Lost Ball 16

Author: Aardvark

The following story is almost certainly a work of fiction.

If you shouldn't be reading this sort of thing, because of the rules which operate in the place where you live, then your decision to continue reading must be a matter between you, your conscience, and your relationship with whoever it is who makes the rules – be it your mother or your government.

I should address the `playing safe' issue, I suppose. Leo and Michael don't, because they don't need to: Leo was a virgin when the relationship began, and has only ever had unprotected sex with Michael, who had tested `negative' in his most recent test, since when he had not been exposed. Which means they can indulge freely, without having to break off in mid-flow and start scruffing around in search of condoms (remember what those days were like?)

Comments are welcome. There's more to tell, and if there's any interest to hear it, then, you never know...

And, as ever, donations to Nifty are encouraged. We all get a helluva lot of `entertainment' from these pages; give something back. Follow the link on the Nifty homepage to see how you can donate.

Many thanks for your comments. I only hope that it's as rewarding to read as it is to write.

Lost Ball: Part 16

`Return of the Prodigal...(2)'

I was shocked at what I'd just done. I'd had no thought of doing it, and – I hoped – it was completely not my style to give way to such a violent impulse. In other circumstances, the realization of what had just occurred would have stopped me dead in my tracks, in my need to sort out in my own mind what had just happened. But, I didn't have that luxury. What mattered now was to try to help Leo, who was clearly not in a good state. I don't mean that he'd been physically harmed – although I imagined he might have some discomfort in his arse for a while to come – but it was clear that emotionally he was a complete mess.

In an instinctive `tea and sympathy' way, I got him to bed. Half-carrying him through the Dressing Room, and then sitting him down on the side of the bed which I'd only recently vacated. I undressed him, as he sat, passively, not meeting my eye and staring dully at his feet. The hoodie and shirt came off together, and it was easy to lower his jeans, and to take them off him, along with his sneakers and socks. He was entirely disengaged from the process, and he allowed me to lift his arms and legs as I needed in order to undress him. His clothes, I put on the chair through in the dressing room. The tattered ruins of his t-shirt and underpants, I balled up, and dropped in a corner of the room, to be buried deep in the rubbish bin for disposal, the following morning. Although, when it came to removing from him the useless remnants of his briefs, I was startled to find the front of them soaked in his own cum; Leo had ejaculated in the course of my...fucking...him; in the course of ...what I'd done. I carefully slid down his legs the tangled mass of cotton – wet and heavy with the scent of his cum - and then I swung him gently round and lowered him back and into bed, with the duvet placed gently over him.

"Michael!" he called out, with a note of alarm, as I left for the bathroom, to get a washcloth in order to clean him up.

"It's ok. I'll be right back." He appeared reassured. And, afterwards, lying back against the pillow, he submitted meekly to the process of my washing his tear-stained cheeks, and his hands – which didn't particularly need it, but it somehow seemed appropriate that I should wipe his palms, and then each finger, in turn – and then, eventually, I pulled back the duvet, and cleaned his limp cock and the inside of his thighs which were still wet with his recent ejaculate. In submitting to my attentions, he was like a small child, entirely entrusting the process to the available adult. Who then carefully replaced the duvet, pulling it up to his chin, and effectively tucking him in.

"You'd better have one of these," I said, as I took one of the remaining sleeping pills from the packet in the nightstand drawer; I'd stopped taking them ages before, but there were still a few left in the packet. I broke the pill in half, and he obediently opened his mouth for me to place it on his tongue, and then he drank from the water glass which I held to his lips. Once the glass had been returned to the nightstand, I held the palm of my hand against the side of his face, and we looked at each other. There was far too much unspoken on both sides for us to be easy with each other – not yet, and maybe not ever – and the look we exchanged was troubled and unsmiling. Gently, though, I leant down and kissed him, on his forehead, just once. If we could work this through, then it was a process that would have to wait for tomorrow.

Already, his eyelids were drooping as I went round to my side of the bed, and slipped beneath the covers. I had to reach across him, to turn out the lamp, and as I was returning afterwards to my original position, I gently squeezed his shoulder under the duvet.

