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John Childermass knew as well as any man that the only thing safe to assume in life is that he who make assumptions is a fool awaiting a fool’s fate.
Indeed Childermass, who had not survived two score years of a life ill-starred from its outset by anything less than cunning, had learnt always to suspect everything and interrogate each idea from all angles, to give every maxim long and close study before he let it become an accepted truth in his mind.
But even he had to admit that some area of weakness or particular blind spot must now be upon him, because when one Mr John Segundus, admittedly a person of many mysteries, had told Childermass seven days previously, (a little tremulously and whilst flushing quite to the tip of his nose) that he had never – “Never… lain with a person, if you understand me, never… known another, not even… there was a man in London who offered… but never, I didn’t…” – Childermass had held onto him tightly, resumed kissing his neck in the minutes they had left before Segundus must join the mail coach, and had assumed – assumed – that when they met again it would be a matter of his gently teaching Mr Segundus many entirely new things.
This had in fact not been an unpleasing thing to contemplate over the intervening week, although the days had seemed to drag on quite ridiculously, until Childermass was half sure someone had placed some form of time enchantment over his area of London, where yet he remained, because someone had to keep the members of Parliament from sending everything to rack and ruin.
But “If you wish to penetrate me at once, I am quite ready, I assure you,” were Segundus’ opening words when next they met, having flung down his hat and gloves on the bed of the room Childermass had taken at the coaching-inn where they were in the habit of meeting, it being more or less equidistant from their separate areas of the country.
They had begun meeting in this manner - weekly and in person, both catching the mails in one direction in the morning, returning the opposite way in the evening - because writing letters had not been rapid enough for the exchange of ideas that, Childermass had been surprised to discover, flowed most easily between them. To have themselves carried to each other by the mail coach, rather than their words, was perhaps more apt and charming than Childermass would have chosen, had he had the arranging of it all.
But he had found – he, a man used to the command of not only his own life but often that of others – that Segundus was a most disarranging man altogether, for all he seemed so polite and mild. A man of ideas, fierce ideas and theories, and above all desires for the accomplishment of things, not to prove that a thing could be done, or to show off his ability to do such a thing, but because he considered the achievement of the thing the right path, the moral imperative.
Childermass felt most strongly that he should consider this foolishly naïve of the man. But somehow nonetheless he had become drawn into a discussion with so many branches, so many layers about which he himself felt strongly, that, as has been said, eventually even the written word became inadequate to hold all they wished to convey to each other.
There was, foremost, Segundus’ plans to establish some way of dispersing the toxic miasmas which seemed to bring dysentery to the poorest areas of cities, and yet also to soldiers in encampments. Then there was the new book of the Raven King, the mystery of the whereabouts of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (which was discussed in all the newspapers) and of Stephen Black (which was not). There was the need to decide how best to advise the government in view of the new state of affairs in English magic. All this and thousand things beside.
And so they met and talked and Segundus would grow earnest and heated, and Childermass laconical and weary, and then Segundus would take a deep breath, come nearer, and speak again, direct and intense, illustrating his point, making his case and Childermass would find himself blinking at him, surprised to find his own spirits rising, his cynicism like a rock dashed with the waves of the other man’s eagerness, unyielding but touched nonetheless.
Childermass had then brought John Segundus a kitten. He did not really like to think of it. In retrospect, indeed, it had been a most foolhardy thing altogether, but it had not been as if he wished to do it. The fact of the matter was that once Arabella Strange had returned from Venice it was found that a cat had stowed away in her luggage, and besides ruining two of her best gowns had produced a singular kitten – singular in more ways than one. The cat, which smelt of paper and thunder and triumph, had somehow effected an escape from a locked basket, and the kitten had been left as a small bundle of brindled fur which sometimes caused honeysuckle to grow out of the furniture where it had scratched, and whimpered for milk at the mirror, as if it might suspect someone beyond the glass might come in attendance.
Whatever might become of such a creature, whatever it might aid to channel or emerge to be capable of, best that someone Childermass trusted have the keeping of it. He was no creature’s nurse, but besides himself on the list of those he would give his trust to, he found there was only John Segundus.
And so to Segundus it went, and that man, despite Childermass’ protestations to the contrary, considered it a gift, and a most kind one, and took to carrying the thing in his pocket, and latterly walking about with it curled around the back of his neck (and leaving unmistakable hairs the shoulders of his coat, which sparkled in the presence of lightning).
