In the Midst of Life 3/5

[cleodoxa]

Part Two

The three of them manage to arm themselves easily enough and they slip out through a side door. The day is blurring with dusk and their steps slow at once. “We may as well bear in mind to begin with that this will probably take longer than anticipated,” Brendon says. “I always was a rotten shot.”

They wander for a while, and see nothing. Then a squirrel makes itself just about discernable in the thickening gloom and Brendon aims the gun at it. “A squirrel, for heaven’s sake,” says Spencer, and the squirrel runs up a tree before Brendon can shoot.

“We should go to the woods over there,” says Brendon. “Pheasants and rabbits.”

“It’s so dark,” says Ryan. “This was a stupid idea. If we don’t get something very soon we will have to fall back on Way’s idea.” He says this to spite Brendon, but then he wants to take it back, because surely that alternative will make him seem so very much like a vampire, and what if Brendon was right about it building an appetite?

“What’s that?” asks Spencer. Something white crosses their path. They advance on it slowly and Brendon shoots.

“It’s a peacock,” he explains. “Did I get it? Ah yes, I did. I was hoping for something nobody would notice had gone; I’m not sure I did the right thing now. Do we need to find something else, or will that do?”

“It will have to do,” says Spencer. He begins to take his jacket off.

“Oh, aren’t you going to do it here?” asks Brendon.

“No. We need a knife, and something to put the blood in,” Spencer says impatiently.

“But what are your teeth for?”

“I’m not biting into feathers,” Ryan protests indignantly.

“Are you vampires?” exclaims a voice close behind them.

Ryan turns slowly, the skin on the back of his neck crawling. Behind them are Peter and Patrick, faces full of bright, prurient interest. “You’re vampires! Real vampires!” says Patrick.

They look at the peacock on the ground, and back at the children. Spencer makes to drop his coat over it, but realises that it really is too late.

“We heard you talk about teeth,” says Peter. “You can’t deny anything!”

“Now, you don’t need to be frightened,” says Brendon, and it is another reminder that they aren’t all in the same boat.

“But you’re real live vampires,” says Peter. “We don’t want to be frightened.” He and Patrick gaze at them, taking on the look of hypnotised rabbits as they get caught in a dilemma. They want to be excited about this new experience, but are having difficulty in not allowing their sense to convince them this new experience might be about to kill them. Peter screws up his face and opens his mouth for a question. Ryan comes to his senses and runs for it. No one joins him, and he slows to a walk, turning to see the group still standing around the peacock. He doesn’t understand why the others aren’t making a break for it - do they think they can go back to the house? - but he can’t really go anywhere without them.

“I’ve found the tree,” shouts a voice in his ear, and Ryan turns and stumbles into Miss Ballato. “Mr Ross-”

Ryan stands still. “Miss Ballato, Miss Ballato!” yell the children, running forwards. “They’re vampires, come and see this peacock they just killed.” Miss Ballato looks confused and allows herself to be pulled forwards to look at the peacock. Brendon and Spencer scoot backwards as she approaches, Ryan following her because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“What do you mean, they’re vampires? What does this peacock have to do with anything?”

“You aren’t going to drink our blood, are you?” asks Patrick. “Now you’ve met us and everything?”

“Children, have you been pestering these gentlemen- Wait a minute!” says Miss Ballato, breaking off and turning to Ryan, a finger raised. “Your glasses! And you were all so awkward at explaining everything earlier. You are, aren’t you?”

“Well, of course I am. Isn’t it obvious? Why ever else would I have turned up in the home of a vampire hunter, if I weren’t a vampire?” Ryan snaps, not knowing if he means his sarcasm to admit or deny.

“I think we need to have a conversation about this. Perhaps we should go inside?” Brendon hesitates then, remembering the host of weapons inside the house.

“We won’t drink your blood now we’ve met you, no,” Spencer says. “We don’t drink human blood at all.”

Miss Ballato stands still and looks from one to the other, pale and indecisive. She looks more solemn and defensive than scared. She glances off into the darkness, as if considering, like Ryan, if there was a viable plan of action attached to running away. Turning back, she says, “Well, I need to know what all this is about. We had better go inside.”

“I don’t suppose we can get our kite now?” asks Peter.

“Tomorrow,” says Miss Ballato, and sets off towards the house. They all trail after her at her distance, Brendon stopping at the last minute to scoop up the peacock in Spencer’s coat.

Back at the house, Miss Ballato rings for someone to fetch Mr Way. “Ah,” says Way as soon as he enters the room.

“Yes, it’s all up,” says Ryan.

“Miss Ballato, we would be so grateful if you could be convenient about this,” Mr Way says, sitting down next to her. “The thing is, they are really perfectly nice, ordinary young men. Think of it as an illness, a purely medical illness.” He goes on for a while, explaining the sequence of events that led to them coming to Ratfield Park, the others interjecting to confirm when appropriate.

“So,” says Miss Ballato. “You two are vampires, you’re a friend of theirs, and you’re who you’re supposed to be?” She points to Mr Way. “And you’re not here with any sort of plan against Mr Saporta, and you’re quite harmless?”

“The peacock backs us up with that, you see,” says Spencer.

“I think that’s wonderful!” says Miss Ballato. “Mr Saporta is off chasing you, wanting to hack you into bits - well, he puts a stake through you, doesn’t he? - while here you are in his home. Ha!”

“Uncle Gabriel would be so cross,” says Patrick, and he and Peter hug themselves with glee. They and Miss Ballato contemplate them with bright, interested eyes.

“So it’s alright?” Mr Way asks. “Is Gabriel a real tyrant or something? It’s just that you seem so glad to be defying him. I see him as rather bombastic, but not like a grim Bluebeard figure. Only it is you hiding the cor - the dead people.”

“No,” says Miss Ballato. “No, it isn’t really like that. We don’t think he’s Bluebeard, or anyone really terrible but-”

“But he irritates the h - vexes you terribly,” Way says, smiling at her.”

She laughs. “I think vampires have become such familiar figures in our minds that now you are in the flesh you have become full of glamour. Mr Saporta seems to have it all his own way, as he tells it, and we have got so used to hearing about death and impaling; that is a perfectly good reason to like to see him defied.”

“But still, it is really very good of you to be so accommodating,” says Mr Way, looking slightly startled by all this gusto.

“Really, it is,” Ryan adds quickly.

“We do hear about vampires such a very great lot,” says Peter. “It’s like meeting Queen Elizabeth or William the Conqueror.”

