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Eames is far too old to be doing something so foolish as spending the night in a strange forest on a bloody dare.
Yet here he is, all of 20 years old and still behaving like a naughty schoolboy, all because that git Robert Fischer, the coxswain on his scull, had called him a coward for being frightened of bears.
If you ask Eames being frightened of bears and wolves and all sorts of other wild animals is a perfectly reasonable thing to do when one is spending the summer hols at a crewmate's family's cottage in the godforsaken middle of nowhere.
The truth, of course, is much more idiotic.
Eames should rightfully have jumped at the possibility of bears when they'd heard breaking branches during their trek the other evening. But he'd actually been startled by the sudden and unshakable fear that they were being stalked by the angry hermit Nash had told them campfire stories about their first night at his family's property.
He said this fellow had been living off the land all alone out here since Nash was a boy, was rarely seen in town, and had accosted several hikers for infringing on his property over the years, leaving one badly beaten.
But Eames would die before he admitted to being frightened by Nash's tales, so he takes Robert's teasing in the best spirits he can muster and allows himself to be goaded into spending the night in the woods by himself.
And now here he is, shivering despite a nest of woolen blankets, afraid to shut off his torch, but knowing its batteries will fast drain to nothing if he doesn't.
Which is, of course, precisely what happens. Eames awakens from a nightmare-plagued half-slumber to complete darkness and an overwhelming need to urinate.
He stumbles as far away from his blankets as he dares to relieve himself. But is unable to fall back asleep under the oppressive darkness, so he wraps them around him like a cloak and starts moving around to warm up and stretch his achy body.
He has no idea where he's going, so he just sort of shuffles around a bit, feeling the ground ahead of with pointed toes so he doesn't trip on any fallen branches or tree roots.
He's miserable and frightened and cursing Robert and himself and most of all Nash for letting this happen. If only he hadn't been so keen to look tough in front of Dominic Cobb.
Eames is very foolish when it comes to Dominic. He has a great number of feelings about his tousseled hair and bright blue eyes that Eames knows he should never express, let alone think. But he can't help trying to impress his handsomest teammate all the same.
Eames has hopes that if he works hard enough next year the coach will put them in a two-man scull together in addition to their current four-man with Nash and Yusuf and Robert as cox.
If the lads knew, or god forbid the coach, Eames would surely be out on his arse before he could blink. Eames hardly even dares admit his feelings to himself, except when he's alone in the dark of night, preferably in a nice soft bed with a lamp close to hand.
He's properly lost in the woods now, having no sense for where Nash's family cottage might be, nor even the path he followed out to this wretched spot in the first place.
When a wayward branch slashes across Eames' cheek, tears well up in his eyes. He sinks to the ground and feels utterly pathetic.
He's got his blankets pulled up over his chin and sniveling like a child when he hears the unmistakable noise of twigs breaking.
Bugger all. It's probably the lads, here to laugh at his unmanly behavior. He wipes at his eyes, attempting to dry any wayward tears, but is probably just smearing tell-tale dirt across his face.
Of course, he's utterly unprepared for the deep, unfamiliar voice that calls out to him from the darkness asking if he requires assistance.
The hermit! Eames has trespassed on his land and he's here to give Eames the beating of his life.
He stands, ready to attempt to defend himself. Despite acting like a gigantic girl's blouse about some things, Eames can fight. He's a bloody athlete after all and no stranger to the occasional scuffle with an opposing teammate or competitor.
But Eames betrays his terror by letting out an umbecoming shriek when he feels a hand touch his elbow lightly.
The hermit switches on a torch and says, "It's OK. I'm not here to hurt you."
The hermit chuckles softly, but it doesn't sound cruel.
"I don't know you, but reputation precedes me, I guess?" he asks.
His voice is rich and deep and appealing, although Eames tries to ignore how it makes him feel.
"I've heard things," Eames stammers out.
"You have nothing to fear from me, but if you want a bath and some hot food and a warm place to sleep, you're more than welcome to share my cabin."
Eames nods. He might be making the biggest mistake of his young life, but he trusts that voice. Its owner seems so small for its sonorous quality and the disconnect appeals to Eames in some fundamental way.
He follows the hermit to what turns out to be a very homey little cottage. It's not quite storybook, but it's very tidy and full of books and smells of dried herbs.
If the cabin itself hadn't set any lingering fears to rest, the sight of its owner would have done.
Although he's small in stature like Eames, he's classically handsome in a rugged, manly way. He's got sparkling eyes, a chiseled jawline, and toussled brown hair. He's wearing a plaid shirt rolled up to the elbow, revealing smoothly muscled forearms that make Eames feel weak at the knees.
He introduces himself as Arthur and asks whether Eames would prefer to bathe or something hot to drink. Eames responds that he'd like first one and then the other, if it's not too much trouble.
