dorian—I met him briefly in London, when I attended the estate transfer proceedings. Just before I went here.” He sorted through the estate bills.

“Nice enough fellow—I believe he handles most of the firm's estate paperwork, brings them out of London. I sent word that you could be here as well…” He took out the small yellow envelope, “Ah, here we are.”

“I realize I didn’t even ask if you were available.” Volt looked up at Eddie. “I hope that wasn’t presumptuous of me. My apologies.”

“That’s fine.” Eddie smiled at him, taking the envelope, “By now you know what I do in the afternoons.” He took out the slip of paper. It read:

Received at: Buckinghamshire Postal Service 906 AM 07/01/1921 Forwarded to: Breaker Hall To Lord Breaker -(STOP)- Representative of Locke & Keith to arrive at estate tomorrow afternoon three thirty to conduct meeting his name is Mr Dorian -(STOP)- Our respectful regards to His Lordship from Locke & Keith

“Oh, you know what, darling?”

Eddie handed back the envelope, “Hmm?”

“I realize I’ve never shown you around the house…”

“I hope you won’t hold that against me,” Volt said. “It doesn’t give me much pleasure to open these dusty shut-up rooms.”

The house had, in Victorian times, been fitted with a central heating apparatus. Almost half a century later, it had started to become a little antiquated, what with the hot air blasting unevenly through some of the cast-iron grilles.

“Some of them are frightfully cold even in the summer, and I have no desire to fire up multiple fireplaces at once…” he trailed off.

It was irrelevant now, anyway—the pipes had been shut off in most of the unused corridors in the estate’s effort to economize. Though it was the height of summer, in a few remote corridors it was as cold as the dead of winter.

“But… some of them may prove to be amusing to you.”

Volt idly traced the exposed skin above Eddie’s collar.

“…and your pleasure is paramount to me, dear Eddie.”

In the last seventy-two hours, Volt had become very aware of the almost half-foot difference between them, and what crowding over Eddie could do. Eddie looked up at Volt, his cheeks turning pink, his eyes closing briefly when Volt dragged his finger back up.

Volt smirked and walked to the other side of the room. Eddie willed himself not to follow at once, like some lovesick dog.

“We shall...”

Volt considered how to conduct the tour—the last time anyone had been shown around this house was before the War.

“…start from the foyer, and work our way from there.”

They started from the front door, as though they had just come in. Volt assumed an air of slight theatricality, poised to perform (and perform well) for his new lover.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Eddison Watts. Welcome to Breaker Hall.”

Volt did a sweeping bow. Eddie laughed gaily.

“Contrary to what the county guidebooks might have told you, be that Burke or Debrett, this house does not only have the severe lines and excellent proportions of 1780,” Volt grinned, “but also some lovely shut-up rooms filled with dust, all belonging to a poor little orphaned baron.”

Volt led him through the corridors he was already familiar with—all the ground floor rooms Eddie had glimpsed on his way to the breakfast room for dinner almost every day.

The unused state dining room with the crystal chandelier, the shuttered salon with the needlessly breathtaking view of the undulating landscape (”My playroom when I was seven, when it wasn’t being used for entertaining.”), unused drawing rooms with Rococo boiseries (”These are called The French Drawing Rooms—one can only wonder why.”), a smoking room with a fireplace that looked like a Baroque tomb.

As the house had a floor plan as symmetrical as its exterior, Eddie found himself being led back to the foyer.

For the umpteenth time in the last month, he also found himself face to face with the Cézanne that dominated the room.

“This was where your father proposed ownership of the eastern greenwood,” he said.

Volt raised his eyebrows. “I see.” He gestured to the sitting area. “You were here with him?”

“Yes, we sat there.”

Volt gave him room to speak. When it was clear that was all Eddie wanted to say, he said, “You know what was funny, darling? That was the Christmas he decided to finally tell me he was ill.”

He huffed a sardonic laugh, “As if I couldn’t already tell, what with him suddenly being in London all the time to confer with different doctors. Like it wasn’t already obvious with his new cane.”

Looking up at the painting, he said, “Beautiful, isn’t it? It’s a Cézanne.”