Miss Ballato reaches out with her foot and taps the dead peacock under Brendon’s chair. “So you need some blood now, yes? I’ll ring down to the kitchen for a knife and a bowl.”

Ryan leans back and closes his eyes in relief for a moment. For now, everything is alright. When the utensils arrive, Spencer slits the peacock’s throat. While he is draining the blood into the bowl and Ryan is thinking it is a shame they can’t send it down to the kitchen to be warmed, Patrick and Peter slip out of the room. He feels a little self-conscious about drinking the blood, especially as he wants to shudder and make faces - the blood is lukewarm, which is actually worse than cold - and Brendon and Mr Way make conversation about Saporta.

After a while, Peter and Patrick slide back into the room. “I am afraid a lot of the servants want to leave now,” Peter says in a hushed voice. “We have just been down to the kitchen.”

“Are the two connected?” asks Miss Ballato suspiciously.

“Well, yes, because we told them about the vampires, and they didn’t like it,” says Patrick.

“Oh dear,” says Miss Ballato. She looks hesitant.

“They are setting about leaving now,” says Peter.

They skip after her as she sighs and gets up. Ryan thinks about a kitchen filled with angry buzzings, and people throwing things into bags in haste to get away from a house in which he is present. After a little while, Peter comes skidding into the room, excited by the dramatic atmosphere and needing to share.

“None of them are allowed to leave until tomorrow morning. Cook yelled at them. That’s just to throw her weight around, though, I don’t see why it’s alright for them to go tomorrow but not today. Uncle Gabriel already doesn’t bother to have hardly anyone look after the grounds, soon he’s going to have no one for the house either. Everything will go to rack and ruin.”

“Surely Miss Ballato could convince them you were only playing,” says Brendon.

“I think she’s already given the game away. And Uncle Gabriel likes to tell them the goriest bits, so they’re particularly ready to believe and get frightened,” says Patrick. “She is talking to them all very nicely, but they don’t care.”

Mr Way says, “Would it help if I came and said they were completely harmless?”

“I would do that as well,” Brendon says.

“It might,” says Peter. “You come and do that, then.”

Now it is just Ryan and Spencer.

“Nice to know we can set a house about its ears just by entering it,” says Spencer. Ryan watches his little grimace, resigned not rueful, and tries to imitate the way his shoulders relax and his face wipes clear of the thought. They sit in peaceful silence until the kitchen expedition files back in.

“Not much good,” Miss Ballato says. “At least from Mr Saporta’s point of view. I mean, a handful are staying, so I suppose we’ll manage. Greta at least thinks it’s thrilling.”

“Still, it is a great inconvenience,” says Spencer.

“It isn’t such a great loss,” says Miss Ballato. “It’s mostly Mr Saporta’s army of housemaids that are revolting. We had far too many of them to begin with. He steals pretty maids he sees in other people’s houses, and sends them down here. Quite pointless, when he’s hardly ever here to see them. Apart from the maids, he has hardly any staff.”

The butler appears in the doorway. The past few hours seem to have dishevelled him somehow. He has a note. “Oh!” exclaims Miss Ballato. “Cook knows someone who is killing their pig tomorrow, and she is offering to get them to kill it now. Dinner will surely be a while, you could have some blood for dinner and make a proper meal of it.”

“We could probably eat proper food now,” says Ryan. It isn’t just that the servants know, he realises; all the servants know people.

“It is bound to do you some good,” insists Miss Ballato. “Besides, it will make Cook feel important and I don’t feel like offending her at the minute. I’m sure the only reason she isn’t running away is to be contrary.”

“It’s dark, isn’t it?” says Brendon, squinting out of the window.

“There are always lanterns. Children, you ought to be in bed. Go - oh no, Nurse isn’t here, is she?” Miss Ballato gets to her feet with a sigh. “Dinner will be ready sooner or later, but we’re in for a wait.”

* *

Ryan and Spencer do eat dinner, but first they have to drink their specially procured blood. It is served in soup bowls, and they use spoons. This is disconcerting, not least because Ryan can’t help expecting it to taste like tomato soup. He feels like their very presence is illegitimate. Despite being in a room with the rest of them eating dinner, he keeps imagining them as a gathering of conspirators, perhaps crowded round a pile of gold, whose voices are to be heard from behind a locked door.

The butler waits upon them, and also a maid Ryan decides is the Greta who thinks they are thrilling. He meets her eyes with a cold look, and finds she is already looking at him with calm curiosity.

Halfway through the meal, Mr Way decides he likes Miss Ballato, and actually moves down the table to sit nearer. Ryan can’t imagine why; she is a long way down the table and even from here Ryan ascertains that her excited and helpful mood of earlier has worn off. She now seems deliberately haughty and sullen.

When Ryan, Spencer, and Brendon have finished eating, they tire of sitting in the dining room. As they come out, Greta slides out of a darkened room across the hallway.

“Are you really vampires?” she asks.

“We are indeed,” says Spencer.

“I am afraid I am only a hanger-on,” says Brendon.

“And you don’t kill people?”

“Only people they find very trying,” says Brendon, tossing his handkerchief in the air.

“Can you fly?”

Brendon genuinely starts. “Can you?”

“No,” says Ryan. This is knowledge gained from trial and experience. Once they climbed up onto the roof and tried to take flight. They had not exactly dropped like stones, like humans, but they floundered. They managed to flounder their way into plummeting into the tree next door instead of straight to the ground. It had all been very nerve-wracking.

“We can, however, jump,” says Spencer. He runs up the great staircase and prepares to demonstrate. Brendon presses his handkerchief into Greta’s hand.

“Drop!” he commands. She lets it flutter to the floor as Spencer springs down the whole flight in one leap. There is nothing especially supernatural about the sight, except perhaps for one moment where he appears suspended, as if free from gravity but caught in amber. He lands on his feet, and bows down to hand her the handkerchief.

Greta beams at him. “I’d love to do that. Do you think you could jump further? Maybe you could go up to the next flight - if you climbed over the banisters there-” She points up - “It would be like you were jumping down both at once. Spencer hurries off. “Don’t you jump, then?” she asks Ryan.

“I’m a little too accident-prone,” Ryan says, and Brendon laughs for too long, as if to advertise that this is an understatement. Ryan puts his tongue in his cheek and cocks his head. Ryan doesn’t know when Brendon decided Ryan was amusing, and not in the witty way. Sometimes it seems like he is under the impression Ryan is two people, and is trying to swagger a little in front of him by behaving like a child currying favour among its playmates by teasing another child - using him both as the person to be impressed and the ill-advised means of doing so.

