Title: A Perfect Day

Series: The latest installment in the saga that started with A Helping Hand' and continued with We Can Do More, When the Cat's Away and Roller Coaster.
Author: Lobelia; [email protected]
Pairing: Dominic Monaghan / Orlando Bloom; in the background: Dominic Monaghan / Billy Boyd
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: None, I think.
Warnings/Content: RPS. If you adore Billy / Dom and can't bear anything coming between them: don't read this.
Archive: Closer than Brothers. Anyone else, please just ask.
Feedback: Yes, please, I love feedback! Anything, one word even!
Disclaimers: This is a work of amateur fiction. I do not know these people. I am not making money. The events described in this story did not happen.
Summary: Billy goes away for the weekend. Dominic invites Orlando round. Things happen.
Author's notes: You should be able to make sense of this story even if you haven't read the previous ones. Thanks to the muse Erato (and she was definitely the one who whispered in my ear for this story).
And thanks more than I can say to Val for her wonderful beta!!
The Xena episode is 2:46, with Karl Urban (Eomer) as Cupid and Jay Laga'aia (Ugluk) as Draco.

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Billy was hanging off the open door of the coach, and Dominic stood on tiptoes, trying to drop last-minute kisses on his face.

The engine revved up. "Doors gonna be closing," said the driver.

"Can I say one last thing?" asked Billy.

"Sure."

"While I'm away this weekend," said Billy, "why don't you go and have sex with Orli? If you want to."

"What?"

"Feel free, you know!"

And then the coach doors closed. Billy's face appeared at the window. He was grinning mischievously.

"What? What were you talking about just now?" screamed Dominic.

He couldn't hear what Billy was saying, but he could see that Billy was laughing, waving his fingers about in some sort of gesture that maybe Dominic was supposed to understand but sure as hell didn't.

"Are you mad?" he yelled, running alongside the coach as it lurched off the kerb.

He ran along with the coach, eyes fastened on Billy's laughing face, and then laughed himself. And then stopped and watched the bus round the curve at the bottom of the street and disappear behind the trees and post boxes and scrubby lawns of suburbia.

What had Billy just said?

"You did that on purpose!" he yelled after the long-gone coach. "You told me that at the last minute on purpose! So I couldn't talk back, you bastard!"

He stood on the road, one foot on either side of the central white lines, arms akimbo. He knew exactly what Billy was on about. He'd planned to say this. He'd kept it close to his chest, and then popped it at Dominic when there was no chance of taking it back.

Dominic fumbled for his mobile and keyed in Billy's number. But the bastard had turned his phone off and all he heard was the stupid answering service. He shoved the phone back in his pocket and bent his head back. The sky was so blue it hurt his eyes. Electricity wires criss-crossed it at crazy angles.

Okay, they had talked about this. They had talked about Dominic's thing with Orlando a number of times. Dominic's thing with, about, for Orlando. Well, mostly his continuing thing for Orlando. They had talked about it over dinner that first night when they were back together again after the separation. And then they had talked about it again in their hotel room the next morning, and then they had talked about it once walking up a hill somewhere, Dominic couldn't remember where, all he could recall was the hill. Then they had sort of laid it to rest, and then they had come back from the Minas Tirith location to Wellington. Finally, they were in their own house again, out of holdalls and bags, out of motels and hotels.

A semblance of permanence descended. The windows in their house stood open and the rooms were filled with the sound of cicadas; sand crunched underfoot on the porch; there were two bedrooms and Dominic moved into the one with the biggest bed, and they sprawled on that bed at their leisure.

Orlando was not forgotten, but merely put on hold.

Then Dominic did a dreadful thing one night. It was late, he was sloshed, the ceiling seemed to be swaying, he'd been fucking his sweet Billy, and... when he came, shit, he'd said 'Orli'.

Hadn't even noticed it straight away, that was the irony of it. It had just slipped out, out of some crevice of his subconscious. Hadn't slipped past Billy, of course. Had sunk straight into Billy's attention.

Things hadn't been so good after that.

Billy had tried not to be upset, had pretended that it was an everyday event to be hearing Dominic say 'Orli' in bed, and Dominic had pretended that he wasn't noticing Billy's pretending. But for two days afterwards they had slunk around each other like wary cats, until finally Billy had screamed at him not to leave the fucking ice cream to melt outside the fridge all the time, and Dominic had called him a tight-arsed Scot and upturned the whole tub into the sink, and they had both known that this was not about ice cream.

Later that evening, Billy had sighed and said, "Why don't you just do it, Dom? Just get it out of your system."

"Don't be stupid," Dominic had answered.

But Billy had just looked at him, looked right through him, through his eyes straight into his head. Come to think of it, Dominic had noticed an ominous glimmer at the back of Billy's gaze even then.

So Billy had evidently, in the privacy of his own thoughts, cooked up this harebrained proposal. Designed especially to confuse and confound Dominic.

Birds screamed by. Cars hummed past. Dominic stretched his arms up above his head. He was in New Zealand, on the other side of the world. Everything was upside down. He felt as if he were suspended from the heavens by the crown of his head.

He pulled out his mobile. He stared at it for, oh, all of a quarter-second, then keyed in the number he knew by heart. There'd be nobody there, of course.

"Orli?" he said.

Amazing. He was there.

"Hi, Dom," said Orli. "What's up?"

"Can you come over?"

"What, over to your place?"

"Yeah. Can you, um, come straight away?"

He'd never be able to do it, of course. He'd be busy elsewhere.

"Okay," Orlando said. "See you in half an hour."

Fuck.

Dominic shoved the phone away, took a deep breath and started running. He ran until his lungs flew out of the front of his chest and his eyes began spinning in their sockets. His heart seemed to be flying on ahead of him; at least, he couldn't feel it pumping in his chest. He ran up the street and raced along the footpath and careered around the corners and sprinted up the garden path and fell into his living room.

Dust motes circled in the lazy air.

Quick, quick, tidy stuff away, throw the most obvious Billy-signs somewhere, stow them away, shove them into their bedroom. Heart now caught up with rest of body, pounding like mad, threatening to pop a valve. Turn on radio, music blaring inanely into the room, turn it right up, sound reverberating off the walls, drown out your own screams of madness. Run into the now-disused other bedroom, rip the musty sheets off the bed, find fresh ones, where? where? Pull them in a crumpled ball out of the drier, throw them over the bed, sit down on the bed, put hand on heart and stop the room from spinning.

He heard a knock at the door.

Shit, that was fast.

Dominic lurched into the living room. Orlando was already there, six-pack in hand. Looked as if he'd stepped into a special Orlando-shaped air pocket that had up till this moment remained invisible in their living room.

"Hi," Orlando mouthed. Inaudible. Music too loud.

Time spools forward and stops right here, in the present.

Dominic stands there. Can't move. He looks and looks and feels the corners of his mouth pull apart. He's smiling crazily, and there are waves of feeling washing over him, and over him again, from his skull right through his body, through all the organs, lung heart kidney stomach appendix gallbladder, through his bones, ribs spine pelvis fibula tibia, right down to the soles of his feet. And wash over him again.

What kind of feelings they are, he doesn't stop to wonder, he doesn't care. Concentric waves of the feelings spread from his solar plexus out into the room, past the windows, into the scrubby garden and sky and horizon outside.

God. And it's not even as if Orli looks at all special or anything. With his six-pack, tank top, scruffy jeans, no socks, running shoes, laces not done up properly, face nothing special, skull shiny with a nick at the side over his ear where he's cut himself shaving to keep his haircut sharp.

On the other hand, he looks... He looks... Dominic can't even find a comparison. He is filled from top to bottom with something, some thing for Orlando.

"Hi," he says finally. Doesn't matter what he says, anyway. It's all inadequate. He's holding on to the back of the sofa and he's just looking, looking, looking at Orlando. Can't get enough of Orlando into his eyes.

"So," replies Orlando, shouting over the music and looking around. "Where's Billy?"

"Billy," breathes Dominic. "Not here." He's surprised he can say anything at all. His throat feels tight as a chicken's arse, and each word has to be squeezed out like an egg.

