“One of your staff members just came by and asked if I wanted some,” I said.
Sebastian nodded, as if I’d just told him the sky was blue. “They’re wonderful.”
As if on cue, the young woman came down the hallway just then, offering us an array of artisanal chocolates.
“Thank you, Marci,” Sebastian said, grabbing a few. “Would you like some, Henry?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “Thank you.”
She was gone a moment later. Sebastian smiled at me as I shook my head.
“Are they going to be coming by all night, without warning?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “That should be all.”
I took a sip of scotch, and Sebastian did the same.
“Been saving this one for my wedding day,” he said.
“I don’t even want to ask how much this bottle of scotch was worth, do I?” I asked.
Sebastian shook his head. “Probably not.”
He shrugged one shoulder and tossed back a swig, with no ceremony.
“Good?” I asked.
“Pretty fucking great, yes,” he said. “Strong.”
“That’s what I like,” I said, taking a sip. The alcohol was deeply flavored, but I didn’t know a damn thing about types of scotch.
It was liquor. It was what I needed right now.
“So, uh,” I said, “I’ve got to ask. What is the room with the… stuff in it?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You’ll have to be a little more specific, Henry.”
“One of the rooms had weird drapes in it, I guess? Maybe silk?”
“Oh, right, right,” he said. “It’s therapy. For my muscle tension. Every week my doctor comes and guides me through various poses.”
“I’m still not getting it,” I said.
“I sit on the silk bands,” he clarified. “Or lie on them. And depending on how I position my body, or how he positions me, it’s a way to let gravity do work on my muscles. It’s incredible.”
“This is some next-level shit, Sebastian,” I said, taking a sip of scotch.
“I know it sounds crazy, I thought it was, too,” he said. He crossed over and sat down on the chaise sofa next to the fireplace. It looked like a piece of furniture straight out of some English royal mansion from two centuries ago. Sebastian looked perfectly in place sitting on it.
“So you swing from ropes of fabric and it helps your muscle tension,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said with a quick nod. “Exactly.”
I sat down on a leather chair opposite him. I still couldn’t believe we were able to do this. To talk, first of all. And also pretend we didn’t want to rip each other’s clothes off. I was ready to explode, but I still felt like I had to act proper, somehow. Maybe it was because of the staff.
I still didn’t know what I was supposed to do in here. The room was so expansive and ornate, and I felt like I could break something expensive just by existing in here.
The leather chair at least felt like a safe little island for me and my glass of scotch.
“Ever jerked off in your silk room?” I asked. I didn’t know how to be proper, but I could always rely on humor.
He snorted, swallowing his sip of whiskey and wiping his lips with the back of his hand.
“No,” he said. “I can’t say I have.”
“I jerked off in a snow bank once, on the mountains,” I said, swirling the brown liquor in my glass.
“And how did that feel?”
“Cold, believe it or not.”
“Why on Earth would you jerk off in a snow bank? Why not go back to your cabin?”
“I had a bit of an issue in the cabin at the time.”
“Don’t tell me there was a bear in there.”
I laughed. “No. There was never a bear inside my cabin, thank god. But it was a pest issue.”
“Jesus, Henry, did you have bugs?”
“God, no,” I said. “But that morning, I’d made the mistake of leaving my window cracked, right next to a loaf of bread I’d baked. I went outside to make my usual morning rounds and when I came back, there were five squirrels inside, diving into my bread loaf.”
“Fucking adorable.”
I groaned. “Adorable until I couldn’t get them the fuck out of there,” I said. “The second I approached, they scattered. Hid in every damn corner of the cabin, and they were fast, Sebastian. You don’t even know how fast they are until you try to catch one, let alone five.”
He laughed, covering his mouth with a hand. “Sorry. Not laughing at you.”
“Laugh away,” I said. “I was after them for about an hour when I got sick of it. I took the rest of the bread loaf, put it outside near the open window, and got the hell out of the cabin. When I found the snowbank outside, I lay down in it to get some rest, and…”
“And immediately whipped out your cock and started jerking it?”
“You’re impossible,” I told him, but I couldn’t keep a smile off my face. “No. I rested my eyes for a while, and when I woke up, I was cold, but cozy. And morning wood doesn’t just happen first thing in the morning.”
“Believe me, I know,” he said.
“So I had… midmorning nap wood, I guess.”
“You know, I’ve jerked off in some ridiculous places over the years, but a snowbank isn’t one of them,” Sebastian said. “The roof of this castle, the basement of this castle, the back of my car when no one else was in it, one time I even went out and did it in a cluster of pine trees in the middle of the night.”
“You really are a box of secrets, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Only person I’d tell them to is you,” he said simply.
My blood felt warm now. The scotch was incredible, and over the course of our short conversation I’d somehow accidentally slipped into feeling really, really good.
“What do they make this with? Crushed up feel-good drugs?” I asked, swirling the scotch and taking another sip.
“No need,” he said. “It’s good enough on its own.”
“Sorry you had to waste your wedding-night scotch on me,” I said. “But I’m glad you did.”
“It’s not a waste,” he said, watching me. “I don’t know if I’m going to get married, anyway.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “I know it’s inevitable, of course. But at the same time… I just can’t picture it. It feels so foreign to me, or something.”
“You picture yourself as a bachelor prince forever?”
He glanced down at the floor, chewing the inside of his cheek. “I picture all sorts of things.”
I was afraid to ask what he meant by that. I couldn’t stop staring at the crook of his neck, his milky smooth skin peeking out of his collar.
He looked like a damn Renaissance painting. Lounging by the golden glow of the fireplace, lazily clutching his glass of scotch, his eyelashes two long, dark rows as he stared downward.
“Sebastian,” I said, my voice coming out low and quiet.
“Hmm?” he said, his eyes lifting to meet mine.