Eddie said appreciatively, “Yeah, it’s nice.” It was a landscape done in oil.

“It used to be in the state dining room. I believe my father moved it here after installing the electrical bulbs there. It started competing with the chandelier, he said. Too bright. If you ask me, that room needs it back.”

Volt snickered, “But then he always had an ascetic understanding of art.”

He peered at Eddie. “Anyway, my apologies. It’s rude to speak ill of the dead. Shall we go upstairs?”

They took one of the marble staircases that framed the two-storey foyer.

“I’ll show you through each wing. Let’s… tour this part first.”

Volt led him through the arcaded gallery on the mezzanine, toward the west wing of the house.

They came upon an enormous drawing room.

“Here we are, darling. This is the main drawing room of the house. The Blue Room, it’s called.” He chuckled, “One can only wonder why.”

The Blue Room had powder blue paneling on all sides, with an intricately carved wooden cornice that ran along the perimeter. It was nearly square, perfectly symmetrical, quintessentially Georgian, like most of the house. It featured three stone fireplaces, all in different shades of blue—one in midnight travertine, another in blue-veined pale Carrara, and still another veneered with blue-john stone. Various sitting areas were set up in between the fireplaces.

“But this drawing room is far too large and really only makes sense to use if one is impressing the entire cabinet on a state visit.” He smirked at Eddie, “Which, in case you can’t tell, dear Eddie, hasn’t happened for a while.”

“In fact, I could tell you the last time this room saw more than a dozen footmen. It was when I was seven, when my mother threw a week-long celebration in honour of her childhood friend, who had just married some conte. That was the first time I was ever allowed to join a hunting party on my pony.” Volt crossed the room; Eddie trailed behind him. “Not that I was raring to go. But I had been an obedient child, and had done as I was bid…”

Volt opened an adjacent door. “The rooms through here are various… sitting rooms, cigar rooms, and so forth. Card rooms, too, I believe, some used to be. They’re mostly themed, as you’ll find.”

They went through a series of rooms, each only accessible through the previous one.

When they came back to the arcaded gallery, Volt said, “Let me show you one of the state apartments. It’s one of the few here in the west wing, the only one with the view of the lake. It’s where I’ve been sleeping. The Pearl Room, they used to call it. On account of the white ceiling.”

He took Eddie’s bag, “Let me take this off your hands, darling.”

They entered Volt’s bedroom through two narrow double doors (”These panels were brought over from Venice.”)—Volt placed the duffel on a low table in the adjoining sitting room.

Eddie looked out the large picture window, placed perfectly across the bed. Two narrower windows framed it on either side. The view was particularly picturesque today—nary a cloud in sight, the lake glistening in the distance.

“Wow,” Eddie said.

“Yes, indeed.” Volt, too, was in awe for a moment—it seemed the view he had taken for granted every morning had taken on a different sort of magnificence with Eddie around.

“In my opinion, this is the best room. Though it wasn’t ever considered to be. That honour went to the French state apartments, but in my opinion those are too on the nose.”

He glanced at Eddie. “I don’t know, filled to the brim with Rococo furniture. Which seems a little unfashionable now…”

They went back out to the hallway, and Volt continued the tour, leading Eddie across the way.

“Anyway, I’ve been in correspondence with an auction house to figure out which objets to sell.”

He slowed his stride as they approached another shuttered room.

“Most of the Baroque and Rococo pieces I think can go. Though I suppose it wouldn’t matter anyway once the estate is sold or let.” Volt fiddled with the door lever. “I have yet to decide, but I think it would make more sense to sell…”

He grumbled a little in frustration—Eddie gently took over, finally prying the door open. Volt grinned at him. “Thank you, darling.” Eddie smiled in return.

Volt thought for a moment that the spontaneity of Eddie’s easy smile, when it appeared, tended to animate him more into beauty.

He pushed the door open, “Oh, Eddie, this next room may give you some amusement.”

They stepped into a plastered room, the walls done in a pearlescent blush shade. The ceiling featured a trompe l'oeil, depicting a faux bright sky adorned with a flock of birds mid-flight. The illusion of a heavenly morning had maybe once been convincing, but the layer of dust and grime that had since settled on the surface now lent it a ruinous quality.