"Goodnight, Leo." I hadn't thought I'd be saying that, ever again. His hand crept up, in the darkness, and found mine. Tentatively, he attempted a squeeze – ready to retreat if I was unreceptive – and when I squeezed back, in response, he held on, and in a second his fingers gently laced themselves through mine. I left my hand in his until I could tell, from his breathing, several minutes later, that he'd fallen asleep, and then I carefully withdrew. To my side of the bed. To lie there, in the darkness, and to try not to think too much about it all.

I couldn't quite believe what I'd done to him ...attacking him...and violating him, as I had. My mind was churning. And not least because of the knowledge that even as I abhorred what I'd done, the memory of tearing his clothes off him and of invading his arse and possessing him in that way, left me lying there with a raging, rigidly aching hard-on as the images of it all played repeatedly through my brain.

I willed myself to sleep. And eventually, I did. Although not particularly well. Ironically, it occurred to me that this was the first time that Leo had ever spent the night in my bed – and in circumstances which were so far from what I would have wanted, or expected.

I'd never got round to fixing the broken internet connection, which was why I'd got out of bed in the first place, and so the radio still wasn't working. Instead, each time I woke, in the darkness, it was to the sound, in the otherwise silent room, of Leo's breathing, deep and regular, from across the expanse of the bed.

The sound of rain, on the roof. Not thundering down, but an incessant drumbeat. Comforting, from the secure and sheltering warmth of bed.

Leo lay with his back to me, the line of the muscles at the top of his back visible in the half-light which came through from the Dressing Room. As I slipped quietly out of bed, he slept on. Peacefully. The sleeping pill continued to do its work. And I suspected, as well, that he'd been exhausted anyway...when I thought about it, I realized now that he'd looked completely drained as I'd put him to bed. Poor kid looked as though he'd been through the wringer, even before I'd attacked him. I supposed I'd find out in more detail, at some point – but, I was perfectly clear that whatever there was to be told, would be told entirely at his pace. The last thing I'd do would be to demand any explanations from him.

As he slept on, I showered and dressed, and generally tidied around the place. I located from the four corners of the Salone all of the buttons from his – my – shirt, which had flown off in all directions, the night before; and I hung his belt over the back of the chair in the dressing room, along with the rest of his clothes. I had thought to re-thread it through the belt loops of his jeans, but I realized on closer inspection that the tear I'd made in the gusset of the jeans was worse than I'd expected, and some repair work would be necessary before they could be worn again. As I held them up before me, to examine the damage, I was all too aware that the shape of the crutch of his jeans had been moulded to Leo's shape beneath, and that the area of denim which had tightly covered that part of him where his cock and balls was usually held had a curve to it that wasn't replicated on the other side of his fly. Leo always dressed on the left... and it showed. I shook my head slightly in despair at my own reaction – even now, in the aftermath of crisis, I still couldn't separate my sense of Leo the person from an acute awareness of him as a physical, sexual being. And to feel turned on, at the same time. I wasn't impressed. By me.

From a pocket in his hoodie, as I was returning Leo's jeans to the back of the chair, his phone rang, and I reached for it to turn it off before it disturbed him, still sleeping in the next room. As soon as I'd done so, it pinged, to announce an incoming text. Which I couldn't miss, as the message flashed up on the screen. From his mother. A terse request, to know where he was...and where he'd been. After only a moment's thought, I replied, as Leo, to say that he was at `a friend's' and that he was `ok'. I thought that was probably enough – just to let them know that he was still alive, and so there was no need to send out search parties or to alert the carabinieri. It wasn't my place to give them any more information than that. And so, it was with some surprise, as I was slipping the phone back into the pocket it had come from, that I saw – and couldn't help reading – a reply to my reply: `Are you with Michael?'

Woah! Now, that was definitely unexpected. And I sent no message in response. Not my call. Definitely, not my call.