"What? Can we turn this music down a bit?" Orlando bends, twiddles a knob, turns the radio off. Space flows back into the room where sound has been before.

Orlando straightens up. "What did you say? Where's Billy?"

"Gone," croaks Dominic. "Gone away for the weekend. You knew that, didn't you?"

Orlando drops his six-pack on the floor, bang, and looks at Dominic thoughtfully. "I just assumed," he says, and he's pronouncing every word with care, "that he'd changed his mind. And that's why you asked me round, to hang out with Billy and you."

'No,' thinks Dominic. 'That's not the reason I asked you round. That's definitely not the reason.'

He also realises that he's just rung Orlando out of the blue, that he's expected Orlando to understand what's going on by means of mental telepathy. Clearly, though, Orlando has no idea why he's here. Shit. This means that Dominic will have to make it clear. Somehow. How?

Orlando's still looking at Dominic carefully. Then he laughs.

"What's up?" he asks. "Something's up. What is it?"

"Nothing," says Dominic. Automatic response. He's still having trouble squeezing those eggs out. Makes a huge effort, sticks his hands into his pockets, blinks, once, twice, says all in a rush, "Thought we could maybe play cards."

"What?!"

Orlando doubles over in mock shock. Dominic suspects it's a mock shock pretending to be a mock shock while actually hiding the real shock.

They both know exactly what they mean by playing cards. That was one of their code words, back in-- well, back over a zillion years ago.

Orlando looks up, sucks in his cheeks, puts his head on one side, folds his arms.

"Are you telling me that Billy's gone away for the weekend and you've invited me round, what, to be your fuck toy?"

Dominic blinks again. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah. More or less."

"Right," says Orlando. He falls onto the sofa, falls right into it, makes a dent in the soft cushions. Sits there, legs wide apart. Then he reaches across the floor for the six-pack, rips off the cardboard, struggles with the plastic rings holding the cans together, extracts a can, cracks it open. He bends his head back and puts the can to his lips, and while he's drinking, he's looking at Dominic out of the corners of his eyes. He places the can on his knee, holds it balanced there, steadying it with just one finger and thumb. Sucks in his lower lip, licks droplets of beers off his upper lip.

"Is that bad?" asks Dominic. And thinks, 'Shit. I'm starting to sound like Billy.'

Orlando says, "Give me a moment. I just have to get used to this."

"Sure," says Dominic.

"Here, have a beer," says Orlando, pulls out another can, slides it across the floor. It skids across the floorboards, topples over, rolls along, lands with a clink against Dominic's right foot.

Dominic picks up the can. He wants to sit down on the sofa next to Orlando, sink into that dent. Instead, he walks across the room. How he does it, is beyond him, but somehow his body still obeys basic impulses.

He sinks into the armchair, right across from Orlando on the sofa, coffee table between them.

He pulls the tab on his can. He takes a draught. The beer flows down his throat. It's still icy cold; Orlando must have bought it on the way here. The can burns his finger tips, it's so cold. Oh, this is good, this beer is good.

He's looking at Orlando. And actually it just feels fucking fantastic to be looking at Orlando without having to pretend not to or having to pretend he's just a mate or feeling guilty about all the pretending.

And did he think Orlando looked like nothing special? Wrong, wrong and wrong again. Some alchemy has transformed Orlando into a creature not to be believed.

Could be the beer, of course. Somehow Dominic has drunk the entire can in about a minute flat. He swallows a burp.

"Are you used to it yet?" he asks. Doesn't know where the words are coming from.

Orlando smiles. There are dimples all over his cheeks. "I'm getting there," he says.

Dominic laughs. Not because anything is particularly funny, although on one level the situation is insanely hilarious. He laughs, and the room fills with his laugh.

Orlando laughs, too. Lifts his can, says "Cheers" and drinks some more.

Dominic sees Orlando's throat move as he swallows. Fuck, he wants him something bad. His breath tastes sour with want. His balls feel heavy like liquid-filled grapes. And he's still got those waves of feeling coursing through him like electricity.

"Okay," says Orlando.

What?

"Okay what?" says Dominic.

"Okay, we can do that," says Orlando.

Dominic's empty beer can clatters to the ground. He seems to have lost the muscle power in his hand. Everything goes very quiet.

An ant scuttles across the floor. Spiders spin cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling. The phone rings.

Dominic nearly jumps out of his skin. The phone continues to scream at him. Dominic starts up, moves backwards toward the phone, bends down, pulls the cord out of the wall.

He stands there, cord in hand, breathing hard.

Orlando's still sitting on the sofa. Beer can still on his knee. Smile still on his lips. He's got that little crease in the corner of his smile. He's narrowed his eyes. He's licking his lips.

Too much. Too much.

Space contracts. It's not as if Dominic moves, he is incapable of it. It's more as if the floorboards shrink and buckle and as if the air doubles back on itself, and before he knows it, Dominic's on the sofa, he's on Orlando's lap, Orlando's beer can falls to the floor, a puddle starts to spread around their feet. Orlando's face is between Dominic's hands. Their noses rub against each other. Dominic can feel Orlando's breath stream out through his nostrils and rush along Dominic's lower lip.

Dominic bends his head to the left, Orlando bends his head to the right, their lips meet. God. Dominic remembers these lips now, how they feel, their slight crackedness, the slippery bit just on the inside, the smooth thickness of Orlando's cheeks inside his mouth, the sinew at the base of Orlando's tongue.

What a kiss.

He comes away, gasping for air.

"I should tell you," says Orlando, catching his breath, "that I'm madly in love with you."

"What?" Dominic loses balance, his foot skids in the beer puddle, he almost falls off Orlando.

Orlando laughs, grips him around the waist and pulls him back onto his lap.

"Did I scare you?" he says.

"You... you can't be," says Dominic, and now he's in shock.

"Why not? It's true."

"But... but you've got a thing for Viggo." It sounds lame, even to Dominic.

"Viggo!" snorts Orlando. "That's history."

God. When did this happen? Dominic has clearly missed something somewhere. He's been too wrapped up in Billy. He hasn't noticed a thing.

"You drove that clear out of my head," says Orlando. He moves his hands underneath Dominic's T-shirt, he leans his forehead against Dominic's forehead, he is impossible.

"But..." says Dominic.

"I just thought that maybe you should know," says Orlando. "Before we do anything else."

Orlando sticks his tongue out and moves it along Dominic's upper lip. Dominic opens his mouth, and Orlando opens his mouth, and Dominic wonders whether he can taste the love in Orlando's saliva because it tastes so sweet.

"What did you say again?" he murmurs into Orlando's mouth.

"That I'm madly," says Orlando, "hopelessly in love with you."

"Madly, hopelessly?"

"Yeah," mumbles Orlando as he pulls at Dominic's lower lip, "yeah, fuck, I am."

All the furniture in the room seems to rearrange itself, or so it seems to Dominic. Nothing is the same anymore, the table shifts subtly and the sofa lurches towards the window and the radio leans back against the wall. And the insides of Dominic's body, too. Everything gets shuffled around, up and down and round and round, and at the end of their kiss nothing is in the same place it was at the beginning. Dominic's heart is in his throat, and his blood is in his face, and his bones seem ground to dust.

"God, Orli," he whispers.

"I wasn't going to tell you," says Orlando. "But, given the current situation..."

Dominic laughs, although he can barely breathe because his lungs, too, seem to be having an out-of-body experience.

"But," he says, "but what can we do about it?"

Orlando shrugs. "Well, this is good." He rubs his hands slowly up Dominic's back. "This'll do for starters."

Dominic smiles. Everything, everything that Orlando is saying and doing is like something from another dimension. From the moment he's entered the living room, he's made everything turn inside out. He's warped the proportions of Dominic's life.

"But I'm not..." he begins again.

"Don't look so worried," says Orlando. "I'm getting rather used to this. You know, this unrequited love business." He laughs a short laugh. "I'm beginning to get quite good at it."

Somewhere in another house a glass breaks. The sound floats in through the open windows.