The painted ceiling paled in comparison to what the room really featured, however: three huge tapestries which, combined, formed a detailed triptych of the English countryside.

“I think the first baron had been rather taken with tapestries when he had the house built. I suppose they had been in vogue at the time. This… is the focal point of this room.”

Eddie looked up at the ten-foot-tall tapestries that hung on the wall.

The middle one depicted a lush meadow, with a strange focus on a herd of sheep, which largely occupied the bottom half. The hills in the distance were rendered with a sickly yellow-green thread that clashed slightly with the rest of the scene.

“Isn’t this one particularly hideous? And to think it to be the centerpiece…”

Eddie, to whom all tapestries depicting pastoral landscapes looked the same, said, “Well…”

“Oh, don’t hold back on my account, Eddie. Most Louis Seize tapestries are really monstrous travesties.”

“Honestly, they all look the same to me.”

Volt chuckled and turned his head, “Well… there are a few serviceable ones in this house, to be sure.”

He led them to the next room, where ten similar tapestries hung in quick succession. On the floor were a dozen more rolls, unhung.

“The ones without the animals I find more tolerable. The threads differ in quality, too, of course. But these ones with the flowers aren’t as bad.”

Eddie tried his best to differentiate them. “Maybe it’s the colors, or something.”

“Ah, yes, you’re right. Most of these are really quite garish. Maybe the more vividly rendered ones can stay.” They stared at the tapestries.

Volt observed the fraying threads; Eddie observed Volt.

“Anyway, darling. Enough about these bloody tapestries. Let me show you the rotting ceiling in the next room.” Volt grimaced.

The chinoiserie room was done in gold and pale green, with painted wallpaper and Chippendale furniture. In the middle of the room was a huge oak table with ball-and-claw feet. On the ceiling above it, near the corner of the room, was a large patch where damp had penetrated, leaving the gilt tarnished and the wood warped, the paint flaking away.

They looked up at the rot.

Volt said sarcastically, “Like my father used to say, this is just the nature of an older house, part of its personality and charm!”

He scoffed. “No, certainly nothing that needed to be fixed.”

They exited the room through the other side, finding themselves in a long hallway filled with oil portraits.

“Oh, wow,” Eddie chuckled.

“I know,” said Volt half derisively.

On either side were framed portraits of white-haired barons and their various siblings and relations, all looking somewhat alike—plain, somehow. They had the kind of placid good looks that didn’t signify a personality beyond the canvas it was painted on—in other words, an empty beauty.

It struck Eddie that Volt was different from them even in this way—he looked, in comparison, more inherently alive.

“Well. Here hangs Great-Uncle Wotsit, painted in magnificent oils. Now, my dear Eddie, you might ask: what exactly did he do?” Volt grinned. “The answer—be born before me.”

Eddie laughed, utterly charmed.

It occurred to him how much of a natural Volt was at this—at offering a personal tour, at hosting an outside guest, at setting someone at ease. By the end of the hall he was so overcome by the impulse to kiss him.

And so he did.

He pressed a kiss to Volt’s lips, licked into his mouth, swallowed a moan, and pulled at his long hair underneath a gilded portrait of the Second Baron of Breaker Hall.

“Sorry, I…” Eddie flushed. “You just…”

Eddie pulled away from him, reluctantly dragging his hands away. “Okay, next room.”

Volt was left momentarily standing there, stunned. He followed Eddie to the hallway. “I didn’t know you felt that way about the second baron, darling,” he teased.

Eddie rolled his eyes and took his hand.

They tried to make their way to the library, but now all Volt could think about was Eddie’s mouth.

And so he kissed Eddie senseless against the oak paneling.

“Fuck…” Eddie chuckled, the back of his head hitting the wall. “At this rate we’ll never finish your tour.”

Volt traced the hard line of Eddie’s shoulders. “We can do the rest of the east wing tomorrow.” Eddie hummed, looking up at him.

“Well, darling. How about a meal downstairs? I’m quite famished.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Why don’t we make the food in the house kitchen? That’ll give me a chance to show it to you. And if you’re good, I’ll let you help me cook dinner this time.”

