Supernova

 

 

“DANNY? WILL you close your eyes?” Micky asks softly.

We’re on the Tube, rushing through the dark under central London. Even if I close my eyes, the station announcements will sound out over the speakers telling us exactly where we are, but this is part of the game, and we both want to play.

Micky takes hold of my hand. “Don’t listen,” he whispers, placing a cool hand over one of my ears and pulling me to my feet.

I smile. He smells of flower water from the cold shower that made him yelp, and the wool of his suit. The comforting and the unfamiliar. The truth and the unknown.

To be honest I don’t care so much where we’re going, just that I’m going there with him.

He leads me off the Tube train, telling me to watch my step, guiding me with his body, staying close. It’s evening and it’s busy, and crowds sometimes make me feel like a panicked bird in a cage, but tonight I pretend they’re not there and focus on Micky.

He faces me on the escalator, hands on my shoulders. “I’m gonna remember this,” he whispers. “Tonight. With you.”

I still have my eyes closed, but I can feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek. My heart is beating so fast I can’t hear anything else.

Back at the swimming pool, I didn’t look in the mirror. Even after Micky put all the makeup on me, I didn’t look, and Micky stopped asking me to. So what the boy Micky sees in front of him looks like, I don’t know, but I feel as if I have all his attention, and this thought has me more turned on than I’ve ever been.

My skin is hypersensitive. The fabric of my shirt rubs mercilessly against my hard nipples. Thankfully the suit jacket is long, but it doesn’t stop me wanting to put my hand between my legs to relieve the ache, just a little.

The underground air is warm, and I feel hot and unsteady as though I might come undone, here on the escalator, need and want spilling out of me in an uncontained flood of unrequited desire. Instead I squeeze his hand tighter, trying to ignore how much I wish I could pull him into my arms.

We walk. My eyes are closed. Micky leads me slowly as we navigate curbs and steps, taking so much care I don’t stumble that I think my heart might burst out of my chest. We could have walked a hundred meters or a couple of miles—I’ve no idea.

“We’re here. Look,” Micky says, finally coming to a stop.

When I don’t look, he lifts my hand and presses his mouth to my knuckle. The wet tip of his tongue swirls against my skin, as soft as fuck.

Oh.

Mortifyingly, I think I moan as a painful kind of pleasure jolts through me from deep in my stomach right through my dick. Opening my eyes now is almost too much—my senses are drowning me.

“Is your shoulder okay?”

Turning my head, I blink at him and see the way he’s smiling. See that he knows it wasn’t my shoulder that drew that sound out of me. Making me think he needs to know I liked what he did, or at least that I didn’t mind it.

If he needs to do this because of some sort of fucked-up gratitude he has going on, it will probably kill me. I’m confused because I think he knows that would hurt me, and I think—fuck, I hope—he doesn’t want to hurt me. I’m so, so confused. But in my heart a million voices are shouting they don’t care about the why—only the is, the now, the this.

My heart trusts him.

I swallow. “My shoulder’s fine.”

On the edge of my vision, a huge building is lit up against the dark. When I turn and look and actually see where it is he’s brought me, music sounds inside me.

The Albert Hall.

I can’t believe he remembered this. That night at the Pagoda, Micky asked me the places in London I’d never been. Of course I’ve walked past it… but…. I suspect we’re dressed like this because we’re going in.

With a smile a mile wide, I turn to look at him, see the way his face lights up as he takes in my reaction. I want to hug him and never let go, and as soon as I make that first move closer to him, he’s there, arms open, pulling me tight.

 

 

IT’S ALMOST as if we somehow fell through the glass tiles in the swimming pool bathroom into another dimension. Right now I’m in another world. A world of gleaming black leather and dark gold. We walk right around the crowd making their way through the front entrance. A few people catch my eye, but they seem more drawn to Micky’s hand in mine than the fact that I don’t belong. I feel like I’m wearing a mask and I can be anyone I want. It’s a superpower Micky has given me, and he probably doesn’t even know it.

With an assuredness I’ve always kind of sensed he has but I’ve never quite seen, Micky leads me purposefully to the stage door. He stops outside and looks around before leaning in to whisper, “No one will ask, but if they do, I’m going to say we’re with the Phoenix Youth Orchestra—the PYO. You won’t have to say a word…. Do you trust me?”

I think some spirit has possessed me, some Loki-like charm, because instead of answering, I lift our joined hands and lick all the way across his knuckles. The action probably affects me more than Micky, but his eyes go huge and he swallows as though he’s thirsty and desperately needs a drink.

He tastes nice. All savory and a little sweet. I smile to myself, pleased I got the guts to do that even if it was a little weird. Micky was weird first, so I don’t feel so bad.

My touch seems to have immobilised him, though, and he sinks back against the wall. Eventually I have to prompt him to move. If we don’t go in, we’re going to miss stuff, and I don’t want to miss a thing. But even when we’re through the door, Micky keeps turning to look at me, his eyes all dark like night fallen across a sea.

“I’m kinda hoping you like classical music,” he says as we walk down a brightly lit corridor that follows the circular shape of the building. Every so often we pass people walking in the opposite direction carrying instruments: mostly violins, sometimes cellos, occasionally something twisted and shiny that I can’t name, but they’re definitely not trumpets.

“Sometimes orchestras play in the parks,” I say, looking around at everything. Music is this magic thing, inextricably linked with the smell of hot grass and summer rain, and now this, here.

“Three orchestras are playing tonight. American ones.” Micky squeezes my hand as he peers at the notices stuck to the doors we pass: “New York Youth—Brass.” “Pennsylvania State Youth—Wind.” “Phoenix Youth—Strings.”

I feel a tremor go through him and his step falters, but we move on. “Phoenix Youth—Brass.” He falters again and I grip his hand tighter. He’s vibrating like an elastic band pulled too tight.

“Is Phoenix in Arizona?” I ask. I don’t really have a clue, but somehow I just know it is before he confirms it.

“Home.”

“Phoenix Youth—Wind.”

He stops.

Through the little window halfway up the door, we can see the light is on and the room is empty apart from what looks like a hundred black cases.

“I’m sorry,” Micky says, resting his forehead on the door. “Fuck…. I wanted to do this for you, not me. So fucking selfish,” he mutters.

I turn to tell him that just being with him is enough for me, but I’m shocked to see he’s upset—a sudden wash of tears and jagged breathing. He leans unsteadily against the door, looking like his legs are about to give out.

Voices echo from a nearby room; a door closes. I glance again at the handwritten sign for Phoenix Youth—Wind before opening the door and pulling him into the room. I push him against the wall next to the door, far enough out of sight that the room still looks empty from outside. His eyes are closed as I touch his cheeks, his hair, without even thinking, needing only to take away his pain, somehow knowing being touched like this makes him feel good, and hoping maybe it will help.

“No one makes me feel like you do,” he mumbles as I stroke his hair. “Please, don’t ever let me go.”

“I won’t.” I don’t think I can.

“Run away with me? We’ll join the orchestra, stow away in cello cases, travel the world.” Gripping the lapels of my suit, he pulls me forwards—nestling his head on my shoulder, pressing his ear to my chest.

“Your heartbeat is going crazy,” he whispers, after a while.

I let out a strangled laugh. What an understatement. My heart has gone fucking supernova.

There is no way I can stop what I’m feeling, no going back from this, no shield in the entirety of the universe that can protect a heart from love.

“It’s okay,” I murmur into his hair. “It’ll be okay.”

But perhaps nothing will be okay again.