"I only have a bathtub, I'm afraid. Not a shower," Arthur says, indicating a large claw-foot in the corner of the room. But I'll step outside to give you some privacy."
Eames silently gives thanks for the consideration, because he can already feel his trousers tenting. He could never be casually naked in front of this man without awkwardness ensuing.
He takes longer than is necessary luxuriating in the scalding hot water and trying to get his wits about him as he wraps his mind around the fact that the terrifying hermit is, in fact, a kind and gorgeous man named Arthur.
Then he wraps himself in the soft dressing gown Arthur left, but puts his pants back on underneath to try to hide any activity Arthur's face and voice and arms will no doubt elicit. It wouldn't do to get booted from his cozy home for making its owner uncomfortable with his lust.
As he folds his soiled clothes into a neat stack, Eames spots Arthur crouching on the ground doing something in his back garden. His trousers are stretched across the fronts of his thighs and Eames has to take several deep, steadying breaths before he raps on the windowpane to beckon Arthur inside.
Arthur wraps the herbs he's just cut in some gauzy cloth and pours hot water over the little bindle to create a poultice that he instructs Eames to hold against the scratch on his cheek for five minutes.
After a while, Eames feels extraordinarily childish sitting at the kitchen table while Arthur stirs a pot cocoa on the stove. So he stands and begins to look about the place with more care than he had before his bath.
Two of the walls are lined with low bookshelves and Eames crouches to look at them, holding his dressing gown closed with one hand and bracing on the floor with the other.
Arthur appears to favour mysteries and thrillers, but he also has quite a bit of what Eames has come to learn is the American canon. But then in the far corner he finds a stash of pulp paperbacks like nothing Eames has ever seen before.
There are muscle-bound men on the covers in tight jeans and motorcycle jackets over bare chests, or donning white sailor costumes, or even dressed as woodsmen--not all that different to what Arthur is currently wearing, except their plaid shirts are unbuttoned to their tapered waists. Some of them are standing alone, flaunting their bodies to the reader. Others are pressed closely against similarly clad men.
Eames feels hot all over. He sits there stupidly starring at a handful of the books that he's pulled off the shelves, brain completely addled by some combination of lust and shock.
"Cocoa's ready," Arthur calls out, and Eames scrambles to replace the paperbacks, but it's too late. Arthur's seen; Arthur knows that he's been spying.
"I'm ... I'm so sorry," he says, voice shaking.
Arthur smiles placidly, seemingly not the slightest bit concerned about Eames' discovery.
"I wasn't hiding them," he responds. "But that's not why I brought you here. You don't need to be afraid. I wouldn't lay a hand on you; I promise."
Eames face is on fire. He wishes he had the courage to say something saucy back, like "even if I asked you to?"
Instead, to his utter humiliation, a tear slides down his burning cheek.
"Hey, hey, it's OK, buddy," Arthur says, moving to crouch near Eames, but keeping his distance, as if Eames were a frightened dog or a skittish horse. "What's this all about?"
Eames shakes his head, too embarrassed to explain, and wipes the back of his hand across his face.
"Can we just, drink the cocoa and forget about it?" he asks.
Arthur looks at him curiously, but nods I'm acquiescence.
They sit quietly at the small wooden table.
After his first sip, Arthur says: "Don't take this the wrong way, but how old are you?"
"I was twenty last April," Eames mutters.
"In that case, would you care for a little nip in your drink?" Arthur asks, producing a brown bottle from a nearby cabinet. "Again nothing untoward meant by it. But you've had quite the rough night. Thought this might raise your spirits a bit."
Eames rarely drinks, because he's afraid of flirting or touching once his inhibitions are lowered by the stuff. But he reckons that would probably be a good thing under the circumstances, so he accepts.
"Not too much."
Arthur pours Eames a tiny splash and himself a healthy sized belt, then offers his mug up for a clink.
"What brings you to this neck of the woods?" Arthur asks, respecting Eames' request of a subject change.
"I'm on a rowing team at uni and one of my teammates has a home nearby, well his family does. We're supposed to be relaxing and strengthening our brotherly bonds before training starts up properly in August."
"You're English. Did you get recruited?"
"Yes, it's considered very respectable at schools here to be able to recruit a proper Englishman for your team. My parents were dead set against it at first, but I thought living in America for a few years might be a bit of fun."
"And is it?"
"S'all right, I suppose."
"And your teammate told you about me?"
"Yeah. Nash is his name. Grover Nash. He's a complete arsehole. He made you out to be quite frightening."
"Make no mistake, I can take care of business when someone deserves it. But you certainly don't."
"Who does?" Eames blurts out stupidly, wondering if Arthur's skill with his fists is related to his unconventional reading material.