Eddie blushed. Good.

“Yeah, okay.”

—

Volt led Eddie past the breakfast room, through a short cloisteral hallway, down a flight of stone stairs.

They passed through the cellar first, in search of a bottle of wine to pair with dinner, walking past the empty bays, which had once held vast stores of wine—in Volt’s lifetime only one transept was ever used by the family.

Finally, they came into the main kitchen to cook their food. This kitchen, which Volt never used, was abundantly old-fashioned, with many pantries and storerooms. It had, for all its emptiness and utter vacancy, something of the melancholy and teeming sense of order of an Edwardian country house, as if anytime now the ghosts of servants past would simply stroll right in to cook their humble dinner of poached eggs for them.

Eddie whistled at the sheer size of it all.

“Did the food have staff, too?” he said jokingly.

They shared a small meal of eggs and muffins, making up every excuse to touch each other as they prepared the food, before going upstairs to Volt’s apartment to take a warm bath together.

“Now, why don't we finally move this to a more pleasant atmosphere?”

—

Their bath together was surprisingly innocuous.

Eddie ran his hand through Volt’s hair again and again, with a tenderness that didn’t expect anything in return.

Then they got out of the bath, this perfectly innocent thing, which was why Volt was a little embarrassed at having gotten hard at the end of it.

Volt tried to cover his erection with a towel, gave it a few minutes to go away naturally.

Eddie noticed. He always did. Volt placed his hand on Eddie’s when he moved the towel out of the way.

Eddie caressed the length of him. Volt let out a shaky exhale.

Eddie kissed his neck. “No need to hide it.”

“You’re turned on when you’re turned on,” he shrugged, as though it was simply a matter of course. Volt let out a weak chuckle.

“I want to make you feel good, baby.”

“That’s what we’re doing, isn’t it?” He ran his fingers over the muscled contours of Volt’s torso. “Making each other feel good?”

Volt nodded.

He wanted more than anything to make Eddie feel good. To return the grace he didn’t even seem to know he had given Volt by letting him desire and be desired.

He made everything sound so simple. They were making each other feel good. As if pleasure was this neutral thing. This simple thing.

Maybe it was.

And so he ran his fingers along Eddie’s cock, stroking, watching his face.

“Here?”

“Mm,” Eddie sighed. “Yes, there. Just like that.”

Volt nipped below his ear.

He decided to follow an impulse without fully thinking it through.

He spat on his hand, stepping closer to rub their cocks together, spreading the wetness between them.

Eddie breathed out a broken exhale underneath him, and Volt started fucking into the fist he had around them.

It almost felt like he was fucking Eddie in some indirect way, especially with the way Eddie was starting to fall apart under his hands, and the way that his hips seemed to be canting into Volt of their own volition.

He realized he affected Eddie, too.

“Baby…” Eddie whined.

Oh how Volt liked being called that—it made him feel chosen, made him feel desired, made him feel like he belonged to Eddie.

It made him feel wanted in a way that warranted no performance.

His hips moved faster, his cock repeatedly rubbing against the underside of the head of Eddie’s cock.

He groaned, only thinking of the feeling of Eddie’s cock against his, so warm and substantial in his hand.

Only thinking about chasing his pleasure. Only thinking of the hot orgasm pooling low.

He tightened the fist he had around them.

Eddie groaned. “Oh fuck, I’m—”

He finished with a grunt, and Volt followed quickly afterward, bucking hard into the tightness of his fist.

He watched their combined spend travel downward, dripping down his length, collecting in his palm.

Eddie caught his wrist before he could bring his hand to his mouth.

He cleaned the mess on Volt’s hand, letting it sit on his tongue, gazing at Volt the entire time.

Then he pressed his fingers on either side of Volt’s jaw, squeezing a little, digging into his cheeks until Volt’s mouth went slack.

Eddie deposited their spend in a weak spit.

“Swallow.”

Volt did.

Then Eddie pulled him in for a kiss, his other hand traveling to give Volt’s backside a squeeze.

“Well, darling. We should have made each other feel good before taking a bath.”

