Chapter 9: Leather

I opened the door.

He stood in the hall in his shirtsleeves, wet through from crossing the yard, with his tie gone and his glove dark with rain.

"I'm not going to look at your hand," I said.

"Talin."

"I'm not. I'm telling you so you can stop standing there like that."

He did not move.

"But I won't lie in a bed with a man who flinches when I say his name," I said. "So tell me what to call you."

"Nothing."

"That isn't a name."

"Say nothing," he said. "Please."

I looked at him, at the water running off his jaw and the hand held stiff at his side.

I could tell he meant it.

"Husband, then," I said.

Something went across his face.

"Say it again."

"Husband."

He shut his eyes.

I took his right hand in mine, the bare one, and stepped out into the hall.

I pulled him with me toward the far end of it.

He saw where I was going and stopped.

"No."

"You said I would never open that door," I said. "I'm opening it. I'm not asking you to open anything else."

"Talin."

"Tell me I can't."

He did not.

I turned the handle with my free hand.

It was unlocked.

The room was small and dark, with a cot against the wall and a narrow window with the blind drawn.

I did not turn on the light.

I could see only shapes by the gray from the hall.

There was a row of suits on a rail, a stool, and a tall mirror in the corner with a sheet thrown over it.

I thought nothing about any of it, because I had said I would not look.

I pushed the door shut behind us and put my back against it.

"Sit," I said.

He sat on the edge of the cot.

I knelt on the floor between his knees.

I put my hands on his thighs and felt them shaking under the wet cloth.

"I want to try something," I said.

"You don't have to do anything."

"I know I don't."

I unbuckled his belt and opened his trousers.

He was already hard, thick against the wet cotton.

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