'I'd love a place like this,' he said, as I locked the car door. And then, as reminder of the lifestyle he'd grown up with he added, totally unconsciously, 'For weekends, obviously.'
I hid my smile. Spoiled little brat. He hurried up the path, to avoid getting soaked in the rain, and I fished the keys out of my pocket. We'd stopped for groceries on the way and he was carrying one of the bags. Obviously, I'd be cooking. Rory believed he was a genius in the kitchen, but even the full force of my love for him couldn't make me agree with him.
'You should've kept your sweater on,' he chastised. 'You're soaked already.'
My t-shirt was clinging to me because of the rain, but it'd been too hot in the car to keep my sweater on. I'd forgotten to put it back on when we got out.
'But then you wouldn't have had an opportunity to perve on me, would you?' I asked, kissing him on the lips.
I opened the door and we stepped in. A blast of cold air hit us, since the house had been unused for a couple of weeks. My teeth chattered as we stepped inside and Rory, who'd noticed, threw me a smug, triumphalist smirk. He'd been right about keeping the sweater on. Douche.
'Fuck off,' I laughed, in reference to his smile. I put our bags down and searched for the central heating button. The cottage, inside, was pretty, too, and the ground floor consisted of a kind of open plan kitchen, living room with a big old fashioned fireplace, T.V. and a wooden staircase leading upstairs. With the cold shooting through me and my stomach grumbling, even I wasn't horny right now. The bedrooms could wait.
'Shall I cook?' he asked. And he was serious. Jesus.
'No,' I replied, 'you're shit.'
'I am not!'
'You're a terrible cook. I love you, but you're horrendous.'
'I am not horrendous.'
'Okay, you're maybe not horrendous, Rory, but you're not as good as me.'
He looked at me levelly. 'That t-shirt's a hideous color on you, you know.'
I laughed again. He'd evened the score nicely. I defiantly yanked the t-shirt up off over my head I stood in front of him, topless, and he involuntarily bit his lip. He wanted it. I smirked.
'Is this a better color, Rory?'
He nodded and smiled, coyly. 'I suppose.'
'Come here.'
He walked into my arms, by the kitchen island, and we kissed. 'How happy are you that we did this?'
'Let's go get a towel,' he said tenderly, tracing my shivering skin with his hands. 'I'll dry you.'
*
Rory seemed like he was going to eat a lot at dinner, but then checked himself. I'd noticed recently that he'd been eating more; in front of me, at least. I liked it and it made me happy, but I knew that he was bound to have good days and bad days. I didn't want to nark on him constantly to eat more than he felt like, because I didn't want to turn eating into a chore. I also noticed that every time, before he ate, he'd stop and stay entirely still for a second or two. Initially, I assumed that he was gearing himself up to eat but then it occurred to me, at some point after new year's, that he was actually probably pausing to mentally say grace in his own head. I don't know how I reached that realization, but I knew, somehow, that I was right.
Rory's religion was something of a mystery to me and it was not one I brought up, too often, in conversation. I'd made the mistake once of probing him too deeply about what, I thought, were the patently stupid bits of his faith's teachings. Instead of rising to the challenge and firing back with some witty repartee, he flushed and fell silent. The only thing I could get him to concede upon, sincerely, was that he did not, in any way, agree with Catholicism's teachings on homosexuality. A tiny part of me had lived in fear that somewhere, deeply buried, he harbored a fear that he was inferior or a sinner, because he was gay.
'No,' he'd said, quietly, 'I don't agree with that bit. At all.'
But bringing it up with him or asking too many questions seemed to make him uncomfortable and uncharacteristically shy, so I usually dropped it and was content to lumber along in my own happy agnosticism. Except for the fact that I did want to know what he believed, and why. I wanted to know everything about him and to understand him. It took years before I got the knack and sensitivity to discuss his spirituality with him properly and to get results.
Rory had seemingly gotten more Catholic since we'd started dating. Or maybe, like many religious people, it only became more obvious once I spent more time with him. It wasn't like he was fanatic; far, far from it. Nor that he particularly followed his church's teachings -- his behavior in bed with me proved that! But there was something in him that innately respected the Catholic Church - far more than I, personally, felt that it deserved. He would also cross himself when we passed a Catholic chapel; he didn't like blasphemous jokes, and of course there was the fact that I'd noticed that he had started saying grace, silently in his head, before each meal. Even though I'm quite prepared to admit that I wasn't, and still am not, a big fan of the Catholic religion, I didn't mind it that much and if it made him happy and caused him no harm, then that was good enough for me. But somehow, on some deep and intrinsic level, I'd already realized that when the outward signs of Rory's religion became more obvious, it was because something wasn't quite right with him on the inside. That he was focusing on the rituals and comforts of his faith, because he needed them to steady him. Rory was never very good at telling people his weaknesses or his fears; that's why he got on so well with God. God didn't need to be told; God already knew.
When dinner was over, I lit the fire and we lay down on the sofa together to watch a movie. The rain pounded against the windows and the wind howled. It was the archetypal February weather, but it added to that sense that I'd been looking for. Isolated romance. Rory and I were, at last, completely alone with one another.
The movie was good, but with the fire crackling, the exhaustion of the school day, the drive, the food, the wine and the weather all catching up with us, we both soon drifted off to sleep. By the time I woke up again, the clock above the fireplace told me that it was eleven o'clock at night. The storm outside had not abated, but the movie had looped back to its menu.
Standing up, I felt Rory stir from where he'd been sleeping on my chest. He looked groggily as I walked over and placed another couple of logs on the fire. I walked back and put my hand down the sweatpants I'd put on before dinner, when I'd changed out of the wet jeans. I re-arranged my balls and stretched.
'We've been asleep a long time, baby,' I observed.
Rory nodded; still clearly stupid with sleep. He leant up as I lay back down, then put his head back on my chest. I stroked my hand up and down his side and listened to the weather; in a moment, I felt the steady, heavy breathing which told me he'd slipped back into his sleep. The heat from the fire and the happy peace of the situation put me into my own doze again. I woke up about twenty minutes later and shook Rory.
'Okay, baby, bed time.'
He reluctantly stirred himself and followed me upstairs. The bedroom had a big bed and timber-framed roof that slanted down. Rory used the bathroom first and emerged in a pair of pajama bottoms and a t-shirt; I went in after, brushed my teeth and stripped down to my boxers. It occurred to me that we mightn't even have sex on the first night away together, given how sleepy Rory had been downstairs. But as I returned to the bedroom, he was sitting up in bed, gazing at me. Now wide awake, with a mischievous look on his face. In the dim light of the bedside table, I could see that his big, brown eyes were dancing. I knew what was coming.
'Oh,' I whispered, with a cocky, pleased smile. 'Well, that answers my question.'
He opened his arms for me as I reached the bed. Our lips and then our tongues met and he laid back onto the pillows, spreading his legs to accommodate me as I lay on top of him. I was hard almost instantly and could feel that Rory was already at full salute. From the way we were grinding against each other, I knew it was going to be a good night. He pushed me off him and rolled me over onto my back.
My boner had already poked through my underwear and Rory quickly pulled them down, and threw them away. He licked up and down my cock, like it was a lollipop, spat on my balls and began massaging them, and then began bobbing furiously, up and down. Moaning with delight as he did it. I hissed with pleasure and put my hand on the back of his head.
