(no subject)
Title: Glorious.
Pairing: Viggo/Orlando
My vo_xmas story for mesnica, whose prompt was who asked for I want a story set in renaissance Florence, at the time where they had a thriving gay community, complete with all male brothels and also cross-dressing gay prostitutes. I'd love some romance with the story, and smut of course. Kink if you want (like cross-dressing for example), but it's definitely not a must! I also have no preference as to what you turn Viggo and Orlando into. Painter, sculptor, nobleman, whore, or something else entirely, I don't mind either way. Also, I like my stories with a bit of everything; not only fluffy romance, not only angst, not only pure smut. Mix it up and I'll be happy :D
Summary: AU, Many of these "sodomitical" relationships were apparently tolerated and even encouraged by parents and relatives who saw that they could gain protection and political advancement from a son's well-placed lover. In addition, since older lovers customarily gave their partners gifts or money from time to time, families often welcomed the financial gain.
Another day came, bringing with it the warmth of an autumn afternoon and the unwelcome arrival of yet another faceless nobleman. Pomposity and expectation surrounded each successive suitor in a cloud so dense they all seemed to look the same.
Viggo certainly couldn’t tell them apart, but he never got close enough to look in too much detail. He kept to his gardens, away from the house with its comings and goings, keeping his beautiful topiary trimmed to perfection and pretending not to be waiting for his inevitable evening visitor.
True to form, as the sun began to set, the generic nobleman swept himself away in a flurry of excitement and self-satisfaction. And, true to form, Viggo had just enough time to dust the more obvious muck off himself, ruffle his hair into a strategically dishevelled-yet-appealing style, before the young master of the house strolled, true to form, casually into Viggo's beautifully-kept garden.
Orlando Bloom was an exquisite creature, and it was no wonder his gentlemen callers were so frequent and so well-to-do. His father had died when he was a boy, and he had lived with his sister and mother on their own for a short time before his mother re-married. His stepfather, Viggo's employer of some 20 years, was a well-off man, and one with a profound sense of lineage. So, while he was not cruel to Orlando, the boy had recently turned eighteen, and his stepfather had told him it was time to set out a place in the world. Orlando had been ready for this, knowing his stepfather well enough to expect he would need to find himself some useful purpose. He had not been adverse to the idea of working, finding some creative pursuit in sculpture or art or the like.
Orlando’s family had other ideas. He was to set himself up with a decent partner while he was young enough to do so. Women of wealth were rare and took courting, but the society of the time was such that a young, strong man of fair face could make a quite handsome fortune lying on his back.
Orlando found little comfort in that. But the men of their acquaintance had taken to it so very well. And, without openly mimicking the fashion of the time and wrapping him in clothes expressly made for women, his mother had shaped him into quite the boy-Venus. Subtle makeup, olive skin, his hair long and encouraged into its natural curls, he was a true renaissance beauty for the rich, stupid men to visit and ogle. He would sit through their posturing, looking demure and smiling coyly, playing with whatever diaphanous outfit his mother had chosen. He wore trousers so fussy they might as well have been skirts, or long tunic-like creations that barely covered his modesty.
He would smile and laugh appropriately, pose, playact, until the men took their leave in early evening, confident of their position and with every intention of making some sort of ‘bid’ for the boy.
And then, without fail, Orlando would take a turn in the garden, looking despondent and craving savoury attention.
And so he came, radiant as ever, strolling through the beautiful gardens in a tunic and hose. It was a man’s outfit, but there was something indescribably feminine about it. Perhaps it was the cut, rather low on the thigh. Or the unusually deep neckline. Or the fineness of his hose. Perhaps it was just the way the outfit hung off his lithe, eighteen-year-old body, as if a good tug would spell its immediate demise.
He was restrained, moving slowly enough so he didn’t look like he was overly eager, either running toward Viggo or away from the house. Just strolling, sauntering, stopping a foot away from where Viggo was leaning, as casually as he could, against a convenient tree. Orlando scuffed the ground with a shoeless foot and waited to be addressed.
“Another suitor,” Viggo suggested. Orlando nodded despondently. “And?”
Orlando made something of a shrugging motion.
“He left believing he stood a good chance of returning.”
Viggo shook his head, smiling sympathetically.
“Will you ever choose?”
“Yes,” Orlando replied. Viggo raised his eyebrows. The question was part of their habit; Orlando’s answer was invariably more oblique. He would speak of the potential arrival of a dashing misfit lover who would sweep him off his feet and make the whole thing worthwhile. It seemed that fantasy had run its course and now he merely sounded resigned.
“I will never find a truly welcome lover this way, no matter how many I refuse. My stepfather insists I choose, but he provides only examples of rich men with no substance. I crave something so much more… stimulating.”
“Indeed?” Viggo asked, cursing the crack in his voice. He adored the time he was allowed to spend with the young man, was proud that, since his arrival some three years previously, he had seen fit to grace Viggo with his idolisation and frequent company but, he had to admit, there was something terribly off-putting about having the young man so close. With each passing year, afternoons spent in his education became less about teaching him the fine art of turning soil and more about admiring the tension in his long thighs as he did so.