“I’m coming down!” Spencer yells, crouched on the rail like an over-sized vulture about to swoop. They step back with haste.

Ryan and Brendon soon tire of watching Spencer prance about on the stairs, and go to sit in Brendon’s room. It seems the amusement does not pall for Spencer and Greta, however, because it is quite a while before there is a loud crash. Spencer tried to hold Greta in his arms for the ride, and they careened into the banisters. Two rails are smashed. They are both laughing a great deal and Ryan doesn’t think Miss Ballato needs to solemnly assure them that it doesn’t matter. Greta does sober when she is also assured that Cook won’t be told.

“She’ll have heard the crash,” she says, and rushes off.

* *

The next day, Mr Walker returns mid-morning. “The Vicar wanted me to pop in,” he says. “The railway station was awash with housemaids earlier, and he couldn’t help but wonder what was the cause.”

“Oh . . . they felt rather alarmed. I don’t know if I should let this out - I suppose it wouldn’t do much harm so long as Mr Saporta never found out.”

Everyone looks from Miss Ballato to Mr Walker with alarmed but unsure faces. Ryan is not sure that it is not best to keep the whole subject as quiet as possible, regardless of harmless consequences and the sacrifice of transparency and interesting conversation. He doesn’t stop her either, though. He looks at Mr Walker’s face, cheerful and casual and feels a sharp pang of anticipation to see how he will react.

“These two gentlemen,” she says, indicating Ryan and Spencer, “are vampires. It is a little complicated, but actually they are here at Ratfield to actually hide from Mr Saporta. You needn’t be afraid of them; they only drink animal blood and are perfectly civilised.”

Mr Walker’s brow furrows. “Vampires?” he says, searching Miss Ballato’s face.

Spencer leans forward and bares his teeth, showing Mr Walker the sharp incisors. It takes him a moment to notice, but then he starts. He stares for a moment, mouth slightly open. “But . . . You mean Saporta actually meant it when he said he was off hunting vampires?”

Now Miss Ballato recoils in astonishment. “What did you think he meant?”

Mr Walker looks flustered; he tries to turn to face her but he cannot stop staring at Spencer and Ryan. Finally managing it, he says, “Well, I was never quite sure what to make of it. Whether he truly believed it, or whether it was a game that he carried too far . . . But no, there actually are vampires. And they’re staying here and they’re civilised?”

“We aren’t a threat at all,” says Ryan. He is becoming tired of this feeling, at once defensive and reassuring.

“And I’ll just take that on trust, shall I?” says Mr Walker. He doesn’t look as if he isn’t going to, exactly, but he is wondering why he should.

“I’m not a vampire, and I can vouch for them,” says Brendon. “As can Mr Way.”

“Certainly. There’s nothing sinister afoot, I assure you,” says Mr Way.

“But how odd that you never believed him,” says Miss Ballato. “I have seen you talking with him, you always seemed to believe him. Did you never talk about it with other people, or did they - did everyone think he was talking nonsense? Do not even the Bickways believe what he says?”

Mr Walker suddenly realises this is a slightly awkward moment. “I don’t think most people took it without a grain of salt, no.”

“Well, now I feel credulous,” Miss Ballato interrupts.

“But perhaps you saw him more than the rest of us, so were best equipped to judge. And well, you were correct. I cannot imagine what the Vicar - well. Perhaps you shouldn’t tell anyone else.”

“Ah,” says Spencer. “The Church.”

“I’m sure you could make people understand the situation, and the Bickways are very kind, but the Vicar would have to consider the situation in light of his position. I don’t suppose he would know which line to take, and he would have to consult his superiors and …”

“Unless of course he simply sharpened a stake and went for them,” says Miss Ballato. “I don’t know, he gets very dedicated.”

Miss Ballato and Mr Walker seem to find this mental picture amusing, a sentiment Ryan cannot share. Mr Walker has things to do, but before he leaves he warns that Mrs Bickway may be dropping by to investigate the housemaid affair.

“If you are going to arrange a cover story, do it now, so I don’t contradict it if I see her before you do,” says Mr Walker.

“I think I shall have to tell her Mr Saporta ordered the housemaids’ dismissal. She won’t know what to make of it, but never mind. And it would be best to make as little of the guests as possible - they can be a little mystery I’m not party to. The more plausible the story, the more she’ll talk to you, and there is the teeth issue.”

Miss Ballato looks matter-of-fact, but Ryan does dislike feeling like he is a difficult creature, having to have awkward arrangements discussed on his behalf. He wishes everything about everything weren’t so difficult and complicated. He has considered filing his teeth, but something about it seems inherently unwise.

Mrs Bickway pays a visit not an hour later. She is most perturbed about the servant situation.

“Has there been a disturbance? Is it to do with Cook? However will you manage, with Nurse gone too?”

“There has been no disturbance since Nurse left,” says Miss Ballato. “Mr Saporta made the decision to dispense with their services, and I can’t speculate as to his motives.”

“I wonder why? Perhaps he is planning to engage fresh staff. It isn’t entirely unlike him, I suppose,” says Mrs Bickway. Ryan is grateful there is no address at which she can reach Saporta.

Miss Ballato introduces Way to her as a friend of Mr Saporta, and Way waves a hand at the rest of them and mutters, “My friends.”

Mrs Bickway makes one or two probing remarks, and when they meet with no success looks pitiably exasperated at being frustrated in her attempts to order the household. Ryan supposes that if Saporta is considered as eccentric as Mr Walker seemed to suggest, it would be natural to feel concern for his household. She shifts the conversation onto parish affairs, and trying to convince Miss Ballato to take an active part in the fete - “Your artistic flair would be so appreciated.”

Miss Bickway treats Miss Ballato somewhat curiously, to Ryan’s mind. She is both to be organised and got to do things, and treated with solicitude, as if she is to be done things for. Miss Ballato plays up to both these things by being both confidingly obliging, almost like a child, talking with an unfurrowed brow and a certain sincerity in her voice, and demanding and autocratic.

Mrs Bickway casts her eye curiously over the three of them who were not introduced, but after Mr Way gently mocks Miss Ballato a couple of times, it is him her occasional sharp glances rest upon.

When Mrs Bickway leaves, Ryan looks at Miss Ballato for a while. He wonders if she has had a hard life, and that is why Mrs Bickway behaved as if she was to be treated with care. Miss Ballato sees him looking, and begins to laugh.

“I know, I always behave terribly with the Bickways,” she says. “It’s because they let me. Somehow it takes me back to when I was a girl, a very cross, awkward girl, very proud and over-solemn. When I feel discontented I dramatise it for them because they believe it more than they ought. I paint a bit, you see, and they consider me very accomplished and artistic and so on.”

