Only a doctor--no, only an uptight sex researcher would use words like protocol when he was less than ten minutes from waking up. 

Hardy was leaning back against the cabinets, trying to read a newspaper he hadn’t been able to concentrate on.  No, he was holding the paper and a cup of tea, and he hadn’t done anything with either.  He had been remembering the night before: how it had felt to fall into the bed.  How he’d caught his fingernail on the button of his pants and rolled it back.  It hadn’t hurt then, and it barely hurt now, but it was something.  It was something that had changed.

It felt right that something had changed.  You couldn’t wrap your arms and legs around a man for the first time and emerge from the ordeal with nothing to show for it.  His skin remembered how the sheets had felt bunched up under his back, and how Bill’s touch was always reverent and heavy.  It remembered what it had felt like to be held in place, to be kissed and stroked, and fucked.  

There was a muscle in the back of his left thigh that remembered vividly about the fucking, especially.  It seemed to be protesting the very idea of a repeat.  It was a good hurt, a remembering hurt.

“Protocol for what?” Hardy asked.

Bill was wearing his blue-striped boxers and a white undershirt.  Those were clothes that Hardy had stripped off him yesterday.  They’d been laughing when he did it, exchanging anecdotes about undressing past lovers and how it was just simpler to let them undress themselves.  Things always got tangled on arms and ankles and wrapped around wrists.  But Bill’s undershirt was buttersoft and stretched-thin.  It was made to be pulled off in a hurry.  Hardy remembered that, remembered pressing his hands to Bill’s chest, and remembered how the man had gasped at the touch.

He remembered the man’s cock.  Remembered how it had been flushed, and damp and hard.  Bill was shameless in a way that Hardy couldn’t qualify with words.  He was proud as peacock, staring at his own cock as Hardy had closed his hand around it.  The first touch was daunting, and he remembered how he’d been holding his breath.  Part of Hardy thought he couldn’t do it, and he had nothing but a lifetime of proof behind him.  Bill’s smile was sin, his hand around Hardy’s was helpful and steady.  

“How to exit a one-night stand with dignity,” Bill said.  “I don’t have any experience in the area.”

Hardy dropped the paper on the counter and dumped the tea in the sink.  He had intended to move but his feet hadn’t cooperated.  His whole body hadn’t done more than twist one way and the other.  His hands were holding the counter top behind him.  Here he was, remembering and there Bill was, already forgetting.  

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Bill said.  

“Don’t worry,” Hardy said.  

“I have upset you.”

Hardy shoved himself away from the counter.  His thigh gave a twinge of pain and he ignored it as he strode across the room.  He had intentions to go out the front door because the inside of his tiny house wasn’t big enough to let him catch his breath.  He said, “I think you just put on your clothes and leave.”

Bill’s hand caught his elbow as Hardy’s hand grabbed the door knob.  There they were, Hardy looking over his shoulder and Bill stepping forward to slap a hand against the door.  The man had asked for an out not even a full minute ago, but he was the one holding the door closed.  “I didn’t mean to upset you.  I’m not very good at this.”

“Let go of my arm.”

Bill let him go instantly, but his hand hovered.  “I didn’t mean to imply that this was--  I don’t want it to be just one night.  I--  You weren’t in bed when I woke up, I wasn’t sure how you felt.  It can be overwhelming.”  

And now Doctor William Masters was going to educate him about his own sexual crisis.  Hardy let go of the door knob to take hold of Bill’s face with both hands.  No amount of talking would get Bill to stop once he got going, so he pulled the man forward and kissed him.  He used his tongue to still Bill’s nonsense words.  

Bill returned the touch gratefully, his hands dropped to rest on Hardy’s waist.  He opened his mouth and let Hardy’s tongue slip in, and he hummed in appreciation.  And when they parted, he smiled, “not just one night then?”

Hardy snorted, “you’re not a one night stand, Bill.  I was hungry that’s why I got up.”