Segundus, apparently in return, brought to their next meeting a large basket containing, wrapped in a linen napkin, a large quantity of a particular griddle-cake augmented with raisins and cherries which Childermass had once, months earlier, expressed missing since leaving Yorkshire.
Childermass had no idea of continuing further into any kind of sentimental nonsense after that, but then found a book in a London street market concerning miasma theory in relation to the works of Giralamo Fracastoro and Agostino Bassi, only just translated from the Italian, which was so clearly of interest to Segundus’ current work that only a fool would not have bought it merely to prove a point. It was not a gift but a loan, he took pains to pronounce.
Nonetheless, Segundus brought to their following meeting a flask of his home-brewed honey-wine, which proved most delightful and rather headier than Childermass expected, especially when Segundus spilt it in the removal of the cork and flushed, laughing and apologising, and licked his fingers clean.
At this point, Childermass could quite recognise the regrettable state of affairs into which he had stumbled, and perhaps the sensible thing would have been to stop meeting altogether, to arrest this course before he could stumble any further along it.
He reminded himself, however, that he was in control of his own impulses, and furthermore that Segundus could not have a thought of such a thing, and that only a fool had his head turned by a fair countenance (and a shapely arse, and long legs and such fine sensitive lips) when no doubt even if Segundus could imagine some contact between them, he would recoil from real intimacy with a rogue such as Childermass, who was likely in the end no more in his estimation than merely useful to him, practically a servant all told.
These reflections enabled Childermass to come, as usual, to the inn the next week, although it cannot be said they much improved his mood in doing so, and he arrived in a fine storm of indignation and frustration and something nestled deep inside that might have been hurt had he let himself examine it.
It was then that Segundus, having greeted him and having nervously licked his lips – was he somehow aware of Childermass’ feelings and about to suggest they desist? Childermass had wondered, feeling slightly sick – reached into his pocket and produced a small package of brown paper, tied with blue string.
“Leaena – my cat – she found this,” Segundus had said, holding out the object, scarcely bigger than a respectable horse chestnut. “In the corner of a room at Starecross which I had never entered before – which indeed I not sure existed last week – and I thought, that is to say, I knew, when I held it, that it belonged to you. Perhaps even you dropped it there in months past?”
Childermass had taken the package and torn off the wrapping, and found himself holding a primitive brooch or buckle of darkest jet, in the centre of which had been worked a raven carved in the moment of attaining flight. It glistened in the light, and fairly hummed with magic, a thick, soothing magic, which Childermass was so surprised and delighted to feel that - although he had never seen it, or anything like it, before - he found himself crying out, “This is mine! How did you know it was mine?”
“That is your resonance exactly,” Segundus said quietly, with a smile, as though such a perception was nothing remarkable. And perhaps to him it was not.
And John Segundus had stepped a little closer, and reached out to touch Childermass’ sleeve, and then the skin at his wrist, as if to sense whatever quality he was describing.
“Such a powerful object,” Childermass had observed, his voice gone low, thick. “Many would have rather kept it for themselves and see what might become of it, even if they perceived an affinity to another.” He could not account for his emotion, for the unspooling of the centre which he kept so tight, the place where the memories lived of being young and alone and lost, and belonging to nothing and no one. He was touching both the brooch and Segundus, and it was not clear whether either or both of them had taken the lost feeling away.
Segundus had not persisted to unsettle him, had instead stepped away and cleared his throat, poured them both water and called for food, and had talked of their usual topics until Childermass felt collected again (although the brooch, in his waistcoat pocket, warmed his whole chest), and they had continued as normal until the very end, when Segundus was taking his leave - already the grooms were calling in the yard for him if he still wished to travel, and if he did not catch his coach then he would not be able to appear before his classes at his school on the morrow.
“Ah well, until we meet again,” Segundus had said, and his eyes had been wide and soft, and his mouth slightly open, and almost smiling, and his collar slightly askew, and he had given over the relic of the Raven King without any demand about it, and Childermass had broken forward – thinking nothing, thinking everything – and kissed him quite before he knew what he was about, and thereby occasioning the interchange in which Segundus had confessed his utter innocence of all carnal matters.
Or at least, so Childermass had thought.
Which, as has been mentioned, had not lead Childermass to expect anything quite like Segundus before him, as now, high colour in his cheeks, eyes bright, pulse fluttering mouse-fast in his throat, declaring himself most prepared and ready to be fucked.
