Gay Lothario

Author: Phutty

Pairing: Boyden/Santini.

Timing: Set between 1 and 2 February 1999 (see
Disclaimer*).

Rating: NC17, L, H, KY.

Disclaimer: The Bill is copyright Thames Television Ltd
etc etc etc  but is fair game because it  sports some
rather tasty actors whom we  would all like to shag.
*Script extracts from No Love Lost  (c)  Katharine Way
1999. "Vessel waiting to be filled" by kind permission
of Jennifer Saunders.



GAY LOTHARIO



As the hands of his watch ticked over to eleven p.m.,
Matthew Boyden  stood at the bar and tried to  visualise
what the girl serving him  would look like with no
clothes on. Eminently suitable, he decided,   watching
her retrieve his order of three lagers with the
enthusiasm of  a death-row inmate being led to the  gas
chamber. He could appreciate  her indifference, however:
working in a crumpet factory like this she   would be
subjected to the unwanted attentions of the sort of men
who  thought that separating the girls  from the kerb
with one small wall  made soliciting them inside the
building somehow less sordid. Her very   presence made
her fair game, that was the rationale.

     The fact that Boyden himself was currently
subscribing to it, and  thereby a) perpetuating the
place's  reputation as wall to wall  snatch-and-grab and
b) placing himself in the same bracket as the sad  cases
he  was duty-bound to arrest on a daily basis because
they were  sad bastards, made him pause for thought for
the matter of moments  before his reappraisal of the
barmaid's baggage. And while he had the  distinct
impression that the only reason Santini had wanted to
come  here was to watch Ashton squirm, he had no  moral
objections to  surveying the opportunities that
presented themselves in the process.

     He attempted 'smoulder' as three presumably
unintentionally  phallic bottles of something German
were deposited on the counter in  front of him, in
return for which he was glared at with a dull
intensity.  That was the way he thought of it as he
parted with a  tenner, anyway, even though it was one of
those -  what were they  called? Oxymorons? But then the
whole place was like that. It amused  him the way the
bar staff and doormen wore waistcoats in an effort to
make it more of a classy dive.

     'Thank you so much,' he muttered, pocketing the
small amount of  change he had only half-expected to
receive in the first place. 'I'm  glad to see you
maintaining those renowned levels of customer service
and  efficiency.'

     'You got a problem pal?'

     Boyden's mouth firmed at the intercession of the
big, burly  barman who has obviously been hired for  his
intellectual abilities  and charm. Five words and one
glance were enough to tell him that he  wouldn't  have
the brain matter to understand what narcissism meant.
Explaining the irony of the obsession to  someone so
ugly was right  out, then. He picked up his bottles of
lager and started to move away  as he  answered. 'Just
complementing the young lady on her  overwhelming
communication skills. Excuse me.'

     It was a phrase he had to repeat several times as
he forced his  way through the heaving crowd on the
dancefloor. Most of the journey  was spent holding his
lagers aloft as if in veneration of the god of
inebriation who ruled over the place, repeating "'scuse
me, 'scuse me"  like a mantra. At one point he  bridged
the gap between a dancing  mutton - the likes of which
dressed in painfully tight-fitting clothes   five sizes
too small and twenty years too young for them - and a
young  man who were dancing with their  backs to each
other. He doubted they  were dancing together; even
without looking he could tell from the   firmness of the
guy's arse as it was rammed against his own that he
worked out, and he'd been in similar  situations often
enough to know  that that usually meant they were gay.

     In any event, he regretted the contact immediately:
he had angled  towards the woman as he wedged his  way
through, which unavoidably  meant pressing his groin
against the small of her back. She hadn't   elbowed him
in the stomach, which suggested she would take it as an
invitation. He didn't know which  was worse until the
woman actually  turned around and flashed him an obscene
smile, revealing just how   unappealing she was. Letting
Santini persuade him to come back to this  hole seemed
more ludicrous with  every passing minute. 'Excuse me,'
he  said again, extricating himself from the grinder.

     Reminding himself that the sight of Eddie Santini
leaning over  the railing of the podium he and  Ashton
were stood on should seem  less reassuring than it did
in the stock exchange that was Renells   Nightclub,
Boyden eventually made it back to the outcrop and
dispensed  his bottles accordingly. No  thanks were
forthcoming, primarily  because Santini was preoccupied
with evaluating his options, but also   because he owed
them anyway. He looked on as Ashton pointed someone  out
on the opposite side of the  dancefloor.

     'What about that one over there?'

     Screwing up his eyes, Santini tried to follow
Ashton's direction.  'Where?'

     'Just over the back.'

     Santini locked on to the target and this time
screwed up his  entire face. 'No! She's a complete dog,
and  she's too old.'

     Boyden grinned to himself at the comment, his own
eyes scanning  the crowd. He was almost ten years  older
than Santini and, in those  lapse moments when he
thought about it, technically old enough to be   Luke
Ashton's father. In fact he was probably old enough to
have  spawned half of the people in the club,  given
that most of them were  underage.

     Ashton looked uncomprehendingly at Santini. 'She's
only about  thirty.'

     Santini in turn looked at Ashton. 'That's what I
mean. You don't  want anything to do with older  women,
Luke. They're trouble.' And  having imparted that pearl
of wisdom he turned back to examine the   feast of totty
laid out before him.

     'Why's that?'

     'Biological clock,' Santini replied with an
authority that he led  others to believe was supported
by  experience. 'Once they get past  thirty all they do
is think about kids.'

     Boyden knew Santini was talking bollocks, and
doubted he would  ever have enjoyed a relationship  that
lasted beyond the morning  after. Even then it would
have been a record. Rosie Fox would have   nominated as
his longest affair, and only because it took her three
weeks to decide whether to charge him  with sexual
assault.