Dominic knows what he should do. He should get up and smile regretfully, ruefully, responsibly, and walk back to his armchair. He should say, "I'm sorry, Orli. Forget about me, Orli." This is the moment to do it, and he should do it. Do it now.

He doesn't. He leans forward, placing his hands over Orlando's temples, spreading his fingers into Orlando's skull. And Orlando smiles because this is a gesture they used to share back in the motel. It's like whispering, 'Remember? Remember?' Dominic feels Orlando's hands against his back, pulling him in further, he slides right into Orlando's body, he can feel Orlando's cock against his own, and he groans and bites Orlando's neck.

Things get a bit unstrung then. Dominic starts to ride on Orlando's lap, without even caring about taking any clothes off. His open mouth is against Orlando's open mouth and sometimes their tongues touch and sometimes only their lips and teeth, and sometimes they both gasp; and then Orlando takes Dominic's earlobe between his lips and pinches it, and their chests are moving together. Dominic moans and squeezes his eyes shut and clutches Orlando's shoulders. He feels Orlando's legs lift against his back. They both slide down the length of the couch, knees in beer, still moving together. Dominic's balls are getting tighter and tighter, and then out it rushes, oh God, it's all rushing out, in spasms, in spurts, unbelievably exquisite. Orlando is moaning too, and Dominic opens his eyes to look at him through veils of vertigo. Does Orlando look as he used to during orgasm? Yes, he does, he looks just the same, he's got that expression of abandon on his face, his head pressed back into the sofa cushions, his neck open and naked, and he's going, "Mmmmm", and he's got his legs around Dominic's back, and his arms, God, somewhere.

Everything is somewhere, and maybe it'll all come back one day. For now, Dominic's got his face in Orlando's shoulder and he's breathing, breathing, he can still breathe.

Fuck. Is this what Billy had in mind when he made his crazy offer?

Dominic doesn't know why he's thinking of Billy right now. There seems to be a smell of Billy about. Oh, yes, it's the T-shirt, he's wearing Billy's T-shirt, it hasn't even been washed. And the smell gets mixed up with the beer and the smell of Orlando, no, not smell: aroma, scent. Orlando smells like a whole forest of eucalypts.

"Have you got some new sort of aftershave?" he mutters into Orlando's shoulder.

"Sblomie," says Orlando. "I can't believe we just did that."

"No," mumbles Dominic. "I don't think it really happened."

"Don't say that. This is more real than anything I've done for months."

"God, Orli," says Dominic. "You never talked like this in Dunharrow."

"Sorry. We never talked much then, anyway, though, did we? Not about this stuff."

"No," agrees Dominic. "Shit, we've just come all over our clothes and the sofa, too. And I'm lying in a pool of beer."

Orlando laughs. Dominic looks into his face. He searches for signs of that wistfulness that used to get to him back in the motel. Yes, they're there, all right, but woven into all sorts of other traces as well. There are about a thousand different emotions in Orlando's face, and Dominic puts his hand on Orlando's cheek.

"You're..." he says but can't think of any way to complete that sentence.

"I'm getting cramp," says Orlando. "Should we get up or something?"

"Probably," says Dominic. He finds himself smiling, and then he finds himself laughing. His left leg has gone to sleep, and he has beer seeping through his trousers from below and semen seeping into his boxers from above, and he feels fantastically happy.

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When the fateful phone call from Dominic came, Orlando was sitting outside on the sundeck, feeling peaceful.

He had his feet up on the railing and a pair of desk diaries in his lap. On the wooden floor next to his deckchair was a coffee mug and a row of coloured pencils, each sharpened to a point. Orlando was transferring information from his old diary into a new, two-year one he'd bought himself the day before. He had his tongue between his lips, his eyes flicked back and forth from one diary to the other, and he was using the pencils to colour-code each entry.

It was an intensely pleasurable task. Orlando liked the juicy marks of red, blue, green of the pencils on the paper. He loved seeing his future spread out before him, gig after gig, marching in an orderly fashion into the next twenty-four months: Black Hawk Down, Lullaby of Clubland, Chequered Past. Which reminded him, he should give Atti a ring. He looked at his watch. No, it was still too early in Germany. Finish the diaries first.

The diaries made his life seem like a proper career. Orlando was still not quite used to having a career, as opposed to a student existence, and just scanning the coloured words on the pages gave him a reassuring thrill.

With a relish, he filled in the tentative dates for the various premieres of the three Lord of the Rings movies. He leaned out of the chair and picked up his mug and looked out over the rim at the ocean, sipping the by-now lukewarm coffee. Below him, the waves of the Pacific crashed ashore. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Extraordinary, considering it was nearing winter in New Zealand. He should ring the guys, go surfing.

He put his mug down and turned to the last pages of his old diary. They contained a list of important birthdays, and there, scrawled at the bottom of the page, was Dominic's name.

Orlando blinked quickly. Then he turned the pages, feeling efficient, and entered the words 'Dom's b'day' under December 8. In red. He chewed on the end of his pencil. He traced the outline of the 'D', then the 'o', then the 'm'. He thought about a number of presents he might want to give Dominic. He underlined the word 'Dom'. He looked up and stared at the sea with unfocused eyes.

It didn't do to dwell on thoughts of Dominic too long. He'd allow himself to think about Dominic for just one minute. Two minutes. All right, until that container ship on the horizon had passed behind that headland.

It wasn't hard to conjure up images of Dominic. Dominic had seeped into Orlando's skin and hair; he was like cigarette smoke that couldn't be shaken out or washed off. As soon as Orlando's mind permitted it, there was Dominic: smiling his lopsided smile at him, whispering, 'Are you okay like this?', saying, 'I've got condoms', putting his palm on Orlando's chest, walking across to make-up in the dark hours of the morning and looking over his shoulder at Orlando, shrugging and passing his hand across the back of his head. Hooking his fingers into Orlando's waistband as he followed him into the motel room. Sitting cross-legged on Orlando's bed, cards fanned out in one hand, whiskey tumbler in the other, frowning at his cards, then bursting into a grin and saying, "I'm going to thrash you this time, you bastard."

And then more recently. Back in Wellington. Dominic standing around on set, biting his lip, rubbing his upper arms. Orlando looking at Dominic from between his eyelashes, then forcing himself to look away, to stare at the lighting rigs instead. Dominic standing in blue-screen, chatting with Billy, smiling at Billy, brushing dust or crumbs or fuck-knows-what from Billy's cheek. Leaning forward and whispering words in Billy's ear, Billy blushing, Orlando going mad with trying to imagine what Dominic might have whispered.

Orlando knew this because he sneaked looks from behind doors and artificial trees. It was true that Dominic never whispered to Billy when he thought that Orlando was near. And that, perhaps, was worst. Dominic being considerate, Dominic minding about Orlando, Dominic being careful of Orlando.

If only Dominic were more of a bastard.

All those other moments when Dominic looked out for Orlando. Going out to the pub, Dominic saying, "What'll it be, Orli?", and leaning over and talking to Orlando, making a point of it, buying yet another round. Ringing up and asking, "We're going to Whatarangi, you up for it? Get your board." Orlando thinking, 'I shouldn't go', and then thinking, 'No, I should, ridiculous to stay holed up; got to get used to it'.

Also, desperate to see Dominic. And not getting less desperate as the days went by; getting more desperate instead. Even Dominic with Billy. Somehow especially Dominic with Billy. Observing their interactions: how Dominic said 'sorry' when he stumbled over Billy's feet; how he strapped his watch around Billy's wrist after having shot the waves; how he was sometimes in a bad mood with Billy and chucked their towels on the sand and stopped talking; and how, during those times, Billy bought him ice cream and beer and giggled at his sunglasses until Dominic threw him back on the sand and sat on him to make him shut up, and they both laughed.

All right, so that was agony. And yet Orlando had had some of this himself. He'd had Dominic, he'd had him to himself for two whole wonderful months. And what had he done about it? Fuck all. Frittered away his time in uselessly obsessing about Viggo.

