Blue-Eyed Stranger, page 9
He was at first all elbows and knees, bony and cold, but when Martin smoothed the palm of his hand down Billy’s back, across his shoulders, he gradually unfolded, his arm going around Martin’s rib cage, his legs easing down until Martin could press their hips together and feel the welcome scald of an erect prick against his lap.
“Morning, springbok.” He smiled and cupped his hands around Billy’s arse, pulling him closer. They rubbed together in lazy contented warmth.
“Springbok?” Billy opened one eye, no longer quite so shocking a blue against his natural pallor, but still a startling brilliance. Sleep had restored his cocky smile, although Martin could now see the effort in it.
“You have to have a nickname, those are the rules.”
“I suppose it’s better than Prancer.” Billy uncurled all the way, stretching up until he could mouth at Martin’s neck, interspersing licks and gentle bites along the muscle and up the hinge of his jaw. He sucked Martin’s earlobe into his mouth and pushed into him harder as Martin realized that he’d made the decision to stay without even being aware of it.
“You noticed that?” Still there was something delightfully languid about this early-morning lovemaking. Martin shifted to press more of his weight onto Billy, to feel the other man yield beneath it, Billy’s legs opening so that he could lie between them. “You were a bit out of it last night, I thought. How’re you feeling this morning?”
Billy screwed his eyes shut and arched up under him, effectively distracting him from the topic. “Don’t ask. I don’t want to get started thinking about it.”
Martin could obey that instruction easily enough. He tangled his fingers in Billy’s coffee-coloured curls and took possession of the other man’s mouth in an exploratory kiss, opening him up. Billy responded gradually, his tongue tentatively stroking against Martin’s, his lips softening, opening wider. Billy’s hands tightened where they rested on Martin’s hips, making him gasp for breath and ratcheting up the urgency with which they were both now moving together.
Martin slid his hands down the long elegant slope of Billy’s flanks, rubbing warm circles into the slim muscles, brushing fingertips over the V of muscles at his hips, moved by the perfection of that little dint in the skin. He wormed his hands between Billy and the bed, took an arse cheek in either hand and squeezed.
Billy groaned, long and deep, his thrusts turning from languid to wanton. He shifted his weight, spoiling the rhythm. Martin was about to protest, until he opened his eyes to find Billy was wriggling out of his boxers. Martin sat up to help, and by the time he had tossed them into the distant washing basket, Billy had stretched out to reach the drawer of his bedside table and returned, his hand now dripping with lube.
A moment of intense shivery cold as Billy reached between them and slid his slick fingers up Martin’s cock. “Ah!” Martin tipped his head back as cold melted into delicious warmth and suddenly everything was hot and tight and wet.
Then for a long while it was just lust and the pulse of friction against Billy’s soft skin and his hard cock—long and slim like the rest of him, touchingly elegant in Martin’s big fist when he reached down and squeezed them more firmly together.
Billy turned his face away when he came, and it made something in Martin’s chest hurt. The guy was too beautiful to be this sad. “Hey,” he said, as he wiped them both down with Billy’s T-shirt and drew him once more snug against him. “Shh. You’re all right. I understand. We’re not going to think about feelings this morning. I’m just going to tell you you’re fantastic and move on. D’you want some coffee? I’m sure I can figure out your kitchen and bring you some, if you want to lie here and snooze for a while.”
Billy looked up, charmingly rumpled and concerned. “You’ve got to go back.”
“Yes. I really ought to be back in the field before nine, so I can be in kit and going over the campsite to make sure everyone’s hidden everything inauthentic away before we allow members of the public on site at ten. You know, I don’t mind stuffing everyone’s camping chairs out of sight in my tent, but I’ll be damned if I have to clear up the beer cans all by myself.”
“You do all this for fun?”
Martin had to laugh because was it really that obvious? “Well . . .” He rubbed at the roots of his braids where they pulled tight against his scalp. “I love the clothes, the fighting, the crafts, the sense of connecting people with their history. That’s a passion of mine—I’m sure you know how it is.”