     'That's not true, is it searg?'

     Boyden was drawn from his thoughts by two things:
the question  that Ashton had directed at him, and  the
blonde bit that had just  sauntered into the club
through the main doors. Surprised at his own  luck in
catching her eye, forgetful of the fact that he was
standing  on a raised platform above everybody else's
heads, he tipped his  bottle to her and admired her
figure in the usually harsh primary  colours of the
lighting. She stared back at him with what he liked to
think of as a smile playing across her lips. Then he
remembered what  Ashton had said and replied with his
eyes fixed on the prize. 'Less of  the "searg" in  here
thanks, Luke.'

     Ashton shrugged. 'I don't know what to say to women
anyway.'

     'How about "hello",' Boyden answered only slightly
cynically,  continuing to observe his quarry. She  was
moving towards the bar. He  took a swig of his beer.

     Santini sneered. 'No, you don't say anything. They
do all the  talking.'

     Not even that if you had your way, Boyden imagined,
although he  was right: Eddie was much more  attractive
as a human being when he  kept his mouth shut or, he
fancied, had it shut for him. Thoughts of   shoving
things down Santini's throat gave way to other concerns
however when he noticed that his  intended had set
herself up a spot  at the counter. He was certain that
she had kept looking in his  direction,  and decided
therefore that it was time to make his move.  'I bet you
I could get any woman in this club to  come over here
and  have a drink with us.'

Ashton and Santini's reactions were two-fold. The former
almost  choked on his drink, either out of  incredulity
or fear. The latter,  probably out of jealousy and a
desperate self-affirming need to  disbelieve,  rocked
back on his heels and laughed.

     'Oh, here we go. "Any woman". Like who?'

     Boyden waved his bottle around in a vague way that
was meant to  indicate where he was talking  about.
'Over there, by the bar.'

     Again Santini had to search the crowd. 'Where where
where where?'

     'Blonde hair, short skirt.' Muff warming the
barstool Boyden  could see perfectly well but which
Santini obviously could not. He  started to move away.
'Watch this space.'

     Wiping something wet off his chin, Ashton watched
Santini  watching Boyden working his was across  the
dancefloor rather than the  space he had just vacated.
He still wasn't used to the sergeant's  style, or at
least he still couldn't tell when he was being serious.
'He's having a laugh isn't he?'

     Santini wasn't smiling. 'We'll see,' he answered,
tight-lipped,  wondering where things had gone  wrong
for Boyden to be the one  getting lucky and not him. He
regarded the ensuing scene with a frown.



Regaining the comparatively people-free floorspace
between the bar and  the dancefloor, Boyden looked  the
girl up and down as she perched  beside the counter.
Facing slightly away from him, he saw her in a   rather
arousing profile, and took the opportunity that
conveniently  arose when he noticed that she had
ordered a drink. He pulled his  wallet out of his back
pocket and advanced.

     'Here are - I'll get that.' It was a bit crap by
way of an  introduction, but it had the desired effect:
she  was looking at him  in surprise, that faint smile
still on her full, red lips. Well, he  liked to imagine
it was;  in this light it was hard to tell. She said
nothing. 'You on your own?' Might as well get straight
to the  point,  he determined.

     The girl looked at Boyden indifferently, although
in his present  state (as well as in hindsight) he
preferred to call it "bemusement".  'No. Are you?'

     Weighing up the uncertainties, and hoping that the
thought of  being in the company of three men with
libidos would seem somehow  safer to her than being with
one, Boyden nodded towards the platform  as he
answered. 'Come and join us.' He said it with a well-
rehearsed  expression intended to assure the casualty
that the three of them  were in fact quite harmless.

     The girl, which was what Boyden would have realised
she was if  he'd been at all concerned with such
matters, followed his lead to  find two men staring at
her. Blatantly.



Ashton tore his gaze away from the girl Boyden was doing
his best to  impress and glanced at Santini,  who
continued looking at her with his  muted expression
regardless. He knew that Eddie was hardly the  most
reliable person to ask about women, considering his
track record, and  he half-suspected that the only
reason he himself had been dragged  along was as part of
some stupid self-aggrandising stunt which would
doubtless amuse and bolster the older man's ego. But he
was going to  ask him anyway. 'So what do you  think?'

     Santini sneered again; it was something he did a
lot of, and  enjoyed. This time, however, it was as
much because of the 'do you  think she'll come out and
play' tone of Ashton's question - he'd screw  the
Puritan out of the kid himself one day if he had to - as
of any  thoughts he may have had about Boyden's  prey.
Thoughts he had  convinced himself he was having, at any
rate, since he didn't like to  entertain the  impression
that he was the wavering rival. And  initiating a
threesome wouldn't massage his bruised  vanity a second
time, even if it was with a different officer. The
mocking curve of  his mouth smoothed to  something much
less facetious before he  answered. 'Well, she hasn't
slapped his face yet.'

     At any other time, Ashton knew, that would have
been Eddie  Santini having a go. But the line had  been
delivered matter-of-fact,  and that was when he realised
that his colleague was viewing the whole   thing as some
twisted contest. He came to the conclusion then that he
didn't much like him.

     'She's nothing special anyway,' Santini wore on.
'She looks like  she'd drop her knickers for anyone.'

     Which is why you've got the hump, thought Ashton.
Because she's  dropping them for Sergeant  Boyden
instead of you. He watched as,  unsurprisingly, Santini
tipped his bottle to the girl nevertheless,
encouraging her to join them. And suddenly he didn't
want to be there  if she did.