Again, this was possibly due to the exorbitantly tight hose. Viggo forced himself to pay attention and offer sympathy, to ignore Orlando’s careless use of interesting words.
“I shall have to accept one of them,” Orlando said wretchedly. “Decide who is the least repellent and give myself up before the decision is taken from me.”
Viggo pouted sympathetically, fighting the urge to throw Orlando over his shoulder and haul him to safety. Instead, he cleared his throat.
“What would you rather do?” he asked carefully. “Is there no other option open to you?”
“I have…” Orlando pondered, walking around his friend to lean against the tree at his side. “I have the most elaborate fantasy.” Viggo gulped a little. “I wish I could leave behind all this money and posturing and pointless flirtation and find a simpler life. I wish I could spend my days illustrating the wonders of the world and keeping house as I wait with eagerness and anticipation for my lover to return to me. Not, as I anticipate, disinterest or abject disgust.”
“This lover is not a nobleman,” Viggo said thoughtfully. “That much is obvious. So what kind of a man is he, that he is out and leaving you alone all day?”
“A man of labour,” Orlando said darkly, his voice low and carrying the weight of what sounded to Viggo like the distinct edge of arousal. “Someone who works with his hands.”
“ A farmer?” Viggo suggested.
“I shall miss this house,” Orlando answered obtusely. “And all that I must leave within it.” He turned to Viggo, who was looking expectant. “Perhaps a farmer,” he said. “Someone who makes the natural beauty of the world more plentiful.”
“As you do,” Viggo blurted out. He had once had the honour of perusing some of the young nobleman’s sketches. They were passionate, daring, beautiful and, much like the man himself, charmingly naïve.
Orlando smiled and shook his head.
“I merely try and do it justice,” he said by way of explanation. “Immortalise moments of it. I cannot improve upon what is already there.”
“Perhaps you do,” Viggo argued. “Just by being there.”
Orlando looked out over the garden thoughtfully.
“My lover,” he went on. “Spends his days making my little world beautiful. Then he comes home to me, and I do the same for him.”
Viggo licked his lips.
“But you don’t expect him to come to your door?” Viggo said.
“No,” Orlando confirmed. “I expect to have to pursue him. In this… fantasy of mine, that is half the challenge, half the excitement. From the first moment I saw him, some three years ago; bronzed, beautiful, shirtless, cutting away the dead flesh of a tree and sweating so… unashamedly, I have longed to tell him how I feel. Since that moment, every day I have gone to see him, talked to him, hoping that he would…”
Orlando tailed off and pushed himself away from the tree, not turning to Viggo but standing directly before him, a few feet away. He turned to half-look over his shoulder, showing Viggo a faintly nervous profile.
“I have resigned myself to my fate, I must leave this place, so I have nothing to lose by telling him this.”
“By telling him… what?”
“By telling him that since the age of fifteen, I have loved him with every part of me. And every day I have come down into his garden, my young body prepared, stretched and wet by my own hands, in the vain and desperate hope that he will pull me to him, throw me down and take me as roughly as he dares.”
Viggo stared at him; almost unable to process the suggestion that the young, stunning man had laid out before him. Orlando turned slowly to look at him, coy and more nervous than Viggo had ever seen him.
“I apologise if I have discomforted you,” he whispered, looking away almost immediately and making to leave.
Orlando made it a few inches before Viggo's hand darted out to grab him by the arm and pull him back, crushing the young, slender body against his own. One of Orlando’s arms swung up around Viggo's neck and pulled him into a deep kiss. Viggo groaned, opening his mouth and letting the warmth of Orlando fill him. Orlando was heat and passion, his desire holding Viggo in a vice-like grip. Viggo pulled himself away with great reluctance.
“I am fifteen years your senior,” Viggo growled. “I am your father’s employee. I am a rough, graceless man with next to no money and nothing to recommend myself to a young lover. Why would you place yourself in my hands?”
“Because I am desperate for you,” Orlando whimpered. “I think of you every day, I fill my nights with fantasies of being hidden away with you, kissed and touched by you… loved by you. Could you not love me?” he asked, aching for reassurance.
“I could love you, Orlando,” Viggo said earnestly. “I could love you with my whole heart, and I would willingly throw you down behind this very tree and take you just as you described…” he stopped to swallow hard again. “But I cannot offer you the life these men can afford! Your father wants you cared for…”
“I do not care!” Orlando protested, his voice cracking. “Oh, dear God, Viggo, if you do care for me, please do not send me into my future without ever having touched you. Do not make me sacrifice my innocence to a man for whom I feel nothing.”
“My beautiful Orlando,” Viggo said, kissing him lightly upon the lips. “I could not take such a thing…”
“I give it to you,” Orlando said. “If I must go on my way, let me go knowing how it feels to have you inside me.” His tone lowered seductively. “Did you think I was lying about being prepared?”
“Oh, by the love of all beauty, all goodness and restraint…” Viggo blathered. He turned Orlando and pinned him to the tree, cradling his back and his cheek and giving in to Orlando’s irresistible offer with a punishing, demanding kiss.