He leaned down to disengage his discarded heap of clothes from Billy’s. “But the group leadership? All the man management and administration, and worrying about finance and viability, and the endlessly telling people what to do and somehow having to make them actually do it? That’s the part I could do without.”
Dropping a kiss on the tip of Billy’s nose, he slid out of bed. “Can I catch a quick shower?”
“Of course.”
After the shower, he dressed. He didn’t bother shaving—would have grown a beard in order to be more authentic if the Head hadn’t made it quite clear that kind of look was not going to fly in her establishment. He staggered out into the kitchen to boil the kettle, and made two mugs of coffee. He’d hoped to be able to put one down on the bedside table for Billy, leave him tucked up and sleepy with a smile on his face and a final kiss, but Billy had thrown on jeans and a T-shirt and followed him, looking uncertain.
Here was another chance to leave and not come back, rule a line under this as a one-night stand, and save himself from a potential lifetime of angst. Billy handed Martin a bowl of cereal, turned away to find milk, his face still averted, not saying anything. And Martin had just about had it with being careful and responsible. So this hadn’t turned out quite how he’d expected; it had still been good.
He didn’t want to be sensible and say good-bye, damn it. It wasn’t like he was afraid of a little hard work, and if Billy was complicated, then he also seemed worth it.
“Look.” Martin took the tiny Biro out of his Swiss army knife and wrote his number and email address on top of yesterday’s paper. “Will you call me tomorrow? Maybe we could meet up again during the week? As normal people, you know? Do something real-life together?”
Billy’s small smile looked dazed. He untied the tablet-weave bracelet from around Martin’s wrist and used it to tie back his hair. It left him with both arms around Martin’s neck, and so they had to spend his remaining ten minutes just kissing, while the cereal turned to mush in its bowl.
“Yeah,” said Billy at last. He opened the door for Martin and padded with him down the stairs to the hall. “That sounds nice. I’ll—”
A thunderous knocking made the front door tremble on its hinges. Martin caught Billy’s arm as he jumped and overbalanced on the stairs, righting him. It was 6:45 on a Sunday morning. “What the . . .?”
Whoever it was out there found the doorbell. They buzzed and buzzed until a cacophony of dogs started yammering overhead, and the door opposite Martin in the downstairs hall began rattling with the sound of opening bolts.
Billy raked his fingers through his flattened bedhair and opened the front door. Two policemen shoved their way inside, dark uniforms topped by reflective jackets, one of them holding out a permit or a badge or something he didn’t have time enough to really see. “Mr. Kaminski?”
The bolted door swung open, and a blond pit bull of a man leaned his naked shoulders on the jamb. “You want what?”
“To come in, sir.”
Billy licked his lips and gave Martin an unsettled, apologetic look, but he directed his words to the blond thug. “Are you all right, Mr. Kaminski?”
The first policeman had already squeezed past Kaminski and gone inside the downstairs flat. The second took a long look at Billy and Martin and drew his own conclusions. Martin judiciously kept his mouth shut.
“Who are you, please?” the second policeman asked Billy.
“Is my landlord.”
“I live in the flat upstairs.” Billy waved a hand at his landing and the bike leaning against the wall there.
“And you, sir?” Martin had to hand it to the police, they did menace and disdain very politely. Maybe without even trying.
“I’m just visiting. In fact I was going, right now, if that’s okay?”
“Of course.” The policeman gave him a little smile as if to say, “I see that guilty conscience of yours; you’re just lucky I don’t have time to investigate it.” Or maybe that was Martin’s paranoia. He grabbed Billy just as the second policeman went into Kaminski’s flat and shut the door.
“What’s that all about?”