So stupid. He should have spent those months better. He should have bloody well wooed Dominic, courted him, loved him, done some fucking thing.

Viggo. Orlando leaned his head back and stared at the timbered ceiling of the sundeck. Viggo and Fangorn Forest. And that damned, damned trailer. Viggo, who was elusive and tantalising, and had driven Orlando to distraction with his half-promises and shades of grey and unfathomable smiles. What a relief it had been to have Dominic there. Orlando only had to look at Dominic and to say, 'Do you want to play cards?', and Dominic had said, 'Yes, sure'. Always, always, Dominic had said 'yes'. And sometimes Orlando would knock at Dominic's motel door and ask, 'Can I come in?', and Dominic never, ever turned him away. The door opened every time, and Orlando could come right in, into Dominic's room, into Dominic's bed, into Dominic's body. And there were no unfathomable smiles and no elusive allusions, just full-on Dominic.

But had Orlando realised what he'd had? Nope. Nope. Nope. And by the time he had come to his senses and realised, it had been too late.

Too late. Too fucking late. And it was all his own blind, idiotic, piss-stupid fault.

Orlando focused on the horizon again. The ship had disappeared. He sucked in his cheeks. Well, all that was past. No point in getting into a state about it. No point at all.

Orlando shut the two diaries with a snap. He gathered up his pencils, threw the rest of the coffee over the railing into the bush and carried his stuff inside. He went to the phone. He'd ring Elijah, and Dave-the-runner, and Billy-- no, not Billy, Billy was away this weekend, meeting up with relatives of some sort in Auckland. Well, Dominic, then. But Dominic only once he'd arranged something with the others. Not Dominic by himself. It had been six weeks since Dunharrow but Orlando still avoided being caught with Dominic on his own.

Otherwise, he had it all figured out. Another six months of filming and having to see Dominic almost every day. That couldn't be helped, but he'd get through it, no problem. He'd had practice at being unrequited, he could do it again. It wasn't the end of the world. He could laugh and be matey and slap Dominic on the back, no problem at all. And afterwards, he'd be out of there, he'd be with Atti, he'd be with Black Hawk Down, and -- he calculated -- within three months, six months tops, he'd have forgotten about Dominic.

That was the plan. He could almost have entered it into his diary. Colour code and all.

The problem was, Dominic couldn't be colour-coded. He refused to be filed away in a container. He remained liable to jump out and burst through the walls. As Orlando would shortly be discovering in vivid detail. In two minutes and ten seconds, to be exact, when the phone would start ringing in the living room and Orlando would get up and lift the receiver and hear Dominic's voice asking, 'Can you come over?' The diaries would be left lying on the little side table, next to the phone, and Orlando would be rolling down the driveway, behind the wheel of his jeep, his face set into a neutral smile but his heart beating absurdly fast.

------------------

I don't know what to think now that Dominic has said that Billy isn't here. All my birthdays come at once, all my Christmases, that kind of shit. I'm thinking: fucking fantastic, here I am, and the guy actually wants me, he's propositioning me in so many words, fuck, I'll just go along with it and hallelujah.

But I can't pretend to Dom, and he's looking at me in such a strange way. Almost in a... but I won't allow myself to hope. It's enough that he wants to spend some time with me, and if it's a sort of sordid, while Billy's away affair-type of thing, well, fuck, I'll take it. Anything, I'll take anything I can get. Don't know what I've been wasting my time on. Stupid. All that Viggo shit, you'd think I'd have learned something. Nah, learned nothing, learned only how to be miserable better.

And his neck is like a sort of column, don't know why I'm thinking in these images, and his ears, and the spot where they're joined to his jaw. Christ, I don't know why I'm thinking these things and drinking in his sight. I can't even think straight, and he's chewing his lips, I just want to kiss him.

And then he does his thing, his Dominic-thing, one minute he's on the other side of the room and the next minute I've got a lapful of Dominic; and I don't know where to put my arms and legs and cock and balls. He knows, though. He puts everything just where it's meant to be, especially his mouth, oh, especially his sweet, fucking sweet mouth.

Then we kiss, and to hell with it. And so I tell him: I love you I love you I love you. Well, I don't put it quite like that, though nearly so. I'm not expecting a reaction, I just have to say it because who knows when I'll get another chance, and you've got to say these things. It wasn't to get any response that I said it, but that's what I'm getting, oh, the response I'm getting, it's making my stomach turn inside out. I don't know what it is, I don't want to cry, it's not like that, only perhaps a bit like that, but it feels like a big thing, a big big thing, all around us, this big thing.

----------------------

The morning passes in a haze. Tiny, umbrella-shaped flower-things drift by. The air is transparent, and a dog keeps barking in the distance. They are at Orlando's place because Orlando said, after they'd cleaned the floor up and after they'd had a shower:

"Stay at my place this weekend. Bring your surfing stuff."

It's a good idea. There's less of Billy around at Orlando's place.

So Dominic left the crumpled sheets on the unused bed. He dug up some shorts and things for Orlando to wear but they were Billy's, and it seemed too strange to have Orlando wear Billy's clothes. So he dug around some more, realising that all of his and Billy's clothes were mixed up these days, strangled in knots in the washing machine, residing in shared drawers. He slipped his toothbrush into his jacket pocket, shoved some condoms into his back pocket, grabbed his board and wetsuit, looked round one last time and locked the door.

And now they are sitting on one of Orlando's sundecks. It is one of those antipodean winter days where you need a jumper in the shade but can get sunburn against a sheltered wall. They've had lunch, heated up a frozen pizza found in Orlando's fridge, ate it from small white plates, trailing cheese on their fingers. Now they are slouched in deckchairs, knees higher than chests, beer on the floor within reach, bag of crisps in the middle. Orlando is wearing his ridiculous Aussie hat, and Dominic is wearing his shades which Orlando says are ridiculous.

"I'm still not clear," says Orlando, lighting a cigarette, dropping the lighter onto the floor, "what this weekend is all about, really."

Dominic slumps deeper into the deckchair.

"I'm not complaining or anything," continues Orlando, blowing a curl of smoke up towards the ceiling. But his voice sounds too brisk, too brittle.

"Well," says Dominic. He sits up and takes a deep breath. He owes Orlando an answer and he wishes he knew the answer himself. So he tries for the easy way out, knows his words sound cruel even as he utters them.

"I just thought. To get you out of my system." He stares up at the ocean. He feels like a beast.

"I didn't know I was in your system," replies Orlando slowly.

"Oh, you're in there all right." Dominic bites his lip.

"And is it working?" asks Orlando. "Are you getting me out of your system?"

A stray fly bumbles past. Left over from summer.

Dominic looks over to the other deckchair. Orlando is trying to look jaunty under his hat but his lips are turned down and the inside corners of his eyes are twitching. Dominic shivers.

"No," he answers. "So far it isn't working."

"Maybe," says Orlando, talking with the cigarette pinched between his lips and meeting Dominic's eyes, "maybe we haven't done enough yet."

Dominic swallows. Orlando looks blue through his sunglasses. The world looks blue, and the sky is indigo. Inside his mouth, he has the taste of crisps mixed in with beer and something else, something metallic at the back of his throat. The taste of lust. The taste of love.

"But then," Orlando goes on, "maybe I don't want you to get me out of your system. Maybe I want to stay in there." He takes out his cigarette and taps the ash into the slot of the empty can on the ground.

What Orlando is saying sounds light-hearted but Dominic knows it's not. The sinking feeling in his guts tells him it's not. But his guts are all over the place, his body still hasn't pieced itself together, perhaps never will. There are questions in the air, spoken and unspoken, and there are answers somewhere out there, too; must be, only perhaps not. So again Dominic backs down and switches the topic.

"You shouldn't smoke so much," he says.

"Will you stay with me if I give up smoking?" says Orlando suddenly, in a rush, and immediately adds, "Forget I said that."

Dominic scrabbles round in the crisp bag and puts a crisp between his lip, balances it on his tongue and lets the salt and vinegar flavour seep into his tongue. After a while, the crisp turns into a soggy blob.