Orlando moaned wantonly, gripping the back of Viggo's head and arching up against him. They devoured each other in the moments after acceptance, three years of impossible, repressed attraction combusting in the acknowledgement of their true desires.
It was not difficult to feel the evidence of Orlando’s confession. Viggo's hands surrounded Orlando’s backside as if it were no larger or weightier than a peach and dug his fingers in, bringing the young man’s groin into sudden, exquisite contact with his own. Orlando groaned into Viggo's mouth, lifting a leg over Viggo's hip and pushing himself away from the tree in order to grind against him.
“Of all sins…” Viggo growled, tipping Orlando’s head back to cover his neck with hungry kisses. “I never imagined you would be so… you would have so much…” There was no adequate description for the delicious need with which Viggo was being assaulted. Orlando was grabbing at him, twisting his fingers into the fabric of Viggo's shirt and pulling, tugging with a light-minded lack of logic as he searched for contact with skin. Viggo backed up, tugging his own shirt up and off and throwing it to one side. Orlando grinned widely; his eyes half-closed in heavy arousal.
“There you are,” Orlando whispered, running his hands down Viggo's naked chest and licking his lips. “Just as I first saw you.” His hands travelled back up and came to rest on Viggo's shoulders, thumbs rubbing little circles across his collarbone.
Viggo's hands traced Orlando’s waist, settling above his navel to pull at his belt and untie the leather thongs that secured his tunic over his chest. Orlando hissed with pleasure as the gardener’s rough, dirty hands slid across his bared skin, as yet untouched by any other.
“You are so beautiful,” Viggo said, pulling their bodies together and kissing along Orlando’s jaw.
“Am I?” Orlando asked breathlessly, arching his hips against Viggo, all but humping him for the faint relief the stimulation brought.
“You are,” Viggo confirmed. “I have wanted you so, for so long…”
“You have?” Orlando asked, sliding his hands over Viggo's broad shoulders, his arms, whatever skin he could reach.
“So long,” Viggo reiterated. “As long as I have…” he kissed Orlando’s cheek, his nose, the corner of his mouth. “I love you,” he whispered. “More than I can stand. When you came here, I thought you merely a beautiful boy but so quickly you have grown into this exquisite, accomplished young man and do not ask me if I am sure. I am most certainly sure. I love you.”
Orlando didn’t ask. He held Viggo's face in his hands and brushed his lips gently over Viggo's.
“Take me,” he insisted.
Viggo shuddered, breathing shakily out into Orlando’s mouth. He licked his lips and tasted Orlando’s mouth before swallowing hard.
“Truly you are a virgin?” Viggo asked delicately.
“I am,” Orlando admitted, his cheeks flushing a beautiful pink. “But I am so very ready. I am prepared...”
“Goodness, shh,” Viggo said, resting a finger against Orlando’s lips. “I will take you. But not here, against this tree, where any may come upon us.”
“I will follow where you lead,” Orlando promised. Viggo kissed him again, slow and soft and wet, pushing his legs down so he could once more support his own weight, before taking him by the hand and leading him away from his unwelcome destiny. They rushed past the boundaries of Orlando’s family home and the copse that marked the wild land that nobody owned. They came to a halt in a clearing and Orlando laughed out loud, reaching out to watch the shards of light, shredded by the canopy, falling on his forearms.
Viggo was prepared to ask him one more time; to check that this was not some adolescent rebellion, that it was truly what he wanted, but he was hushed by the vision that turned to him. Orlando was anxious, certainly, but determined, letting his undone tunic slide down his arms and fall behind him, onto the soft grass. He followed it down, descending to his knees and extending an inviting hand toward Viggo. Viggo followed him without hesitation, kneeling with him and immediately easing him onto his back, lavishing him with countless kisses.
Viggo was far from a virgin, but he remembered well, and treated Orlando with all the care he had within him. His touches were deliberate and gentle, teasing and soothing then firm where they were needed. He stripped Orlando and allowed himself moments to marvel at the exquisite young beauty so divinely laid out for him, before surrounding Orlando’s cock with his hand. Orlando arched back against the ground, his own tunic a makeshift pillow against the twigs and bugs, and moaned. Viggo leaned down between his legs, pushing Orlando’s thighs apart with his free hand and stroking from his thigh, across his buttocks and to the crease between them. He gasped as he realised Orlando hadn’t been joking.
“You truly did come prepared,” he whispered as his fingers circled the entrance to Orlando’s body.
Orlando nodded, his face flushed and his breathing short.
“If you had only known how long I had dreamed…” he began, his breath hitching as the tip of Viggo's finger penetrated him.
Viggo was gallant, his fingers sliding into Orlando with patience and steady rhythm while his other hand stroked around Orlando’s still-moving legs. Orlando didn’t seem to know what to do with his long limbs and they shifted around Viggo, kicking at the ground, pressing into Viggo's upper arm, tightening around Viggo's back as the older man leaned over him and pressed them together. Viggo still had his trousers on, but he ground their groins against one another as he maintained a steady thrust with his fingers. Orlando thrashed, screwing himself down on Viggo's hand and up against the rough stimulation of his hose.