“That is the problem if you once unburden yourself to someone, really lament your lot and everything,” says Mr Way. “You feel silly if you come back and say, “Oh that? I feel quite cheerful now, thank-you,” so you keep it up and it just reminds you of the reasons you have to be unhappy.” He stops and looks indignant. “I thought she looked very disapproving of me, and I was the one with an explanation!”

“She did a little,” says Ryan. “At least it distracted her. Perhaps she thought you looked disreputable.”

“Why would she think that?”

Ryan considers Mr Way’s hat, his hair, his clothes, his shoes. “You look like a villain out of Dickens,” he says. Unfortunately Mr Way is charmed by this and swaggers about throughout the day, lisping and cursing and spitting on the floor.

* *

The time lies empty ahead, an unspecified length of it. It is like a holiday that might be interrupted at any time by Gabriel returning to evict them more thoroughly than any angel. Ryan feels caught between relief and dread as Saporta’s absence continues. Spencer seems to have decided to make hay while the sun shines. He and Greta follow each other about the house, making eyes and smirking mouths at each other.

Brendon seems to have relaxed. He is being helpful, trying to smooth things over like he did in the beginning. He steps in to apply his easy manner to dealings with the village, which makes their presence more plausible, providing a kind of context without ever offering a story. Like Mrs Bickway, if Stellhurst at large is aiming a disapproving glare at anyone, it is Mr Way, though Ryan doesn’t know what expectations they have the right to form of a guest of Saporta’s. He is good at distracting the children when they make Ryan and Spencer feel awkward, following them about and asking questions. Somehow they get on to music, and Patrick expresses an interest in the piano. A little to his surprise, perhaps, Brendon finds himself teaching both Patrick and Peter the piano, though Patrick has decidedly more aptitude.

* *

Ryan remembers how uncomplicatedly grateful he felt to Brendon when he first involved himself in their affairs, and cannot decide whether or not he is ready to allow himself to return to that feeling. Brendon’s warmth had made him feel almost as if he was being spoilt. He is interested and easy, and Ryan is so used to having no one but Spencer. And neither Spencer nor Ryan has been sparkling company the last two years. Spencer is - well - not being alone, the status quo. He is not indulgent, or an indulgence. Mr Way also makes a nice change, and he is also warm and interested, but he is interested in a more bemused, self-absorbed way. After a while it started to grate on Ryan that Brendon was more important to Ryan than he was to Brendon. He talked in that interested, easy way to everyone. Probably he was always unnecessarily helpful and concerned about people he didn’t know. Ryan felt as if he was latching onto Brendon like a child with a favourite uncle - who may be visiting a lot at the moment, but may also get tired at any moment and go off to do something else.

He detached himself from the “known each other for years” atmosphere that Brendon creates, only odd moments revealing that might be deliberate. Ryan was slow to turn round when spoken to, spoke as little and politely as possible, and often wondered aloud that Brendon did not have anything else to do.

Brendon seemed to notice this distance more than he had noticed Ryan’s simple fascination. Now Ryan felt as if he had some particular relevance to Brendon, but it was not exactly positive. Brendon had always been gregarious and talkative, but now he became impossible to shut up. Spencer took to talking over him, his voice muffled by the pillow over his head. Ryan could actually admire the art of simply talking on and on, after all those word games and nothing much to comment on besides the blood clot one just spat out, and how bored, cold and hungry one was. Ryan could see that Brendon earned himself space in the world because he didn’t mind making a fool of himself. It was not as if his personality was so golden, but the mixture of happy-go-lucky and nervous energy won him a privilege of expression Ryan sometimes envied.

Brendon took to spending even more time in the back bedroom, and Ryan felt like Brendon was on some kind of quest. His bid to capture Ryan’s attention often involved pulling faces and impromptu dances, as if Ryan was a princess in a fairy story, whose swains line up to try to make her smile. Sometimes Ryan did. He didn’t when Brendon attacked from another direction and became competitive. He made digs about life experience and sophistication, and sometimes even became so vulgar as to refer to wealth and social position. When Brendon pursued this tack conversation further devolved into long, pedantic quarrels. Ryan always threw, “I am but a poor vampire clerk who has been sitting in an attic for two years,” into these, as if it were a source of virtue. Sometimes, though not often, these disagreements also almost became smiles, in acknowledgement of their shared foolishness and obnoxiousness.

On the whole, however, Ryan’s attitude to Brendon was one of hurt, defensive umbrage. He expected to Brendon go away for good, but apparently he was too piqued by the revelation that there was an argument between them that he wasn’t winning. Preparing for the inevitable retreat, and the general instability of Ryan’s situation made him feel as if he was in a permanent state of flux. Matters fluxed further when they exiled themselves to Ratfield, and it seemed as if Brendon would surely be lost in the move, but no. Ryan had a click on his tongue; he wanted to say to Brendon, “You’re carrying it this far?” Because truly, pugnacious attitudes aside, this Brendon person - this person, rich and serene who wandered into the Ways’ house - why did he choose to divert his life away from its natural courses, to spend his days on this trouble and strife?

Now they are here, and Brendon is being entirely normal now, as if he has forgotten all that childishness, and it actually does take two to quarrel. Ryan looks at him and wonders why he is here, and trying to make everything be as easy as it can be, and can only conclude that is because he likes Ryan and Spencer and does not want anything to become a disaster for them. Now he feels faintly foolish for imagining affairs were more complicated than they are, a pang of disappointment that they aren’t, and relieved gratification.

On the whole, he feels like he wants a rest from Brendon, and preoccupying himself with what he’s thinking, and whether he is behaving the way Ryan wants to behave. He ignores Brendon a little now, doesn’t spend much time with him alone. Being so used to a confined life, it makes Ryan feel odd to realise he can avoid someone. He has to remind himself to adjust to this slightly larger world, that need not have the same people in it all the time. Brendon seems slightly puzzled, but Ryan doesn’t let that change his behaviour.

Mr Walker is replacing Brendon, in a way. Ryan is gratified that Brendon likes him, but he thinks that Jon (they are on Christian name terms now) might be coming to like him too, and he can’t help chasing the feeling of accomplishment he has waiting for him in the future. It is not as if there is anyone else apart from Brendon who is interested in keeping him company. Spencer is busy with Greta - he hangs around her even when she is in the kitchen, smirking and asking Cook if she is going to run him through. Obviously Spencer is not a worthy opponent, because she hasn’t yet. Mr Way sleeps late in the mornings, and is often to be found in Miss Ballato’s company when she is not giving lessons. Mr Way asked to see her paintings, and they sat and looked at them and had a solemn conversation about them until something made them smile and laugh at each other over nothing. Now they repeat the pattern all the time.

