Page 11 of August's Thief
Dawson waggled an indignant finger. “Absolutely not. I need a pic of you holding the key to this huge fucking front door to show Eileen. She won’t believe it otherwise.” He laughed and tugged me down to crouch behind the wheelchair with him. “And I want my beautiful boyfriend as my screensaver,” he added just as the camera clicked. “Because although he doesn’t realise it, he’s effing perfect.”
After wolfing down his dinner, an exhausted but happy Mikey fell asleep again. We ate in the kitchen of my first-floor apartment, the only part of the house in regular use. A simple bolognese prepared by my housekeeper followed by chocolate ice cream. He didn’t stir as we carried him upstairs, nor as we undressed him, not even when we tucked him under the covers and arranged the pillows just so. I’d learned the routine: one behind his back, another between his knees, and a third under his left shoulder. Only then did Dawson give him a light peck on the cheek and step away.
“What job would you do if you weren’t caring for Mikey?” I asked as he folded Mikey’s clothes.
“Dunno. I’ve never given it much thought.” He smiled down at his twin fondly. “This is it for me. I’d rob a bank for him if I had to.”
“You’ll never need to,” I promised. “And this court thing will be over before you know it. Believe me.”
He blew out his cheeks as rare tension crossed his face. “I do,” he acknowledged. “But I’ve been an idiot, thinking I could get away with pinching stuff indefinitely. It was always going to catch up with me in the end. I deserve a few days in the nick, to be honest.”
He fell into my arms, exactly where he belonged. “No, you don’t. You did what you did for Mikey. He’s special, and if anyone deserves the best, it’s him.”
He twisted so his mouth could meet mine. “Thank you for saying that. Most people just see someone in a wheelchair who can’t do anything for themselves. Who can’t talk or eat or use a toilet. Totally dependent. And those things are true. But he’s also my twin and my best friend, and I hate that people with severe disabilities like him aren’t seen. Because Mikey’s his own person; he’s sometimes funny and sometimes naughty and thinks Peppa Pig is the best TV programme ever. And he knows the difference between Tesco’s Weetabix and the real stuff. And little details like that are nothing in the grand scheme of most people’s lives; they’re not very important at all. But they make up Mikey’s whole world. And that you understand that makes you pretty special too.”
We left the room, leaving the door ajar. “But I’m warning you now,” he added, “he’s not going to want to go back home tomorrow.” Dawson turned out the dressing room light. “Not now we’ve named all the cows. Prepare for World War Three, getting him back into the car.”
I was still trying to recall the daft names Dawson had given the cows when he let out a screech. “OMG, you have a four-poster bed! An emperor-sized four-poster bed!”
“I do,” I agreed, trying to visualise the stupidly ornate walnut monstrosity through Dawson’s eyes. And for the first time in living memory, I didn’t hate it. “It’s for entertaining emperors, should one ever drop by.”
Wiry arms wound around my neck. “No emperors.” His lips latched on to mine, and as my hands automatically found his arse cheeks, he pressed up against me in one of his hugs that any minute now would turn into sex. “Just me to entertain. AndGussie, I know we haven’t talked loads about this, but I’ve been… preparing.”
Giddiness fluttered through my belly like a first taste of champagne. At last, with Mikey safely ensconced next door and a bed to ourselves, I had privacy and space to explore Dawson’s body properly. To make love to him properly. Or, as my delightful boyfriend (between noisy sucks on a humbug) so eloquently phrased it in the car on the way over, fuck his brains out. Needless to say, I drove the remainder of the journey uncomfortably hard, and it had nothing to do with the humbug in my mouth.
“I… um… I’m not very good at it, just so you know,” I confessed because obviously, seduction was my middle name. “Haven’t had many opportunities to practice.”
With an odd smile, almost self-conscious, Dawson unfastened the top buttons on my shirt. “Shush. I’ve not exactly been out clubbing and shagging every night for the last few years either. Who cares? We love each other, Gussie, so it will be amazing anyway.”
As Dawson’s violet-hazed eyes met mine, my heartbeats somersaulted over each other.We love each other.Never mind belly flutterings and champagne, I had my mouth open heavenward and was tasting stars. I scrambled for something to say, but my mind had emptied of every single coherent thought except the only one that mattered.
We love each other.
Dawson loved me.
“We do, don’t we, Gussie?” his sweet voice questioned, a little anxiously, from somewhere back on earth. I kissed his sweet lips.
“What do you think?”
With Dawson’s love in one hand and newfound confidence in the other, I walked him backwards until his knees met the bed.He melted into it, arms pillowed under his head and a crazy grin stretched wide across his face as I eased off his shoes and socks. The soft grey sweater, now belonging to him, came next; I buried my nose in it before tossing it aside. After that his jeans, boxers too, chased down milky white limbs still dangling over the edge of the bed. And then I stood to admire him, my Dawson, naked on my four poster and smiling up at me as if he was tasting stars too.
“Your turn, Gussie.”
He played with himself as I unbuttoned the rest of my shirt, thighs spread wide, lazily stroking his rigid cock. I was surprised I still managed to undress myself.
“You’re all fingers and thumbs,” Dawson observed as I made a hash of unzipping my trousers. “Wow! And dick!” he added with a huff of laughter as I finally wrenched them down. A pearl of precum glistened at his slit, and my mouth ran dry. Sinking to my knees between his parted legs, I slid my hands up his smooth thighs, leaned over and sucked it off.
“Oh fuck,” he breathed.
I peppered his shaft with small kisses and licks. God knew I was no expert, but for all expertise was a wonderful thing, a wordless voice inside me instinctively knew how to please Dawson, and I listened to it now as I lapped at him with my tongue. As I sucked one of his tight balls into my mouth, a whimper escaped his throat. His hands twisted in the short strands of my hair, and boldly, I hefted one of his legs onto my shoulder, running my lips up the silk of his inner thigh.
“Gussie,” he moaned.
Fuck, he had a tiny little hole. Furled in a tight pink bud. On my knees and buried between his thighs, this was way beyond anything I’d ever done before. I had the urge to press my tongue against it; I tapped it with the pad of my thumb instead. He arched off the bed.
“Shit, that’s so nice.”
“I want… I want to lick it. Can I?”