I made a pot of coffee, and took it, along with two mugs and all the gubbins, back upstairs to the Salone. Already, it was gone midday, and I thought it was probably better not to let Leo sleep any longer. Although, I still took the time to light the Salone fire, and to pour and drink most of a mug of coffee for myself before I summoned up the courage that I thought I probably needed to go in and wake him. I had no idea what state of mind he was in, or how complicated this scene was going to be. The rain had long since set in for the day, and the persistent drumming was clearly audible on the roof overhead; it was one of those dreary days in early December which can be splendid as the backdrop to a blazing fire and lamplight, and a day spent sheltering indoors – or, it can just be a fucking dreary backdrop. End of.

As I hooked back the shutters on the bedroom window, the light which entered was flat and drab, and it promised nothing. Leo appeared still to be asleep - although, as I switched on the lamp on the nightstand beside him, I could see his eyelids move, and then open. He rolled properly onto his back, and seemed to be looking directly up at the beams of the ceiling. Thinking.

"Hey," I said, gently.

A pause. Then "Hey," in return. Tentative. Awkward. But I had no way of knowing whether his awkwardness was to do with the period of his unexplained `disappearance', as I termed it to myself, or whether it was more directly to do with what had happened the night before. And since I had no way of knowing, I had no basis on which to decide how I should best address it. So. I didn't. I couldn't. Not yet.

"I've made you some coffee," I said, and set the mug down on the nightstand, as I sat on the edge of the bed next to where he lay. "You'll need to sit up, though, to drink it." He struggled to free himself from the duvet enough so that he could sit up, with his back against the headboard, and as I reached across for another pillow to put behind him, he moved forward enough to let me drop the additional pillow into place.

"I don't drink coffee," he said – although it seemed more as a conversational reflex than an actual rejection.

"Then, it's probably time you started. I've put sugar in it. I didn't know how you like it...but I expect you need the extra energy this morning, anyway."

He wrapped his hands around the mug, and sat there, not meeting my eyes. He looked shattered. Rested, in a way, but fundamentally completely shattered. In silence, he sipped his coffee. The silence between us lengthened.

"When you've finished that...maybe, a shower would be a good idea." Unusually for Leo, his hair looked in need of a wash, and – it probably would have cheered him to know it – he actually, properly needed a shave. He'd grown up somewhat during the period he'd been away from me.

"Ok." I couldn't tell whether he was agreeing, or merely acquiescing.

"I've left some clothes for you in the bathroom. Yours ...need a bit of work...before you can wear them." I could feel myself blushing at that point, and, to cover my confusion, I stood and busied myself in making room for him to get out of bed. Which, after a pause, he did, as he pushed the duvet down and swung his legs out and round. Of course, he was naked. And as he stood before me, I registered that he must have grown perhaps an inch in height since last I'd seen him. Four months ago. And four days...but who was counting?.

With the atmosphere between us still dense with uncertainty, he set down the mug, and departed for the bathroom. While I tried, unsuccessfully, not to feast my eyes as he did so on the perfect form of his back, and his bum, and his thighs.

He was a long time in the bathroom...but then, that was just Leo – he always was. There was nothing particular to be read into the fact.

I sat on one of the Salone sofas, next to the fire, and got started on sewing the buttons back onto the shirt he'd been wearing the night before. The fire hissed gently, and the light from the flames, and from the lamps on either side of the fireplace, caught the soft blues and greens of the tapestry that covers the opposite wall, and washed up over the large canvas – a portrait of some nameless beauty from the Court of Queen Anne – which presides over the chimneypiece. I'd removed the ceiling, years before, and the space now extends right up, through the gnarled contortions of two great roof beams, to the inside of the apex of the roof itself. Against which the rain could still be heard falling. The light which came in through the one, large window in the room was muted, and in fact already looked as though it was heading towards an early December dusk. The day had more than half-gone, and it was almost mid-afternoon, by now. As I re-attached one button after another, I switched on the radio, mostly as background. But also to cover over any awkwardness, once Leo materialized, if there was no conversation between us.