"That's disgusting, Dom," says Orlando.

"Don't look then." Dominic puts another crisp onto his tongue.

"I'm not kissing that."

They banter but at the same time it's not banter. Words that used to signify nothing special have become fraught with meaning.

"Love you, too," says Dominic. And that, also, is banter but just saying the words, even in jest, makes Dominic's ears heat up and his breath flatten.

"Well, I know you don't," Orlando replies in flat voice.

The distant dog barks again. The ocean roars. Dominic's heart is beating. It's lodged in his throat, hasn't sunk back to its appointed place. Love. Love. He hasn't expected love to be a part of this weekend. Well, he hasn't expected anything from this weekend.

He closes his eyes and puts his hand on his forehead.

"Remember Dunharrow?" comes Orlando's voice.

"Of course," says Dominic. Opens his eyes again. Feels the round shape of the beer can in his right hand, the aluminium rim on his stomach, the beer going warm between his fingers. The other hand sticky with crisp crumbs. Dunharrow. Bane of his life.

Orlando leans forwards and puts his hands around the back of his neck.

"Are you all right?" asks Dominic.

"No," says Orlando. "Not really. But it's okay." He sits up and smiles at Dominic. Oh, that smile. "I told you I'm getting used to this unrequited bullshit."

"Will you stop saying it's unrequited," says Dominic. God, what is he admitting to here? But Orlando doesn't seem to have heard. He's looking at the floor, squashing his cigarette butt into the empty beer can, as if that was all that matters in life.

Dominic looks sideways, across to the hills. There's a very tall tree there, with white branches laced with tiny brown scribbles. The leaves are sage-coloured and thin and rattle in the wind. The sky in between seems impossibly far away.

Dominic takes off his sunglasses. He stares up into that tree, and the tree seems to be spinning round and round, and he is flying up between the branches and sees the tree from above, and underneath the tree the sundeck with two small figures in shorts, sitting on deckchairs. And while he is flying around up there he has a thought, and the thought is about falling.

'I've just been falling into people's arms. I fell into Billy's arms, and then I fell into Orli's arms, and then I fell back into Billy's arms. I even fell into Sandra's arms, way back when, and then when the call came, in Normandy, I fell right out of her arms again and fell into New Zealand. I must stop falling. I must stop falling.'

But he does fall; he plunges with terrifying speed out of the sky and through the branches and thumps back into his chair. He feels dizzy. How much beer has he drunk exactly?

He looks over at Orlando who is still looking at the floor, and he thinks, 'I have to stop this mindless falling. I have to make a proper choice.'

That thought is so formidable that his groin goes icy cold. There is no way, no way at all that he is equipped to make any kind of choice. And yet, looking at Orlando, he realises that he has to.

God. This is not the kind of weekend he has envisaged.

"Shall we go surfing?" he asks.

----------------------

The jeep eats up the miles like a locust. Forest flies by, sleek green kauri trees, tall ferns, upside down vegetation with upside down smells. The whole day seems upside down. Orlando's head feels upside down. He is unsettled, yes, quite unsettled. Unsettled by Dominic.

He doesn't like being unsettled particularly. He has made his peace with the situation as it was, and now life has thrown him this googly, or more accurately, Dominic has thrown him this googly. Dominic, who is sitting next to him, his eyes horizontal Vs in profile, sunglasses perched on his nose, the short hairs on the top of his head ruffling in the wind coming in through the open window. Dominic's arm resting on the window ledge, his hand on the car roof.

"Careful, watch where you're going," Dominic says.

Orlando snatches the wheel around.

"Sorry. Sorry. Was that the turn-off?"

"No, next one along," replies Dominic.

"Right. Forgot you're the one with the map knowledge."

Rubbish, of course. Orlando hasn't forgotten at all. He clearly remembers sitting next to Dominic in the coach from Fangorn, bending over Dominic's map, and later driving to the beach with Dominic, Dominic navigating from the back seat, map flapping in the breeze. They don't need a map this time. Dominic knows the route by heart.

The surf boards clap against each other in the back. Orlando opens the glove compartment with his left hand, scrabbles around for his cigarettes, presses the lighter in the front panel, waits for the orange glow to ignite.

"Do you have to?" asks Dominic, not turning his gaze away from the road straight ahead.

"Yep," says Orlando. He doesn't add, 'To calm my nerves.'

"Okay, then let me at least. Before you drive us to our deaths." Dominic takes the cigarette from Orlando's fingers, hands brushing, and presses it against the lighter. Then he leans across and places it against Orlando's mouth.

Orlando grabs it with his lips, mutters "hm" in thanks and inhales. Takes his right hand from the steering wheel, removes the cigarette, places the hand back on the wheel with the cigarette clamped between his index and middle fingers. He exhales.

"Why are you looking at me?" he asks.

"Why d'you think?" says Dominic. "I'm allowed to look. I'm not driving."

"Why then?" repeats Orlando, slowly.

Dominic pauses before answering. "I like looking at you. You know that. Careful, you swerved."

"Yeah, yeah, well, stop looking at me then."

Dominic looks straight ahead again. He drums on the car roof with his fingers.

"There's the turn-off," he says. "Go left. Ow, not so suddenly."

"I'd let you drive if I weren't so terrified you'd smash the bloody car to pieces."

"You're doing a good job towards that yourself."

"Shut up, you."

They drive on down the curvy road, so steep it seems as if they are flying straight towards the ocean below. The sun is caught in a thousand watery prisms, and Dominic flips his and Orlando's sunshades down.

"So," Dominic says. "Um."

"Yeah?" asks Orlando, a lump forming in his abdomen.

"So, how long has this been going on, this...um... love business?"

Orlando feels the back of his neck heat up. He pulls on his cigarette, feels the smoke fill his mouth and burn down inside his throat; then he purses his lips and blows, watches the smoke spiral out through the window in a curling plume.

"Oh, ages," he answers after a while. "Dunharrow. Ages."

"The motel? When you were..."

"I know. I don't know. The Viggo thing. I was in a mess about that. But you..."

He stops, not sure how far he wants to go with this. Then he breathes out and says it: "But you rescued me from all that."

Dominic is looking at him again. Orlando sucks in his cheeks, flicks ash out of the window.

"Viggo was such a... Well, you don't want to know all that," says Orlando very quickly. "But he messed me about, or I thought he messed me about. He didn't mean to, he's just Viggo. You know. And you always said yes; that's what was so nice about you."

"What, saying yes?"

"You always said yes. You were-- You are. You are very welcoming."

Dominic doesn't reply. Makes a sound with his lips, that's all.

"Whenever I asked you, you know, to come into my room or if I could come to yours, you always said yes. And that was... I loved that."

"So it was the sex." Dominic sounds hoarse. "You loved the sex."

"I did love the sex." Orlando looks at his cigarette, flicks it out the window once more. "But not only." Oh, what the hell, he'll just say it. He'll never get another chance. "Here's why I like you. You're a lovely, considerate person. And you're very careful of other people. And you don't expect anything from anyone. And I should have noticed that in Dunharrow; well, I did but I didn't think about it, or whatever. I only really noticed it after."

"Careful, it's steep here!"

"I know. Shit." The jeep skids around the hairpin curve.

Orlando shoots Dominic a quick glance before focusing on the road again. Dominic isn't looking straight ahead any longer, he's looking out of the side window.

"Do you," Orlando asks, "not want me to talk about this?"

"Yeah," Dominic says into the wind. "I think you'd better not."

The jeep crunches to a halt on the rough dirt of a small parking space at the bottom of the incline. Dry, beige blades of grass waves back and forth. Gulls swoop across the surf. There are only two other cars there, panel vans, other surfers.

Orlando pulls open the ashtray and extinguishes his cigarette. He presses his hands onto the top of the steering wheel, he leans his head back. He says:

"Actually, I am going to talk about it. It was your great idea, this weekend, and if you want it, you'll just have to put up with me talking about this. Sorry, what did you say?"

"Not my idea," mumbles Dominic.

"What do you mean, not your idea?"

