#fluff river

“Pah, even the name is foolish. I do not understand you. All the gays they wear the Speedo. Why do you not want your boyfriend in one? He is attractive, non?”

“Well, yes, but you see . . .” I flounder as Oliver’s eyebrow goes up and his lips quirk. “Mum, that’s not the point . . .”

“Ah. I see now. You do not like the other men to see your Oliver like that. It is not good, the jealousy, Luc.”

“I’m not jealous!”

“There will not be gays to flirt with your boyfriend, mon cher. It is just Judy and me. I will make my special summer curry.”

“No, Mum, for the love of God, no.”

It’s jarring to realize that what I’d once considered to be the Mount Everest of my Mum’s culinary crimes was actually just a runner-up Mount Kilimanjaro--that she’d lulled me into thinking the special curry was the pinnacle of toxicity, while unbeknownst to me the summer curry had been lurking in the deeper waters.

I know I’m mixing my metaphors and I don’t care–they still aren’t as unfortunate a combination as any of my mother’s curry ingredients.

“Sunday, Luc.”

There’s an edge to Mum’s voice that promptly disappears as soon as she directs her words to Oliver again. “Oliver, do not let my son wear the pantalons. Take him shopping for a proper maillot de bain, oui?”

“Oui. A bientôt, Odile,” Oliver replies.

I end the call with a little more zeal than necessary. Meaning my mobile flies out of my hands and skitters across the floor.

“You can’t be serious about this.” I give Oliver my keenest glare. “Speedos and summer curry?”

“What is this vendetta against swimwear?” Oliver asks, boldly ignoring the curry issue, the smirk on his face threatening to raise my blood pressure by double digits.

“It’s not a vendetta.”

“Then?” He nudges my knee with his bare foot. It makes me weak under the best of circumstances but I do my best to hold onto my indignation.

“It’s nothing.” The words come out petulant. Lovely. I sound like a sullen teenager.

“It’s obviously something.” Oliver slides his toes under my leg. It’s unfair, it really is. “I wouldn’t have expected you to be averse to the thought of me in a Speedo.”

His foot burrows further under, his toes now brushing against the inside of my thigh and my brain is overwhelmed with an image of that v-cut of his diving down into a black Speedo and it’s all my mother’s fault, which really shouldn’t be something that’s remotely allowed to be in the same sentence with v-cut.

“It’s not you,” I say, with the inevitable follow up of “It’s me.”

“How so?”

“Ok, so I know Speedos are basically the required beach couture for our demographic, but it’s not ever been something I’ve felt works for, you know,” I wave a hand at myself, “me.”

“And why not?”

I stare at him. “Listen, I know for a fact you’ve seen me naked, more than once, so you should be able to figure that one out for yourself, Oliver.”

“I’m not following you, Lucien.”

Splendid. I’m going to have to spell it out. “I don’t have the . . . well, the physique to pull off wearing one.”

I also don’t have the confidence of middle aged, paunchy French men, but that’s beside the point.

His toes do this wiggle that’s borderline pornographic.

“Lucien.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t Lucien me about this. I’m not built for a Speedo and I damn well am not about to go prancing around in one at Judy’s blasted piscine.”

I give him a side-long glance.

He’s got that creased forehead look he gets when he’s thinking of how to politely reply to some asinine thing I’ve said. I’m intimately familiar with it.

“Look, it’s fine, Oliver. We’ll go to Mum’s disaster of a pool party, swim in whatever monstrosity Judy’s installed at her estate, bathe in eau de wet dog for a few hours thanks to the spaniels. Eat the blasted summer curry and deal with the inevitable intestinal horror show to follow.” I narrow my eyes at him. “But I draw the line at the Speedo.”

Oliver has the audacity to smirk at me again. “For you or for me?”

“What?”

“For you or for me? I understand you may have reservations about wearing one—reservations I find quite concerning from a body-image standpoint, which we should probably address at some point in time—but I will support your devotion to modesty, as long as you comprehend the fact that I, for one, would not be averse to the sight.”

He’s completely lost me. “The sight of what?”

There’s that soft look. I’m becoming intimately familiar with that one as well.

Then his toes start doing that wiggly thing against my inner thigh again and I’m not sure if I’m turned on or still quivering with righteous indignation.

Right, I’m turned on.

“Of you, Lucien. You in a Speedo. Or swim shorts. Or an oversized t-shirt and hedgehog pants.”

Oliver slides his leg fully under my arse and somehow unbalances me enough that I end up sprawled in a heap on his chest. He’s not wearing a shirt so I’m not about to complain, although I do let out an involuntary squawk as I thump against the broad and luxurious expanse of his pecs.

He brushes the hair off my forehead, tracing his fingertips along my jawline until he’s cupping my face with his hand. “Whether we go or not is completely up to you,” Oliver says, grey eyes intense, yet achingly soft. “But you could be clad in a caftan and you’d still be beautiful to me.”

I should just take the compliment. I should crawl the rest of the way up his chest and kiss him breathless.

I don’t, of course.

“That could be arranged, you know. James Royce-Royce has a lovely chartreuse caftan. I’m certain he’d let me borrow it for the noble cause of seducing my Speedo-clad boyfriend in full view of my mother and her barmy old harpy of a best friend. The spaniels will be scandalized.” I can’t help grinning at him.

He grins right back, a silver glint in his eyes. “I’m sorry I’ll have to disappoint you then.”

“What? How will you resist my boyish charm? I’ll have you know that caftan brings out the green of my eyes.” I bat my eyelashes.

“I’m certain it does.”

“Then what are you on about?”

“I’m afraid I must dash your hopes of a Speedo-clad seduction.”

“What? My caftan-clad allure isn’t going to do it for you after all?”

His smile widens. “Oh, I’m sure it will.” He leans down to press a kiss to the tip of my nose, which is one of the many ridiculously fond things he does that I’m becoming terrifyingly accustomed to.

Oliver tilts his head back, radiating amusement now. “I just don’t happen to own a Speedo.”

I drop my head on the pillow of his toned chest muscles and give a snorty laugh. “Whatever will my mother say?”

He gives a laugh as juvenile as mine as he replies. “Something very uncomplimentary about my pantalons, I’m sure.”

“We’re a disappointment to fashionable gays everywhere.”