"I used to work for a very bad man. I saved his ass a while back and he let me retire as a gesture if gratitude. But every once in a while, some fellas from my old life get the urge to look me up and I have to put a stop to that."
"Don't you get lonely?"
"Never. I don't have a lot of need for socializing. And when I do, I head to town for a bit. Your buddy Grover might have made me out to be some kind of a misanthrope, but I do have friends, just ones I don't need to visit all that often."
Eames wants to ask if Arthur has friends of the sort that those men on the covers of his books do, but he doesn't dare. He squirms uncomfortably against the arousal he feels at the thought.
"What about you? You called the Nash boy an asshole, but are the other teammates your friends?"
"Oh yes, Yusuf is my best mate and Robert is a bit of a prat, but I still like him most of the time, and Dominic is just brilliant. Even Nash isn't so bad. He's just always trying too hard, if you know what I mean."
"I know exactly what you mean," Arthur chuckles and Eames feels very childish at his response.
"I'm only cross with him, because it was his stories that resulted in my being dared to spend the night in the woods alone."
Arthur laughs again, this time more fully.
"You should stay here all day tomorrow. Give them a good scare."
Eames laughs, too, and agrees without thinking and then immediately regrets it. How is he going to spend so much time in such proximity to Arthur without humiliating himself or doing something from which there's no going back?
What if he throws himself at Arthur's feet and begs him to explain why Eames feels the way he does all the time--when he looks at Dominic's back straining at the oars in front of him on the skull, or whenever he brushes hands with the tow-headed library assistant at school or the postmaster with the big hazel eyes back home?
Arthur seems to sense Eames' change in mood and he frowns slightly.
"Or I can walk you to town first thing, whatever you prefer."
"I ... Er ... I'm not sure. It would be a laugh to make them worry, but what if I caused real trouble? Or what if everyone found out where I'd been and I spoiled your hermit mystique? What if Nash wanted to spend the rest of our holiday hanging about the place?"
A knowing look crosses Arthur's face.
"You're afraid someone would come here and see what you did and make assumptions about your having stayed the night."
"No!" Eames objects. "Well ... maybe. I mean, I wasn't afraid of it until you said it. But I suppose that I am a bit now, yes."
"This is why I like living alone so far from civilization. No one to judge. I refuse to feel ashamed for who I am."
Eames has no response to that but to stare, gobsmacked. He knows it's rude, but he can't help himself.
"That bothers you?"
"No it just ... Confuses me to be honest. I don't know what to make of you, Arthur the hermit."
"Well I suppose that's all right," Arthur says, and his smile seems quite genuine. "Are you hungry?"
"No thank you. I had supper before I left. But you should eat if you haven't."
"Oh I ate ages ago. But I think I will have another nip, if you don't mind. Then we can go to sleep."
"May I have a bit more as well?" Eames asks shyly, blushing for no reason.
Arthur gives him a long look, but acquiesces. He gets out two glasses and pours two fingers of the amber liquid into one and twice as much into the other.
"So aside from being an oarsman, what else do you do with your time at school, Eames?"
"Oh I study quite hard. My parents have high expectations. I'm pursuing a dual degree in maths, although I'm somewhat rubbish at it, and art, at which I'm brilliant. And I sometimes do a bit of writing for the school's magazine."
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
Eames flushes at the question, but reminds himself that it's a very ordinary thing to ask. Arthur probably doesn't mean anything by it.
"No," he stammers. "None of us do. Well Dominic might. He's got this girl Mallorie stringing him along, but you can tell that she'll go with him in the end. She just wants to put him through the paces a bit."
Arthur chuckles knowingly.
"My sister used to give all the boys the runaround, but you could always tell who she really liked."
"Does she come and visit you here?"
"Nah. She's got three little ones to look after these days. And having an ex-gangster for an uncle isn't exactly the kind of example she wants set for them."
"What about ...?" Eames gestures pointedly toward the bookcase.
"The fact that I'm a homosexual? She doesn't have a clue."
"Oh," Eames says simply. A little frightened that the word has been said aloud now and there's no mistaking things.
"I have to say, you're taking it a bit better than I'd expected, to be honest. I had an injured hunter here a while back who cowered in the corner with a blanket the whole time after he figured it out, terrified of me."
"If it makes people so afraid, then why don't you hide it?"
"This is my home. I only allow people in here when they're in distress. I should be able to be comfortable in my own house. It's not something I advertise when I'm out in the world. Even my old boss only found out after we'd known each other for years and years, since we were children, really. And even then it was only because he caught me at it in the stockroom with one of the waiters from his nightclub."
Eames knows he's supposed to laugh at this story, but he's squirming uncomfortably again, almost in agony thinking about Arthur and some posh nightclub waiter touching and kissing each other in a darkened closet.
"I think I'm ready to go to sleep," he says, draining his glass in one go. His throat burns.