Childermass, his own cloak, hat and jacket already discarded, moved closer to his friend – it could do no further harm to admit him a friend, at this point – and brought their mouths together, because he had been waiting to do so for quite seven days of hunger, and he was somehow sure he could think no logical thing until that action had been undertaken.
Segundus met him with all apparent eagerness, but certainly without any skill or confidence that might suggest he had been misleading as to his previous experiences of fleshly pleasure.
“Say that again,” Childermass asked him, once they broke to breathe a little. “What is it that you are trying to tell me?”
“Why, that I am ready to receive you into me, whenever you wish it, and we may… continue,” Segundus told him, his breaths still rapid, his grin wide. “Or?” and now the grin started to slide away, the eyes to gather fear. “Am I not supposed to be? I had supposed… it is always…”
“Sir,” Childermass began, aware that he sounded bewildered. “I am glad if you are… that is to say, I was not expecting…”
Segundus took two steps away. He was a deeper red in his face, and his shoulders hunched in a way that was most distressing to behold.
“I beg you, Mr Childermass, do not call me ‘Sir’. I would never presume to command you. Have you thought…? You cannot imagine that I ever intended to demand…”
Childermass, for his part, it may be mentioned, had enjoyed carnal liasons with several people and single nights with many more, male and female, (and other sexes besides which have had their names stolen into time with the loss of the old magic) and with any of them - with every one of them - he had never exchanged more than the most necessary words, had avoided sharing any particulars of himself apart from his body, and had at once retreated from anything approaching sighing and puzzling and talking about things.
But now he felt no impatience, no horror besides that which was sympathy – sympathy most profound and intense – and was aware of a cold tightening of his stomach as he beheld Segundus’ unhappiness.
He wanted to reach out and smooth the smile back onto Segundus’ face. He wanted to step forwards and grow closer.
He kept himself standing still, his hands clasped at his sides, before he could make another mistake.
“Well, what am I to call you, then?” he asked, as gently as he could.
Segundus composed himself somewhat; swallowed, his pale throat working. “You might call me John?”
“Then, John,” - it was a strange intimacy, the more so for being his own name too, though none had used it to him in several decades and he scarcely felt attachment to it - “we have become confused somewhere, let us better understand ourselves. I am surprised, not displeased, by… by what you say. But why do you say it?”
Segundus turned now, his face outraged eagerness – an expression common to him. “We had… on the last occasion we were here we… so I thought you wanted to… but perhaps I have misunderstood, or…”
“I greatly wish to be intimate with you,” Childermass told him, more quickly and loudly than he had meant, and his voice gruff, like declaiming a law.
Segundus did smile, that instant, before biting his lip and looking down. “It is my understanding that for… greater intimacy to be possible between two men, one of them must be…with something slippery…” he cleared his throat. “You see I do know a little,” he finished, head going up once more, defiant pride in his eyes, nostrils twitching.
“You do at that. You mean that you have… prepared yourself?” Childermass took a sharp breath. His breeches had in the past five minutes become most confining and it was difficult to think when his whole body seemed to pulse with desire. “Damn this pretty language. You have come here, all the way in the coach, with your arse greased for me? Is that it? Have spent your morning…” he choked, clenched his fist tight enough to ache as the image came all too clearly before him, “…making an improper purpose of some lard or suchlike?”
“No indeed! It is an oil I manufacture for the purpose, very fine, scented with lavender.”
“For the purpose? So you have… you have been with other men?” Entirely unfair and uncharitable to feel disappointed.
The flush which had retreated a little on Segundus’ features deepened again. He drew himself up with some dignity. “The oil is for the purpose of my being penetrated. That does not necessarily require another person. Fortunately,” he added, in a lower voice, “or otherwise these last fifteen or twenty years would have been much harder to bear in a state of solitude.”
Oh John Segundus, man of many mysteries indeed. Childermass sat down on the bed. He thought otherwise he might have fallen over.
“It is very hard to gather books on the topic of relations between two men, harder indeed than to find books of magic.” Segundus, having once started talking, seemed determined, perhaps even eager to continue, like a man with a long-hidden secret can be.
I once dreamed of you and me flying over the moors of Yorkshire on the breath of the heather , Childermass did not confess, for he could keep secrets deeper than oceans.
