Rory and Sebastian Ch. 09

--Most of the stories told in the 'Rory and Sebastian' series are told from Sebastian Carson's point-of-view, rather than Rory's. The only story that's been told from Rory Masterton's POV so far is chapter 5. Originally, this story was also supposed to be from Sebastian's POV but I found it worked better told from Rory's. I hope you enjoy it. As before, both characters are above the age of 18 at the time this story takes place --

A harsh winter wind blew through the town streets and Caroline squealed slightly as we rounded a corner. Virginia tutted and I pulled my arms in closer around myself. Everywhere around us were tacky Christmas decorations, apart from one slightly beautiful window display of the Nativity in the old-style men's suits shop. It looked at least a hundred years old. My grandfather bought his suits from that store.

'I hate this kind of weather,' sighed Virginia. 'It's so annoying.'

'I prefer the cold to heat,' I opined. 'I look better in winter clothes, plus people sweat less.'

'The cold's bad, but it's really the wind that's awful,' Caroline snapped, 'Your hair can survive the cold. There's nothing it can do about looking good in the middle of a hurricane.'

I was glad Sebastian wasn't with us as she said this, but I could feel his eye-rolling in my soul. In Caroline's defence, whilst we obviously weren't in the middle of a hurricane, it was really windy and her hair did look pretty awful. That was mean of me to notice it. But she'd brought it up and it did. It looked someone had back-combed a troll doll and then electro-shocked it. Virginia's still looked fine though, but then she'd used enough hairspray to puncture a new hole in the ozone layer, so that was probably why.

'It's so annoying that Judith isn't here with us,' Caroline continued. 'Do you really think she's actually that hungover, guys? Or is she just lying?'

'Yes,' I said, in Judith's defence. 'I mean, come on, Caroline. You saw how bad she was last night. She drank a vineyard's worth of wine. She's probably receiving the last rites, as we speak.'

Virginia laughed. 'Did Sebastian pick you up?'

'Yes,' I answered. 'I think I made a slight fool of myself, though.'

'How?'

'I was very ... I asked him to have sex with me.'

The two girls stopped dead in the streets, right next to the jewellery store Virginia had wanted to go into all morning. 'WHEN were you going to tell us about all this?' she asked; mouth agog. 'We've been together for what, like, an hour, Rory?'

'We didn't!' I exclaimed. 'But we're having "the talk" about it this afternoon.'

'Why didn't you?' Caroline asked, still in piqued shock I hadn't revealed this the moment we met to shop this morning.

'He said I was drunk and he didn't want to take advantage of me.'

Virginia abandoned her shock and opened the door to the store. 'He must really, really love you, Rory.'

*

A few hours later, I was upstairs in my bedroom, working on some homework for Religious Studies class. It was already dark outside, even though it was only about five o'clock. I sat leafing through my Philosophy textbook, trying to find some quotes to answer the question that they'd set us for the last paper due in for the term. Or semester, as Sebastian insisted upon calling it, despite having attended school in England for years.

'For 35 marks, outline your knowledge and understanding of one philosophical argument in favour of the existence of God or the divine.' The joys of being an A-Level student, I guess.

I was concentrating, hard, on the words in front of me as I drew out a plan and mind-map about the ontological argument that God existed. My brain hurt trying to get my head around it, but then that was the point of it. I was writing out a quote from Saint Anselm of Canterbury -- we lived in Kent, so it's always good to keep the teacher happy by quoting a local -- and writing notes in the margin of my notepaper when I heard Sebastian's American twang from over my shoulder. 'An a priori argument,' he quoted, 'i.e. seeks to prove that God exists by starting the argument from the POV that it's already been proven.'

'Who let you in?' I asked, dryly.

'Your mom. If it was your dad, we'd be meeting downstairs. Is this for R.S?' he asked. 'Man! And I thought Physics was hard.'

He leaned against my desk and looked at me. 'A priori argument?'

'It's called the ontological argument,' I explained. 'It's a kind of religious argument or a philosophical one that approaches the issue of proving the existence of God differently from all the others.'

'How?'

'Most arguments start off by trying to prove that God does exist. Which basically means they start off by assuming either that gods don't exist or that it's unproven.'

'Like in most science experiments,' Sebastian interjected. 'You start off assuming you don't know the answer yet?'

'Right. Except the ontological argument starts off by saying that God does exist and seeks to take the argument from there. Basically, God or gods exist because they exist. Because if they didn't exist, we'd never have come up with the concept of them existing in the first place. Make sense?'

'Not really,' he smiled.