Eddie laughed, the back of his head meeting the tiled wall as he looked fondly at Volt, his thumb lightly tracing the hollow of Volt’s throat.

“You’re something else, you know that?”

—

Volt spoke just as they were getting settled in bed.

“Do you—”

He started again, “Before, with other men… have you ever…”

Eddie turned to him.

He nodded, “Thrice.”

“I see.” Volt stared at the ceiling before looking to Eddie.

“When did you know?” he asked.

Eddie thought about it.

“I don’t know. I think I’ve always known. I never… it was always more about… the… the person, for me. Does that make sense?” Eddie shrugged. “It didn’t really matter what they…”

Volt said quietly, “I suppose I may be the same…” It bothered him that he didn’t already know this about himself.

Eddie traced aimless patterns on his thigh.

“But was there… a moment, when you…?” Volt gently pressed.

Eddie thought about it, “I guess if I had to say when…”

“There was a place my family liked to summer at, Saratoga Springs,” he said.

Of course, that wasn’t quite true. His mother liked to summer there—even when it had become more fashionable to go to the Hamptons—because her family always had. His father detested it.

“Oh, I think I’ve heard of it. Horse racing?”

“Yes—horses and hot springs. And this boy one summer.” He added, “I was… seventeen.”

The thing was, Eddie could still remember the whole summer. It was the height of the racing season in Saratoga. His aunt was gossiping with the other mothers in the hotel drawing room about the new Tostadora woman and her daughter, Miranda Dulce.

“I don’t want my daughter going around with that strange woman’s girl anymore,” one of the mothers had said. Another chimed in, “Goodness knows who they are. My husband says she was a widow from one of those South American countries when she married Mr. Tostadora.” “No, no,” his aunt said, “Her family owns plantations there… some Creole family, you know. They came from France before the revolution.”

He didn’t know how to begin explaining it to Volt—his frustration at the class divide, and how he kept feeling caught in the middle. His precarious position as a teenager, being forced to side with his mother’s family instead of his working-class father, in a vacation town that had become synonymous with being a playground for the wealthy.

He tried his best to summarize it instead.

“Our families were staying in the same hotel. I had come up with my mother and my aunt from Albany, and he was vacationing with his family from Boston.”

The mothers in the hotel—his aunt included—soon changed their tune when a week later, one of the most well-connected businessmen from Boston struck up a friendship with Mr. Tostadora, asking him to come on board as a business partner. This businessman knew his aunt’s family, and so asked her to introduce Mrs. Tostadora to the other mothers. Eddie, meanwhile, found himself hanging out with one of his sons.

It was the summer before Eddie’s senior year of high school, and suddenly there was this college boy, interested in him. Seeking him out in the drawing rooms, thinking that bragging about the wealth and connections of his family would impress a member of a family known for their local influence in nearby Albany.

He struggled to explain the feeling to Volt—somehow the memory made him feel vulnerable. It had been the first time he felt wanted, and on some level he liked that the boy liked him more than he liked the boy. Eddie chose to give in to the feeling (and to be accurate, the youthful horniness) even though he didn’t like him very much at first, even though his insistence on wearing linen morning suits—so popular with Boston boys at the time—did much to underscore his self-consciousness, and was not doing any favors to the savoir-faire, the nonchalance, he tried to emulate.

None of this class… warfare (so typical in upstate New York) he had any idea how to explain to Volt, so he continued sticking to the plain facts.

“He was spending the summer there before going back to university. Kept staring at my mouth and inviting me back to his room for tea.”

Volt laughed, thinking, how direct—how very Eddie.

“And?”

“And one day I just said he should probably just kiss me before the summer ended and he had to go back to Boston to get engaged.”

And then it went on for a week straight, just as his brother’s engagement to Miranda was announced—which then became all everyone in the hotel could talk or think about. It gave them space and time to sneak around, away from the watchful eyes of the other guests. They were under no pretensions, of course—they both knew that it wouldn’t go on beyond that summer.

Of course, it all ended when after that week, his family went back to Boston—anticipating not one, but two weddings. It was Eddie’s first experience of a relationship that was both transient and life-changing—what was later to be the hallmark of his experiences with men.