========

Handing another tenner to the same sour barmaid, Boyden
took  possession of whatever it was the girl had
ordered and awaited some  response. She was still
looking across the floor towards Santini and  Ashton,
and he hoped that that was a good sign. He took his
change  and, when she eventually turned back to face
him, passed her the  glass. She looked at its contents.
'Well?'

     'Fuck off,' she said. 'Thanks for the drink.' She
walked away.

     Boyden watched her disappear into the crowd,
nonplussed. Then, in  what he would later regard as not
a very wise move considering how  stupid he must have
looked, he glanced straight over at the podium.
Santini was smiling, ruthlessly and openly. Ashton was
staring at him  with the sort of doe-eyes that made
people think he was twelve. He  looked back at the
barmaid. She was just staring at him. He glowered  and
cast himself back into the mass of arms and legs on the
dancefloor.

=========

After a couple of hours of similar misfortune and a
couple more on  board, Matthew Boyden decided to  give
up and go home. The crowd had  thinned out; the
sandpaper brigade were still there, but the less
obvious prostitutes had left more obviously when the
punters flashed  the cash. Even the girl groups who
imagined they were drunk at the  mere thought of being
in a club had dispersed. Virtually all of the
possibles had vanished, and those that hadn't had
already made it  clear to Santini that they weren't
interested in a ponce in a leather  jacket. He in turn
had resolved that they were all lesbians.

     Boyden thought he knew otherwise with at least one
of them, not  that it had gotten him anywhere. He
hadn't seen the girl who he'd  been after leave, but he
could picture her doing so with someone else  just to
spite him. In the end he'd been confined to inane
conversation with Ashton, for whose daddy he was sure
he had been  taken several times during the night.
Neither of them had seen any  action, save for one young
and in all likelihood illegal lady who had  whispered
something to Ashton and made him turn as red as a
rhubarb  before being dragged off into the fray by her
friend. Santini had  volunteered to show them what it
was all about, and spent the rest of  the evening
receiving one curt rejection after another, even from
the   dancing mutton. They clearly had enough sense to
know better. By this  stage, though, Boyden had to
admit to himself that he was up for  anything.

=============

'Right, this is me.'

     Boyden pulled into the curb outside number 43 and
dimmed the  lights. He needn't have bothered. No  sooner
had he done so than the  front door of the house opened
and a woman in her late thirties  slippered  her way out
onto the footpath. It was Luke Ashton's mum.

     'Oh no.' Ashton snapped open the rear passenger
door and  hurriedly stepped out as his mother
approached. Boyden wound down his  window. Santini
smirked.

     'There you are! I wondered when you were going to
get back.'

     'Mum, what are you still doing up?' Ashton asked in
abject  embarrassment. It forced him to raise his  voice
when all he wanted to  do was whisper angrily at her or,
preferably, curl up in a ball and  die. 'It's  almost a
quarter to three!'

     'That's alright love, I was watching that late
movie I was  telling you about. You know, that one with
Alec Baldwin. He's a dish,  isn't he?'

     This last was directed at Boyden, into whose window
she had just  leant. Boyden raised his eyebrows  non-
commitally in response as Mrs  Ashton looked past him
and spotted his fellow passenger.

     'Oh, hello. Which one are you?'

     'Eddie. Eddie Santini.' He smiled with an
enthusiasm born of a  night's constant snubbing by women
half her age and found it  fleetingly returned.

     'And Sergeant Boyden, I remember you of course. Not
on early turn  then this morning?'

     'Two till ten,' Boyden answered amiably.

     Ashton, who had spent the intervening moments
scowling, folded  his arms. 'Shouldn't we be getting
inside?'

     'Oh, alright.' Mrs Ashton flashed another smile at
Boyden and  Santini. 'Night,' she added, before  finding
herself directed towards  the front gate.

     Ashton bobbed down beside the window and rolled his
eyes.  'Seeya.' He stepped away from the car  and herded
his mother up the  path after she gave them a parting
wave.

     'Yeah, seeya Luke,' Santini called out through the
window.  'Prat,' he added as Boyden wound it up  again.

     Boyden rallied to Ashton's defence with an
admission that might  have surprised him if it weren't
for  the ideas running through his  mind at the time.
'He's nineteen, Eddie, and as such has yet to attain
the  same level of desperation that we have.'

     Santini, as usual, sneered. 'Yeah, well, I bet he's
never even  been with a woman. God, he's so frigid  he
makes Rosie Fox look like a  geisha girl!'

     Boyden couldn't find it in himself to be amused by
the remark, so  he didn't bother to try very hard.
Santini was looking past him  anyway at Mrs Ashton as
she waved to them one last time before closing  the
door. Or, more accurately, before her son pulled her
away  impatiently and pushed it shut himself.

     'What do you reckon, eh?' Santini asked. 'Not bad,
is she, for  her age.'

     'Don't even go there Eddie,' Boyden warned. 'If
there's one thing  more complicated than relationships
between officers it's  relationships with their mothers.
Trust me.'

     Santini pitched back into his seat. 'If you say
so.' He looked  expectantly at Boyden. 'Where to now
then?'

     'What?'

     'Oh, come on! You expect me to believe you're just
gonna go home,  settle down, have a nice cup of  cocoa?'
Santini had stopped chewing  on the piece of gum in his
mouth, awaiting an answer. Not receiving   one, he went
on. 'The Sun Hill child minding service has closed for
the night, if you hadn't noticed, and I  wanna get me
some, man.' He  said the last bit with what he must have
thought equated to a Jamaican   accent, when actually it
was flapping about somewhere in the middle of  the
Atlantic.