Eventually, Leo emerged. I'd found clothes of mine for him to wear that I thought weren't likely to look ludicrously large on him – a dark blue sweatshirt, and light grey sweatpants; along with a pair of heavy, grey hiking socks. Above the neckline of the sweatshirt, a white t-shirt was just visible; and I knew that beneath the sweatpants, he was wearing the baby-blue briefs which I'd retrieved from my box of Leo-stuff in the attic; the first pair of his trophy underpants that I'd relieved him of. It seemed somehow fitting. In fact, although the clothes looked generous on him, they didn't swamp him, and it seemed that he'd definitely grown in the period of his absence. Fresh from his shower, he looked a great deal better than before: his cheeks now had some colour in them, and his hair, not yet properly dry, was combed neatly into place.

I gave him an approving nod, and he responded with a rueful grimace, which then dropped, as he looked down, apparently confused. He had no way of knowing how to address this situation, and I could see that I would have to do all of the steering necessary, for both of us.

"Come. Sit." I indicated the place next to me on the sofa. And he sat, drawing his knees up, his feet in their heavy woollen socks on the edge of the sofa cushion, ankles crossed, as he clasped his arms around his knees, and rested his chin on his forearms. Looking straight ahead.

Along with the coffee which I'd brought upstairs earlier, there was a plate of biscuits, untouched, which I now reached down and handed to him. With Leo, I knew from experience, food always helped. And, after a muttered word of thanks, he ploughed into them. Relentlessly. Clearly, he'd been hungry. I let him get on with it, satisfied to let him relax into wherever we were.

It was only once almost the entire plate of biscuits had been demolished that he glanced sideways, and down, and saw that I had on my lap his shirt from the night before. And, he remembered. At once, he stopped eating, and he glanced up at me, a troubled expression on his face. There was a whole mix of emotions contained within it, but I suppose the most obvious was contrition. He looked back down, and swallowed hard. I could sense rather than see the tears beginning to form.

My arm had been resting along the back of the sofa, and now I let my hand drop forward and rest lightly on his neck. I had to say something.

"Leo...?" Gently, I stroked the curve of his neck with my forefinger. There was no reaction from him. "There are lots of things we need to talk about...obviously." He said nothing. "but, it's up to you when we do that. Only when you feel ready. Ok?" Still without looking at me, he nodded. In silence. All apart from one very audible sniff. "But...there is something that I need to say to you. Now." I'm no better than the next person at apologizing, and I searched carefully for exactly the right words. It was far from easy.

"Leo – I've got to apologise to you for... what... I did... last night. It was a horrible...terrible...awful... thing to do. I don't even really understand how...it...happened. I can't ask you to forgive me...because it isn't really something you can forgive. But I can ask you to understand that I didn't mean to hurt you...and that...if I did...and, I can't think that I didn't...then, please know that I am so, so sorry. More than I can possibly say...And...I don't know what words there are to tell you how badly I feel about it. About what I did..." Incoherent, at the last, I thought it might be me who would break down, rather than Leo. I simply ran out of words and I couldn't say any more. He turned, a deep frown on his forehead, and he appeared alarmed at my growing distress. He grabbed my free hand, and held it in both of his. "No," he said, quickly. "That isn't...that wasn't...how it was." One tear, which had been gathering on his lower eyelid, dropped heavily onto his cheek, and he reached up quickly to brush it away, before he seized my hand once more. Urgently, he tried to hold my gaze, as he struggled to say what he meant; and, bizarrely, it seemed that the exchange had turned into him comforting me, and not the other way around. "When...it...happened. It felt so right...to have you inside me. Again. I've so much wanted that...for such a long time. You can't imagine..." More tears were flowing down his cheeks, by now, and he let them flow, unchecked. "And...the way that you...did it...that it happened...It was so ...intense. It was so..." and at that point, he also ran out of words, and with the tears coursing down his cheeks, and his lips clenched together and trembling, he gave a shrug which somehow managed to convey everything: the entire breadth and depth of what it was that he had to say. And, it was more than enough.

