The Short Straw
The Short Straw
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...and so Conrart and Günter
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draw the short straws and they find themselves sharing a bed in a chilly, musty
room. At least the sheets are clean. Conrart pulls on
thick socks and nightshirt while G
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mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"'>nter
blows gently on a piece of kindling to start a fire.
“It’s cold,” Conrart says
pointlessly and Günter hums in reply. There’s the faintest
whiff of smoke but the kindling refuses to catch and
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lays it back down on the hearthstone, takes his tinderbox back up again and strikes
more sparks. Conrart warms his fingers over the lone,
miserable candle they were given and because there is nothing else to do,
watches Günter as he cups the fragile little flame
between his fingertips like it’s something inexpressibly precious. “Where’s
Wolfram where you need him?” and Günter doesn’t reply, just
smiles thinly because the lordling had been even more obnoxious than usual on this
journey and although Günter is too polite to say it,
Conrart knows that he’s relieved that it’s Wolfram’s older brother and not
Wolfram himself that he has to share a bed with.
The flame finally strengthens and grows stronger.
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sets the little bundle of threads and shredded paper into the neatly stacked
wood and leans forward intently. The light catches his pale hair and it glows a
vivid, bloody orange and Conrart shivers in a way
that has nothing to do with cold. He climbs between the sheets and turns his
face away when Günter begins to undress. The rustle of cloth
grates across raw nerves; Conrart swallows nervously, his mouth filled with
saliva, and the opposite side of the bed dips as Günter
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climbs in.
“Goodnight,” Günter says as
does not reply.
Lying there in the dimness, his hands clenched into fists,
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breath slow and deepen into a soft rasp and tries to calculate how long it’s
been since he last had sex. When the numbers start coming perilously close to a
decade Conrart gives up and instead thinks of how much he’d like to masturbate,
imagines doing it right here, right now, Günter laying asleep and
oblivious beside him. He thinks of ejaculating into
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beautiful hair. He imagines the older man waking up in the morning, mystified
at the strange substance tangling the strands and shakes with silent laughter
at the thought, deeply thrilled and rather guilty at the same time. He rolls
over instead, his back to Günter’s and fingers himself as
silently and carefully as he can but he doesn’t come, just fells tingly and
relaxed and somehow, dozes off with his hand still under his nightshirt.
He starts awake when a strong arm drapes itself around him, it
seems like he’s slept only a minute but when he glances at the fire,
disorientated, he sees that it’s actually died down quite a bit. Time has
passed. Günter mutters something and Conrart feels
the older man’s erection press against the small of his back.
He freezes, absolutely still. Doesn’t breathe, even, then
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mutters again and Conrart realises that the Lord von Christ is still asleep.
The erection is nothing personal, just a reaction to the heat of
the fantasies that he’s ever had about the man are just that: fantasies.
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has always been scrupulously honourable and Conrart
has always told himself that it’s better that way. Still, he finds himself
grinning at the sheer absurdity of it, like the trashy novels that he stole
from his mother’s secret stash and read for the sake of sex education when he
was still just a boy. He remembers the earliest fantasies he had about
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when he was in the academy, one amongst rows and rows of beds in the dorm rooms
full of horny teenagers all with busy hands in the night, all thinking of beautiful,
graceful, brilliant, kind Günter, although
than the dreams of seduction and tender lovemaking that his full Demon
companions shared nervously over breakfast. Pushing
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perfect face into the dirt, sullying it forever, fucking him while he screamed
for mercy, that was Conrart’s
favourite. These days Conrart likes to have a little
more class: chains of gold and ropes of silk and a consensual partner.
Conrart
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also likes to think that he’s a changed man, that he’s grown up, no longer
needs silly crushes or games, that he can be content with a relationship of
mutual respect and friendship with a beautiful, utterly unattainable man like
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but the younger Conrart is screaming inside his head, telling him that in a
century’s time he’ll look back on this missed opportunity and regret,
do it now he never will. Arching his back, he shimmies slowly up the mattress
until Günter’s erection is pressing between his
buttocks and he rocks gently back and forth.
“Conrart?