Jon comes to visit a lot; apparently he is generally encouraged to keep an eye on the place, but has recently volunteered his presence more than usual so that Mr and Mrs Bickway do not feel they need to visit so often. He is quite pleased to make Ratfield such a dominant feature of his daily round.

“No one else I have to visit wants me there,” he says. “I had a boot thrown at me yesterday. I hardly ever get sent on nice simple errands like solacing the dying and reading to the elderly. The Vicar keeps sending me to people who do not want to be done good to and resent being accused of being full of pride and resentment, or not kind enough to their relatives, or whatever the Vicar thinks is the matter with them.”

“So we are a nice change because we truly do have a problem,” says Ryan, smiling. “There still isn’t any way you can help us.”

“But you are nice and don’t throw boots at me,” Jon says. “So I have to take shelter with you.”

Ryan doesn’t say anything but he can, in a way, see why these people don’t enjoy Jon coming to see them. He has an unsentimental cheerfulness that rather rains on people sometimes. It is also obvious that he is not in the Church through any particular choice of his own. Used to Mr Bickway’s fervour, the parishioners resent the braced, yet wincing resignation Jon feels for a life he is unsuited for.

“I think perhaps it shows too strongly that I would not, ideally, choose to be a clergyman,” says Jon, as if he can tell what Ryan’s pause was filled with. “I don’t know if it’s simply that I am not especially religious. Bickway’s all very well, but a lack of real conviction is common enough in the Church. But I don’t think I’m overly concerned with people other than myself, and perhaps that shows.”

Ryan laughs. “You’re already better than most other people if you’re worrying about it.” He likes that Jon wants to do his job as well as he can, though he has not much taste for it. He also likes that Jon seems glad of his company; it makes him feel he must be more gregarious and light-hearted than he thought. He thinks that he would like to live up to that and stop brooding over everything.

Once Jon has got over his chagrin that vampires have existed all along, he becomes fascinated by it all, though he tries not to show it. He asks hesitating questions, as if he thinks it is impolite to be curious. Ryan doesn’t mind, though he does not know the answer to a lot of the questions; it makes him feel fascinating rather than appalling. Mr Way and Brendon and Miss Ballato have all pretty much dismissed the subject when they got used to it. There are Peter and Patrick, of course, but their curiosity is irritating.

Jon seems charmed by the fact that he is a vampire, and yet not at all frightening. Ryan is pleased to have this effect, but really, the effort involved is minimal. He finds Jon relaxing because there is something relaxed about Jon; it makes Ryan feel cheerful both in itself and because he feels that not much is being asked of him. It makes a nice change from all that worrying about what Brendon was thinking.

He likes Jon. He likes him rather like he liked Brendon when he started coming to see them at Way’s. It is a feeling that makes him feel more human, in a way that is actually vampiric in origin, using others as a panacea. It’s also a private feeling - something warm and sticky and crumpled about it - and it feels encroaching to have private feelings about people. Ryan sticks by Jon and follows him about like a young animal with its mother, needing to learn from a place of safety. He doesn’t know why, but he keeps thinking the word “flank” in this context.

He thinks of other things too, those thoughts he had even before he was Turned, and had the luxury of worrying more about them.

* *

He and Jon frequently go walking together, and Ryan likes that. It seems to make Jon more aware that he is not on duty, and he becomes freer and more cheery. A couple of times they tackle the hills. One of these times it is drizzling lightly after days of rain. They slip and slide about in the mud, and Jon falls on his knees but it is Ryan who falls flat on his back and also skids down the side of the hill almost to the bottom. Jon starts laughing, and carries on laughing for so long Ryan begins to ignore it and talk to him almost as if he is a civilised human being, interrupted only sporadically by his own bouts of laughter.

Jon is still laughing when they reach Stellhurst and Jon’s house, both of them caked in mud and damp if not wet. Ryan stands in Jon’s hall for a few moments before turning around to return to Ratfield. Jon reaches round Ryan’s shoulder to open the door for him, and he presses his mouth to Ryan’s. His mouth is cold, but still warm against Ryan’s lips as his hand on his shoulder turns him around and pushes him out of the door.

Like those things in his head, thinks Ryan as he walks swiftly down the street, trundling through puddles. Only he’s used to all that being thought, that feels alien, saturated with unreality even in his own head, so it feels so very, very odd out in real life. Was it really that? That press was so brief, and just skin on skin like an accidental touch of hands, perhaps. Did Jon’s face merely get too close by accident? Nothing like an I want you acknowledgement. And I like your spit and your tongue and your teeth too, and I want you to open your mouth just because my mouth is here. People could not do that without creating a different place, shared between them. And it hasn’t happened, so Ryan is still in his own place, and Jon is too. Ryan doesn’t think that other place even exists between men because if it did it would be . . . cold and muddy, like Ryan is now. Ryan doesn’t know what Jon is thinking about in his house now, and he doesn’t know why he is feeling like a fool, laughing to himself as he goes along the street, either.

* *

“You still have mud in your hair,” says Brendon, looking around as Ryan laughs. They are in a drawing room and Brendon is playing the piano. Ryan is sitting with him this evening, to distract himself from his thoughts, and Brendon seems surprised and pleased. He is very conscientious about practicing but just now he is actually playing crashing chords with just enough variation and selected repetition that it sounds like a glowering composition. He seems to be enjoying himself. Ryan watches his calm face, and then his plunging wrists. He piles up several cacophonous crescendos on top of each other until the melodrama reaches an actually amusing height, and Ryan laughs.

“Very likely,” Ryan says, not even bothering to feel. He hadn’t realised how thoroughly he was coated in mud until he got to Ratfield and everyone fell about laughing.

Brendon turns back to the piano. Trouble! Trouble! say the keys. Ryan props an ankle on his knee, and presses his chin to the topper-most knee. He thinks about that cold, muddy place in his head and wonders if there would be a way to make it seem more habitable, if he cannot prevent himself from wanting to go there.

* *

Ryan sees Jon the next afternoon, and has been with him for an hour before it occurs to him that either of them might possibly not let it be an isolated incident. Well, he isn’t going to do anything, but he is only just now realising that it was not really a closed little box of time, however it seemed like it. They have the power to bring that little box out into the real world, part of continuing time, with consequences. There is no awkwardness between them, as if they are deciding whether or not to do that - or at least not until Ryan suddenly jerks his head up and examines Jon’s face, wide-eyed. He quickly lowers his lashes as Jon falters in his speech.