'It's not supposed to,' I shrugged. 'The mysteries of the universe, and all that. Have you started the History yet?'

'Finished it,' he smirked.

'I can only imagine what kind of left-wing nonsense you rattled off,' I teased.

'You're not dating Stalin, baby.'

The question had been on why the Russian Revolution happened and it was a running joke between us that I was right-wing; he was left-wing. 'Oh, come on, Sebastian. The question was about the downfall of a monarchy and like most Americans, you're incapable of taking monarchies seriously, because your culture has reduced them to nothing more than a point of ridicule, in order to make it axiomatic that the system of government you created in 1776 was good, perfect and the summit of logic.'

'It was quite a bit better than Tsarist Russia, Rory.'

'I dunno,' I said. 'There's something pretty messed up about a country that starts off with declarations about the inviolable nature of equality, whilst ten per cent of its population lived in racially-based slavery. Or which still talks about it today, whilst denying fifteen per cent of its population the right to be legally married.'

'Pissed I didn't slip my dick into you last night?' he rejoined. I glanced up at him, in a faux-unimpressed way and he leant down and gave me a belated 'hello' kiss on the lips. 'That'll come, Rory. And my paper for History is incredible. So fuck you.'

'I was only teasing you,' I reasoned. I stood up and wrapped my arms around his waist. 'I'm actually so pro-American that it's frankly ridiculous.'

'That's because my penis is American. And because it's fucking awesome.'

'Your penis or America?'

'Both.'

'Well, they've both been the source of comfort to desperate huddled masses in days gone-by.'

'Ouch.'

'Well...'

'Alright, fuck this,' he sighed. It wasn't an aggressive sigh; more of a 'we've joked around a little, but we're done now' sigh. I knew it well. He nudged me over to the chair he liked to sit on, next to the coffee table.

'I really was teasing about the America thing,' I said, kissing his neck. 'You know that, right?'

'Yes, obviously. Rory, I'm not pissed off. I just got bored of the conversation. So -- last night.'

'Yes. Last night.' I swallowed and felt momentarily hot. Not in the good way. Clammy, in fact, might have been a far more accurate word to describe the feeling. I had no idea why. At least, not precisely. It wasn't as if Sebastian seemed in any way judgmental or condescending about last night. But I was dimly aware that my request last night was about to propel our relationship onto the next level. The irrevocable level of full physical intimacy. One which it would be impossible to ever retreat from and one which was also inextricably caught up in physicality and appearance. It would require being totally naked and, furthermore, any failure to be "good" in bed would automatically be something that would weaken the relationship. Despite how compatible he and I were, thus far, there was a niggling fear, lurking in the back of my mind, that when full sex happened, I might not perform well and that it would therefore in fact inflict the first crack on our relationship. As ever, I was, over-thinking things and second-guessing myself. But in order to gain distance and composure, I stood up off his knee and walked over to the sofa on the other side of the coffee table. I sat upright and looked at him; as if we were in some kind of Barbara Walters interview. Or a business meeting. He regarded my move quizzically.

'Really?' he asked. In reference to me moving away from him.

'Yes,' I answered. Firmly and slightly primly. 'It'll help discuss things more rationally.'

'I'm not sure that's really the way these things are supposed to be discussed, but okay. Do you still want to talk about this, Rory?'

I could see hesitation etched in every line of his beautiful face. And I was also perceptive enough to see a repressed, cleverly hidden, kind of fear. He was afraid I would say "no." That I would renege on what I had said to him last night in the car. I nodded an affirmative; telling him that "yes," I did still want to talk about this. I think I realised in that moment that in fact a crack would be inflicted on our relationship if he thought I was the kind of boyfriend to say one thing when drunk, then another when sober. As if there was a Janus-like quality of two personalities; one with alcohol and the other without. I wasn't like that and I didn't want him to think that.

'Yes,' I said, quietly. To re-iterate my nod. 'I want to talk about it. I meant what I said last night. I'm just a little nervous.'

'Don't be,' he said. His shoulders sagged slightly; he had breathed out. He was relieved by what I'd say. 'Don't be nervous, Rory.'

I nodded and looked down. 'I won't be. I'm not.'

'That's a lie.'

'I'm not nervous of you.'

'Good. Of what, then?'

'The pain, I suppose. They say it hurts the first time.'

'Are you sure that's all?'

My head snapped up. His eyes had that shrewd and perceptive look in them. No point in trying to deny what he already knew. 'I don't want to fuck-up,' I confessed. 'I don't want to disappoint you.'