     Boyden smiled slightly, the sort of smile where his
lips just  pressed together. Eddie Santini was  vulgar,
it was true, but he had a  certain appeal. And that's
what his thoughts were consumed with at  that
particular moment. Everyone at Sun Hill knew that
Sergeant  Matthew Boyden had a reputation as a
philandering womaniser; barely a  day went by when he
wouldn't hear his name being bandied about  beside  the
coffee machine, jokes made at his expense about
paternity suits  and palimony. He bore them  with good
grace too unless they  overstepped the mark, and
sometimes encouraged them, since - when it   came down
to it - he was a philandering womaniser. But what no one
except a former uniformed sergeant  knew, precisely
because he didn't  want any of them to, was that he was
not averse to one-night stands of   any sort. He didn't
sleep with men with any frequency, but it wasn't  an
altogether infrequent occurrence,  either. He wasn't a
closet  homosexual. If he had to tick any box it would
be the "straight" one,  but he just  didn't think of sex
along those lines. Different strokes  had their benefits
and reaped their own rewards.  'Actually, I had  other
plans.'

     'Oh, what!' Santini's face contorted in disbelief.
'I suppose you  had some sort of backstop set up all
along!' He narrowed his eyes.  'So which street corner
are you picking her up from, huh?'

     'Who said anything about picking anyone up?' Boyden
replied,  smirking to himself as Santini tried to  work
out what he was getting  at and fell a long way short.

     'Then what the hell are you talking about?'

     Boyden looked directly into Santini's dirty brown
eyes. 'Sex is  sex, Eddie. If you can't get what you
want, take what you can get.'  He backed up his words
with a piercing gaze that would probably mean   nothing
to his colleague of what it was meant to, and so made a
deliberate study of Santini's tightly- packed crotch
into the bargain.

     All of it went straight over said officer's head.
He'd either  noticed without making anything of it or
hadn't noticed at all. He  was just nodding. 'My
thoughts exactly. So what are we waiting for?'

     The right moment, Boyden thought. It would have
been ruefully  too, save for the rather candid images
that were popping up in front  of his eyes and giving
him ideas.

     Santini gestured towards the steering wheel, which
was still  vibrating gently beneath Boyden's hands.
'Come on, let's go!'

     Boyden grinned and pulled the car away from the
kerb.

==========

Taking pains to shut the driver's door as quietly as
possible, which  wasn't very quietly at all since car
doors never were, Boyden winced  as Santini hurtled out
of the vehicle and positively slammed his own.

     Santini leant against the roof as Boyden locked the
door, staring  at him impatiently. 'So what are we
doing here?'

     'If you hadn't noticed,' Boyden began, deliberately
lowering his  voice, 'I happen to live here.' He
pocketed his keys.

     'Oh yeah, I had actually figured that one. I just
wondered why  the hell you brought me here.' His  voice
was gaining in pitch and  volume. 'I thought you said
you were going to find us some action!'

     Boyden scowled. 'Eddie, if you don't keep the noise
down you'll  wake the neighbours.' He gestured  for
Santini to follow him as he  headed towards the door.

     Santini stood his ground and yelled out in defiance
at Boyden's  retreating back. 'I would have thought
they'd be use to you waking  them up all hours of the
morning bringing home the strays.'

     It was a cheap shot which stopped Boyden in his
tracks, although  he admitted to himself as he turned
around that it was, nevertheless,  true. Besides, he
realised that in his usual fashion Santini was more
concerned about himself than with trying to insult
anyone else. That's  why so many people loathed him:  he
managed to be offensive to others  and totally self-
obsessed at the same time. Still, he could play on
that. He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips in a
classic, well-worn  pose of mild disapproval laced with
darker intent. It normally drew  them in like a reel,
and when he replied he didn't wait for an answer.  'Are
you coming or not?' He was punching in his entry code by
the  time Santini appeared at his shoulder.

     'So are you planning on letting me know what I'm
doing here at  any stage?'

     Boyden felt Santini's warm breath on his neck as
the front door  clicked open with a buzz. 'I told you I
had other plans. After you.'

     Santini stepped into the sparsely illuminated
concrete box that  served as the block's foyer and
folded  his arms, watching Boyden push  the door shut
and move towards what was clearly his own flat. He
didn't  stop to think about why it was numbered 14,
because when he  received no further explanation he
shook  his head and frowned. 'Yeah,  and?'

     'Eddie, just come inside where we can discuss this
out of earshot  of the population of Greater  London,'
Boyden answered, twisting the  key in the lock
irritably. He felt he had to keep up some  semblance  of
appearance, despite the fact that Ray the early riser
from next  door had moved beyond silent  admonition of
the occasional male on the  doorstep to sheer
indifference. He stepped into the hallway and  stood
back to let Santini pass. 'All will be revealed.'

     They found themselves in the front room, as you
tended to do in  small, one-bedroom flats if you
weren't being immediately and  automatically stripped of
your clothing against the nearest available   surface.
Boyden threw his jacket and wallet on the coffee table.
Santini looked about with little interest  and stood in
front of the  two-seater.

     'So?'

     Even now, thought Boyden to himself, he has
absolutely no idea.  And, he evaluated, the consequences
of him finding out were worth the  risk. He took a step
towards him. 'It's very simple, Eddie: if on the  odd
occasions that I go out to find some action and don't
strike it  lucky, then I arrange, one way or another, to
bring it home with me.'  He arched his eyebrows in what
he considered to be the most blatant  suggestion  he
could offer prior to actually making a move.

     Predictably, Santini had no idea what he was
talking about. Well,  he had certain ideas, the foremost
of  which stemmed from personal  experience (if not
preference) and was entirely wrong. He felt that he  had
figured it all out in any event, and smiled wickedly.
'Oh, yes!'  he enthused, drawing the words out. 'Now  I
get it. You organise for  them to meet you here!' That
he had overlooked the lack of any other  people in  or
outside the flat never entered his mind; he just assumed
they were on their way.

