Page 124 of Oleander

Finlay:

Call yourself a Classics student? Is that even proper English?

Me:

Definitely proper English. How drunk are you?

Finlay:

Not too drunk to suck your cock

Me:

We’re still doing that?

Finlay:

I’d really like to, yes

Me:

Would you now

I was lying on my bed, wrapped in a towel, with the window cracked open to let the fresh air in. The room, being in the roof space, was hotter than the one in Ellis.

Finlay:

I thought about your cock a lot this summer

I wasn’t sure that was true, but it still caused a little niggle of guilt to pull at me since I hadn’t thought of Finn once that I could remember.

Me:

I don’t believe you.

Finlay:

You still at Ellis?

I tried to think of the last time I’d gotten off, and couldn’t, which made me embarrassed and a little worried. I was eighteen years old, a second year at Oxford, and the last time I’d gotten off was so long ago that I couldn’t remember it.

Me:

Longall. Third floor. Room 4.

Finn sent back a string of aubergine emojis, a few tongue emojis, and a string of raindrops.

And so things with Finn picked right back up where we’d left them a couple of months before. And just like before the summer, full sex remained just slightly out of my zone of comfort or interest. I was definitely getting closer to being okay with the idea of it, and Finn himself was the reason for that. As my nineteenth birthday came and went and the coursework of my second year started to pile, I was more grateful than ever to have him there when I needed him.

One night, Valentine’s Day night I think, after once again sucking my soul out through my dick, he nosed at the skin around my balls and then lower, near my hole and said, “You ever gonna let me in here?”

I stiffened a little. Looking down at him, I asked, “Is that what you want?”

He gave me an incredulous look as if it should be completely fucking obvious.

“I mean, you want to fuck me?” I clarified. “You don’t want me to fuck you?”

“Jude, I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me, and I do, but for some reason you’re still squeamish about this, and so I’m trying not to spook you.”