Viggo was determined and maintained his assault, watching with disbelief and adoration as Orlando came to pieces beneath him. He was young and excited and it wasn’t long before he was crying out praise to Viggo and all manner of spirits as he climaxed in a moment of delirious abandon.
Viggo knew he had never seen anything more beautiful.
If Viggo had been courteous in bringing Orlando to orgasm, he was positively reverential in making love to him. Orlando had, just as he had said, come slicked with oil, prepared to receive his lover. But Viggo was careful nonetheless, testing Orlando in every moment, touching him so softly and so sweetly that Orlando felt like his first climax never ended. When Viggo eventually pressed against him, desperate to enter, he was so ready it was as if his whole life had been building to that moment.
And it hurt. Dear God, it hurt, but Orlando was lost in the exquisite relief that his tears were as much an expression of pleasure as of pain. Viggo caressed him, stroking his thigh with one hand as he let the other move, soothing, wiping away Orlando’s tears.
Viggo leaned down; pressing his body against his lover’s so his thrusts were shallow and slow. He cradled Orlando’s head, whispering against his lips; love and encouragement, promises he was desperate to keep.
“Will you come off inside me?” Orlando pleaded, lifting his chin to look Viggo in the eye as he asked. Viggo shuddered, praising Orlando with yet more kisses as he held his thighs apart, unable to resist the urge to thrust a little faster, a little deeper, to be fully buried in Orlando’s perfect body.
“Am I hurting you?” Viggo whispered, “I can stop,” he probably lied.
“No,” Orlando said hurriedly. “Never stop. I am yours…”
And that was all Viggo needed to arch, release himself deep within his perfect Orlando, calling out and praising his name. Orlando cried out, the ache of feeling Viggo so much a part of him almost as blissful as his own divine climax some minutes before. Or as his second, a few short minutes later as Viggo carefully took Orlando into his mouth and offered him pleasure that made him forget the pain for the moment.
“We could start again,” Viggo suggested. Orlando stared at him incredulously, through a haze of rapture, as he came to grace the leaf litter beside Orlando.
“Now?” Orlando asked, looking a little anxious.
Viggo grinned widely at him.
“Not in that way,” he corrected. “I have a little more patience than that, my love.”
“Patience, perhaps, my beautiful Viggo. But, truly, we may never have another chance.”
Viggo straightened, stretched over Orlando, rough fingers stroking his cheek.
“We will start again,” Viggo promised. “We will go to the lakes, begin a new life. I can find work, land, I have a little money saved. We can…”
“I cannot run,” Orlando said. “And ruin your life, and hurt my parents, spite them and all they have done for me. I cannot run. I will go, but you will have my heart.”
Viggo shook his head.
“You cannot do this,” he said desperately.
“I am already promised!” Orlando blurted out. “And the gifts he has given my parents… it would be as bad as theft to leave them now!”
“No,” Viggo insisted. “You cannot show me what you are, let me admit how much I love you, how much I need you, and then take yourself away from me!”
Orlando wrestled himself free of Viggo's grip and pushed himself to his feet. He paused, facing away from Viggo as he wrapped his tunic tightly around himself.
“I am so sorry,” Orlando said. “I wanted so badly to feel you, just once. It never occurred to me that you might suffer. I am so sorry,” he repeated. He turned to look over his shoulder, to where Viggo was kneeling up, looking ready to lunge for him. “Forgive me,” Orlando whispered. “And try and forget what I’ve done to you.”
And with that he was running, too quick for Viggo, in his inconvenient nudity, to follow.
#
Orlando closed his eyes and rode the movement as he was rocked. There was nothing else to be done but allow the motion to take him.
A week had gone by and now he was in the possession of his future. Somehow he was sure he could still feel Viggo inside him, and he kept his eyes closed to pretend he always would. It didn’t hurt anymore. Not in his skin, at any rate.
He fought tears, as he had been doing for so long, and let his eyes open as he was addressed.
“I asked you if you were quite well,” the rich man before him requested. “You seem sad.” Orlando shook his head and looked out of the carriage window. “I will not keep you from your family,” the Lord promised. “You should not be sad to leave them. I am in their debt.”
Orlando closed his eyes again.
“I thank you,” he said civilly. “I appreciate your… concern.” Realising it was not this gentleman’s fault that his heart lay in tatters in the bottom of his ribcage, he decided to return his civility. “It is merely a big change for me,” he went on. “But I am… comfortable with my decision.” Orlando smiled. It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t his dream, he had regrets, but it wasn’t a lie.
He had never stolen anything deliberately, and his only sorrow was that he had stolen something from Viggo that he couldn’t give back. And he would never have the chance.
For a second, Orlando thought that his heart had stopped, before realising it was just their carriage. His companion made a noise of irritation and opened the door, leaning out to question the disturbance.
“I’m very sorry to have to do this,” came a familiar, if unexpected voice. “But you seem to have something that belongs to me.”
Orlando fought to keep the smile from his face as he considered his changing fate. He did not have it in him to be a thief, but he could see his way clear to be stolen away.