     Boyden had come to stand directly in front of
Santini and looked  him square in the eye, wondering
how physical he would have to get  before realisation
dawned. Very, he concluded. And there was no time   like
the present. 'Haven't you caught on yet?'

     Santini stared back at him. 'What? Yeah, course I
have. But why  didn't you tell me? I know these two
girls who'll do anything, for  free, all in the name of
good police relations.'

     'Eddie.'

     'Yeah?'

     Boyden pushed him back onto the sofa and, in the
same abrupt  movement, knelt forward to straddle  his
lap. Santini, having landed  awkwardly, squirmed
backwards, uncertain of what was going on. Boyden
curtailed the movement with an increase of pressure from
his thighs  and leant in towards him. 'Shut up  and kiss
me.'

     'What?' Santini shouted, pushing himself further
and further back  into the cushions with his shoulders.
He had yet to regain the  function of his limbs. 'Why?'

     Both savouring and encouraged by the look of total
bewilderment  on the man's face, Boyden assumed  his
best breezy expression and  planted his hands either
side of Santini's head. 'Why not?'

     'What the hell do you mean, "why not"? Because I
don't go for  blokes!'

     'Nobody said you had to,' replied Boyden casually.
'Have fun and  don't hurt anybody. That's my
philosophy.'

     Santini finally remembered what his arms were for
when Boyden  dipped his head towards him. He  thrust
them up against his  colleague's chest defensively. 'No
no no! No way.' He cast his eyes  about the  room as
swiftly and comprehensively as he could without
simultaneously taking them off Boyden for  more than a
moment. He  laughed nervously, revealing pointed
incisors. 'You've had your little  joke. You  can switch
off the hidden camera.'

     'It's no joke.' Boyden rearranged his legs for a
tighter grip to  underline the point.

     Furrows dug into Santini's brow like a sandy
shoreline at low  tide. 'Look, I don't know what's going
on here -'

     Boyden interrupted the protest with another
practised movement,  grabbing Santini's wrists and using
his weight to force the man's  arms back over his head.
In this position he was in total control,  with
potentially flailing limbs held in check above and below
eye  level. He let his head hover over Santini's a
while and smiled. And  then he kissed him.

     It was a sudden movement which, against all the
odds, caught  Santini by surprise. What he had been
expecting Boyden to do he  didn't know; his brain was
functioning even less satisfactorily than  usual.
Whatever it was, it wasn't this - moist lips working
against  his own, the taste of someone else's saliva in
his mouth. Not that he  wasn't used to either sensation,
of course. It was just that the  circumstances were a
bit unusual. At any other time he would probably  have
been enjoying himself, but here he was pressed  into a
two-seater  being violated by Matthew Boyden. It took
him some time then to  realise that what was  happening
to him was making him unavoidably  horny.

     Boyden, on the other hand, was only too aware of
the fact. It was  for this reason that he pulled away
momentarily and slackened his  grip, resting his bulk on
the heaving mound beneath him. So far so  good.

     That was all the opportunity Santini required.
Gritting his  teeth, breathing hard and fast, he seized
Boyden's own wrists and  pushed forward. Utilising the
momentum, he twisted him around so that  he was  pressed
up against the side of the sofa. It was a move he was
accustomed to employing on women when  he would try to
make the  running and remind them who was in charge, and
he was surprised that  it  worked so effectively in this
instance. If he'd thought about it,  though, it might
not have seemed so odd,  given that the man he was  now
astride had been the instigator. Either way, the scene
had now  reversed  itself.

     Santini fixed Boyden with a penetrating glare. 'So
this is the  way you like it is it, searg?'

     Boyden, because of as much as despite the firm
grasp he was being  held in, couldn't help but smile in
reply. 'Any way's fine by me.'  Especially if he had
someone as fired up as Eddie Santini sitting on  his
chest with a bulge in his pants the size of a melon.

     'Yeah, I bet it is.'

     This was the point, Boyden reasoned, at which
Santini would  either beat the shit out of him, walk
away or get to it. With any  luck it would be the
latter, although as he watched him shift  backwards from
him and stand up all three options remained open.

Santini stood looking down at Boyden and ran a hand
around his  stubbly mouth. The feeling of barbs  under
his reddened fingers sieved  some of the dibs out of his
grey matter, and it suddenly hit him that  he  had to
make a choice. Then it hit him that that was what he
regarded it as, and he asked himself why; it  wasn't as
if he was  attracted to other men or anything. And yet
there was currently an  erection threatening  the
feasibility his trouser seams. Could any  sort of sexual
contact do that to you? He doubted it. Not  considering
the number of times he'd been set upon by the kind of
dogs who'd suck  and swallow for a  fiver, anyway.

     So he shrugged and guessed that it was just because
someone  wanted to have sex with him without  getting
paid for it. And whether  there really was any
attraction there or not, the very thought could  do
nothing but turn him on. He felt his balls quake as if
in  agreement and, rampant heterosexuality
notwithstanding, made up his  mind. 'Come on then
Matthew,' he said, since Boyden was willing as  well  as
able. 'Show me how good it can be.'

     Despite himself, Boyden couldn't believe it. He'd
remained in the  same skewed position the whole  time
Santini had been thinking about  it, and the longer
Eddie thought about something, he knew, the less
likely it was to turn out for the best. So he was taken
aback, at  least until reality set in and his own cock
began throbbing at the  sight, to watch his colleague
unzip his trousers and let his knob pop  out in front of
him. Then he got down on his knees and shoved it into
his mouth.

