'on Oxford Street,' he'd once heard. In six months' time perhaps he would know, he'd have sorted out the facts from the figures of speech. He watched Leo twist and lift a knee to clamber free of the bench-he looked keen to get on with it, and he acted of course as if Nick knew the procedure. Nick followed him with a baked smile and a teeming inward sense of occasion. He was consenting and powerless in the thrust of the event, the rich foregone conclusion of the half-hour that opened ahead of them: it made his heart race with its daring and originality, though it also seemed, as Leo squatted to unlock his bike, something everyday and inevitable. He ought to tell Leo it was his first time; then he thought it might bore him or put him off. He gazed down at his strictly shaved nape, the back of a stranger's,head, which any minute now he would be allowed to touch. The label of Leo's skimpy blue shirt was turned up at the collar and showed the temp's signature of Miss Selfridge. It was a little secret given away, a vanity exposed-Nick was light-headed, it was so funny and touching and sexy. He saw the long muscles of his back shifting in its sleek grip, and then, as Leo hunkered on his heels and his loose jeans stood away from his waist, the street lamp shining in on the brown divide of his buttocks and the taut low line of his briefs.
He unlocked the gate and let Leo go in ahead of him. 'Cycling isn't permitted in the gardens, but I dare say you can walk your bike.'
Leo hadn't learnt his mock-pompous tone yet. 'I dare say bumshoving isn't permitted either,' he said. The gate closed behind them, an oiled click, and they were together in the near-darkness of the shrubbery. Nick wanted to hold Leo and kiss him at once; but he wasn't quite certain. Bumshoving was unambiguous, and encouraging, but not romantic exactly… They strolled cautiously forward, leaning against each other for a step or two as they steered for the path. There was the slightest chill in the air now, but Nick shivered wildly in a spasm of excitement. His fingers felt oddly stiff, as though he was wearing very tight gloves. Even in the deep shadow he wanted to conceal his weird smirk of apprehension. He did so hope it would be him who got to do the shoving, but didn't know how you arranged that, perhaps it all just became clear. Perhaps they both had to have a go. He led Leo through on to a wide inner lawn, the bike bouncing out beside them, controlled only by a hand on its saddle-it seemed to quiver and explore just ahead of them. To the right rose a semicircle of old planes and a copper beech whose branches plunged to the ground and made a broad bell-tent that was cool and gloomy even at midday. Away to the left ran the gravel walk, and beyond it the tall outline of the terrace, and the long, intermitted rhythm of glowing windows. As they skirted the lawn Nick counted confusedly, searching for the Feddens'. He found the first-floor balcony, the proud brightness of the room beyond the open French windows.
'Yeah, how far is it?' said Leo.
'Oh, just over here…'-Nick giggled because he didn't know if Leo's grumpiness was real. He went ahead a bit, anxiously responsible. As his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness nowhere seemed private enough-there was more show-through from the street lights, voices on the pavement were unnervingly close. And of course on a summer night there were keyholders still at large, picnickers charmed into long late reminiscence, walkers of white dogs. He stooped under the copper beech, but the branches were rough and confusing and the mast crackled underfoot. He backed out again, bashing into Leo and gripping his waist for a moment to steady himself. 'Sorry… ' The feel of his warm hard body under the silky shirt was almost worryingly beautiful, a promise too lavish to believe in. He prayed that Led didn't think he was a fool. The other men in Leo's life, anonymous partners, answerers of ads, old boyfriends, old Pete, massed impatiently behind him-as if a match had flared he saw their predatory eyes and moustaches and hardened sex-confidence. He led the way quickly to the little compound of the gardener's hut.
'All right, this'll do,' said Leo, propping his bike against the larch-lap screen. For a moment it seemed he was going to chain it up again, then he stopped himself and left it there with a regretful laugh. Nick tried the door of the hut even though it was padlocked. Beside it there was a shadowy area where a flatbedded barrow was kept, and a broken bench; there were laurels, and a yew tree hanging over; the dusty sour smell of the yew was mixed with the muted sweetness of a huge compost heap, a season's grass cuttings mounded high in a chicken-wire coop. Leo came up to Nick and hesitated for a second, looking away, trailing his fingers over the warm cuttings. 'You know, these composts get really hot inside,' he said.
'Yes… ' Nick had known this all his life.
'Too hot to touch-like a hundred degrees.'
'Is that right…?' He reached out like a tired child.