“I don’t know.” Billy looked as unsettled as Martin felt, following him out of the door into a wash of dilute early-morning sunshine. Mist made the air almost visible, milky and luminous in the fresh cool. “Kaminski is a good tenant. I mean he’s quiet and he pays the rent on time. He brings in the milk if it’s out. But you’ve seen what he looks like. And yesterday I swear I saw him bringing in a gun. So I don’t know.”
“Shit!” Martin’s thoughts leapt immediately to Gerard Butler movies, Eastern underworld drug bosses, and the Polish immigrants who had arrived seeking a better world only to find no jobs and no pot of gold at the end of the relocation rainbow. “Are you going to be all right?”
Billy laughed. “I’ll be fine. If the police hassle me about him, I’ll just ask him to leave. It’s not like he’s running some kind of bomb factory in my basement.”
“I guess,” Martin agreed, though he couldn’t think of a nonsinister reason for the police to come barging in the door at this time in the morning. “Why don’t you come back to the show with me? We’ve got spare kit; we can always use another Viking.”
Billy ducked his head to hide his smile. It was a good face, now Martin could see it, with a strong nose and a pointed chin and cheekbones that seemed to combine hardness with elegance. But Billy spent half his time trying to conceal it, turning away, looking down. The face paint had drawn a confidence out of him he couldn’t seem to muster without it. “My neighbour upstairs can’t get around much. I can’t leave her to handle this.”
“Then d’you want me to stay?”
Bad idea. God, that would be a terrible idea, for the leader of a nascent society to abandon them on their very first show. Rolf would carry on without him, but he’d rightly be treated like a piece of scum if he ever turned up again.
The thought must have shown in his face because Billy shook his head and shoved him in the centre of the chest, edging him down the stone steps at the entrance of the house and out onto the pavement. A milk float was rattling past, and from the village church came the shattering sound of the bells striking seven o’clock.
Martin looked around. The haze was already beginning to lift, but the streets were still empty. No one was watching, no one to disapprove or see. So he reached up to slide his fingers into the hair at the back of Billy’s neck and pull him down into a kiss. “You will call me, yeah?”
“I will.”
When he let Billy go, the man’s head remained bent, his gaze fixed on the ground, too downcast for Martin’s liking. So he hooked a hand around Billy’s chin, pushed his face back up, and got one fleeting glance from periwinkle-blue eyes for his trouble. They looked worried but amused. Billy’s smile was obviously at least half-genuine.
“Good. Good, then.” Again, Martin found himself wishing he’d not taken on this leadership role in Bretwalda. When he’d started reenacting, he could turn up in kit when he liked, laze about the civilian exhibit, do some whittling, fight in the daily battle, eat when he liked, go home when he liked, with nothing more worrying to transport than a shield and a spear.
How had he ever got to the stage where if he wasn’t there the entire thing would fall apart? He’d picked up responsibility not because he wanted it, but just because other people had left it lying around. Now he didn’t know how to put it back down. “I wish I could stay.”
The awkwardness seemed to strike them both at the same time. They laughed, and with one final kiss Martin turned and strode off to his car. He saw Billy wait a long time on the front doorstep, watching as he drove away. One final wave as he turned the corner, and then he was back on the road, wishing for the first time ever that he could have more real life instead of more of the fake.
“Mr. Deng? Could I have a word?” The Head caught Martin as he unwisely left the staff room to visit the toilets. Monday morning had come with its usual culture shock, moving him out of the simple vivid world of the resurrected ninth century and into grey corridors and the smell of school lunches. There had been no email and no phone call from Billy, and Martin already had the feeling the week was going to be shit.
He followed the Head into her office with something of the trepidation the children must feel when they were summoned to account for themselves. At least he didn’t have to stand in front of the Ikea desk, but was allowed to lower himself gently to the creaking, arthritic chair. The Head flipped open a green cardboard file.
God, this was serious then, if it was generating paperwork.
“Mr. Deng. Under normal circumstances the hobbies of a member of staff would be no concern of mine.”
“Mm-hmm.”