     Santini gritted his teeth, exhaling an unexpected
breath. It  emerged too abruptly to qualify as a moan;
it was an involuntary  physical reaction to the
sensation, like a gasp under a suddenly cold  shower,
and  spread throughout his body pitting the skin like
gooseflesh. At this stage of proceedings, though, his
brain  had no  way of identifying the stimulus as either
pleasure or pain. He would  just have to let the
electrons  have their Guy Fawkes' night and sort  it out
for themselves, since the assured movement of Boyden's
mouth  along the length of his shaft told him all he
needed to know. Pulling  himself free of his jacket, he
let it drop onto the table behind him  and set to work
on his belt buckle.

     Boyden flashed his eyes upwards as Santini pulled
it loose and  threw it onto the sofa. Good: his mouth
was open and his eyes were  closed, so he was obviously
doing something right. Most times he took  the  passive
role when he was with other men, letting them make all
the moves - for this bit, anyway - but he  knew what to
do and how to  do it for that very reason. So he was
able to maintain a smooth motion  on  Santini's long,
thin cock while using his hands to unfasten the  top few
buttons of his own shirt no  problem at all. And he
paused  only briefly to pull it over his head before
returning his full  attention to the  member before him.

     Santini took the opportunity to slide his pants and
his trousers  down his legs and step out of them,
toeing them aside carelessly. His  brain had finally
caught up with his dick, and this time he did moan  as
Boyden swallowed it whole once again.

     Grasping the base with one hand and squeezing his
own restricted  cock with the other, Boyden
concentrated his efforts on the  circumcised glans. It
was the colour of rouge; modest in width, albeit  in
keeping with the above-average length of the thing, and
therefore  appeared slightly flattened or angled.  As he
swirled his tongue  around it and applied pressure to
the point where it joined the shaft,  enjoying the
taste and feel of it in his mouth, he noticed Santini
shudder. The other man had been in the middle of
peeling off his t- shirt, and his well-developed
abdominals visibly rippled. Boyden, as  much as it was
possible under the present conditions, smiled. So far
it was all one-sided, and that was probably the way it
was going to  stay. But that was fine by him.

     Santini tossed his shirt somewhere behind him and
tried to  remember the last time a blowjob had felt
this good. He rubbed his  hands across his chest and
through the localised hair that grew there  like gauze,
but stopped short of interacting with Boyden beyond the
obvious - the only active part he would take in  events
being exactly  that. He didn't object to a guy sucking
him off, not in principle,  even if he'd never
experienced it before. The way he looked at it,  one
person was just as capable as the next. But he  wouldn't
do it  himself; he wasn't attracted to men, he was
attracted to sex, and the  only dick he wanted to
satisfy was his own. So he wouldn't give  Boyden any
ideas. As with so much else in his life, he'd let the
other person do all the work and then reap the benefit
himself.

     Down on his knees, working his lips fully along the
length of  Santini's cock, Boyden had other ideas.
Burying his face in and  inhaling the musky smell of the
metallic black hairs that covered the  scrotum and  grew
up around the shaft, he decided it was time to see  how
far Eddie was prepared to go to get his rocks  off. Of
course, it  would help him get his end away too, but
that wasn't entirely the  point. For only the  fourth
time in his sexually active life he wanted  to feel
another man's dick inside him, and it would be a
worthwhile  exercise trying to present himself in such a
way that Santini would be  left with little choice  but
to satisfy that desire. Leaving a warm  brook of saliva
behind that channelled into the wiry tangle of  his
balls, Boyden disencumbered himself from Santini and
regained his  feet.

     The sudden room temperature assault on his knob
snapped Santini's  eyes open, and he found himself  face
to face with Boyden. The look he  was being given told
him that he was now required to do  something he  hadn't
been intending to, and his heart skipped a beat.
Particularly  after glancing down past  the coarse
expanse of chest and stomach to  the hump of jeans at
groin-level. Consequently, he said the  first  thing on
his mind: a salient point in any event but one that
would  also give him time to figure out a)  what he was
meant to do now,  since he hadn't come yet, and b) why
he was worried about being   propositioned a second time
anyway. 'What the hell did you stop for?'

     Boyden reached past Santini and retrieved his
wallet from the  coffee table, pressing himself against
his  cock as he did so. It was  still hard, and that was
all he needed to know. 'This, Eddie,' he  replied,
flipping  the wallet open and pulling two foil sachets
from  the compartment behind the card sleeves, 'is where
you  have me.' He  grabbed Santini's right hand and
pressed the objects into them. 'One  in all in,' he
added,  arching an eyebrow.

Santini looked down at the square shapes in his
hand as though he  had never before seen either of their
kind. Which, in the case of the  tiny pillow full of
lubricant, he had not, accustomed instead to big  man-
sized bottles. How it managed not to burst inside a
wallet inside  someone's back pocket he had no idea.
Condoms, conversely, were  something with which he had
shared a long and remarkably stable   relationship. He
noticed firstly that this one was ribbed, and then
that, while he had been preoccupied  with all this and
had not stopped  to question why he had been given them
in the first place, Boyden had   started removing his
trousers. In fact, the task was now complete. His
colleague had turned around, bent  forward across the
arm of the  settee and spread the cheeks of his arse
with his hands.