It is nearly two weeks later that Jon, quite deliberately, strokes the back of Ryan’s hand. Ryan’s breath moves, and he makes an invisible movement - for an instant, he almost thinks he has snatched his hand away, to where it is just his hand and nothing that anyone can use to affect his life. But he doesn’t know why he thinks that, even for a second, because his hand doesn’t twitch at all. And then he wonders why he is wound up inside as if fearsome consequences are crowding at his back, when Jon’s fingers, gentle on his skin, don’t feel at all alarming.

* *

Now he has Jon’s tongue in his mouth, because this is another time, and he has begun to think that he might allow himself to do this. Ryan sucks on Jon’s bottom lip, hard, because he wants to be like this. He wants to be standing this close to someone, with their hands on the back of his neck, their hips pressed to his. He feels gratified that it is Jon; he has that warm feeling of discovering he has something in common with someone. However, Ryan can’t quite rid himself of the feeling that, considering the trait they share, feelings of disappointment and disapproval might be more appropriate. Ryan might not be able to conquer his vices, but is that any excuse for Jon’s similar inability?

“Do you like it?” asks Jon.

“Yes,” says Ryan, because his cock is hard, for heaven’s sake. He wants to be do this badly enough that he wants to get over the feeling he shouldn’t want to do this. Ryan’s sure he could make his mind up the way he wants if he tried hard enough. It isn’t as if he has begun to think of morals or anything. He just can’t admit things hard enough to get him into the here and now, where he could actually have those things. Ryan wants someone else to make him come, that’s what he wants. Part of him can’t believe his luck in having got hold of someone who might do that. But he feels so ambivalent, and Jon seems nervous, too.

“I don’t want to do anything more today,” he tells Jon.

“But do you like it?” says Jon. “If you are just shocked and don’t know what to say-”

“No, I want it,” say Ryan. He thinks Jon hardly knows what to do now he has got somebody to do this with him. Because if this is the sort of thing he wants to do, surely he must just want the rest of the time. He thinks it must be quite a big thing for Jon to have met him, and that makes Ryan feel uncomfortable, and worried about letting him down.

* *

The next time they meet, they are both uncertain and anxious, and it as if they have to force themselves when they both lean over to kiss at the same time. It makes Ryan feel silly that they are expending all this thought, hope and dread on this thing that they behave like they do not want to happen. They are both afraid of this central, brewing thing, and are trying not to be in order to achieve the thing they are frightened of. Nothing about it seems sensible.

Ryan realises when he thinks about it that he has never been very religious. He doesn’t much mind if God thinks he is wicked because he does not, in his heart of hearts, believe in Hell. It is more of a social fear, of somehow being found out, discovered on the sofa in Jon’s private sitting room. But then, religion is involved peripherally, because of Jon. He may not have much conviction, but he is a clergyman. Ryan feels somewhat responsible. If he lets Jon carry on with this, will he be burned by repentance and mortification later? Might he then resent Ryan?

* *

It happens a few times more, and they go a little further. They feel each other through their clothes, and Jon undoes Ryan’s shirt once. Then things go awry.

They have both taken their shirts off and they are kissing, Jon’s hand on Ryan’s back, Ryan clasping the back of Jon’s neck, when their mouths come apart and Jon rolls his head back suddenly. Ryan’s face skims over Jon’s neck and he feels as if he has lost his place. Then he realises Jon is offering his neck. Ryan has never thought about the blood in people’s veins, because sometimes it is not really that difficult to avoid being a person you do not want to be. Sometimes the thought of being that person is simply too dreadful to contemplate.

But now here is Jon’s neck, and his mouth is right against a pulse. Ryan opens his mouth and very slowly licks Jon’s skin where it rises over a vein. Jon clutches at his shoulders. Ryan wonders at him. Isn’t it enough to be doing this with Ryan at all, without elaborating on it to bring in the fact that Ryan could kill him? It isn’t as if he is so particularly exciting; almost anyone could kill anyone, really. It doesn’t take that much to bash someone over the head with something heavy when they aren’t expecting it.

Ryan darts his tongue over the vein again. He hears Jon try to sharply suck in breath without gasping, then negating the effort by giving a little moan at the back of his throat. How powerful he is, stooping slightly over Jon’s neck, making him feel things. He opens his mouth over the vein so that Jon can feel the two little sharp points of his canines. Fangs. Fangs, it makes him feel like a kind of humanoid snake, the way the devil is sometimes portrayed in pictures of the Fall.
With incoherent thoughts of oh, let him then, Ryan nips his teeth together.

He hadn’t actually thought about there being blood under there. He hadn’t bitten him very hard, so it is more a flavour in his saliva that puzzles him for a few moments. Jon has gone very still. Ryan reaches down between his legs, and feels that Jon is definitely hard. He mouths the shallow little wound, sucking harder and harder until the tinge of blood seems to be gone. Then he digs his teeth in harder, and blood spurts into his mouth. Ryan stops at once. He doesn’t know what vein this is - he doesn’t think it’s the jugular - but this is sex. He doesn’t want Jon to suddenly not be here, leaving him worrying what to do with the body.

Ryan puts his chin against the wet, tilting up to look at the underside of Jon’s face.

“Please,” says Jon, and Ryan wonders now if Jon has been thinking of this all along.

Ryan’s cock is hard now. It was before they started on the neck bit, then it wasn’t, so much. It’s like a leap of fondness for Jon, who is after all being such a fool on his behalf. He puts his tongue against the wet, and allows himself to savour the blood on his tongue. It is so perfect, neither cold or too hot, its consistency so consistent, the taste just right. Ryan stops thinking about Jon and starts thinking about blood as he sucks at the little tear he made. The blood flows into his mouth a little thicker.

Jon taps at the side of his face. Then he taps again, harder.

Ryan looks up, mouth wet. “Oh,” he says. He’d forgotten about everything apart from the blood, and that wasn’t what he’d come here for. He’d forgotten Jon was Jon, that he wanted to see him naked, wanted to come, wanted to make him come too. “Oh, what did you have to do that for?” he asks. “It changed it, everything.” He stands back, his hand to his mouth.

“I’m alright, Ryan,” says Jon. He looks at him anxiously and wipes a trickle of blood from his collarbone.

“Why would you want me to do that?” asks Ryan, scrambling back into his clothes. “Why would you want to remind either of us that I’m not even human?”