"Never mind." Dominic turns around, eyes distorted behind the blue shades. Orlando lifts his hands, grips the corners of the glasses between his finger tips and carefully tugs them off Dominic's face. He stops breathing for about one whole second, then drops his hands into his lap, still holding Dominic's sunglasses.

"I love your eyes," he breathes. "I love the way they're honest. And if it bothers you, me saying that, we can just go back to Wellington and I'll drop you at your house."

"It doesn't bother me." Dominic coughs. He keeps his gaze on Orlando's face, and this makes the hairs on the back of Orlando's neck stand up, each and everyone stands up and bristles. Dominic's eyes are transparent in this light, like shards of glass.

Dominic goes on, "I just don't know what you want me to do about it."

"Nothing. I told you I'm getting used to this unrequited stuff. I can cope with it." In fact, the longer he sits next to Dominic, the less sure he becomes of being able to cope with it. "And I don't even think about you all the time anymore. I've managed to get that down to a few minutes a day." Not quite true but close enough.

Dominic continues to look at him, and it is a look that Orlando loves, and it goes on and on, neither looking away, neither saying anything. After a while, the lump in Orlando's abdomen grows harder and more solid, it feels like a ball of marble curled up in his lower stomach. It feels terrible.

"Orli," says Dominic.

"Yeah?" He swallows.

"Are you jealous of Billy?"

"Why--" He swallows again. "Why do you ask that?"

"Do you want me to leave Billy?"

The question floats out of Dominic's mouth, and then it hangs in the air between them like something palpable. The inside of the jeep suddenly feels small and constricting, the seats too large, the steering wheel in the way of Orlando's knees. Still they sit there, the roaring of the ocean in their ears, and don't get out of the car.

"I don't want you to do anything." Orlando enunciates the words with great care, as if they are eggshells. "You should just do what you want." But his head is swimming, and the car seat seems to be swaying.

"I don't know what I want." Dominic looks away and starts to rotate the ring on his thumb.

Orlando chooses more eggshell words. "You do know," he hears himself answer. "You love Billy, and you do know."

Dominic looks up again, his eyebrows angled, his eyes like cellophane. There are two tiny lines above his nose.

'Shit,' thinks Orlando. He crunches the shoulders of Dominic's sunglasses together on his lap.

"Dom, listen, I'm sorry." He speaks quickly, catching up with each breath. "I shouldn't have told you that this morning, about me. Forget I said that. I never meant to tell you, and I wouldn't have, but I was surprised into it. You sort of sprang something on me this morning, you know you did, and it just popped out. It means nothing, it's just nonsense left over from Dunharrow, and in a few weeks' time, poof, it'll all be gone. So don't do anything based on that, all right? Okay? Don't do anything stupid."

That is such rambling gibberish that Dominic probably doesn't even understand what he's on about. But Dominic does know. Dominic appears to have understood perfectly because the next thing he says nearly blows Orlando through the window and out of the car.

"Why would it be stupid?" Dominic says, still turning his ring. "Why is it stupid to love you?"

The plastic goes crack between Orlando's thumbs. "Shit," he says. "Sorry," he says. "I broke your glasses," he says.

"That's okay. You always said they were ridiculous."

"I didn't mean it." Orlando stares at the useless fragments in his hand.

"Shall we go surfing now?" asks Dominic.

"What, surfing? Okay," replies Orlando, his head still whirling. He lets the broken glasses slide between his legs and presses his hands against the top of the steering wheel until his knuckles go white. He closes his eyes and takes a breath, he thinks of his living room in Seatoun, the little table his phone sits on, his books neatly aligned along that white shelf behind the couch. That is his life. And he mustn't forget to ring Atti later on. Ring his agent, too, perhaps, except it's the weekend and she won't be in her office.

"Yes," he says. "Let's surf. Let's catch the big ones."

-------------------

There's air everywhere, and there's water everywhere, too, and we're paddling to the outside, way behind the last breakers. We're floating on our boards, waiting for the perfect wave, but as far as I'm concerned, everything's near fucking perfect already. Dominic's on his board, in his wetsuit, and I'm on mine, in my wetsuit, and it's so wonderful it hurts.

It's very, very bloody stupid to be doing this, and I'll only make myself miserable. Am going to be miserable for weeks after this day, for bloody weeks, months, because tomorrow Billy will be back, and Dominic will be back with Billy, and I'll be forgotten, I'll be told to piss off back home, but hell, I don't care, well, I do care but I'm in for it now, in for a penny and all that. And I don't know what Dominic was on about, back there in the jeep, about fucking splitting up with Billy, what rot. It's not as if he's going to do it, he's just saying that because he's a kind soul, and because he wants to get another shag in, and because, fuck, I don't know.

I don't know why he looks at me like that; even now, on the bleeding surfboards he's looking at me like that, too much; if it were someone else, I might think-- But Dominic always looks like that, it's just him, he's just a lovely fucking man, and that's why his eyes look lovely, and God, I want him so much.

I want you, Dom, I want you, I want you. I want to put you in my pocket and take you home. I want to bottle this moment up and preserve it forever and take it out now and again and smell the salt and the air and that funny rubbery smell of the wetsuits, and now I want to know what your hair smells like so that I can bottle it as well, so I paddle on up to you and hold on to your board and put my nose in your hair, just like that. And then you're doing it again, your thing, you're grabbing my neck and your mouth is all over my face, oh dear God, and my cock's throbbing and my head's spinning and I've got that fly-away feeling that I've never had with anyone else, only with you.

Only with you, Dominic.

-------------------

After they get back from surfing, they make love. They walk into the house to have a shower but on the way to the bathroom they pass Orlando's bedroom and the double futon on the floor, and Dominic looks at it, and Orlando looks at it, and then they're on it, entwined like bean plants on a pole.

They kiss with open eyes. Their lashes flutter against each other. And there's everything in that kiss, sadness and love and lust and salty crisps and beer and nicotine, and then moans and gasps. Because now they're grabbing each other's cocks, and now they're pulling at each other's clothes.

And one of them says, "We'd better take our trousers off this time," and the other one laughs.

Light slants into the room. Tree branches wave in the wind and paint a complicated shadow pattern of foliage on the wall. Orlando's room is quite bare. There's a built-in wardrobe and a chest of drawers. Next to the bed, there's a small pile of things, neatly arranged, an alarm clock, a stack of books, tooth floss. Dominic likes the room. Even as he's mauling Orlando, he thinks about how much he likes this room. And this Orlando. He whispers, 'Orli', he traces the hard-edged line between Orlando's skull and his hair, he reaches down and cups Orlando's balls in his left hand.

He doesn't think of Billy. He will but he doesn't now.

They roll around a lot on that futon. They spend about two hours on it. They have never spent so long in bed. They kiss and kiss; they kiss each other's mouths but also each other's nipples ears wrists navels cocks. They sweat so much that the sheets get drenched. Orlando says, "Do you want to do me from behind?" And kneels, head hanging down, Dominic's hands on his hips, Dominic's teeth in the back of his neck, Dominic's fist around his cock.

Dominic says, "Can we turn around?" Orlando asks, "Why?" And Dominic whispers, "I want to see your face when you come." It's quiet for about a second, and then Dominic adds, "Because I love your face." They're walking on a knife's edge, lust on one side, love on the other, and it's a dangerous balancing act, and there's fire on either side.

Dominic's underneath now, on his back, legs around Orlando's waist, Orlando pushing into Dominic slowly, so slowly it almost feels as if there's no movement at all, pearls of sweat on their foreheads, Orlando saying, "God, Sblom, you're so tight and sweet." Dominic almost comes, just hearing Orlando say that, and Orlando sees a crack split across Dominic's pupils, the tiny crack of desire, and he remembers that crack from their nights at the motel and sighs with recognition. He doesn't know it but his own eyes are breaking apart as well, spilling into Dominic. He thinks his gaze just works one way, soaking up the sight of Dominic but it doesn't, it works both ways, it's falling, flowing over Dominic, until Dominic has to close his eyes for a minute to save himself from the melancholy of Orlando's.