Again, he found it difficult to figure out how to explain it all to Volt—the joy of being desired by a man in that way, and the disappointment he felt at their incompatibility.

Volt was still looking at him in anticipation, “So, did he?”

“Did he what?”

Volt pressed, “Kiss you?”

He answered Volt, “Yeah. Obviously that’s what he’d been wanting to do all July.” He chuckled, thinking about how painfully obvious it was even to him.

Eddie had that college boy to thank for a couple of firsts, but mostly he had him to thank for letting him figure out how he liked his partners: proud, preening, and privately pliant.

A small silence passed between him and Volt—Volt thought Eddie might perhaps elaborate. He didn’t, so Volt prompted, leaning into Eddie’s space, “What was he like?”

Eddie put an arm around him and gave the top of his head a little kiss. “He was… always so eager to please.”

He mulled it over. “Just wanted to be perfect all the time.” He tried to explain what he meant exactly. “He… he saw himself almost like… like a trophy.”

How oddly specific, Volt thought.

“Had impeccable manners like he was some sort of prince.” Eddie tried to be as precise about it as his memory allowed.

“Wanted to… wanted to look put together no matter what. Liked wearing suits.”

Volt cocked an eyebrow.

“What was he studying?”

“Classics. Greek and Latin, I think. And French.”

“Of course he was.”

“What do you mean?”

Volt glanced at the pile of French novels on his bedside table.

“Nothing. So you rather like it when they kiss you first, I see.”

Eddie chuckled, caught off guard, pulled away from his reverie completely.

He looked fondly at Volt. God, what a marvel he was. Eddie could hardly believe he had him in his arms. He brushed Volt’s hair behind his ear.

“Sure.”

“What was his name?” asked Volt.

“Stepford.”

“Stepford. I already don’t like it. In fact, I’d venture so far as to say I hate it. With every fiber of my—”

“Come here,” Eddie laughed, taking Volt in his arms. He doesn’t hold a candle to you, Volt, he wanted to say. But it felt too much, too soon.

Instead, he said, “Yes, I like it when they kiss me first.” He leaned into Volt’s space, and placed a lingering kiss on his clavicle, slowly moving down. Volt held his breath. “But mostly I like them really…” He looked up at Volt, “really pretty.”

—

Later, they lay tangled in the sheets, with Volt lying on Eddie’s chest, and Eddie running his fingers through his hair.

“Take me there,” he whispered, in the still midnight air.

Eddie answered after a pause. “Where? Saratoga Springs?”

He felt Volt nod against his chest. “Yes. I’d like to kiss you in the summer nighttime, too.”

Eddie’s breath caught in his chest. He laughed, in utter disbelief at being wanted by Volt (Volt!) like this. “Alright.”

He brought Volt to him for a kiss—slow, unhurried, sure.

—

Eddie fell fast asleep long before Volt.

Volt looked across the bed and stared at the lake. Tonight, there were scarcely any stars in the sky—the water seemed a dark abyss from this distance.

He dimly realized how he’d inadvertently been well-acquainted with this view, how he’d been looking intently at the lake in the past week, in an effort to distract himself from Eddie.

It seemed strange to be staring at it now with Eddie lightly snoring beside him.

Now that he had admitted this thing to himself, it was almost like a part of the world had also been revealed to him in full.

He forced himself to look back at the last year, at his year of denial—following Amir’s graduation and subsequent return to Iran, following his father’s death. There had been two instances that he had forced himself to bury at the back of his mind, but there was no reason not to examine them closely now.

He thought back to New Year’s, at a party where he’d gotten more drunk than usual.

It was the last of what had been harmless holiday pretensions—in a few days he would be turning twenty-one, and not long after that he’d have to sit in the family solicitor’s offices for the official transfer of the estate, and not long after that he would have to go back to Cambridge for his final Lent term.

But for that evening he was sitting with Bathsheba, the daughter of a banker who was throwing a party in his house in Bryanston Square. She was recently divorced, but still very young, only a few years older than Volt. As her father was expecting to become a peer anytime now, she had been acquainting herself with all the unmarried lords who had houses in and around Mayfair.