I reached for him, and with my hands on both his shoulders I pulled him towards me. And he let himself be pulled. With no hesitation on either side, I kissed him. And the kiss extended, as I held him close. Against my cheeks, I could feel his tears, and my arms circled him and held him tight, as he surrendered, trembling, against me. We must have remained like that for several minutes, and when the kiss finally ended, he buried his face against my neck, and I continued to hold him to me, tight, rocking him gently, as I nuzzled my face into his hair, behind his ear, and my hands worked their way up and down his back, soothing and caressing and holding him..

I leant slowly back, against the corner of the sofa, and, still in my arms, I brought Leo along with me. So that we ended up with him half-lying on top of me, as I sat there., his head on a level with my chest. He stretched his legs out along the length of the sofa, and in fact the arrangement felt surprisingly comfortable. I kissed him again, gently, on his lips, as he looked up at me, and then I kissed him on his nose...and then, I kissed away the remnants of his tears. I smoothed his hair away from his forehead, and continued, distractedly, to play with his hair, as I looked up at the ceiling. I felt exhausted. It had been an emotionally intense event, and it had taken its toll. But, God, it seemed like we'd recovered so much lost ground. So much...

"What's this?" Leo asked. He indicated the output from the radio, which had continued, ignored, to drone away in the background the entire time. By now, it sounded as though it was churning out a play of some kind, and as I concentrated, I recognized it as a dramatization of a Sherlock Holmes story. When I explained as much to Leo, he suggested that we listen to it. "It's good practice, for me," he said – he meant, his English. And, of course for as long as were listening to the play, then any further conversation would be put on hold. Which was what suited him, for now. Much progress had been achieved, but at this stage he wanted to re-group and to sort out his thoughts before we went any further.

I turned up the sound, and we settled into listening to the thing. Leo half-turned, and lay with his face pressed into my chest – he said that it was because it was `easier to listen', that way...but I suspected it was more likely more of the same, and that it was another mechanism to avoid further conversation, right now. I didn't mind. I had him in my arms, whilst his were draped loosely against me, holding on where they could. The whole situation felt like it was somewhere in the upper quartile, and had you told me two days beforehand that this would be happening, I would never have believed it. Against a background of Victorian London fog, and the rattle of the wheels of hansom cabs over cobble-stoned streets, the lamplight, and the low hissing from the fireplace, and the gathering dusk, all felt as though this was our own, entirely self-contained Universe.

I had so much missed Leo's body during all the time that he'd been missing. I don't mean sexually – although, obviously, that too – but in general...the being able to touch him, and to stroke, and caress him...as a punctuation mark, when we talked...and casually, at any moment when we were together. And it was with such a sense of contentment that I reverted now to behaving with him exactly as I had during that earlier incarnation of our time together. As he lay there, my hands roamed freely over his shoulders, and his back, and went lower, to rest on his thighs and on the glorious mounds of his bum, exactly as they'd done in the past. Not overtly. And not signaling any particular physical desire. Rather, to indicate closeness, and accessibility...and to communicate with every touch of my hands a feeling of being at one with him. I caressed him gently, with no sense of urgency. Had he been a cat, I expect he would have been purring, in response, throughout. It was just a way of being together that had become established over the time we'd spent together.

As the play proceeded, and the scene shifted from London to a remote moorland somewhere beyond, complete with baying dogs and lunar eclipses, my hand rested at Leo's waist, and I gently pushed up under the hem of his sweatshirt, and up inside the t-shirt beneath. The waistband of his briefs was standing slightly proud of the waist of his sweatpants, and I cursorily explored the demarcation line between his briefs and his back, before I ran my hand casually up and right under his t-shirt, to run my palm over the taut muscles of his shoulders. And then. Back down again.

With no perceptible pause, my hand slipped beneath the waistband of his sweatpants, and I found myself apparently casually holding his buttock, encased tightly within the confines of his underwear. Leo gave no sign of noticing anything, and in fact he could have been asleep, for all the sign of life that he showed. In the position in which he was lying, half on his front, and with his legs slightly apart, it was a simple thing for my hand to slip down and to slide between his legs...and before I knew it, my fingers were innocently grazing the swelling of his balls, between his legs, through the fabric of his underpants. It was only by the slightest shift in his position, as he spread his legs slightly further apart, under my touch, that I could be certain that he even knew where my hand was.