Arthur smiles at him and it's different to how it was before. Eames isn't sure that's down to the alcohol, or if Arthur is relieved to end this line of discussion, or if, God forbid, Arthur has seen into Eames' mind and knows what he was just thinking.
"OK. Let's get you set up on the bed and I'll take the couch. I'll get you some clean sheets."
"I can manage on the sofa," Eames objects, knowing he would never sleep a wink in Arthur's bed wondering what he'd got up to in it. "I'm not an invalid, just a poor quality woodsman."
Arthur laughs.
"All right. If you insist. In that case I'll get you some blankets and a pillow."
Once Eames is securely nestled in Arthur's spare bedding, he does feel surprisingly sleepy. It's probably the whiskey. He watches with heavy lidded eyes as Arthur washes his face and cleans his teeth. He strips down to his thermals and crawls into bed.
"Sleep well, Eames. You don't need to be afraid here," Arthur says, yawning.
Eames mulls over those words for a few minutes. It's likely Arthur meant that Eames shouldn't worry about being assaulted in the night. But he can't shake the feeling that it's possible he meant Eames shouldn't be afraid to feel comfortable with himself here, as Arthur does.
A long time passes as Eames considers this, long enough that he's not even certain Arthur is still awake when he calls out to him. But Arthur rolls up on one elbow and gazes at Eames in an open and friendly way.
"You said ... You said that you'd known your former boss since childhood, but that your boss didn't realise about ... about you for years and years. Even so, did you ... did you always know yourself, in your own mind?"
Arthur's face becomes so soft and kind. Eames would be humiliated by it, if he weren't so grateful.
"I did," Arthur responds firmly. "But others I've known, lovers I've had, didn't know about themselves until much later. One not even until after he was married."
"Oh," is all Eames can think to say. He wants the conversation to continue, but isn't sure how to achieve that goal.
"But I'm never ashamed if it, Eames. It isn't something that's prudent to advertise in public when I'm out in the world. But I never think in my heart or in my home that my feelings are wrong."
"But ... but everyone says it's a sin. And ... there's a place in the town near the campus where everyone says that men go to ... to ... to be lovers. And people are always making jokes about the sort who go there. It's not something you're supposed to want ..." he trails off.
"Is that someplace you have thought about going?" Arthur asks gently.
"I don't know," Eames says truthfully. "I ... It all seems a bit tawdry to me, honestly, but ... I've thought about ... I have wondered ..."
"About what goes on inside and whether you would perhaps enjoy it under less-tawdry circumstances?" Arthur asks, and he's smiling in understanding.
"Perhaps?" Eames allows, it it feels like he's crossed some sort of Rubicon, admitting this aloud.
"What makes it seem tawdry to you?"
But Eames' heart is pounding in his throat at his admission and he can't seem to find the words to explain.
"Is it the very idea of two men together that seems tawdry to you?"
Eames shakes his head silently.
"Is it the anonymity?"
Eames shrugs.
"Perhaps. It's just, I could never go to such a place. I'd lose my position on the team and my scholarship if I were caught. But I know that if I did, it would be ... more than I could handle. I'd like it if ... if I could, you know, go on a date or to a dance, all the normal sort of things that I'd spend my time doing if I fancied girls more. Do you ever feel that way?"
Arthur is looking at him with sad eyes and it's all Eames can do not to start crying again.
"Me? No. But I live by myself in a cabin in the woods, so, you know, I'm not exactly the most social guy. But you're certainly not the only person who feels the way you do. It's perfectly natural."
Eames looks back, incredulous and Arthur sighs softly.
"What about my books? Did you find them tawdry?"
"No, well, I mean, I don't know, really. I hardly got a look at them, did I?"
"Do you want to look at them again?"
Eames shrugs and then nods.
Arthur gets out of bed and pads over to the corner, where he takes his time selecting a few titles.
Their hands don't touch when he passes them to Eames. He's disappointed, but also recognizes that it was probably intentional on Arthur's part, so as not to frighten him.
"That one is a love story," Arthur points. "And beneath it is sort of a first time story. And the next one is, well, it is a little tawdry, but in a classy kind of way."
Eames laughs a bit at that, relaxing minutely.
He studies the covers, which are somewhat more subdued than the others Eames had seen before.
He flips to a random page in the love story, which contains a long, descriptive passage about a character's naked body, but also about kissing, which is the romantic part, Eames supposes.
He then opens to a page near the end of the first time story and the words there make him flush so deeply that he must look like a lobster to Arthur.
He dares a glance over to where Arthur has wrapped himself back up in his coverlet. His face is amused, but not mocking.
"Should I just ... lie here and read these while you sleep?"
"If you want. There's no expectation of anything else."