The End…
Pairing: Viggo/Orlando
My vo_xmas story for mesnica, whose prompt was who asked for I want a story set in renaissance Florence, at the time where they had a thriving gay community, complete with all male brothels and also cross-dressing gay prostitutes. I'd love some romance with the story, and smut of course. Kink if you want (like cross-dressing for example), but it's definitely not a must! I also have no preference as to what you turn Viggo and Orlando into. Painter, sculptor, nobleman, whore, or something else entirely, I don't mind either way. Also, I like my stories with a bit of everything; not only fluffy romance, not only angst, not only pure smut. Mix it up and I'll be happy :D
Summary: AU, Many of these "sodomitical" relationships were apparently tolerated and even encouraged by parents and relatives who saw that they could gain protection and political advancement from a son's well-placed lover. In addition, since older lovers customarily gave their partners gifts or money from time to time, families often welcomed the financial gain.
Another day came, bringing with it the warmth of an autumn afternoon and the unwelcome arrival of yet another faceless nobleman. Pomposity and expectation surrounded each successive suitor in a cloud so dense they all seemed to look the same.
Viggo certainly couldn’t tell them apart, but he never got close enough to look in too much detail. He kept to his gardens, away from the house with its comings and goings, keeping his beautiful topiary trimmed to perfection and pretending not to be waiting for his inevitable evening visitor.
True to form, as the sun began to set, the generic nobleman swept himself away in a flurry of excitement and self-satisfaction. And, true to form, Viggo had just enough time to dust the more obvious muck off himself, ruffle his hair into a strategically dishevelled-yet-appealing style, before the young master of the house strolled, true to form, casually into Viggo's beautifully-kept garden.
Orlando Bloom was an exquisite creature, and it was no wonder his gentlemen callers were so frequent and so well-to-do. His father had died when he was a boy, and he had lived with his sister and mother on their own for a short time before his mother re-married. His stepfather, Viggo's employer of some 20 years, was a well-off man, and one with a profound sense of lineage. So, while he was not cruel to Orlando, the boy had recently turned eighteen, and his stepfather had told him it was time to set out a place in the world. Orlando had been ready for this, knowing his stepfather well enough to expect he would need to find himself some useful purpose. He had not been adverse to the idea of working, finding some creative pursuit in sculpture or art or the like.
Orlando’s family had other ideas. He was to set himself up with a decent partner while he was young enough to do so. Women of wealth were rare and took courting, but the society of the time was such that a young, strong man of fair face could make a quite handsome fortune lying on his back.
Orlando found little comfort in that. But the men of their acquaintance had taken to it so very well. And, without openly mimicking the fashion of the time and wrapping him in clothes expressly made for women, his mother had shaped him into quite the boy-Venus. Subtle makeup, olive skin, his hair long and encouraged into its natural curls, he was a true renaissance beauty for the rich, stupid men to visit and ogle. He would sit through their posturing, looking demure and smiling coyly, playing with whatever diaphanous outfit his mother had chosen. He wore trousers so fussy they might as well have been skirts, or long tunic-like creations that barely covered his modesty.
He would smile and laugh appropriately, pose, playact, until the men took their leave in early evening, confident of their position and with every intention of making some sort of ‘bid’ for the boy.
And then, without fail, Orlando would take a turn in the garden, looking despondent and craving savoury attention.
And so he came, radiant as ever, strolling through the beautiful gardens in a tunic and hose. It was a man’s outfit, but there was something indescribably feminine about it. Perhaps it was the cut, rather low on the thigh. Or the unusually deep neckline. Or the fineness of his hose. Perhaps it was just the way the outfit hung off his lithe, eighteen-year-old body, as if a good tug would spell its immediate demise.
He was restrained, moving slowly enough so he didn’t look like he was overly eager, either running toward Viggo or away from the house. Just strolling, sauntering, stopping a foot away from where Viggo was leaning, as casually as he could, against a convenient tree. Orlando scuffed the ground with a shoeless foot and waited to be addressed.
“Another suitor,” Viggo suggested. Orlando nodded despondently. “And?”
Orlando made something of a shrugging motion.
“He left believing he stood a good chance of returning.”
Viggo shook his head, smiling sympathetically.
“Will you ever choose?”
“Yes,” Orlando replied. Viggo raised his eyebrows. The question was part of their habit; Orlando’s answer was invariably more oblique. He would speak of the potential arrival of a dashing misfit lover who would sweep him off his feet and make the whole thing worthwhile. It seemed that fantasy had run its course and now he merely sounded resigned.
“I will never find a truly welcome lover this way, no matter how many I refuse. My stepfather insists I choose, but he provides only examples of rich men with no substance. I crave something so much more… stimulating.”
“Indeed?” Viggo asked, cursing the crack in his voice. He adored the time he was allowed to spend with the young man, was proud that, since his arrival some three years previously, he had seen fit to grace Viggo with his idolisation and frequent company but, he had to admit, there was something terribly off-putting about having the young man so close. With each passing year, afternoons spent in his education became less about teaching him the fine art of turning soil and more about admiring the tension in his long thighs as he did so.