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What?” Günter’s voice slurred by sleep and Conrart
twists around and accidently wacks Günter across the nose with his
elbow and the older man wakes up fully and Conrart realises that he’s committed
now. He lunges forward with his mouth open, encounters
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chin and moves up and locks on. Pressing Günter into the mattress,
scrambling on top of him becomes a sort of wrestling match and Conrart can’t
tell if Günter is genuinely reluctant or just
surprised. He slides his tongue into the other’s mouth and gets bitten. Not
much of a bite, more a nip really, but the little pain is enough to shock him
into some kind of sanity and he gives up, just lies there on top of
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and they’re both panting, both erect, and Conrart
wiggles his sweating toes and thinks about just how unsexy bed socks really
are.
“I didn’t know you felt that way,”
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says at last, colourless and kind of dazed and Conrart bites him hard on the
collarbone.
“If you dare say something inane like, ‘You’re a son to me,’
I do believe I shall beat you.”
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snorts in reply, then gasps when Conrart shifts and
rubs their erections together.
“This really isn’t right,” and Conrart
knows this, knows just the sort of pedestal that Yuri has placed him upon,
knows just how Günter feels about sex outside of marriage,
knows that there’s always been something weird and unacknowledged going on
between his mother and Günter, knows that
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game of courtly love with their king will change forever, knows that this has
the potential to hurt a lot of people. Conrart knows.
He knows all this but for once, for once in his life he doesn’t want to be
honourable and righteous, he wants to fuck Günter
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into the mattress and maybe it’s love, maybe it’s the
pent-up frustration of sixty years of masturbation fantasies, maybe it’s none
or both of these things.
“Have you ever done this
before?” he asks and Günter growls impatiently and
shoves him off.
“I’m a hundred and fifty years old, Conrart,
what do you think?” Günter gets out of bed, feeds
the fire, wakes it up. He lights the candle too and
the room is as bright as he can make it. Conrart
takes the opportunity to toe off his socks and kick them off the other side of
the bed. Günter stands and watches him narrowly, and
his pretty face is closed off, remote. All the same he slides back into bed but
draws away when Conrart reaches for him. “What,
exactly, do you want from me?”
The resounding answer is sex
of course, but behind that is a big tangle of love and admiration and hero
worship and resentment and Conrart knows that “I want
you to fuck me,” is a highly unsatisfactory answer on both their parts. Instead
he says, “To be honest with you, I’m not really sure,” and
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looks unimpressed.
“Do tell me when you are certain,” he says with frosty
politeness and Conrart groans.
“Don’t make this complicated,” he begs, and
for Günter again, puts his hands on the other’s shoulders, feels the
powerful muscles sliding smoothly under cloth and skin and Conrart’s
calloused fingertips. “I don’t do this casually or on a whim, but please,
please, don’t make it complicated. Please.” He leans forward, presses his mouth
against Günter’s mouth, feels
it soften underneath his. Günter sighs and falls back
onto the mattress.
“There are many reasons why this is a very bad idea.”
“Absolutely,” Conrart agrees,
carefully settling down on top of him. He mouths Günter
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neck, slides down to gnaw again at his collarbone. He thinks about talking
dirty and fucking rough and knows that he could do all those things. He also
knows that if he did Günter would never lie with him
again. Instead Conrart hitches up
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shirt and licks the older man’s hairless stomach, tastes the bitter soap while
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strokes his hair. He rubs the cloth mounded up over
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erection, can hardly believe it when Günter pulls him up to kiss
him. Tongues sliding together, Günter rolls them
over so that he’s on top and they rock together for a while, gently, kissing
gently. Eventually Günter stops, disappears
beneath the covers to take a delighted Conrart into his mouth. Conrart pants
and writhes and grins, of course
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has done it before and like everything else, he does it perfectly. When
he comes back, Günter’s knees are on either side of Conrart’s
hips and he’s touching himself.
It’s not quite the same as the fantasy Conrart
had of ejaculating into Günter’s hair, but it’s
definitely better. Conrart smiles, and watches, and
thinks that drawing the short straw to share a bed is the best thing that’s
ever happened to him.