“But I did find a shop in London which sells… various antique curiosities,” Segundus was continuing. “Including an instrument in marble, somewhat anatomical, which has proved most conducive to research and practice.” He was speaking quite loudly now, shoulders back, once again declaiming his beliefs. “I find it wise to study a thing in order to ultimately undertake it well, and I had hoped… I had long hoped to find someone… congenial, with whom I might one day translate theory into practice.”
The man who had tried to make magic until he could try no more, and would not give it up even in the face of far greater power, because he approached all his interests with dedication, he would not let being a lover with no one to touch delay him – oh yes, Childermass could believe it, easily, could worse yet picture it all, Segundus at home in his small dusty rooms, naked on his bed, panting and gasping and working his fingers up inside himself, his cock ignored until he could sink down and be filled by cold marble, unless of course he warmed the thing first, in a bowl of water or perhaps his mouth….
“I should like to see that.” Childermass choked out, a truth too near the surface to call back. “Very much.” And he leant back a little, attempting for the first time in his life to look less threatening than he otherwise might, and patted the space on the side of the bed next to him. “I should like greater knowledge of every part of you,” he continued, more breathless than he expected to be as Segundus came across the creaking floor towards him, a tentative hope gentling away the lines around his eyes. “It was merely that I did not understand why you began by announcing your… eagerness in that manner.”
“Oh, but in the books I have read,” Segundus protested, sitting down as bidden, “there is never any waiting, they always move straightway to the purpose.”
“And in those books you read, I suppose the hero was always at attention, with a cockstand that would last through several hours and several people, and no one ever interrupted and no one had pox?”
Segundus sighed. “I do understand that there is some difference between fiction and reality, but who was there for me to ask in what precise articles it was otherwise than what I read? And I did find,” he folded his arms, what Childermass called his ‘scientific’ voice coming through, “that I could keep myself in a stand for quite two hours if I regularly applied stimulation without, obviously, reaching, ahem, a conclusion.”
Childermass kissed him then. He rather doubted than anyone in the world could have resisted.
And with a soft, long sigh Segundus lay back onto the bed, raising his arms to draw Childermass down with him, and Childermass followed, not allowing their mouths to part, and manoeuvred himself so as to come down astride and atop Segundus’ body, bringing their chests together and then the most heated part of himself against a gratifyingly hard resistance at Segundus’ groin.
“Please!” Segundus cried out, breaking away, and his chest was rising and falling rapidly, his lips grown bruised and swollen and red with kissing, and Childermass could have told himself this was not what he’d wanted since he’d first seen the man becoming heated with frustration in a small York booksellers, but that would have been self-deception of a most foolish kind, and Childermass, as we have observed, was no man’s fool.
Segundus was now looking up at him with a most affectingly tender expression, one to make him blink in quiet surprise.
“Not many people smile to see my face,” Childermass told him.
“Why, your aether turns purple when you are happy,” Segundus exclaimed, grin widening, “the colour of the heather on the moors, all interspersed with gold the colour of gorse in bloom. And if you are melancholy it is a November grey sky, with the glint of a raven’s wing. And if you are in a great dudgeon, as so often you are,” he smiled again, and Childermass felt he should do something – nip him, protest, laugh – but he was transfixed, “why then it is brown husk bread, and dry, and very thin, like the ache of a cold bone. And it is always beautiful to behold, even when it saddens me.”
“Heather and gorse, eh?” Childermass said, after a small time when perhaps he kissed the man beneath him rather carefully, in a kind of wonder. “Prickly things.”
Segundus reached up his hand, and ran the back of it over the stubble on Childermass’ cheek. “Yes indeed. And rather proud of it, I think.”
This time Childermass would retaliate, and he ground his hips down into Segundus’, thrilling to see the man’s eyes roll back and his teeth work sharply at his lip.
“So, John,” Childermass said. “You who have read so very much. What is that you most dream of trying out in practice?” And he let himself press down once more on the last word, which was quite disarmingly delicious, and no doubt led to his being able to be taken unawares by the next action.
For in reply Segundus suddenly grabbed tight hold of him, and rolled them over on the bed so that Segundus was above, which Childermass might yet have protested had not Segundus then taken one of Childermass’ hands and drawn it up to place it squarely on the curve of his own backside.
“You are quite sure?”
“I have considered the matter at some length, I assure you John,” Segundus said, smiling.
As they worked to dispose of their own and each other’s clothing, Childermass gave a short laugh and said: “A fine confusion we shall be, with the same name as each other.”