“Oh,” says Jon, “I didn’t want to make you feel like that was the most important thing, really I didn’t. I just-” Ryan opens the door. “I don’t see why it matters if I liked it,” Jon calls after him. “Nothing dreadful happened.”

Ryan nearly runs out of the house. He thinks he may be burning right through with shame. Everything is spoiled, and surely he will never find anyone else to do that with him. It is not that he thinks he couldn’t go back to Jon and start again, as far as Jon is concerned. But as far as he is concerned, he can’t. Ryan feels like Jon let him down, allowing him to betray himself like that. He has gone off him, which is inconvenient but unchangeable. If he associated his activities with Jon with ill-doing before, the feeling is increased tenfold now he knows more about himself. He is angry both with himself and Jon.

* *

At Ratfield, Ryan is greeted by a great thud as soon as he opens the door. Brendon, sprawled at the foot of the stairs, gets to his feet, patters back up the stairs and hands a silver tea tray to Patrick with a flourish. Patrick sits down on it and toboggans down the stairs. Ryan glares as the tray and Patrick shoot down the stairs and plough into his leg. Patrick looks up, while kindly removing himself from Ryan’s foot as requested, and his gaze stays where it is.

“Haven’t you got anything better to do than help the children make a racket and a nuisance of themselves?” Ryan asks Brendon.

“I’m not just helping, I am making a racket and a nuisance of myself likewise,” calls Brendon, hanging over the banisters.

Peter peers down through the banisters at Ryan. “You’ve got blood all over your mouth. Have you gone bad?”

Ryan darts aside to find his reflection in the hall mirror. He’s sure he wiped his mouth, but it is still heavily smeared with blood. He searches for his handkerchief but can’t find it. Patrick, looking dubious and keeping out of arm’s reach, hands him his.

“I don’t want it back,” he says when Ryan has spat into it.

“Has something happened?” asks Brendon, coming a little way down the stairs.

“No. I haven’t done anything bad, I promise,” Ryan says quietly. By that, of course, he means only that he hasn’t left a gutted corpse behind him.

“You’ve got a guilty face if you ask me,” Peter sings out.

“Where is Miss Ballato? Shouldn’t you be with her? Having lessons?”

“Lesson-time is over,” says Patrick. “If Nurse was here we’d have to be in the schoolroom with her, I suppose. I mean, Miss Ballato is in there actually, but there’s nothing to do in there. And Mr Way is in there, and they’re talking all the time. He was telling her about toads, he used to live in a pond.”

“Hmm,” says Ryan, going up the stairs, and about to edge past Brendon and Peter.

“Do you think you can get along without breaking a limb?” says Brendon. “I will see if I can break him.” He is looking at Ryan oddly, a slow smile starting across his face.

“I don’t think I want to know if he’s really killed someone,” says Peter.

“I will tell you if he hasn’t, and it will set your mind at rest. If he has, you’ll just have to remember what your uncle told you about sharpening stakes, and we’ll get him while he sleeps.”

“Threatening me is not amusing!” says Ryan, genuinely shocked.

“Why have you got blood all over your mouth? I don’t mean to persecute you on your table manners, but it’s not as if you were at table and it does seem a little odd,” says Brendon, steering Ryan into Brendon’s room.

“It’s nothing to do with you. I haven’t killed anyone.”

“Did someone let you bite them?”

Ryan says nothing.

“I don’t know why anyone might have thought it was wise to let you get a taste for human blood,” says Brendon, in an almost, but not quite mockingly censorious voice.

“I’m not some kind of vicious dog,” says Ryan.

“No, no. Oh, let’s drop the subject if you find it so troublesome. How are you getting on in general? I have seen so little of you.”

“I’m fine. It’s nice to have . . . a slightly broader horizon.”

“Some of us aren’t so lucky as to have our time accounted for. I have of course been terribly left to myself lately,” Brendon says, raising his eyebrows at Ryan accusingly.

“Have you,” says Ryan. He sits down on Brendon’s bed and feels overcome by weariness. He stares at his hands and wonders whether if he allows himself to wallow in self-pity he will react against it and feel alright again. He stops staring out of the window into the blue sky and stares at Brendon instead. How nice it would be to be someone else! How much better to be Brendon, who owns none of this mess, and is only here on a tourist trip from his wealthy life of leisure and peace. There is only Spencer he can really rely on, Ryan thinks, and it’s not as if either of them have bothered to stick together like usual in the last few weeks. Everyone else, Brendon, Mr Way, Jon, Miss Ballato, everyone who speaks to him, and, in their own way tries to make his life better, is so recent, and can leave his life just like that.

You’ll blow away like a leaf, Ryan thinks, looking at Brendon. He looks at Brendon more, not at him, more the shape of him. He thinks about how nice it would be to be in the space Brendon is taking up, and then he could blow away free instead of Brendon. Then he catches his eyes, awkwardly, on Brendon’s. Brendon raises his eyebrows at him, and neither of them look away.

“I would like to kiss you. May I?” Brendon asks.

Ryan stares at him even harder. What does he think he’s talking about, he thinks. Why is he saying that? Ryan is like that, Jon is like that, why does Brendon think he is like that? Brendon isn’t like that at all, he is a nice normal, wealthy young man. Or is it some kind of joke? He looks at Brendon, his head tilted back a little, dark eyes gazing steadily at Ryan. Something irrational makes him understand then - of course Brendon could manage to be a nice normal young man from a good family, and like that as well, and not seem uneasy in his position like Jon did. Because Brendon always seems comfortable. Ryan looks back fleetingly over the time he and Brendon have known each other. There is that feeling again, of surprised pleasure at having something inside himself matched in someone else, but this is Brendon, and there is surprised retrospect. There are things between them, aren’t there, things they pass back and forth? The way Ryan used to care so much what Brendon thought. But all that, between him and Brendon, can’t it be used like that real kind of attraction? The blood skitters in Ryan’s veins at the thought of Brendon being attracted to him.

He leans forward slowly, his head ostentatiously cocked in the kissing position. His lips are parted so Brendon can see his fangs. Brendon leans forward so that their mouths meet. Ryan points his tongue and pushes at the seam between Brendon’s lips. Brendon opens his mouth and meets Ryan’s tongue with his own. He puts his hands up round Ryan’s face and touches his tongue to the little sharp needle-points of his canines. Then he licks Ryan’s upper lip, tracing the cupid’s bow.

Ryan realises he is sitting back on his heels on the bed, not reacting. He gets up and strides out of the room.