Again, this was possibly due to the exorbitantly tight hose. Viggo forced himself to pay attention and offer sympathy, to ignore Orlando’s careless use of interesting words.
“I shall have to accept one of them,” Orlando said wretchedly. “Decide who is the least repellent and give myself up before the decision is taken from me.”
Viggo pouted sympathetically, fighting the urge to throw Orlando over his shoulder and haul him to safety. Instead, he cleared his throat.
“What would you rather do?” he asked carefully. “Is there no other option open to you?”
“I have…” Orlando pondered, walking around his friend to lean against the tree at his side. “I have the most elaborate fantasy.” Viggo gulped a little. “I wish I could leave behind all this money and posturing and pointless flirtation and find a simpler life. I wish I could spend my days illustrating the wonders of the world and keeping house as I wait with eagerness and anticipation for my lover to return to me. Not, as I anticipate, disinterest or abject disgust.”
“This lover is not a nobleman,” Viggo said thoughtfully. “That much is obvious. So what kind of a man is he, that he is out and leaving you alone all day?”
“A man of labour,” Orlando said darkly, his voice low and carrying the weight of what sounded to Viggo like the distinct edge of arousal. “Someone who works with his hands.”
“ A farmer?” Viggo suggested.
“I shall miss this house,” Orlando answered obtusely. “And all that I must leave within it.” He turned to Viggo, who was looking expectant. “Perhaps a farmer,” he said. “Someone who makes the natural beauty of the world more plentiful.”
“As you do,” Viggo blurted out. He had once had the honour of perusing some of the young nobleman’s sketches. They were passionate, daring, beautiful and, much like the man himself, charmingly naïve.
Orlando smiled and shook his head.
“I merely try and do it justice,” he said by way of explanation. “Immortalise moments of it. I cannot improve upon what is already there.”
“Perhaps you do,” Viggo argued. “Just by being there.”
Orlando looked out over the garden thoughtfully.
“My lover,” he went on. “Spends his days making my little world beautiful. Then he comes home to me, and I do the same for him.”
Viggo licked his lips.
“But you don’t expect him to come to your door?” Viggo said.
“No,” Orlando confirmed. “I expect to have to pursue him. In this… fantasy of mine, that is half the challenge, half the excitement. From the first moment I saw him, some three years ago; bronzed, beautiful, shirtless, cutting away the dead flesh of a tree and sweating so… unashamedly, I have longed to tell him how I feel. Since that moment, every day I have gone to see him, talked to him, hoping that he would…”
Orlando tailed off and pushed himself away from the tree, not turning to Viggo but standing directly before him, a few feet away. He turned to half-look over his shoulder, showing Viggo a faintly nervous profile.
“I have resigned myself to my fate, I must leave this place, so I have nothing to lose by telling him this.”
“By telling him… what?”
“By telling him that since the age of fifteen, I have loved him with every part of me. And every day I have come down into his garden, my young body prepared, stretched and wet by my own hands, in the vain and desperate hope that he will pull me to him, throw me down and take me as roughly as he dares.”
Viggo stared at him; almost unable to process the suggestion that the young, stunning man had laid out before him. Orlando turned slowly to look at him, coy and more nervous than Viggo had ever seen him.
“I apologise if I have discomforted you,” he whispered, looking away almost immediately and making to leave.
Orlando made it a few inches before Viggo's hand darted out to grab him by the arm and pull him back, crushing the young, slender body against his own. One of Orlando’s arms swung up around Viggo's neck and pulled him into a deep kiss. Viggo groaned, opening his mouth and letting the warmth of Orlando fill him. Orlando was heat and passion, his desire holding Viggo in a vice-like grip. Viggo pulled himself away with great reluctance.
“I am fifteen years your senior,” Viggo growled. “I am your father’s employee. I am a rough, graceless man with next to no money and nothing to recommend myself to a young lover. Why would you place yourself in my hands?”
“Because I am desperate for you,” Orlando whimpered. “I think of you every day, I fill my nights with fantasies of being hidden away with you, kissed and touched by you… loved by you. Could you not love me?” he asked, aching for reassurance.
“I could love you, Orlando,” Viggo said earnestly. “I could love you with my whole heart, and I would willingly throw you down behind this very tree and take you just as you described…” he stopped to swallow hard again. “But I cannot offer you the life these men can afford! Your father wants you cared for…”
“I do not care!” Orlando protested, his voice cracking. “Oh, dear God, Viggo, if you do care for me, please do not send me into my future without ever having touched you. Do not make me sacrifice my innocence to a man for whom I feel nothing.”
“My beautiful Orlando,” Viggo said, kissing him lightly upon the lips. “I could not take such a thing…”
“I give it to you,” Orlando said. “If I must go on my way, let me go knowing how it feels to have you inside me.” His tone lowered seductively. “Did you think I was lying about being prepared?”
“Oh, by the love of all beauty, all goodness and restraint…” Viggo blathered. He turned Orlando and pinned him to the tree, cradling his back and his cheek and giving in to Orlando’s irresistible offer with a punishing, demanding kiss.
