A Seditious Affair(41)

Where I used to play on the green.

“And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

And Thou shalt not, writ over the door;

So I turn’d to the Garden of Love,

That so many sweet flowers bore.

“And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tomb-stones where flowers should be:

And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,

And—”



His voice cracked. Silas finished the poem, with unusual gentleness:

“And binding with briars, my joys & desires.”



“That,” Dominic said. “That is…”

“Aye.”

“Have you met him? Blake?”

“Few times. Bit odd.” Silas coughed. “He, uh, reckons he talks to angels.”

Dominic could well imagine it. If he could write like this, draw like this, think like this, he would probably believe he had been touched by God too. He turned a few more pages, needing to keep handling this lovely, wild thing, to be sure he owned it. “Anything he’s written, any of these illustrated books, I’ll take them. Can you get them for me?”

“Dare say. They get odder.”

“I’m sure they do.” He had read The Marriage of Heaven and Hell over and over again since Silas had given him a copy. Half of it made no sense, and what he did follow he mostly disagreed with, and the whole thing made him quiver with a sense of terrible possibility. A whirling cloud of madman’s words, ringing with half-understood notes of something that resonated within.

…the enjoyments of Genius, which to Angels look like torment and insanity.

“Thank you for this,” he said quietly. “For the books. For Blake. For the ways you have changed me.”

Silas took the book from his hands and put it on the table, then came back to stand over Dominic as he sat on the edge of the bed. “Ah, Tory. Lie back. Arms out.”

Dominic did as bid. Silas looked down at him. “Right. You stay there, and you don’t move without I tell you, understand?”

Dominic nodded. Silas knelt with the ungainly movements of a bulky man and brushed his hands over Dominic’s spread thighs, over his breeches, up and down.

“Pretty eyes,” Silas said, meditatively. “And a pretty mouth. And you know how you look when you do what I say?”

“No.”

Silas smiled. A little, almost shy smile, not the snarling one Dominic was used to. “Love seeketh not itself to please.” His palm over Dominic’s groin, gently massaging his growing arousal. “Nor for itself hath any care; But for another gives its ease.” Other hand freeing the buttons of his breeches. “And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.”

Silas was only quoting. Blake’s words, by the cadence, not his own. Dominic still took them and held them, deep within.

Silas ran a finger along Dominic’s length. “Heaven in Hell’s despair. You’re mine, understand? Mine to the bone.”

“Yes.” Too true, hopelessly true.

“I own you, Tory. Nobody else. No lackwit gentry-fuckster who doesn’t know how to treat you right.” His hand was around Dominic’s prick, fingers just touching, making him wait. Dominic’s fingers were clenched on empty air. “Like it’s a hardship to have those pretty eyes pleading. Like I wouldn’t want that pretty mouth telling me I’m the master here. Christ, the way you give it up to me. I own you.”

Silas was still scarcely making contact. Dominic held himself rigid against the urge to squirm and thrust and plead. Fully clothed except for the open breeches, sprawled, exposed.

“And I know you want me to fuck you right now, make you squeal like a cat,” Silas murmured. “But I ain’t going to, and you know why? Because there’s nothing gets you harder than me taking what I want. So I’ll just use you to please myself, and you’ll love it, Tory, you know you will.”

Dominic made an incoherent noise. Silas grinned. “Now. Don’t fucking move, and don’t spend either. You spend, you’ll regret it.”

He dipped his head and took Dominic in his mouth.

Dominic went rigid, nails digging into his palms. Silas had never done that before, had handled him often enough, but this was new. This would never, ever have been right, except that he was crucified by his own obedience, pinned on the bed. Silas’s breath was rasping, interspersed with little grunts, fingers hard on Dominic’s hips. Tongue curling, lips working—

“I said don’t fucking spend,” Silas said pulling his mouth off. “So why can I taste you’re about to? I said, why?”

“Because you’re making me,” Dominic managed. “Because—God—please, please, don’t make me—” Silas was sucking harder, fingers digging into tender flesh, other hand applying near-painful pressure to Dominic’s balls as if warning him to hold back. “Please! I can’t—” Silas gave a warning growl, even as he took Dominic deep into his mouth, almost to the root, and Dominic cried out in shock and pleasure and alarm as he came, hopelessly obedient and disobedient at once.