Eames goes back to reading a few more passages in which the teenaged protagonist is deflowered by an older classmate in his bedroom after school. It is almost unbearably erotic and far more graphic about the actualities of sex than Eames' virgin brain had ever previously concieved.
He feels as if he's in a bind. Reading the books is only going to make him more aroused, without the privacy to do anything about it on his own. But he is too nervous to ask Arthur for anything more, not really knowing what's on offer, nor where his limitations are.
"I think you've played a dirty trick on me," he says, glancing over.
"Maybe a little, but only because I thought you wanted me to. I can go out and sleep in the garden if I've made you uncomfortable."
"No. Stay. I ... I don't want you to freeze to death."
"I could survive in Alaska with the hunting supplies I've got out in that shed. It wouldn't be a problem."
"Stay, because I like talking to you then."
"OK."
But then Eames feels foolish, because he doesn't know what to say.
"What do you want to talk about?" Arthur finally asks, sparing him.
"Is it like these books, in reality?"
"What, specifically?"
"Any of it."
"Yes and no. I mean, those books are fantasy. But good fantasy feels real, because it reminds you of things you actually experienced--whether that's emotions or physical sensations or whatever."
"I haven't actually experienced anything at all," Eames replies.
Arthur's cheek is pressed to his pillow, but Eames can see that he's grinning. He wants so badly for Arthur to ask him to bridge the distance between them. But he strongly suspects Arthur won't do a thing unless Eames asks him to first.
But he's so afraid.
What if he doesn't like it and wants to stop? What if he likes it too much and can't control himself? What if it changes him forever and he can no longer cope with going back to his solitary life afterward?
But despite his terror, Eames knows he must sieze this opportunity. Another one isn't likely to come along any time soon.
So as an act of bravado, he turns on his back, holds up the book and says, "fine, then I shall commence to read this book aloud so that we may both enjoy the fantasy it presents."
Arthur laughs delightedly, as Eames flips back several pages to the beginning of the encounter.
-------
"Do you ... Do you want to come inside for a snack?" Bobby asked Jack once they reached his doorstep.
"Is your mother home? I don't really do mothers," Jack said, adjusting the collar of his leather jacket.
"No. No one is around. I'm home alone until Sunday."
Jack's eyes lit up.
"Well why didn't you say so?" he responded, pushing past Bobby through the door.
Bobby felt like he had caught fire where Jack's hip had brushed up against the front of his own trousers. Every part of his body was hot and electric.
"Show me your room?" Jack asked, leaning over Bobby just out of reach.
Bobby's heart pounded in his chest. It was finally going to happen, he thought.
Upstairs he closed the door behind them, but Jack wrenched it open again.
"Nothing to be shy about," he said gruffly.
Bobby blushed beet red and looked up at Jack though his eyelashes.
"What if the neighbors hear?"
"Maybe I should open the windows, too, just to make sure they can?"
Bobby gasped, but Jack just laughed and reached out to stroke behind his ear.
"Awww, I'm only joking with you. You can close the door if it makes you feel better, honey."
Bobby shrugged and tried to pretend he didn't care.
Jack took Bobby's face in his hands and kissed him, more deeply than he had the first time, after they'd fought each other outside the school dance the week before.
Bobby's knees felt weak and trembly. Still kissing Jack, he walked slowly backwards until they hit the edge of his bed.
He sat down and started to pull Jack on top of him. But Jack dropped instead to the carpet, pushed Bobby's legs apart and knelt between them.
Bobby gasped and started trembling as Jack deftly undid his belt and zipper, pushing his pants down.
"You're a frightened little bunny rabbit, aren't you?" Jack asked.
"Are you the big bad wolf?" Bobby replied.
"You know it," Jack responded, laughing. "I'll blow your house down."
Bobby's cock was straining against his white, cotton underpants and he whined in the back of his throat as Jack ghosted his knuckles across the tented fabric.
"Please, Jack, please," he begged.
"Please what?"
"Please touch me. I'll let you do anything. Whatever you want ..."
"Touch you like this?" Jack asked, experienced fingers sliding into the waistband of Bobby's briefs and teasing his jutting hipbones.
"More, please ... Please."
"Touch you like this?" Jack asked and gently slid Bobby's underpants down, exposing his rosy erection to the room's cool air.
Bobby shivvered.
"Touch you like this?" Jack asked and pointed his tongue to lick a bead of moisture off the tip of Bobby's penis.
Sparks shot down Bobby's spine and his asshole clenched tightly.
"Yes, Jack, yes," Bobby gasped.
------
Eames pauses and peeks over at Arthur. His cheeks are pink, but he's mostly composed.
"Should I keep going?" he asks.
"It's up to you. Everything is entirely up to you."
Eames decides to be brutally honest.
"Can't you tell I'm scared?"
"Yes. But that's why it's so important."
"Can I come over there?"
"Of course."