The Head took a handkerchief from her top pocket and wiped her hands on it. Then she drew open her desk drawer and brought out a bottle of perfume, which she sprayed on the linen. Raising it to her nose, she sniffed. “Are you aware that you stink?”
Martin stiffened on the fragile chair as his heart seemed to miss a beat. She couldn’t say something like that, could she?
“The smoke, I mean.” A hand gesture as if fanning the miasma away. “You smell of smoke.”
“Yes. I’m sorry about that. It gets in the braids. It’ll fade in a day or two.”
“And you can’t . . . wash them, or shave them off, or something?”
That was almost equally unbelievable. “I could shave all my hair off, yes. Have you considered asking Miss Timeon to do the same?”
The Head pulled her shoulders up as if bracing for a fight. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Her extensions always smell like burnt plastic, which is a much worse smell than smoke. If she agrees to shave hers off, I’ll do mine.”
“Miss Timeon is a young lady. I would not dream of asking her. The cases are not the same.” The Head twitched and shifted on her seat as though it were biting her, and Martin rather hoped that it was.
“Yeah, well, as far as I know, you can’t tell me what to do with my hair either. Is that all?”
Under her polished silver hair, the Head had a droopy face, bags under her eyes, jowls to her collar, and a slack mouth that in a vanished youth might once have been sensuous. This closed and thinned on a flash of temper as she went rigid with disapproval.
“It is not. If you recall, you were warned on Friday that your hobby was taking up unacceptable amounts of your time. You were told to cut it back or face the consequences.” She gave Martin a righteous look, as of someone enjoying their upper hand. “At which point you immediately booked unpaid leave for that very afternoon.”
“I had one lesson. My class had just done extremely well on a history quiz, and I’d promised them a video that afternoon. I arranged for an alternate teacher to be there to switch the TV on and off and deal with any disruption. I didn’t need to—”
Martin might have felt panicky if he had not still been in a state of disbelief and anger after the haircutting comment. As it was, he felt oddly cold and sharp and untouchable.
“My point stands,” the Head interrupted. “You were given a warning which you immediately disregarded. You have exhibited frankly unacceptable behaviour in this interview and an unwillingness to make the slightest concession to this school’s expectations. You have marking which should have been done and turned in over this weekend, but which has not been done. And I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go.”
Martin’s brain tripped over the words, stumbled. What?
Yes, to be fair, he’d expected a dressing down. He’d been angry, and he’d left early as a giant fuck-you to the establishment. He’d come in braced for another warning, still undecided about what to do with her last ultimatum, worried that the fact he was now in a gay relationship showed somehow, and semiresigned to going on teaching the things he needed to teach until someone took decisive action one way or another. But this? It was too soon. He wasn’t prepared. He’d thought there’d be three strikes or something, a grace period over which he could look for another placement, or during which she might be forced by age and unpopularity to finally retire.
We’re going to have to let you go. His mouth had dried and his throat withered shut. It wasn’t meant to go this far. She hadn’t even given him a chance to tell her to shove her Victorian attitude to his enriched history syllabus. If he was going to go, damn it, it should have been on his terms, as an act of principle. Not because of some stupid petty rules about haircuts and holidays.
He could take this to a tribunal. He could fight this. He could make them keep him on. They couldn’t do this to him! He was a bloody good teacher. They wouldn’t find another one better.
Like a bubble in a tar pit, the thought welled and popped. You wanted more time. Now you have it. It was not at all funny.
After the initial rush of fury and denial, second thoughts about the tribunal surfaced. It would be a lot of work and expense. Even if he won, he would become known throughout the district as difficult to work with. Litigious. More trouble than he was worth. It could spell the end of his teaching career. People might be sent to look into his lifestyle, and then who knew what slander might be dropped? Innocence was no defence against rabid parents who didn’t want a queer teaching their darling boys. And he was no longer sure he even wanted to work in this place if it meant feeding the kids the kind of history that made them feel bad about themselves.
