Page 12 of Vine (Island Love #3)

CHAPTER 11

MAX

After Caspian left, I searched his anxiety medications online and their side effects. To enable me to become an even more perfect lover in the future. Tonight had been awesome. Wanting to masturbate him for a second time had been my only error. And he’d totally fallen for the phone number trick. Nico used to do that with girls he fancied all the time.

I hadn’t told Caspian I was inexperienced sexually. I would if he asked, because honesty between lovers was important, especially around consent and sexual health, but Perfect Peach said nothing about having to list previous sexual partners, or lack of them.

After memorising the venlafaxine patient information sheet, I hopped back into bed, spat on my hand, and treated myself to a leisurely wank, picturing Caspian’s beautiful face, all flushed and damp as he ejaculated across my palm. My own hand was well versed, but not as good as his had been. Nonetheless, a satisfactory completion was achieved.

And then, with that out of the way, I devised a plan to make him need me.

“Now take one from this side. With my hair scraped back by the wind, like this.”

Nico tilted his head to the left, squinting into the sun. Not his best look, although I didn’t point it out, as he was doing me a favour. “Don’t you think the photo might be nicer with the beach and the sweep of the dunes in the background?”

“I’m asking you to take pictures, not for your opinion. I want the sea behind me. I like the sea.”

“What, even though it’s all grey and cold and depressing?”

“Just do it!”

“Yessir.”

We’d done eight snaps of me on my tractor, two of me posing next to it, and five of me exhibiting my strength hauling oyster pouches. In most of them, I was smiling, showing my good teeth. I’d waited for three days because I wasn’t fixating on Caspian, even though he filled my head. Also, Perfect Peach suggested not appearing too keen. In the interim, I’d masturbated eleven times.

“Do you think my hair needs cutting,” I asked Nico. Generally, he had a lot of opinions about hair.

“What? To impress your man?”

“No,” I lied.

“Liar.”

Tipping his head the other way, his own perfect locks flopping over his forehead, he contemplated my head of thick hair, the same reddish-brown as my mum’s. When she had chemotherapy and all hers fell out, I offered to shave mine so she could have a wig made from it. She said no, because looking at it reminded her of all her autumns on the island, and autumn had been her favourite time of year. So I was reluctant to cut it too short, even if Mr Hair Expert decreed I should.

“Can’t see anything crawling in it.”

“That’s a low bar.”

He studied it some more. “Do you know what, Max?” A rhetorical question; more brotherly wisdom was heading my way.

“Leave it exactly the way it is. The beard too. Be yourself. If he doesn’t like it, then he’s not the man for you.”

“Huh.”

Caspian was the man for me. I couldn’t get him out of my thoughts, which I took as a sign he was supposed to be there.

I sent Caspian the best photo while I was eating my lunch, at twenty-four minutes past twelve, adding a text-based emoticon of a smiley face. I favoured emoticons over emojis, and I appreciated it when other people reciprocated. For example, if éti sent me a text saying, I hate you! I would take it literally and wonder why. If she followed it with an emoji, I would also wonder why, because the array of subtly different smiles confused me. But if she sent I hate you! followed by a winky face text-based emoticon, I’d know she was joking, and I would pretend to find it funny.

After two minutes and thirty-eight seconds, Caspian texted back. The words didn’t make a huge amount of sense, but I forgave him because the emoticons made my stomach wriggle like when I’d eaten too many bananas. Except without the need to immediately locate a toilet. Wow! Who’s that handsome fellow? ;) ;) ;)

Four minutes and eight seconds later, when I was sure I didn’t need the toilet, I answered. Me. Max. :) And then, satisfied I’d effectively communicated my desire to keep in touch, I tucked my phone back in my pocket and got on with my work.

Hi :)

I waited another two days before I sent that one. A lot of thought went into getting the tone just right. Friendly, but not too keen. Caspian replied very quickly, which I interpreted as a good sign.

Hi, Max! What are you up to? :)

Lying in bed. :)

He didn’t answer straight away, although the typing dots appeared. After one minute and twenty-eight seconds, he wrote;

Mmm… just lying in bed? ;-)

The winky face suggested a joke. Unsure what, I kept to the facts. I’m also eating a Brie sandwich.

Nice!

Oh good, he liked Brie . In my ranking of cheese, Brie came second. After Comte but before Mimolette.

What would you be doing if, you know, I came and joined you?

I’d finish my sandwich quickly so as not to be rude because I hadn’t made you one.

Lol! And if you didn’t have a sandwich…???

I scratched my head. Was this some sort of test? Make myself one, I typed eventually.

His answer to that second item of factual information was to knock on my door ten minutes later. He was underdressed for the chilly evening, but I let it pass because he wore a gorgeous blue sweatshirt with a picture of a black English Labrador (mean adult weight 29.4 kilos) on it.

“Any of that Brie left?” His smile matched his emoticons. I hoped he’d come over for more sex, so I was slightly disappointed he only wanted food. At least until he stepped through the door and stroked a light hand down the front of my favourite pyjamas. His fingers stopped just above my belly button, which was quite suggestive.

Perhaps he’d already changed his mind about the Brie. I hoped so. I hadn’t catered for two.

“These look cosy,” he said.

“They are,” I answered. “Made by Ralph Lauren. 23 percent Egyptian cotton and 77 percent silk. éti bought me them at Christmas.”

“You didn’t strike me as a Ralph Lauren pyjama kind of guy.” His fingers walked down from my belly button and across to my hip, making my penis grow heavy between my legs. “You have hidden depths, Max.”