Orlando moaned wantonly, gripping the back of Viggo's head and arching up against him. They devoured each other in the moments after acceptance, three years of impossible, repressed attraction combusting in the acknowledgement of their true desires.
It was not difficult to feel the evidence of Orlando’s confession. Viggo's hands surrounded Orlando’s backside as if it were no larger or weightier than a peach and dug his fingers in, bringing the young man’s groin into sudden, exquisite contact with his own. Orlando groaned into Viggo's mouth, lifting a leg over Viggo's hip and pushing himself away from the tree in order to grind against him.
“Of all sins…” Viggo growled, tipping Orlando’s head back to cover his neck with hungry kisses. “I never imagined you would be so… you would have so much…” There was no adequate description for the delicious need with which Viggo was being assaulted. Orlando was grabbing at him, twisting his fingers into the fabric of Viggo's shirt and pulling, tugging with a light-minded lack of logic as he searched for contact with skin. Viggo backed up, tugging his own shirt up and off and throwing it to one side. Orlando grinned widely; his eyes half-closed in heavy arousal.
“There you are,” Orlando whispered, running his hands down Viggo's naked chest and licking his lips. “Just as I first saw you.” His hands travelled back up and came to rest on Viggo's shoulders, thumbs rubbing little circles across his collarbone.
Viggo's hands traced Orlando’s waist, settling above his navel to pull at his belt and untie the leather thongs that secured his tunic over his chest. Orlando hissed with pleasure as the gardener’s rough, dirty hands slid across his bared skin, as yet untouched by any other.
“You are so beautiful,” Viggo said, pulling their bodies together and kissing along Orlando’s jaw.
“Am I?” Orlando asked breathlessly, arching his hips against Viggo, all but humping him for the faint relief the stimulation brought.
“You are,” Viggo confirmed. “I have wanted you so, for so long…”
“You have?” Orlando asked, sliding his hands over Viggo's broad shoulders, his arms, whatever skin he could reach.
“So long,” Viggo reiterated. “As long as I have…” he kissed Orlando’s cheek, his nose, the corner of his mouth. “I love you,” he whispered. “More than I can stand. When you came here, I thought you merely a beautiful boy but so quickly you have grown into this exquisite, accomplished young man and do not ask me if I am sure. I am most certainly sure. I love you.”
Orlando didn’t ask. He held Viggo's face in his hands and brushed his lips gently over Viggo's.
“Take me,” he insisted.
Viggo shuddered, breathing shakily out into Orlando’s mouth. He licked his lips and tasted Orlando’s mouth before swallowing hard.
“Truly you are a virgin?” Viggo asked delicately.
“I am,” Orlando admitted, his cheeks flushing a beautiful pink. “But I am so very ready. I am prepared...”
“Goodness, shh,” Viggo said, resting a finger against Orlando’s lips. “I will take you. But not here, against this tree, where any may come upon us.”
“I will follow where you lead,” Orlando promised. Viggo kissed him again, slow and soft and wet, pushing his legs down so he could once more support his own weight, before taking him by the hand and leading him away from his unwelcome destiny. They rushed past the boundaries of Orlando’s family home and the copse that marked the wild land that nobody owned. They came to a halt in a clearing and Orlando laughed out loud, reaching out to watch the shards of light, shredded by the canopy, falling on his forearms.
Viggo was prepared to ask him one more time; to check that this was not some adolescent rebellion, that it was truly what he wanted, but he was hushed by the vision that turned to him. Orlando was anxious, certainly, but determined, letting his undone tunic slide down his arms and fall behind him, onto the soft grass. He followed it down, descending to his knees and extending an inviting hand toward Viggo. Viggo followed him without hesitation, kneeling with him and immediately easing him onto his back, lavishing him with countless kisses.
Viggo was far from a virgin, but he remembered well, and treated Orlando with all the care he had within him. His touches were deliberate and gentle, teasing and soothing then firm where they were needed. He stripped Orlando and allowed himself moments to marvel at the exquisite young beauty so divinely laid out for him, before surrounding Orlando’s cock with his hand. Orlando arched back against the ground, his own tunic a makeshift pillow against the twigs and bugs, and moaned. Viggo leaned down between his legs, pushing Orlando’s thighs apart with his free hand and stroking from his thigh, across his buttocks and to the crease between them. He gasped as he realised Orlando hadn’t been joking.
“You truly did come prepared,” he whispered as his fingers circled the entrance to Orlando’s body.
Orlando nodded, his face flushed and his breathing short.
“If you had only known how long I had dreamed…” he began, his breath hitching as the tip of Viggo's finger penetrated him.
Viggo was gallant, his fingers sliding into Orlando with patience and steady rhythm while his other hand stroked around Orlando’s still-moving legs. Orlando didn’t seem to know what to do with his long limbs and they shifted around Viggo, kicking at the ground, pressing into Viggo's upper arm, tightening around Viggo's back as the older man leaned over him and pressed them together. Viggo still had his trousers on, but he ground their groins against one another as he maintained a steady thrust with his fingers. Orlando thrashed, screwing himself down on Viggo's hand and up against the rough stimulation of his hose.