“Do you know Lord Drysdale? Drydee, they call him. I believe he has a house in Buckinghamshire, too.”

“Not particularly,” Volt said lazily, mildly intoxicated.

He looked around the room, glancing across bankers and politicians and their wives, all in black and white. “Was he one of the bachelors you invited on your father’s behalf?” It was becoming increasingly clear to Volt that Bathsheba was, in her own way, acting upon her hopes of marrying into the aristocracy this time around.

Bathsheba smiled, a little embarrassed. Volt generally allowed people their shameless social ambitions, and always wanted everyone to get along, but for some reason, that night, he couldn’t be bothered to work at it.

“I’ll introduce you, Volt.”

Lord Drysdale was leanly muscular and tan, with grey-streaked brown hair. He moved around the party with ease, and seemed to regard everyone with a look of both pompous discretion and opportunism.

“No, no, we haven’t properly met,” he said, gazing obliquely at Volt, when Bathsheba made the introduction.

“Volty here lives a few blocks away, in Mayfair.”

“Yes, yes. Oh, but we’re neighbors!” He sat across the divan they were lounging on.

“Are we?”

“Yes, my house in the country is a few towns from yours.”

Alright, thought Volt, so not neighbors, exactly. Only in a technical sense, and only by a close approximation of the word.

“I see. I haven’t been living in the country, I’m afraid.”

“You should come and see me sometime,” he said unapologetically. “I sent over an invite for the last hunt ball we hosted.” He held Volt’s gaze, “I must say, I never received a reply.”

Volt vaguely remembered seeing that invite. He also vaguely remembered tossing it in the bin.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any real plans of occupying the family seat,” he replied.

Lord Drysdale moved closer, “Well. That’s a shame. Perhaps I can interest you in a little supper before midnight instead?”

A moment of tension rose between the three of them—him across Volt, a little to his left, and Bathsheba to his right. At that moment, Bathsheba was in the process of slowly removing his tie.

He put his hand lightly on Volt’s knee. Volt glanced at it placidly and didn’t move.

A little emboldened, he said, “My pied-à-terre isn’t too far from here.” He moved his hand up a little. “The three of us can easily come back to this party before midnight.”

Bathsheba looked mildly interested but reluctant—as far as partners go, she had been securing Volt all evening, planning to be by his side when midnight came.

It was the next thing Lord Drysdale had said that gave Volt pause and knocked him out of his stupor.

“What do you say, Lord Breaker? It may be up to his lordship,” he said playfully.

At the flicker of annoyance that crossed his face at the use of his relatively new title, Bathsheba immediately spoke up, not wanting to upset Volt, “Oh, we were already thinking of gracing another party with our presence. The numbers have been rounded out in advance, I’m afraid, so you’d be the odd one there. My apologies! Maybe next year.”

And that was the end of that. Lord Drysdale soon said his goodbyes. He shook Volt’s hand with a startling triumph of will, as though he wasn’t just blatantly rejected.

Volt had a feeling he would receive another invite to a hunt ball.

A few months later, in Cambridge, he found himself attending another party.

This one had been different—it was one of the little Saturday luncheons his tutor frequently hosted, these generally genial occasions where dons and a few old, distinguished guests mingled with undergraduate and graduate students alike.

Champagne had been flowing for some reason, perhaps on account of one of the guests bringing a crate.

Volt had the strange experience of entering the crowded room and having to stand less than a foot away from his tutor, pausing at the threshold as he waited for a cluster of people to make their way inside.

His tutor was talking to a graduate student, who was saying to him, “I hope you invited Volt. I must say, I should think he’s just in his prime this year, I’m sure it would be such a loss to see him graduate…”

Volt watched the pleasure slowly seep away from his body when he realized Volt was only a few steps away.

He spent the afternoon by the bay window, blushing in discomfiture whenever Volt happened to pass by.

Though largely uninterested, Volt found himself purring with self-regard anyway.

He never paused to think why.

And so it dawned on him now—there was a subterranean world that he had forced himself to disregard all along.

It grieved him a little to have ignored and missed it.