“A true name is whose you mean it to be, surely?” Segundus, stepping out of his breeches without much elegance, and somehow all the more enticing for it as he stumbled on one foot, finally won his battle with them and came back towards the bed. “And I am quite sure when I cry it out you shall know it as your own.”
“Indeed,” said Childermass, or something like it, or at least some kind of sound, for Segundus was quite naked now and his cockstand most erect, bobbing slightly against his pale, slightly soft stomach, against a lovely thicket of brown hair.
“John,” Segundus said again, gentle, inviting, and flushed over his chest and throat even as his cock twitched and he reached out his hand.
Childermass tore off his shirt, and went to him, bearing them once more down the bed. After a little more kissing, with the added interest of skin moving against skin, he gathered his thoughts sufficiently to pause and murmur a silencing charm around the room, and was surprised to find Segundus moan under him.
“Did you feel that?”
“I would rather feel you,” Segundus told him bluntly, and Childermass was content to let the matter rest for the present.
They embraced together some while, Childermass mouthing along the angle of Segundus’ jaw, along the fine curve of his collarbone, around the hollow of his neck, and felt the man gasp and squirm beneath him, and felt where they met grow slick with sweat and more. Childermass could have driven his hips then and there to completion, he was sure of it, but then Segundus gave another huffed cry, as if of impatience, and spread his legs more widely, and Childermass found his own cock had slid down and now moved in the hot, secret cleft between the other man’s buttocks, which indeed he realised to be most generously sleek with sweet-scented oil.
“Fuck. Preserve me,” Childermass cursed, biting hard at his own lip to keep control, and felt a hand going into his hair, Segundus pulling it loose from its queue, running his fingers through the strands, stroking at the sensitive skin of Childermass’ scalp, so that it was as if thousand tiny touches rushed over his body at once as he shivered.
“Get upon me then, John,” he was instructed, a whisper in his ear - sweet, warm breath - and it might as well have been a spell, indeed a most potent one, for he moved at once, limbs almost trembling, to do as bidded. He took himself in hand, pressing the head of his cock against Segundus’ fundament, which caused a most pleasant noise in reaction and he was more than eager to push further.
Once they began to attempt to arrange themselves to enable a more definitive penetration, however, they began to run into difficulties.
“Of all the things!” Segundus complained, frowning, wincing, and once again loosing hold of his thigh, which he was attempting to pull towards his chest so it no longer barred Childermass’ way. “To have forgotten to practice knees!”
“You might turn over, if you wished,” Childermass said – reluctantly, for he most wished to watch Segundus’ reactions to their endeavour. “Or…” and this was a better plan, not something he had ever felt a wish for with another, due to how it trapped him, but which he was quite sure he could tolerate – more than tolerate – now. “Or if I lie back,” he said, and did so. “And you come and sit across me, you see?”
“Oh I do,” Segundus breathed, eyes shining, and made haste to demonstrate his understanding, until he was crouching right over Childermass, his hands gripping Childermass’ thighs, raised behind him for him to rest on, and his head thrown back, throat all bare and vulnerable, as he slowly lowered himself, taking each quarter of an inch into him with great care.
And now Childermass could feel the heat of him, the smooth, tight heat that smelt, indeed, of lavender, a smell that…
“I’ve met you before when you had used this oil!” he choked out, astonished. “I know this scent of old!”
Segundus smiled most devilishly and raised his eyebrow. “No one ever thinks twice of a person smelling pleasant,” he said. “Now, is that…? Oh… Oh I do believe I have found it, yes, Oh! There!”
Childermass attempted not to dig his fingers in too hard to where they gripped Segundus’ sides. “I shall move a little, then?”
“I would be honoured, sir,” Segundus told him, eyes full of mischief even as his mouth feel open on a ragged gasp when Childermass fought his way through a slow, restrained thrust up into him. “Oh, oh, oh! I cannot… It is so very different, with a person.”
“And do you find you like it?”
“What a… oh! What a preposterous question. Indeed, that is a wrong question, Mr Childermass!” he declared, as perhaps one might had one been waiting to say one thing to one person for a long while.
Childermass moved again, and again, sliding into sensation so agreeable he feared he would end before he had made any showing of himself. He reached between them, plucked at Segundus’ nipple, which was flat and small and perfectly covered by one of Childermass’ thick, work-roughened fingertips, and drew tight and pebbled under his touch most agreeably, provoking a moan.