Arthur's voice is calm and steady.
"What happens if I do?"
"I told you, whatever you want."
"Are there any rules?"
"Only if you make them. At this point in your life, there probably isn't anything you can think of yet that I haven't done already."
Eames whimpers.
He takes several deep, fortifying breaths and throws back the blankets.
He crosses the space between them quickly and crawls under the covers.
Arthur doesn't reach for him. They lie side by side, not touching. But even just sharing a bed with a grown man who isn't a relative is a new and exciting experience.
He wants to savor the newness of this bit for a moment, before deciding on anything else.
"Do you think ... could you ... I don't know how to ... Could we just have a cuddle for a moment?"
Arthur grins and he has dimples. They make Eames' heart flutter.
He reaches out and starts lightly scratching his fingers through Eames' hair. It would be embarrassing, except it feels so sweetly comforting.
Eames let's himself relax into the sensation. He stops actively reminding himself that he's in control of the situation and just believes it.
Arthur's fingertips play across the back of Eames' neck, eliciting a shivver, and then he starts to rub the tendons that connect down with his shoulders, the ones that are always so difficult to draw.
Eames sighs happily. Its not that he is no longer aroused. He is. It's only that he isn't about to jump out of his own skin anymore.
Now that he's surrendered himself to the idea that this is actually happening--that he and Arthur will engage in some sort of illicit activity together before the night is through--he finds he wants to mine Arthur for as much information as possible.
"Is that what it was like for you?" he asks. "Like in the book with Bobby and Jack?"
Arthur laughs lightly.
"No. Not remotely. But it was nice."
"Tell me."
"I was 16. He was much older, probably 28 or 29, I'd guess. We met at a small nightclub. I was working as a message runner between establishments that were all, uh, managed, I guess you could say, by the same guy. He was a bartender and offered to sneak me in the back door to see the evening's act, a local singer I really liked. We chatted after the show while he closed the place down, he kissed me in the alley behind the club and invited me to meet him at a nearby motel. We had a good time for a few weeks until he changed jobs."
"We're you frightened?"
Arthur squishes up his face as he considers this.
"The thing that I was anxious about didn't really become relevant until about a year or so later."
"Why's that?"
Arthur frowns.
"I don't want to spook you. But I also am not going to tell you lies."
"Alright."
"I was ... How much do you know about how this works?"
Eames blushes to the roots of his hair.
"Er ... About as much as I read in your books earlier."
Arthur smiles.
"Well there are all kinds of different things that can be done, of course, but I was very nervous about ... "
He makes an obscene hand gesture that makes Eames want to hide his face in the covers.
"About receiving ... do you understand what I mean?"
Eames nods minutely.
"Mostly," he says.
Arthur squeezes his shoulder and trails his fingers down Eames' arm, then holds his wrist lightly.
"It hurts at first. There's nothing to be done about that. No matter who you're with or how experienced they are. But it can feel really good, too, once your body figures it out."
Eames' eyes must be as big as saucers as he gazes at Arthur over the edge of the blanket.
"Not that anything like that needs to happen here tonight. I'm just telling you so you know for the future. We don't have anyone to teach us these things. It's not like we can ask our fathers. So we should teach each other when we can."
Eames feels an overwhelming affection for Arthur's desire to look after his future self.
"What if I were to want that to happen tonight?" he asks, not so much because he does but because he wants to see what Arthur will say.
Arthur gives him a long look.
"You shouldn't feel any need to impress me, Eames. And that's not how you'd accomplish it anyway."
Instead of the obvious question Eames asks, "so back to the night with the bartender when you were 16, what did you do with him then, if it wasn't ... ?"
He makes the same hand gesture Arthur had earlier, which makes Arthur laugh.
"Well actually, don't let this freak you out, OK, but we did, just ... The other way around."
He reaches out and flips Eames' hands over.
"You understand?"
Eames is gobsmacked.
"Your first time?! Arthur you are one confident bastard."
Arthur laughs.
"Again none of this has to be relevant to right now," he reminds Eames.
"So what should be relevant right now then, according to Arthur the great educator of naïve young men?"
Arthur shrugs, but he's smiling with his dimples again.
"How about kissing?" he asks.
Eames has kissed a few girls before, but it hadn't exactly set his world on fire.
"Alright," he says, half expecting Arthur to lean over and do it right then.
But apparently he wants to chat a bit more about their options.
"Touching, petting, taking off our clothes ..."
Eames is starting to feel very warm again. He pushes the blankets a bit further away from his face.
"Yes, I think I can manage all those things, Arthur. Please."
Arthur smiles again, but its different to his other smiles. It's smoky and accompanied by smoldering eyes. He braces one hand on the far side of Eames' head and leans over, moistening his lips before he brushes them against Eames' mouth.