Still concentrating on the story being recounted, my fingers traced the line of the leg of his briefs, round and up, until my hand was resting, inside his sweatpants, on his hip. The briefs were cut high at the sides, and there might have been a couple of inches of underwear that covered his hip, under the palm of my hand. By now, he was clearly starting to shift around, under my touch, and I could tell that his breathing, against my chest was becoming distinctly heavier. As my hand worked its way back down, the way it had come, over the curve of his buttock, the tip of my finger slipped beneath the leg of his briefs, and then continued down, inside his underwear, into the crack between his arse cheeks. And as the radio gave forth the sounds of a chase over Bodmin Moor, my finger was teasing backwards and forwards over Leo's wrinkled pucker, gently teasing and probing as it went. I'd been nervous that he might have some bruising back there, from the brutal fucking he'd received the night before – but, if he did, he gave no sign of it now, and he indicated as he pushed his arse further out and against my hand, how receptive he was to my touching him there. My breathing, by now was probably as laboured as his had become.

After a minute or so of touching him there, I moved my hand back up to his hip, once more, withdrawing it from inside his briefs, and I made a move in the direction of his groin. Still pretending that nothing untoward was in play, Leo casually shifted his position, and moved more onto his back, to allow me free access to the front of his underpants. And as I slipped my hand down, and into place over the distended shaft of his cock, Leo reached up and undid the top three buttons of my shirt, wrinkling his brow in concentration as he did so. As my hand cupped his balls, he levered himself up slightly, resting on his elbow, and he delicately took my left nipple into his mouth, and began to suck and lick, while with his left hand, he reached inside my shirt and teased my right nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Conan-Doyle's deathless prose was receiving no attention whatsoever, by this point, and the high-tension chase across Bodmin Moor might just as well have been the announcement of the shipping forecast, for all the notice it was getting.

Leo spread his legs enough to allow my fingers, pressed against the gusset of his briefs, to slide under the leg once more, and I resumed my teasing of his arsehole, each additional pressure from my fingertip earning my nipple a gentle bite from his teeth, in turn. The heel of my hand was pressed up hard against Leo's balls, and my thumb was stretched back and massaging just the base of his shaft. His thighs scissored slightly against my hand, instinctively encouraging me on, to do more, and to go deeper. I took my hand from his sweatpants just for long enough to put saliva on the tips of my fingers, and then I had my hand back inside the sweatpants, and back in place between his legs. My index finger slipped again under the leg of his briefs, and he gasped, as it slipped, in the same movement, up and inside him, almost to the second knuckle. His scissoring was more insistent against my hand now, and as I tightened my grip under his shoulders with my left arm, his sucking became noisier and more demanding. And he whimpered slightly, as he sucked.

I could tell he was close. Quickly, I took my hand from out of his sweatpants, and in a couple of shoves, I had his briefs and his sweatpants pushed down to the top of his thighs...far enough down that I could get my hand back between his legs, but no further, and his t-shirt and sweatshirt, I pulled up to his chest, to expose the expanse of his tight, flat tummy. Rapidly, I wet my fingers once more, before I reached again for his arse, and I pushed my index finger in, in one go, right up and inside him. With his right hand, he took his cock, and began to wank himself to climax, groaning in time with the thrusts I was making as I fucked him with my finger. The cry he made as he came sounded oddly strangled, and the cum which he ejected in half a dozen spurts gathered in a series of little pools on his abs, and around his belly button. As he came, his cheeks flushed suddenly, and he screwed up his face with an expression almost of pain. With one final thrust of my fingers, he was done, and he collapsed back and onto my lap. His eyes, which he'd closed against the intensity of his orgasm, eventually opened, after a breathless pause of some seconds, and he looked up straight at me, holding my gaze.

It was the first time that he'd properly done that since he'd returned.

And, for the first time, I found I could really begin to believe that he had come home.

To be continued...