     Three things happened at once for Santini when he
saw Boyden's  puckering hole for the first time.  One:
the sight reminded him of  those scenes he hated in
pornos where the hamburger shot was obscured   by the
hairy arse screwing the woman. Two: it hit him that he
had  never engaged in anal sex, and it was  mainly
because there were  always enough other orifices to
insert himself into without having to  resort to  the
Hershey Highway. And finally: that regardless of the
previous point, the aerial view he had obtained  had
made his  slackening dick stand to attention so fast
that it had all but snapped  in half. As his breathing
became more rapid and Boyden continued to  press his
little brown button, he realised something: despite
having  made all the jokes with the lads in the locker
room about shirt- lifters, the way he looked at it
where sex was concerned it was each  to his own. The
only thing he could see this as was just another
vessel waiting to be filled, and since he had yet to
shoot the load  building steadily in his sack he
determined that he wasn't going to  back out now. So
what if he'd contradicted himself? It didn't make   him
gay; it made him an opportunist. Boyden was offering him
his arse,  and if that was the way he  wanted it, that
was the way he was going  to get it.

     For the second time that night, Matthew Boyden
listened with more  than a little incredulity as Santini
did exactly what he wanted him  to do. He was certain
Eddie would never have done this before - not  with  a
man, at any rate - and wondered what his thinking was.
The  "incident" with Rosie Fox had confirmed  that he
had a thing about  women, but they all knew that anyway;
perhaps with sex in general he  was more  of a
pragmatist. That made two of them, then. Hopefully. He
heard the indistinct yet unmistakable sounds  of the
foil being torn  open and the condom unrolled and, drawn
out of his short-lived  reverie, was  encouraged to look
over his shoulder by the slight  popping noise of the
square of lubricant as it was  opened. Santini  had torn
the corner of it with his teeth and promptly squeezed
half of  it onto his twitching  member.

     Spreading it over the length of his penis with two
fingers,  Santini squirted the remainder around
Boyden's hole. He rubbed it in  tentatively, almost
shocked when one finger and then the other   disappeared
through the opening. He pulled them free as though they
had been bitten, and looked up  uncertainly to find
Boyden watching  his every move. In spite of everything
he had told himself, he was   gripped by a sense of
nervous anticipation, and yet again said the  first
thing that entered his head. 'You  ready?'

     'Whenever you are,' Boyden remarked drily. He
spread his cheeks  wide, and was only beginning to
wonder what he had let himself in for  when he found
out.

     Santini thrust himself inside Boyden with an
ignorance of  intensity that gave them both cause to
growl. Initially, as he rammed  himself home, the
tightness felt restrictive rather than comfortable.
Never  mind the ease of passage provided by the KY; he
felt like his  dick was caught in a vice. He pulled back
automatically to retract  it, and it was only then that
the stimulation of movement within such  a confined
space registered with him. It had clearly already done
so  with Boyden, he noticed, because the other man  had
arched his head  right back and had an expression on his
face that beggared  description. Taking that to  be a
good sign, he increased the force  and frequency of his
penetration. He was unused to the pressure on   his dick
and to the feeling of hairy legs as he gripped onto
them, but  neither of those things altered the  fact
that what he was doing was  making his balls ache in a
way they hadn't done before. Not even when   he'd tried
out that cockring prior to reading the instructions and
taken two days to work out how to get it  off again.

     For someone who only a few minutes ago didn't know
what he was  doing, thought Boyden as Santini  continued
to pound into him as  though attempting to create a
firestarter from the friction, he's  gotten the  hang of
it pretty quickly. Not that that surprised him  really.
Even after years of "normal" experience, the  first time
he  had had sex with another guy it had been perturbing
and somewhat  painful to begin with.  Then the nerve
endings stopped protesting as  loudly and it had all
settled down into something much  more  satisfying,
whether you were on the receiving end or not. It still
wasn't the option he'd settle for if  he had to make the
choice, but  it provided possibilities and sensations he
would never find with a  woman.  Which was why, at this
stage, he let himself be carried along  quite happily.
His prostate was being  vigorously massaged by
Santini's cock on the inside and his own dick was being
leisurely  massaged in  his palm on the outside. He
wouldn't let the animal  thrusting go on too long,
however; he wanted to be  the one  controlling events by
the time they were both about to blow.

     In the event, one thing lead to the other sooner
than he'd  expected. With sweat pooling in the small of
his back, he felt the  unique heat and muscular
contractions that told him Santini was  withdrawing and
pushed himself upright from the arm of the sofa. He
ended up pressed against him; he could feel the
firmness of his  nipples against his skin, and sensed
rather than saw him buckle his  knees slightly in order
to pull free from him. There was a gust of  breath by
his right ear.

     'Sit on me,' Santini said.

     Boyden turned his head to follow Santini as he
stepped around  him, the greased latex head of the
condom scraping across his thigh.  He settled himself
onto the two-seater, pushed forward from the   backrest
slightly so that his dick stood straight and tall. He
spread  his knees wider for support, gripped the  base
of his cock in his hand  and squeezed. Then looked up at
him.

     'You wanted to show me what you could do, searg,'
Santini  prompted, a gleam in his eye that  dispelled
any thoughts of  uncertainty or restraint.

     Yet again it took Boyden by surprise, restoring him
to full  arousal nonetheless. He doubted this sudden
display of inhibition  would result in Santini taking it
up the arse or, for that matter,  anywhere else, but it
gave him what he was looking for. Even if the  only
reason Santini was doing it was so that he could  orgasm
without  doing any of the hard work. Not much of it,
anyway.

     Still, I'm more than willing to oblige, Boyden
thought to  himself. He clambered onto the sofa, planted
his feet either side of  Santini's waist, balanced
himself with one arm on the back of the  settee and
lowered  himself onto the glistening spike below. He
slapped his cock against the coarse hair of his stomach
as  Santini  watched his own dick disappearing into his
arse. When he had taken in  as much as would go he
started up a perfect rhythm, an up-down  corkscrew
motion that was a hundred times more satisfying than
Santini's rugged assault. Guessing that his partner
wouldn't notice,  what with his head arched right back
into the cushion, his eyes  closed tight and his mouth a
slackjawed expression of ecstasy, he let  his sausage
flop onto Santini's skin and pressed it into the fine
hairs there as he increased the motion.