Eames surges up to maintain the connection, parting his lips and kicking the blankets further down their bodies.
He threads his fingers through Arthur's hair and turns to tangle their legs together. He can feel Arthur's erection tenting his thermals and it excites him to no end. An embarrassing sound escapes from Eames' throat.
Arthur pulls back and says, "God, Eames you are sex on legs. You're gorgeous. Don't ever doubt it."
And then he rolls them over so he's on top of Eames, caging him with his forearms, pressing their bodies together. Without thinking, Eames' thighs part to accommodate him, and he groans when this brings their clothed erections in contact.
"Oh my God, Arthur," he breathes between kisses.
Arthur progresses to kissing Eames' neck and nibbling on his ears, all the while gently rolling his hips in application of sweet pressure.
"Can I untie your robe?" he asks, hand resting lightly on Eames' waist.
Eames nods, "please, please do."
When his chest is exposed, Arthur nuzzles against it, and pauses to kiss Eames' nipples wetly, running his broad hands over Eames' ribs.
"Will you take yours off as well," he pants, tugging at the neckline of Arthur's thermals.
Arthur sits up on his knees to pull off his shirt and then pauses to look down at Eames in admiration.
"Do you jerk off?" he asks Eames matter of factly, as if it weren't an embarrassing question.
"Errrr ... yes. Don't you?"
Arthur laughs.
"All the time. What did you think all those books were for?"
"Does it ... matter at present moment?" Eames asks, suddenly worried that he'd somehow unkowingly done something wrong.
"No. It's great. I'm glad. I just asked because I wanted to know if you knew how fast you could get hard again after release."
"Quite fast. Is that normal?"
"Don't worry, babe. It is very, very normal for your age. I just wanted to be sure."
Eames twigs Arthur's point.
"You want to ... more than once?"
"If you'll let me. I thought I could, ahem, take the edge off and then explore a little more slowly ... If you're OK with that."
"Whichever ... whatever you think is best ..."
Arthur laughs again and calls Eames adorable.
He lays his fingers on the waistband of Eames' pants, gently stroking them in a circle.
"May I?"
Eames gulps and nods, suddenly consumed with fear that he won't measure up to what Arthur's had before.
Arthur tugs the elastic over and down, moving Eames' legs around to pull them all the way down.
Eames turns his face toward the pillow nervous and embarassed.
"Don't be shy, Eames. You are beautiful. The most beautiful boy I've ever seen."
Eames is flushing in a whole new way now, overcome with the feeling of acceptance he has here in Arthur's cottage. Just a few short hours ago he was sniveling in the woods over his pathetic pash on Dominic Cobb and now here he is being lavished with praise by this handsome, rich-voiced woodsman.
He attempts a joke to hide his emotion.
"I'm just a frightened bunny rabbit," he says, grinning.
Arthur burtst out with a hearty laugh.
"I guess that makes me the big bad wolf, huh?"
He strokes his palm across Eames' belly, almost tickling but not quite. He scratches his nails over Eames' jutting hipbone. And then he ever so slowly drags one finger down the length of Eames' prick.
Eames actually is trembling like the frightened prey he'd joked about being only moments earlier.
Arthur gently slides back Eames' foreskin and he let's out a truly undignified sound.
"It's all right, babe. Don't be shy. I want to hear you," Arthur whispers as he starts working Eames' shaft.
Everything goes a bit hazy then. Eames alternates between closing his eyes and getting lost in the sensation and looking up at Arthur who is still kneeling over Eames, starring at him with eyes hot as coals.
He thrashes against the sheets when he releases. It's so much more powerful than when he's done this on his own. It's as if his body has tapped into a reservoir of pleasure that he never knew existed.
Arthur leans down to kiss his brow as Eames swallows down some deep breaths.
"How do you feel?" Arthur asks, dimpling.
"Bloody marvelous."
This snaps him back to reality a bit. He rolls up on his elbow and asks, "can I ... what can I ... do you want me to ...?"
Arthur grins at him.
"There's time for that later. I don't have your refractory period."
"Alright," Eames says, sheepish.
Arthur toys gently with Eames' fingers and nuzzles against his hair as Eames rests in a half-doze.
Eventually his soothing caresses turn more deliberate and he starts running his hands up and down Eames' chest, and then leans over to start nibbling his ears again.
Eames goes from content and satiated to impossibly aroused at what must be record speed. He says as much and Arthur laughs and compares him to a sports car, but then says that he wants to take it slow this time.
Eames nods his assent.
And slowly is exactly how Arthur proceeds, agonizingly so.
He runs his big hands and long fingers all over Eames' body, from between his toes and behind his knees to his navel and the dips of his clavicles. Eames feels as if he's being memorized, or perhaps sculpted.
Arthur asks if he's comfortable turning onto his front. Eames rolls over before considering why Arthur thought he might say no and then feels a bit nervous when he realizes.