Up until now, I concentrated on one of his perfectly curved earlobes, but I quickly glanced at his eyes. They were on my mouth. His wandering fingers suddenly made sense.

“You didn’t come here for a cheese sandwich, did you?”

Those fingers swerved inwards, and he laughed in a way that made my penis even harder. “Do you have any idea how cute you are?” he whispered, like he didn’t want my dog to hear.

“No,” I whispered back, seeing as that’s what we were doing now.

“Good.” The backs of his fingers slipped inside my loose pyjamas. He ran them down the length of my penis, and I gasped. “Don’t ever change.”

All the breath left my throat as I kissed him. A greedy surge of need made me overlook checking his consent status, but his hand was on my penis. As our mouths smashed together, the other hooked around the back of my neck, pulling me down in a non-verbal yes. All the hard parts of his body pushed into mine as if he was trying to climb into it. His fist glided down my erection.

“Christ, your kissing is a hell of a lot better than your sexting,” he panted, as he pulled away. “And all of this…” He cupped my balls and tugged on them. “You are one big, gorgeous boy, Max.”

“Man,” I corrected.

As he nuzzled his nose along my jaw, he whispered again. “Do you mind if I kneel and take a closer look?”

Mon dieu, his grin up at me was so fucking sexy, and his mouth on my penis was hot . As a keen student of pornography, I thought I knew what to expect, but pornography hadn’t prepared me for the noises Caspian would make. Like he was eating fleur de sel ice cream for the very first time. Or that he’d take his time peppering my dick with a hundred kisses before sucking, his lips working up to my leaky head and then swooshing down the length, all the way to the thin sensitive skin where it met the top of my balls. And his tongue was so soft, even softer than the fabric of my expensive pyjamas.

But most of all, I hadn’t realised how fucking awesome all of those aspects were combined. Like every nerve in my body was trying to fire at once and in all directions, paralysing me, but the best kind of paralysis, frozen in a time and place I never wanted to be rescued from. As he closed his mouth over my tip, then swallowed my penis deep, past his plush lips and gums to the narrow back of his throat and beyond, I sunk my fingers into his hair, lost in a tight grip of pleasure.

“You can,” Caspian croaked around me, “pull on it.” He breathed heavily through his nose. Spit drooled down his chin; one perfect smooth cheek was slick wet. Never had I seen a more beautiful thing. “Fuck my mouth, Max. I like it.”

Days later, just thinking about him saying those words and me letting go continued to make my penis impossibly hard. Thinking about my semen streaming down Caspian’s throat. The way he shivered as I tugged his hair, the grunts as I thrust into him, the tip of his pink tongue as he cleaned my length afterwards, lapping up my release like a feral cat. And I’d giggle to myself. All those nights I’d been perfectly content to lie in bed listening to a radio documentary on carp fishing at Etang 13 when I could have been doing that!

Eventually, I gathered strength to move. Knowing my luck, my dad or Colette would choose this exact moment to pop over to check I wasn’t doing something weird, like lighting my wood burner with hoof fungus, and find me with my pyjamas around my ankles.

Caspian stood too, and we faced each other.

“Nice sweater,” I told him, because complimenting a lover was important. I pretended not to notice his massive erection. And then I also remembered that there should be no secrets between lovers, so I added, “You should pull the hem down so that if someone knocks at the door, it will hide your penis.”

For some reason, he found my advice funny, and left his sweater and his erection where it was. Maybe English television presenters were more relaxed about hidden social curriculum violations as Colette called them. She had given me a whole list to memorise; it also hung on the inside of the bathroom cabinet. Don’t wander off halfway through a boring conversation. Don’t dominate a conversation. Brush your hair regularly, wear deodorant, try and look at people when they talk at you but don’t turn it into a stare. Keep erections private.

Instead, he reached up onto his tiptoes and kissed my mouth. Not like we’d kissed before, when I’d also had an erection and the kisses had been frantic and sloppy, like on pornography videos. This one was more like the soft, gentle ones I saw Nico give to éti sometimes, when they didn’t know anyone was watching. A private kiss, commanding all my attention.

Caspian’s hands stopped me moving my head, and his palms were flat against the sides of my beard, which I wouldn’t have liked with most people, but with Caspian it was okay. For a moment, I was concerned I might taste my own semen, not a flavour I relished, but mostly, I only tasted him.

“This was a flying visit, Max,” he said as he stepped away. “I have a work meeting starting in ten minutes. I just… well, I’d been thinking about, you know, cutting myself because I’m anxious about the meeting. But your texts cheered me up, and I wanted to tell you that. And to thank you. In person.”

“You thanked my penis,” I answered, and he laughed. I could be good at jokes when I was in the right mood. And, because I was on a roll, I added boldly, “I could thank yours for the nice kisses if you think you can ejaculate.”

The skin on his perfect, kissable cheeks turned pink. “Maybe next time. A cuddle will do for now.”

Naked cuddles like we’d shared in bed were my preferred type, but this standing cuddle was good too, much better than when my family attempted it. Less prickly, more like how I felt when Florian hugged me close, although even better. For a long time, I just held him, squeezing out the sadness, imagining how happy I’d be if I could do this every day.

“One of these works better than the pills,” said Caspian into my chest, so I doubled my efforts by adding in some back stroking. Without any of the common, very common, or rare side effects listed on the patient information sheet, too. Falling in love hadn’t been listed either, so I was going to have to make him fall for me the old-fashioned way. With lots more cuddling.