They go slow, so slow, and Dominic develops nerve endings where he never thought he had any. He would remember that Orlando likes to go slow to begin with except that he's never forgotten it. He opens his mouth wide and groans, and then Orlando is almost completely out and slowly, slowly moves back in, and Dominic shudders and bites Orlando's shoulder. Then they go faster because that's what they always used to do. They're settling back into their old rhythms, and it's scary how fast they settle back into them. They fuck madly, wildly, until the room disappears and they're sinking into the strange green foliage waving on the walls. "Orli, fuck, Orli," gasps Dominic, and "Mmmmm", moans Orlando, and they keep their eyes open and watch each other come.

Orlando lets himself sink onto Dominic; he licks Dominic's earlobe and whispers, "You... you... I love you so much, Dominic, so much."

Holding onto the top of the condom, he pulls out, rolls off Dominic. He takes the condom off and ties it in a neat knot, deposits it next to the bed on the floor. Dominic watches him, eyes half-closed, and tries to think of something funny to say, something like 'Was it good for you, too, then?' or something about knots and sperm, but nothing funny will rise to his throat. He feels overwhelmed by the seriousness of it all, by the magnitude. He puts his head on his right forearm, slithery forearm, sticky head, smell of sweat and sex in his nostrils. He puts his left thumb at the corner of Orlando's mouth, then moves his hand up to Orlando's temple and spreads his fingers onto Orlando's skull.

"Orli," he says and is surprised at how soft his voice sounds, as if buttered by the lovemaking. "Orli. Is your hair actually curly?"

"Yeah, it is quite." Orlando's voice, too, sounds soft. Soft and shaky. "I'll probably grow it out a bit when the shoot is over."

"I look forward to seeing your curls," murmurs Dominic.

"Is your hair curly, Dom?"

"No, it just goes sort of scraggly, when it's long."

"Have you ever had a beard?" Orlando runs his hand along Dominic's jaw line, along the raspy hairs of an incipient five-o'-clock shadow.

"Not really," says Dominic. "Should I grow one?"

"Not while you're a hobbit, my--" answers Orlando, and it sounds as if he is going to add an endearment there, but he doesn't, he won't, he bites his lip. Dominic has noticed, too, and thinks of calling Orlando his sweet one, his dear one, but those words are already taken. Those are the things he calls Billy; Billy is his sweet Billy, his dear Billy, and Orlando is-- He doesn't know what Orlando is. Something wordless, something shivering at the edges of possibility.

"Where did you get these rings?" asks Orlando and turns Dominic's hand in his own. "And which one's your favourite?"

"You've got an eyelash on your nose," says Dominic.

"And you've got eyelashes all round your eyes," says Orlando, "and they're beautiful."

That's the kind of talk they have. It is lovers' talk, pure and simple. It is after-sex lovers' talk, and they go ahead and indulge in it for minutes and minutes on end. They know they are tempting fate, that they are playing with fire, but they go ahead and do it anyway.

They don't yet quite know what is happening to them. They're like two corks, bobbing about in a sea of emotion. Soon, one of them will have to take the initiative and cast an anchor and tether them fast. Someone will have to be decisive, and it won't necessarily be the one who's used to taking control of his life. It may well be the other one who'll take a deep breath and feel the heady sensation of deciding for himself. Already these two are being subtly remoulded; they're making each other into different people, but whether these are good changes or bad, that's not for them to say.

Without them noticing, something big is forming out of their lovers' talk, something large and momentous, something woven out of need and love that encircles both of them in long, tough, terrible tendrils.

-------------------

That evening, they go to a restaurant near Cable Street. They go there because they finally listen to the voicemail messages bunching up on Orlando's telephone line.

"Hey, Orli, where are you hiding?" That's Elijah's voice. "We're all heading over to White Rock. At about one. Ring back if you wanna come."

"Hey, Orli." Elijah's voice again. "Where the hell are you? And do you happen to know where Dom is? Are you two hiding out together somewhere? Anyway, we're heading off now, to White Rock. Surf's up! See you there maybe."

"Orli? Sean here." That's Astin's voice. "We've just come back from surfing. Shame you missed it. Waves were great. Where's Dom, by the way? Anyway, we're going to go over to the Paradiso later on, have something to eat. If you're on, be there about eight, eight-thirty. Bye."

"Let's go to Cable Street," says Dominic. "Then we won't have to run into the others."

And he says it again, "Let's go to Cable Street, Orli", just to savour the words, letting his tongue roll around them, testing how they would taste for the next few weeks, months, the future. Wondering, what it would be like to say this sort of thing as a matter of course, "Hey, Orli, let's go to Cable Street."

He also walks around Orlando's house, trailing his fingers along the walls, imagining being here a lot, all the time, becoming intimate with the cracks in the door frames and the sticky-cool smoothness of the kitchen tiles under his bare feet. Well, he is here quite a lot, anyway, but to be here even more, to be in that bed all the time, on that futon...

"Do you want to get dressed up a bit?" Orlando calls out from the bathroom where he is shaving.

"Sure," Dominic says. "Can I borrow a shirt?"

So he riffles through Orlando's wardrobe, burying his nose in the shirts and jackets on their hangers. He pulls open drawers and looks at Orlando's clothes, neatly folded in small stacks, arranged in categories: T-shirts, vests, boxershorts, two rolled-up ties, even hankies in a tidy rectangle. On top of the chest of drawers, there is a jumble of stuff, crumpled cinema tickets, necklaces, a leather bracelet, a half-empty bottle of aftershave, two odd cuff links, an assortment of coins and empty film cylinders.

Dominic likes it. He likes all of it. He opens the aftershave and sniffs it and rubs some on his neck. He tries on the bracelet and he peeks at the tickets to check what films Orlando has been seeing.

"Found anything?" Orlando asks, framed by the doorway and looking freshly-scrubbed. Dominic stands poised, bracelet in hand, overcome with a sense of domesticity. He can only nod.

They choose a Chinese restaurant with a dirty linoleum floor, long strips of neon lighting, mosquito bars over the entrance and the most delicious smells of fried fish and steamed rice wafting in through the kitchen door. On each table, there is a small rotating stand, containing a bottle each of soy sauce, fish sauce and, incongruously, olive oil, as well as a box of tooth picks. In the middle, there is a fake antique vase with a plastic rose in it.

It is impossibly romantic.

They sit across from one another, Dominic's organs slowly settling after their mad dance around his insides. They almost hold hands across the table but not quite. Orlando puts his hands on the table, palms down, and Dominic puts his hands next to them, palms up, and they smile at each other.

Dinner is reassuring. As the meal arrives and the restaurant fills up with the chatter of other patrons, Dominic feels a modicum of normality return. His stomach sinks back to its appointed place which is a good thing because the food seems divine and there is lots of it. Being in a public place seems to ground the situation. They have to comport themselves in some sort of a conventional fashion. They can't just spring at each other, and that helps. It makes them sit up straight and think of things to talk about, and it makes the furniture shift around less for Dominic. Because the world hasn't stood still for Dominic all day.

He swallows a mouthful of Szechuan Beef and takes a swig of his Tsingtao beer.

Their topics of conversation range far and wide: their first blowjobs ever, the first time they got naked with another person, the first time they have ever had sex and where and how often and how old they were at the time, how many fillings they've got, whether they would ever get their ears pierced, which places on their bodies would be good for a tattoo, which parts of each other's bodies they would most like to kiss right now, whether the Szechuan Beef or the Ginger Chicken with Cashew Nuts tastes better, in what exact and precise nuances Tsingtao differs from Foster's, the different ways to hold chopsticks, how many gigs Orlando has in his diary, why Orlando colour-codes his diary entries, what sort of things Dominic writes in his diary, how much Orlando wants to kiss Dominic and how sweet Dominic's mouth looks at this particular moment.

It's easy to see that this is just an extension of their earlier bedtime lovers' talk. They are still skirting the main issue. They are still pretending this day is just about the two of them. They are still pretending by the time the dessert comes round and they are sinking their spoons into lychees and vanilla ice cream.