     When Santini's face and neck reddened and he
started emitting  choked cries from the back of his
throat, Boyden knew he was about to  come. In one slick
movement he slip upwards and off him, kneeling   back to
straddle the man's thighs. Leaning on the sofa with his
left  hand he grabbed hold of his own  member with his
right and started  pumping furiously, balls rumbling.

     Santini's face contorted as he whipped off the
condom and flung  it into some darkened corner of the
room. All it took was one clean  jerk: his load
splattered against his heaving chest in thick white
lines and  ran in hot rivulets among the tightly
clenched fingers of  his fist. A climactic shiver ran
through his body  and he struggled to  keep his eyes
open, breathing furiously.

     Boyden joined him moments later, crying out as
sticky curd flew  everywhere. He kept tugging until he
had milked the last drop, and  then rubbed it into the
fur of his stomach.

     Opening his eyes slowly, Santini looked up from the
icing  covering his own chest through the gummy  nest of
Boyden's to face the  man himself. He wore that self-
satisfied expression he had perfected  where  he never
quite smiled and his eyes told you everything. 'One in
all in, yeah?'

     This time, Boyden grinned at him. 'You've never had
it so good.'

=======

Later that same day, at about two-fifteen in the
afternoon in fact,  Luke Ashton was the first to emerge
from parade. That is, he had  positioned himself closest
to the door, struggling to concentrate on  what was
being said whilst distracted by suggestive looks and
arched  eyebrows from Vicky Hagen and Polly Page.  By
the time they had been  sent on their way he was so put
off that the three of them crammed  through the  doorway
at the same time, spilling out into the corridor.  He
swallowed uncomfortably as Hagen looked at  him with
something evil  twinkling in her eyes.

     'Right, come on then Luke. Tell us what happened.'

     Ashton, quite literally up against it, shuffled
along the wall as  he replied. 'Look, there's nothing to
tell,  alright?' He quit  bothering when Hagen and Page
boxed him in like members of the Spanish  Inquisition
and left him with nowhere to go.

     'Oh come on!' Hagen exclaimed, enjoining Ashton to
spill his guts  with a fingertip fondle of his  tummy.

     Page folded her arms with a little smile. 'Tell us
all about it!'

     Hagen nodded. 'Since we weren't allowed to come.'

     The word 'collusion' flashing past his eyes - his
two colleagues  had probably rehearsed the routine as  a
double-act - Ashton discerned  perhaps the only chance
he would get to change the subject. 'That was   the
other two. I would have been happy for you two to come.'

     'Yeah, but Eddie said "lads only",' Page retorted.
Then she  smiled again and there were sympathetic  nods
all round. Between her  and Hagen, anyway. 'But that's
alright, we understand.'

     Ashton stared at the ceiling as if looking for a
means of escape.  But resistance, he finally accepted,
was useless. 'You didn't miss  much. We went to a club.'
Hagen and Page were still looking expectant.   'That's
all,' he concluded. Which was pretty lame in the
circumstances.

     Hagen was having none of it, grinning madly. 'Which
club?'

     As if he were about to confess to murder after a
lengthy and  strenuous interview, Ashton deflated.
'Renells.'

     'No!' Hagen's mouth formed an exaggerated 'O' of
surprise at the  tail-end of the word and she  tittered.

     'Renells!' Page repeated, immediately covering her
mouth as  though mere mention of the place would  cause
something nasty and  probably viral to befall her.

     'Couldn't you have done better than that? It's like
a cattle  market in there!'

     Ashton could feel himself going red. Why he'd let
himself be  cajoled into going there by Eddie Santini
was a problem he had yet to  solve. 'Look, it was boring
really. Alright?'

     Hagen placed a hand on his chest in mock concern;
she was  struggling to contain an enormous smirk  at the
same time. 'You mean  you didn't score?' She glanced at
Page, whose own pretence had  crumbled  to be replaced
by a cheeky smile, and turned back to Ashton.  The lack
of a reply was an answer in itself.  'You didn't, did
you!'

     'What is this?' Ashton asked. If it had been twelve
months  earlier, this sort of thing would have  confused
and embarrassed the  hell out of him. It still did,
although he had learned how to get  around it to  some
extent by now: never actually offer an answer and,  if
possible, divert attention from yourself at  once. 'I
don't  question your love life, do I?' Thankfully, it
worked.

     'Here, what about Sergeant Boyden?' Polly
interrupted.

     'Yeah,' Hagen added a little too loudly, missing
the looks Ashton  was giving her. 'Sun Hill's lady
killer!'

     'You should have been there Vicky, seen a master at
work,' Boyden  answered, having materialised  behind
them from the LIO. He smiled to  himself as Hagen and
Page's grins disappeared without trace and  they
admired the dirty marks on the floor. 'You alright
Luke?' he asked,  noticing the pasty hue of the  boy's
skin. 'You look like you're not  going to see the shift
out.'

     Ashton shook his head. 'I'll be alright, searg.'

     'Better get an aspirin,' Boyden suggested wryly.

     Hagen couldn't help herself. 'Oh, it's not his
head, searg.'

     'No, it's his legs, isn't it Luke?' Page added.

     Ashton considered that to be an appropriate point
at which to  depart, and felt three pairs of eyes on
him as he hurried away.

     'So,' Hagen began, turning to face Boyden. 'You,
ah, get lucky,  searg?'

     Boyden glanced down the corridor to find Santini
emerging from  parade. They stared at each other
momentarily before he averted his  gaze and looked
between Page and Hagen. 'What do you think?'

     The two women grinned.

     Boyden walked away.

= end=