But he also felt that there had been no other way to do it. At the time, he had conflated his rejection of them with—if he was being honest—some self-righteous feeling, thinking, with some derision, that he wasn’t like one of those blatant sodomites.

He sighed. It turned out he just wasn’t very interested.

Because, as he leaned into Eddie, and as Eddie sleepily rolled towards him, he felt how easily he longed to bury himself in Eddie’s embrace.

In Eddie’s arms, he didn’t feel like a sodomite.

He just felt whole.

Outside, the balmy evening soldiered on.

—

The next morning proved cloudy.

Volt awoke to the distantly tinny sound of the heavy front door knocker.

He jolted out of bed.

Not upstairs.

He started to hurriedly put on his pyjama bottoms, and, unable to locate his own, put on Eddie’s shirt, which was much too small for him.

In the end he was only able to fasten two buttons before shrugging on his black paisley dressing gown, tying the sash haphazardly in his hurry to intercept the housekeeper before they could head upstairs.

Volt came back to the room ten minutes later, his heart still pounding.

He shrugged the dressing gown off, letting it fall to the floor. He focused on breathing in and out for a moment at the situation he had just narrowly avoided. Of course, they weren’t going to enter his room without knocking and being admitted, but the utter panic of them glimpsing a man on his bed…

Christ.

He sat on the bed and watched Eddie sleep. He seemed so sweet like this, his body tending to curl in on itself a little. Volt felt a momentary pang—the privilege of seeing him like this was for a second too much to bear.

He looked across the room, staring absentmindedly at the lake.

Somehow, he knew a part of his life was now over.

The world looked… different, suddenly.

He wanted to be with Eddie, and that meant a change in how his life was to be from now on. He found he now had a sense of urgent vigilance, like some bloodhound—he’d never had to be careful before. It made him feel both utterly protective of Eddie, and utterly helpless at the idea that he might one day fail to.

Beside him, Eddie slowly roused awake.

He had a lovely sleepy expression on his face. He opened his eyes, and Volt watched as he blearily tried to locate where Volt was beside him, looking up, a small smile forming on his lips when he did. Volt smiled back.

“Good morning, darling.”

As Volt looked into Eddie’s grey eyes, he knew something had already shifted inside him—there was something about all this, this thing between them, that could no longer feasibly be resisted.

“You’re up.”

“Yes,” Volt hesitated, “I had to come down to let the housekeeper know that I intended on staying in. I gave them leave to depart after tidying the breakfast room. We… we won’t be disturbed.”

Reality dawned on Eddie before he replied.

“Oh.”

A moment passed between them—Volt willed himself to take a deep breath.

Eddie reached out to slip a hand inside the shirt Volt was wearing.

“My shirt looks good on you. You fill it out well…” His fingers found Volt’s chest, where the buttons were slightly straining. Volt chuckled weakly and undid the buttons, shrugging the shirt off, “I hope I didn’t stretch out the fabric too much. I couldn’t seem to find mine. I was in a… a hurry, to…”

Eddie nodded.

Volt sat on the edge of the bed with a distant look on his face.

“What are you thinking?” Eddie whispered.

Volt hesitated. He brushed the hair off Eddie’s forehead.

“Just… what people might say, about me, if…” He gave a dry little laugh.

Eddie sat up. He kissed Volt; Volt kissed him back with a desperate fervor.

“Just… think about right now, okay?” He searched Volt’s gaze. “Just, just… what feels good, for you, just for right now.”

Volt nodded. “Alright, darling. Alright.”

Eddie placed a kiss to the palm of his hand.

“Eddie…” Volt muttered, “I’d like… I’d like to watch you, while I make you feel good. Can I?”

Eddie guided his hand to his hip. “Yeah? Okay, baby. You want to… watch my face while you touch me?”

Volt nodded. “Yes.”

“Okay, okay.”

Volt allowed himself to be pulled back into bed.

—

Later that afternoon, as they continued their work along the river, they noticed a small channel that had formed where a few stakes had rotted, and where the packed gravel had begun to loosen.

As they replaced the stakes and closed the gap, Volt again asked Eddie to stay the night.

—

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