'Anyway,' Leo said, letting Nick's hand slide round his waist, putting his arm, his elbow, round Nick's neck to pull him close against him. 'Anyway… ' His face slipped sideways across Nick's as he breathed the word, the unguessed softness of his lips touched his cheeks and neck, while Nick sighed violently and ran his hand up and down on Leo's back. He pushed his mouth towards Leo's, and they met, and hurried into a kiss. To Nick it felt simply like a helpless admission of need, and the shocking thing was the proof of Leo's need, in the force and thoroughness with which he worked on him. They pushed apart, Leo faintly smiling, Nick gasping and tormented just by the hope that they would do it again.
They kissed for a minute more-two minutes, Nick wasn't counting, half-hypnotized by the luscious rhythm, the generous softness of Leo's lips and the thick insistence of his tongue. He was gasping from the rush of reciprocity, the fact of being made love to. Nothing at the pub, in their aimless conversation, had even hinted at it. He'd never seen it described in a book. He was achingly ready and completely unprepared. He felt the coaxing caress of Leo's hand on the back of his head, roaming through the curls there, and then lifted his other hand to stroke Leo's head, so beautifully alien in its hard stubbly angles and the dry dense firmness of his hair. He thought he saw the point of kissing but also its limitations-it was an instinct, a means of expression, of mouthing a passion but not of satisfying it. So his right hand, that was lightly clutching Leo's waist, set off, still doubting its freedom, to dawdle over his plump buttocks and then squeeze them through the soft old denim. The prodding of Leo's angled erection against the top of Nick's thigh seemed to tell him more and more clearly to do what he wanted, and get his hand inside his waistband and inside the stretched little briefs. His middle finger pushed into the deep divide, as smooth as a boy's, his fingertip even pressed a little way into the dry pucker so that Leo let out a happy grunt. 'You're a bad boy,' he said.
He moved away from Nick, who clung to him, then let him go with a sulky laugh. 'I'm coming back,' Leo said, and edged off past the shed. Nick stood for a little while, holding himself and sighing, alone again, aware of the unending soft roar of London and a night breeze hardly dipping the dark leaves of the laurel. What was Leo doing? He was getting something from the slim side pannier of his bike. He was amazing with his habits, he was fabulous, but then Nick's skin prickled for a moment at the thought of himself out here in the dark with a stranger, the risk of it, silly little fool, anything could happen. Leo felt his way back, shadow among shadows. 'I think we might be needing this,' he said, so that the rush of risk flowed beautifully into the mood of adventure.
Next day Nick wandered for lost half-hours through what he'd done, taking the tube of gel, that was folded back neatly, three-quarters empty, and peering at it in the gloom with relief and embarrassment; turning Leo round in his arms and unbuttoning his jeans as if they were his own, and prising his broad blunt hard-on from his pants as he eased them down, and pushing him forward to hold on to the bench as he knelt behind him and paid the kind of homage with his tongue and lips that he'd dreamed of paying for years to a whole night-catalogue of other men. He loved the scandalous idea of what he was doing more perhaps than the actual sensations and the dull very private smell. He twisted his own pants down to his knees, and smiled at the liberated bounce of his dick in the cool night air, and kissed his smile into Leo's sphincter. Then when he fucked Leo, which was what he did next, a sensation as interesting as it was delicious, he couldn't help laughing quietly. 'I'm glad you think it's funny,' Leo muttered. 'No, it's not that,' said Nick; but there was something hilarious in the shivers of pleasure that ran up his back and squeezed his neck, and ran down his arms to his fingers-he felt he'd been switched on for the first time, gently gripping Leo's hips, and then reaching round him to help unbutton his shirt and get it off and hold his naked body against him. It was all so easy. He'd worried a lot the night before that there might be some awful knack to it-
'Mind that shirt,' Leo said: 'it's my sister's.'
That made Nick love him much more, he couldn't say why. 'Your arse is so smooth,' he whispered, while his hands stroked hungrily through the short rough hair on his chest and belly.
'Yeah… shave it…' said Leo, between grunted breaths as Nick got quicker and bolder, 'get arse-knit… fucking murder… on the bike… ' Nick kissed the back of his neck. Poor Leo! With his arse-knit and his ingrowing beard he was a martyr to his hair. 'Yeah, like that,' he said, with a sweet tone of revelation. He was leaning forward on one arm now, and masturbating in a pounding hurry. Nick was more and more seriously absorbed, but then just before he came he had a brief vision of himself, as if the trees and bushes had rolled away and all the lights of London