"Goddamn, this is a nice view," Arthur practically growls, but then he dials back the seduction a touch and starts massaging Arthur's shoulders.
The team gets massages from the trainer's small army of assistants on occasion, a process that Eames finds relaxing, but fills his teammates with terror of accidental arousal--although Nash claims the ginger one gave him a tug once.
But now, with Arthur straddling his back, his bullocks brushing against Eames' spine as he strokes, Eames is impossibly turned on, even if the pace has slowed a bit.
Arthur works his way to the small of Eames' back, which gets him thinking about what Jack had done to Bobby in the book, the part he'd read quietly to himself.
"Your hands are brilliant," he groans, thinking again about Arthur's long pianist's fingers, rough with callouses.
Arthur leans in and whispers against the back of Eames' ear: "Do you want to feel my mouth?"
Eames shudders at the gust of warm air and at the thought of what Arthur's lips would feel like all over his body.
"Please ..."
Arthur bites the back of Eames' neck and then licks a long stripe all the way down his spine, pointing his tongue to dip into the cleft of Eames' arse, which should feel strange and scary, but actually feels magnificent. He arches into it, moaning.
Arthur chuckles and flips him over.
"Maybe later," he says, mysteriously.
Then he pressses his palms over Eames' hipbones, pinning him in place before he slides that magnificent tongue down the shaft of Eames' prick, causing lightening to spark behind his eyelids.
"Oh my God," he pants. "More of that please."
Arthur laughs again and obliges, running his tounge up and down and around the tip, beneath Eames' foreskin.
Eames brain shorts out like a blown fuse when Arthur parts his lips and sucks Eames all the way into the back of his throat.
He loosens the grip of his hands and allows Eames to thrash about on the bed as his mouth does delightful, sinful things to Eames.
And then, when Eames is so close to release that his muscles all feel like an elastic band stretched to the limit, Arthur slows down again, giving Eames nothing more than little teasing kitten licks.
"Please, Arthur. Please," Eames begs until Arthur gives in and starts sucking him properly again.
But just as he brings Eames back to the brink, he pulls away once more and looks up. His mouth is obscenely red and his lips are nearly as puffed as Eames' own right now.
"Can I try something new?"
"I ... I ... What is it?"
"Don't tense up, babe. If you don't like the sound of it, I'll finish you off this way. But I want to put a finger inside you. Do you understand what I mean?"
Eames feels his thighs move just a bit close together at the thought of it.
"I don't know. Will it hurt?"
"It might, but if you don't like it, I'll stop."
He's on the verge of declining. He fully intends to. But he considers that it might be years before he finds a safe place to do this again and acquiesces.
Arthur procures a small tube of petroleum jelly and tosses it next to Eames on the bed. Then he pushes Eames legs up and out at the knee, leaving him feeling very exposed.
Arthur fits his shoulders between Eames' thighs and goes back to bobbing his head over Eames' prick. Then, when he's all worked up again, Arthur presses a finger right against Eames' arsehole.
Eames gulps a deep breath.
Arthur's finger wiggles a bit.
Eames relaxes his tight shoulders.
Arthur presses his fingertip inside.
Eames blinks rapidly.
Arthur presses deeper, and gives Eames a giant suck.
Eames arches off the bed and Arthur's finger slides all the way inside.
Arthur's throat is like a vise and it's distracting Eames from the strangeness of Arthur's finger as it probes around a bit. That is until Arthur's finger does something brilliant and Eames mind shuts off entirely as he climaxes even harder than he had previously.
Arthur's grin is encouragable when Eames regains his faculties again enough to notice.
"I thought you might like that," he says.
Eames makes a nonverbal sound in the affirmative.
After a few minutes he recalls that Arthur has yet to be fulfilled.
"What can I ... Do you want to ... How should I?"
Arthur smiles.
"Tomorrow morning we can do more. But for now, just give me your hands," he says.
Eames reaches out greedily to take Arthur's prick between his palms, rolling up to squeeze Arthur's narrow pelvis between his strong rower's thighs. He moves his whole body, as if riding a horse, and the sight seems to excite Arthur to no end, as he starts spouting nonsense about Eames' body and Eames' mouth and how Eames was meant to take it.
When he spends all over Eames' knuckles, Eames is elated. I made this happen. I did this, he tells himself.
Afterward Arthur wipes himself off with the flannel, offers a drink of cold water, and draws Eames into his arms for sleeping.
"Tomorrow I will teach you more and then send you back to the Nash boy's house when you know everything you'll need to get by out there," he promises, clearly confident that he can deliver.
Eames imagines that he's too full of energy to sleep, but finds himself dozing as he feels Arthur's chest move rhythmically beneath his head. He can hardly wait for tomorrow to arrive.