He cocked his head to one side and a sad look glazed over his face. 'Baby.'

'Well, I don't.'

He got up and crossed over to sit next to me. He smelled incredible and the fitted navy sweater sat beautifully on him. It clung to the muscles on his arm. I felt my reserves ebb looking at them and at his slightly clasped hands, the fingers of which were tracing in and out of one another.

'Listen, I've been thinking about this and, well, how would you feel about a little role reversal for the first time?'

I looked at him blankly. I wasn't sure what he meant and I assumed this was the kind of conversation where one should avoid the grey areas of confusion, wherever possible.

'What?' I asked. I'd said it slightly too loudly and the correct word, after all, was "pardon." 'Pardon?' I corrected myself. He noticed the correction; noticed the obsessive manners, even in a situation like this. And he smiled.

'Would you prefer it if I took it up the ass the first time we have sex, Rory?'

Well. That certainly cleared up the grey area.

'I ... uh...'

'Look, I've taken it before...'

'Who from?' I snapped. A trifle too harshly, I'll admit.

Sebastian waved his right hand in the air. Dismissing the question as irrelevant. The logical side of my brain forced me to concede that, right now, it was irrelevant; despite being surprised by the revelation. 'I'm saying, Rory, that if you're worried about the pain, I'm more than happy to have you fuck me.'

I paused for a moment, as I mentally considered, and imagined, sliding myself into his ass. I had to admit that the idea did make me tingle. But I followed my instinct and shook my head. 'No. No, Sebastian. That's so ... I mean, that's just so incredibly sweet of you and lovely and loving and I appreciate it so, so, so much. But I don't want that. Not for our first time. For our first time, I want you to be on top. I want you to ...'

'To?'

'Own me,' I finished, quietly. How mortifying.

He grinned and kissed me. 'So filthy,' he whispered. 'You want me to own you?' Another kiss. 'You want to be my property, Rory?' I nodded. Another kiss. His tongue slipped into my mouth and I lay back on the sofa. My legs parted and he slid in between them, on top of me, and we kept making out. I grew hard and so did he. We started grinding against each other. It was bliss and torture, all at once. An exquisite kind of annoyance.

'When?' he asked, breathily.

'Which of us has a free house first?'

'My parents are taking my little sister up to London to see a show on Saturday. They're going to stay in a hotel. I could ask Evan to give us the house for the night?'

'Would he mind?'

'Not if I tell him what it's for,' Sebastian answered, matter-of-factly.

I sat up slightly. 'You'd tell him?'

'Of course. He's my brother. You think I haven't already told him that we've been fooling around together?' (I cannot imagine that my face was a pretty picture when I heard that.) 'Relax, Rory,' he smirked, trailing a pacifying kiss along my neck. 'It's Evan. I've left the house when he's brought back girlfriends to fuck all night.'

'You're disgusting.'

'That boner between your legs tells a different story.' He thrust against me, tauntingly. 'Friday night, then?'

I nodded. 'Friday night. I love you.'

'I love you too. So fucking much, Rory.'

*

On Wednesday, Sebastian injured himself in a friendly rugby match against Saint Thomas á Becket's -- a Roman Catholic all-boys' school about ten miles from ours. Since we were Catholic, it had been my family's second choice if I hadn't gotten in to Saint Edmund's. My Protestant grandmother was deeply, deeply relieved when Saint Edmund's pulled through for us.

Irony of ironies, Sebastian injured his ankle in that game. A body part which had come to occupy a curiously erogenous place in our in-jokes, due to the fact that it was the first thing he and I had ever flirted over. He sat on the sofa in his front room, with a packet of ice solicitously placed over it by his mother. I let him rest the ankle of my lap, even though the ice was starting to drip through onto already-faded jeans.

I didn't like being in this room, since I knew, or believed, from the school's rumour-mill that it was here that Sebastian and Joshua had slept together. On the same day he and I had started flirting with one another. Every time I was in here, I tried to guess where it had been and unwelcome mental images of the two of them locked together in mutually-delirious sexual ecstasy bounced through my mind's eye. I didn't initially think Sebastian ever noticed and he was currently grousing about the fact that it had been his own team-mate, Dominic, who had accidentally trodden on his fairly inflamed ankle.

'Well, I guess that means Saturday night's off?' I joked; careful to keep my voice low, in case his parents overheard.

'What?'

'You're not going to be able to perform with your ankle ruined, are you?'