Viggo was determined and maintained his assault, watching with disbelief and adoration as Orlando came to pieces beneath him. He was young and excited and it wasn’t long before he was crying out praise to Viggo and all manner of spirits as he climaxed in a moment of delirious abandon.
Viggo knew he had never seen anything more beautiful.
If Viggo had been courteous in bringing Orlando to orgasm, he was positively reverential in making love to him. Orlando had, just as he had said, come slicked with oil, prepared to receive his lover. But Viggo was careful nonetheless, testing Orlando in every moment, touching him so softly and so sweetly that Orlando felt like his first climax never ended. When Viggo eventually pressed against him, desperate to enter, he was so ready it was as if his whole life had been building to that moment.
And it hurt. Dear God, it hurt, but Orlando was lost in the exquisite relief that his tears were as much an expression of pleasure as of pain. Viggo caressed him, stroking his thigh with one hand as he let the other move, soothing, wiping away Orlando’s tears.
Viggo leaned down; pressing his body against his lover’s so his thrusts were shallow and slow. He cradled Orlando’s head, whispering against his lips; love and encouragement, promises he was desperate to keep.
“Will you come off inside me?” Orlando pleaded, lifting his chin to look Viggo in the eye as he asked. Viggo shuddered, praising Orlando with yet more kisses as he held his thighs apart, unable to resist the urge to thrust a little faster, a little deeper, to be fully buried in Orlando’s perfect body.
“Am I hurting you?” Viggo whispered, “I can stop,” he probably lied.
“No,” Orlando said hurriedly. “Never stop. I am yours…”
And that was all Viggo needed to arch, release himself deep within his perfect Orlando, calling out and praising his name. Orlando cried out, the ache of feeling Viggo so much a part of him almost as blissful as his own divine climax some minutes before. Or as his second, a few short minutes later as Viggo carefully took Orlando into his mouth and offered him pleasure that made him forget the pain for the moment.
“We could start again,” Viggo suggested. Orlando stared at him incredulously, through a haze of rapture, as he came to grace the leaf litter beside Orlando.
“Now?” Orlando asked, looking a little anxious.
Viggo grinned widely at him.
“Not in that way,” he corrected. “I have a little more patience than that, my love.”
“Patience, perhaps, my beautiful Viggo. But, truly, we may never have another chance.”
Viggo straightened, stretched over Orlando, rough fingers stroking his cheek.
“We will start again,” Viggo promised. “We will go to the lakes, begin a new life. I can find work, land, I have a little money saved. We can…”
“I cannot run,” Orlando said. “And ruin your life, and hurt my parents, spite them and all they have done for me. I cannot run. I will go, but you will have my heart.”
Viggo shook his head.
“You cannot do this,” he said desperately.
“I am already promised!” Orlando blurted out. “And the gifts he has given my parents… it would be as bad as theft to leave them now!”
“No,” Viggo insisted. “You cannot show me what you are, let me admit how much I love you, how much I need you, and then take yourself away from me!”
Orlando wrestled himself free of Viggo's grip and pushed himself to his feet. He paused, facing away from Viggo as he wrapped his tunic tightly around himself.
“I am so sorry,” Orlando said. “I wanted so badly to feel you, just once. It never occurred to me that you might suffer. I am so sorry,” he repeated. He turned to look over his shoulder, to where Viggo was kneeling up, looking ready to lunge for him. “Forgive me,” Orlando whispered. “And try and forget what I’ve done to you.”
And with that he was running, too quick for Viggo, in his inconvenient nudity, to follow.
#
Orlando closed his eyes and rode the movement as he was rocked. There was nothing else to be done but allow the motion to take him.
A week had gone by and now he was in the possession of his future. Somehow he was sure he could still feel Viggo inside him, and he kept his eyes closed to pretend he always would. It didn’t hurt anymore. Not in his skin, at any rate.
He fought tears, as he had been doing for so long, and let his eyes open as he was addressed.
“I asked you if you were quite well,” the rich man before him requested. “You seem sad.” Orlando shook his head and looked out of the carriage window. “I will not keep you from your family,” the Lord promised. “You should not be sad to leave them. I am in their debt.”
Orlando closed his eyes again.
“I thank you,” he said civilly. “I appreciate your… concern.” Realising it was not this gentleman’s fault that his heart lay in tatters in the bottom of his ribcage, he decided to return his civility. “It is merely a big change for me,” he went on. “But I am… comfortable with my decision.” Orlando smiled. It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t his dream, he had regrets, but it wasn’t a lie.
He had never stolen anything deliberately, and his only sorrow was that he had stolen something from Viggo that he couldn’t give back. And he would never have the chance.
For a second, Orlando thought that his heart had stopped, before realising it was just their carriage. His companion made a noise of irritation and opened the door, leaning out to question the disturbance.
“I’m very sorry to have to do this,” came a familiar, if unexpected voice. “But you seem to have something that belongs to me.”
Orlando fought to keep the smile from his face as he considered his changing fate. He did not have it in him to be a thief, but he could see his way clear to be stolen away.
The End…