Shortly afterwards the bell rings for dinner. Ryan feels most odd and can eat very little. He feels inebriated but not in the usual way. As if something he thought he wanted began to flow in his bloodstream as if it belonged there, before Ryan made the conscious decision to take it. He cannot get away from images of cake, treacle pudding and blancmange, symbols of immature, regretted indulgence. He thinks most of it is the ingestion of human blood, and his not being used to it, rather than any emotions he might be feeling.

He feels disorientated, disconnected, as if he is being taken away from himself. Ryan thinks it no wonder that William and Victoria are so bloody odd if human blood has such an effect. He feels as if he is tied to a kite that is rising higher and higher in the sky, dragging him with it. His feet pound on the ground, as he runs, both trying to keep his place and giving the wind momentum as it pulls at him.

As dinner ends, Ryan looks up and catches Brendon’s eye. Out of the corner of his eye, however, he sees Spencer leave the room, and thinking of solidity, something to hold on to, he hurries after him. He goes up to Spencer’s room with him.

“You alright?” Spencer asks. “You look a bit odd.”

“I’m alright, yes,” Ryan says. He thinks about telling Spencer about what happened, minus most of the context. He thinks Spencer would understand how terrible it was, but then, what is to be gained by disturbing Spencer? Perhaps he can get over it without giving Spencer responsibility for making things seem better, as he has done so often in the past.

Spencer says something about the picnic he and Greta apparently had today, and it suddenly occurs to Ryan that Spencer is not worrying himself overmuch about foisting himself and his vampiricism on a human. Perhaps, if he could just get his head round the idea of being involved with another man, he could be as serene about the matter. Ryan remembers that Brendon apparently knows something about being with other men.

When he leaves Spencer’s room, feeling somewhat cheered though he hasn’t unburdened himself, he walks into Brendon, who happens to be in the corridor.

Ryan stops and opens his mouth, but Brendon closes his fingers around his wrist and pulls him into his room. “I’m going to bugger you,” he says. It sounds so vulgar and attention-seeking, said like that. It reminds Ryan of all Brendon’s irritating behaviour, and he is surprised to feel a rush of fondness, remembering.

Brendon pushes Ryan so that he is sitting on the edge of the bed, Brendon running his fingers up and down his arm. Then Brendon launches himself at him so Ryan is lying underneath him on the bed. Ryan pushes Brendon up and off him a little so he can breathe, then meets Brendon’s mouth. So he is going to find out what it is like, after all. He pushes his hips up into Brendon’s, and Brendon starts undoing his shirt. Ryan does not help him but watches Brendon’s flushed, concentrating face. He waits for Brendon to seem at least a little frightened by what they are doing, but he sees only unhesitating enthusiasm. Despite the events of the day, this makes it hard for Ryan to take alarm himself. He raises himself up so the shirt can be discarded altogether, and Brendon puts his open mouth on Ryan’s nipple.

Ryan wants him to lick his other nipple, but Brendon sits up and looks around the
room for a moment. “I need to go and looks for something,” he says, and leaves Ryan lying alone on the bed. Brendon reappears not five minutes later, waving a jar. “Miss Ballato’s cold cream, I have no shame,” he announces.

“Is that so you can get-” begins Ryan.

“So I can get inside you,” says Brendon. “You understand it, don’t you?”

“I know what buggering is,” Ryan mutters. “Why can’t I do it to you?” he says.

“So I can show you!” says Brendon. “Wouldn’t you like me to show you?”

“I’ll see,” says Ryan, watching as Brendon takes his clothes off. Naked, he scrambles over to Ryan and kisses him, and undoes his trousers. Ryan follows Brendon’s gaze and looks at his cock, already wet at the tip. Brendon strokes it, smearing the moisture across the head. Ryan’s stomach swoops as Brendon leans down, and he sees another drop well up before Brendon licks it off. He doesn’t take much of Ryan’s cock in his mouth, just tongues at the slit while Ryan rocks his hips. When his mouth is not on him, Ryan struggles into a sitting position and reaches for Brendon’s cock. It’s hard and hot, and Ryan rubs across the head like Brendon did to him. Brendon holds Ryan’s hand around his cock and pushes it up and down before reaching for the jar of cream.

He scoops some out with one hand, and pushes Ryan down on the bed with his other. He kisses Ryan’s neck, licks his nipple again, and strokes the cream into the skin around his hole. Brendon reaches for the jar again, and strokes it into Ryan’s arsehole this time. Ryan tries to decide if he likes the feeling, and Brendon takes his cock in his mouth as he slides a finger into him. He reaches for more cream before he puts the second finger in, and the sheet is getting messy now. As Brendon stabs the two fingers in and out, sucking his cock again, Ryan decides he does like the feeling. Another finger, and Ryan is grasping Brendon’s wrist and the back of his neck.

“Shall I?” asks Brendon.

“Yes.”

Brendon covers his palm in cream and strokes his cock. He kneels between Ryan’s legs, pulls them a little further apart, then tugs a pillow out from under his head and pushes it underneath Ryan’s hips. Considering Ryan one last time before the great moment, he says, “Draw your knees up a little.”

Slowly, he pushes his cock into Ryan. It feels a little uncomfortable, but better when he’s all the way in and rests still for a moment. When he starts to move, resting his hands above Ryan’s shoulders, Ryan makes a breathy, rather embarrassing giggle. He puts a hand on Brendon’s back and pushes him down a little so his cock has more friction against Brendon’s stomach. He listens to his own wavering giggle and Brendon’s quick, gasping breaths, warm on his face, until the warm feeling in the pit of his stomach steadies, and all he concentrates on is the rhythm of their bodies as it builds. Then the feeling washes all over him suddenly and he comes with a little cry.

Brendon raises himself up higher and thrusts into Ryan a few times, fast and hard. Ryan watches his face as he comes, then collapses on top of him. After a moment he pulls out of Ryan and rolls over onto his back.

“That was nice,” he says. “And now we had better put our clothes back on,” he says after they have got their breath back. He produces a quite obviously dubious crumpled undershirt. Ryan mops himself up a bit with it anyway, before he feels fit to climb back into his clothes. He stands, awkwardly, while Brendon leisurely puts his clothes back on. His shirt half buttoned, he hooks his elbow round Ryan’s neck and draws him in for a kiss, a deep, messy one.

“Go and find a nice constructive way to spend your time,” says Brendon, and Ryan leaves. As for nice and constructive, he waits to see how he is going to feel about doing that, and about Brendon, and Jon. Most of all, he thinks about the nagging desire he already feels to do it again.

Part Four