He got the joke and laughed. 'Oh. Got it. Oh, don't you worry, Rory. If I lost half my fucking leg, Saturday would still be happening.' I smiled and he lowered his voice to a whisper. 'Dude, you have no idea how fucking horny I've been thinking about it. I'm rubbing out like three or four times a day.'

'Did you just call me "dude?"'

'Shut up. Seriously. You've no idea what you do to me. I'm nursing a semi right now.'

'That's nice to know - dude.'

'Fuck you.'

I smiled and stroked just above where his ankle hurt. 'I'm sorry Dominic stepped on you.'

'Yeah. You and me both. Idiot.'

'Did he apologise?'

'You don't really apologise in rugby, Rory.'

'Oh.'

'Are you ... eh, are you looking forward to Saturday, too?'

'Did you just stammer? Are you nervous?'

'No!'

I gazed at him; taunting him slightly, but smiling.

'Okay,' he conceded. 'Yes, I am. But, in my defence...'

'In your defence? Why are you nervous? You've done it a lot more than I have.'

'Never with someone I love.'

That stopped my teasing. I nodded and let the conversation drop. A few seconds later I said, 'Yes.'

'Yes?'

'Yes -- I am still looking forward to it.'

At that, Sebastian's big brother, Evan, walked in. He was a lot like Sebastian, only slightly thinner, two years older and he sometimes wore glasses. He was wearing them now. Evan had graduated from Saint Edmund's and gone off to study Law at a university in London. Which, according to Sebastian, he didn't love too much but was very, very good at. Like Sebastian, there was a little bit of a frat-star vibe to Evan; the glasses temporarily covered it, though.

'Not interrupting, am I?'

'Fuck off, Evan,' Sebastian said, good-naturedly.

'Have you seen my wallet?'

'I think it was in the kitchen. Next to Mom's magazines.'

'Got it. Cheers, buddy. I'm driving into town; do you guys need anything?'

I shook my head politely. 'I'd kill for some Pepsi,' Sebastian said.

'I'll get a couple of bottles. You guys still need the house on Saturday?'

'Yeah.'

The two of them exchanged looks and I felt myself blush. Evan tried valiantly to hide a smile, but it didn't quite work. God -- they really did tell each other everything. Right before he left, Evan turned in the doorway and said, 'By the way, Mom and Jenny are coming with me. And Dad's over at the Kirks'. So if the doorbell goes in the next half-hour, make sure you get it.'

'Rory'll get it,' Sebastian declared, pointing to his ankle. Needless to say, I knew that Evan wasn't giving us a heads-up for the sake of the doorbell. Sebastian had his dick out of his sweats and in my hand within five seconds of the door shutting behind them. 'I cannot wait for Saturday!' he groaned.

*

On Friday night, I suffered the mother of all neurotic breakdowns. It was an internalised, unmistakeable, unstoppable vortex that was tripped off at about eight o'clock that evening when I went for my shower. My bathroom, which led off from my bedroom, had both a shower and a bath in it. That night, when I was about to step into the shower as a force of habit, I decided against it and to go for the more thorough option of a bath. As I slipped into the searing hot waters -- too hot, actually; why hadn't I waited before getting in? -- I felt myself sitting upon the edge of a metaphorical precipice. I began to notice, or imagine, or worry about, tiny patches of hair on my body. The hair that descended from my belly button to my pubis was definitely a weird kind of pattern. Perhaps it was too coarse? I began to obsess that my ass might be hairy. Or certainly unattractive. And after all, wasn't that the key zone for tomorrow night? I had a weird certainty that my nipples might be slightly too large. That the emergent chest hair I sported was unsightly. Should I shave it? But then, wouldn't there be bristle? And that was surely even worse. Furthermore, wouldn't Sebastian notice that I looked different? How many times had he seen me topless, though? Once. No, twice. For a prolonged period of time. Either way -- it was enough. Enough to notice if I changed anything. Plus, there was no guarantee that if I did change something it wouldn't somehow result in making my appearance worse. Even less desirable. Home improvements only become embarrassments when people realise you had to do them and that they didn't quite work.

By the time I'd dried myself off, shaved (my face only) and begun to put on some moisturiser (I have weird skin around my elbows; I think it's too hard), I settled into a quiet, irrepressible hysteria. I even began rattling off a rosary. A full one, which takes forever, and which was something I hadn't done in years. The thought vaguely crossed my mind that praying that I wouldn't be too hideous for my gay boyfriend to have sex with me mightn't be what the beads were intended for. It might even be blasphemous. But I'd never believed that God had a problem with gay people, so I didn't dwell on it too much. Plus, as they say: once a Catholic, always a Catholic.