“I thought it was agreed that when you called my name in this bed, it should be my first name?”
“John!” Segundus obliged, “oh please, please…”
He did not name what he wanted, but Childermass moved his hand to Segundus’ cock and stroked up along it, producing a small fall of droplets running clear as rain from the head, which seemed to provoke Segundus to squeeze down against him until they were both scarcely coherent.
Together they raced, together they flew, and all hurtled into a blinding flash, and Childermass moved his hand and his hips faster, watching Segundus above him, watching his eyes, his dedicated, intense eyes focus on him alone and then fall closed with ecstasy in response to what Childermass did to him.
Segundus climaxed with a cry, spurting between them quite some volume, and Childermass finally allowed himself to flow into him, to let loose and empty, to accept being held within another person in a way he had never seen as profound until this day. Segundus was the one being buggered, no doubt, but as Childermass sank back and panted and clung to him – for Segundus had fallen forward flush against him, kissing lazily at his neck – he believed he had never felt himself so taken by another.
“And did I perform the act correctly, in the end?” Segundus was asking, sounding almost serious
‘Quite correct, I assure you,” Childermass told him, stroking his back, feeling down to where they were still just joined, feeling the mess of the oil and his seed and rubbing at it, the better to mark his visitation there.
Segundus made a whimper that did not seem entirely to be objection, and Childermass, frowning with interest, let his spent cock come out, and pressed his index finger slightly in instead, tugging slightly at the ring of muscle.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Damnation, yes! Please!”
“I think I like it when you say please to me.”
“You quite infuriating… nrgh! Oh, slowly, but… do not stop, I beg, and if you can find… there is… I have a particular anatomy, a protrusion which…”
“Aye, most men do.”
“Do they?” Segundus paused to frown, perturbed. “That was not in the book.”
“You may consider me your book now.”
Segundus groaned, and bit at his shoulder, quite hard. “Now you swine, you have made me think of Vinculus. I do not wish to think of Vinculus at this moment.”
Childermass chuckled, and found himself struck by it, that he could be so at ease, so happy during this act, so happy with any person under any circumstances.
“Then you shall not,” he murmured, his voice gone hoarse, and added a second finger, seeking Segundus’ ‘particular anatomy’ with a purpose, and touching him gentle but firm, over and over, until he realised the man’s cock had stood again, and rubbed against him, and Segundus was trying to get a hand to it.
“Just look at you. A quite mysterious and remarkable man indeed. Roll over,” Childermass instructed, and helped him flip to his back, whereupon Childermass knelt over him and moved down his body, finally taking Segundus’ cock into his mouth, where the salt and sour of the first spend made his cheeks ache as his mouth watered, eager, as eager as he’d ever been to perform the act.
He persisted in moving his fingers also, in a rhythm with his tongue, and very shortly Segundus finished in his mouth, a little pulse of bitter fluid somehow sweet as honey.
Pushing himself up a little on his arms, Childermass surveyed the scene before him. Segundus was still panting, his arms thrown out above his head, his eyes shut, his hair in disarray and his belly painted with them both. He looked to have been quite undone.
“You need not smirk at me so,” Childermass was reproached. “One cannot, after all, practice for being the recipient of… that.”
Childermass attempted to moderate his grin, before deciding it was better (and indeed far more possible) to lean in and bury his mouth against Segundus’.
“Would you like me to undertake the same in reciprocation?” Segundus asked, after a little. “You would have to instruct me, I dare say, but…”
Childermass’ cock was as roused at it had ever been so close after one completion, but, as he explained, he was not to go again so soon, no matter the enticement.
“Well,” Segundus observed, “we have the rest of the day. And, perhaps, another time?” That he could sound so tentative, so uncertain of himself after Childermass had been so thoroughly overwhelmed by him spoke again of his inexperience, and Childermass recalled that, though in one assumption he had proved wrong, it would not do either to forget the fact entirely.
“That would be most agreeable to me,” he said.
Segundus cocked his head to side, waiting, starting to smile again.
Childermass let out a breath, half between frustration and delight, between a sigh and a fond chuckle. “I very much liked fucking you and would again! There! Is that turn of phrase to your taste?”
“You are entirely to my taste, my most congenial John,” Segundus pronounced, and curled up against his side, all warm skin and sweetness. Childermass sighed again, and lay down himself, the better to hold him.
They seemed to fit together most excellently, all told.