Then everything changes.

"I've got to pee," says Dominic and pushes back his chair, wiping his lips with the napkin.

When he comes back, Orlando's face has changed. The lychees are swimming untouched in a pool of vanilla sauce. Dominic doesn't notice at first. He sits down, starts on his dessert, then looks at Orlando, spoon hovering half-way to his mouth. He sees Orlando's expression and slowly drops his spoon into the dish.

"What's wrong?" he asks. But he already knows. And with a thud, all the chairs and tables lock into place, nailed to the floor by gravity. Time hisses back into the room and into his life.

Dominic blinked his eyes and came out of suspended animation. Every single part of his body hurried back to its appointed place. All was suddenly crystal clear, the outlines of objects as sharp as knife blades. He was afraid that he might cut himself on the spoon and on the plastic rose and on the outlines of Orlando's face.

"This is no good," Orlando said. "We're going to have to stop this now."

"Now?" said Dominic blankly, stalling.

Orlando took out one of the tooth picks and started to break it into tiny pieces, crumbling woodchips all over the table.

"I can't do this," he said in a low voice. "I'll need all day tomorrow to recover, and the day after, and the whole fucking rest of the year. I can't be your fuck toy like this."

"You're not," said Dominic. His lychees looked like dead foetuses. He pushed away the dish.

"You know what you said in the car," Orlando went on. "About Billy?"

"Yeah," said Dominic, his heart lurching into his oesophagus. Billy.

"I know you just said that because you're excited about being with me. I know you like me. A lot. And you're thinking that you want to leave Billy but that's just spur of the moment. That'll be over by tomorrow when Billy's back."

"No..." began Dominic.

"Let me finish," said Orlando.

He pulled out another tooth pick and snapped the end off.

"I'm not blaming you or anything," he continued. "It's all my own fault. Just letting all that in Dunharrow sort of slip past. But, hell, you know, I'll get over it. But not..." He looked up at Dominic. "Not if we hang out like this all day and..." He looked down and splintered the tooth pick into shreds.

Dominic felt his heart in his chest, back to where it used to reside, painfully pressing against his ribs.

"It's not your fault, Orli," he said. "Don't say it is. It's nobody's fault." It was a chore to form the words. Dominic could barely form the thoughts.

Orlando put his hand on Dominic's wrist, just for a fraction of a second. Something flitted across his face but it was gone before Dominic could make out what it was.

Dominic knew what he had to say. 'I love you', he said but he said it without sound. He said it with his eyes and with the way he leaned forwards and with his feet, touching Orlando's shoes beneath the table. But Orlando didn't get it. He wasn't listening. He was cocooned in his own thoughts.

There was a burst of laughter from a neighbouring table. Somewhere in the kitchens a plate smashed.

Orlando abruptly pushed his chair back and stood up. He dug around in his pockets for his wallet and thrust a twenty-dollar note at Dominic.

"I'm off home," he said.

"Wait," Dominic said. "I thought I was going with you. I thought I was staying at your place."

"Change of plans," said Orlando. "Sorry, but I've got to go. And you've had your fuck. So I should be out of your system now. Bye."

And with that, he walked off. Indeed, he ran; he disappeared through the entrance of the restaurant so fast that Dominic barely had time to blink, and when he did blink and raced after him, the waiter caught his arm and cried, "Hey, you! No pay!" So he had to stumble back to the table, wait for the bill, throw some money down, not even bothering to count it.

By the time he reached the street, Orlando had gone. Dominic ran up the footpath to the left, then retraced his steps and ran back the other way. He raced down the back alley and up a side street to their parking meter. The jeep was gone. Orlando was gone. All was lost.

-----------------

Well, I'm home, but shit, I don't know why I can barely stand up. I haven't had that much to drink. Fuck, I've had barely anything to drink, that little bit of beer, but I can't keep my legs straight and the air's not going into my lungs properly. I'm breathing about a hundred times too fast, and I can't seem to move away from the bloody front door. Can't turn the light on, either, can't find the light switch, everything's spinning round too fast. Don't know how I made it here; the jeep was swerving all over the place. And oh, shit, now my breath is doing something, hyperventilating or some shit. Stop, stop. I've got my hand over my mouth, and maybe if I bite my palm that'll help. And yeah, it helps a tiny bit, but not very much, so I bite it again, but then the breath comes out faster and faster, and it turns into a fucking sob, and oh God, this is so stupid.

Why am I standing here? Why did I leave the restaurant? Why did I run away from Dom? I don't know; oh yes, I know, I remember. Because he went to the loo, and I was left staring at his empty chair, and at his jacket hung over the back of the chair, but he wasn't there, he was gone, and then I remembered all the days he hadn't been there and all the future days he wasn't going to be there, and it was as if a knife was cutting into my fucking lungs. And then he came back, just sort of smiling and sitting down, and he was wearing that chequered shirt of mine, my shirt, my shirt sleeves hugging his arms and his shoulders. How could I bear that? That was just too much, too fucking much.

But this is even worse, not having him here, no Dom. All day he was here, and now he's not fucking here; God, how am I going to survive these next few months? I thought it was bad this morning, I thought I'd got used to being miserable. But this morning was nothing compared to now. This morning I didn't know about this day, about this day we were going to have together, this... God, I must stop this stupid blubbing, that's not going to do anything or help anyone.

What did they teach us at the Guildhall? Breathe in for the count of ten, hold for five, breathe out for ten. Place your hand on your belly and breathe in, hold, breathe out. Well, I can't manage it for ten but three, four; I can do it for four. So, maybe if I just close my eyes and do the breathing and count to four: one, two, three, four. And again. And if I do it again.

At least the floor has stopped swaying now. I can move away from the door. Slowly, slowly. I won't turn on the light; I'll just walk very slowly to the bathroom, and then I'll brush my teeth, I can do that, and then I'll have a piss, but a sitting-down one because my knees are still wobbly, and then maybe I'll just sit here for a while, just sit here on the loo, listen to the cistern gurgling.

But God, fuck, why does he have to be so bloody fucking nice? Why can't he just have his shag and be done with it? If only it were just the sex-- Then, at least, I could say, well, it's the sex. But we didn't even do anything in the restaurant. We just sat there, and it was still so fucking wonderful, and Dom looked so lovely, sitting there, across the table, with his collar open and his shit smile on his mouth and in his eyes... I can't believe anybody could look at somebody else like that and not mean-- Not mean something more than a shag, for Christ's sake. But I don't know what all of today means, I don't know what I mean to him, I don't have a fucking clue what we mean together. God, I'm going to faint, I'd better get up off this toilet.

Maybe if I just go to sleep. I wonder if there are any sleeping pills in the house; didn't I get some last time I went home, to help with jet lag? Where the fuck have those pills gone? Doesn't matter, I'll just-- I'll just walk to the bedroom, I'll just turn on the light...

Oh, God.

The sheets are all rumpled, and the blankets are all over the floor, and the pillows, and what's that? Shit, it's the condom, with the knot in, still sitting there next to the bed. Oh God, that was a mistake, I shouldn't have walked in here, bad fucking idea. Quick, turn the light off, stumble out again. Run out.

My breathing's going too fast again. I'm holding on to the wall. I might have to sleep on the couch tonight, I can't cope with the bedroom right now. Not yet, anyway. Not... fucking... yet. And God, I'm blubbing again. This is so stupid. I'm biting my palm so hard it's sure to leave a fucking mark. Stop it, stop it. After all, I knew this. I knew all of this. Nothing's changed.

But everything's changed. I should never have said yes to Dom, I should never have said, okay, let's just go for it, let's just have a bonk, great, no big deal, let's re-live old times. But if I hadn't said yes, we wouldn't have had this day. We wouldn't have had today, and I wouldn't give up this day, no matter what. Today was just too perfect, so fucking perfect. I'll never have anything like it again.

Stop it, stop it. God, I'm a complete mess. How can I just be standing here, leaning against the wall, face wet? I thought I'd learned how to cope with this. How to deal with this misery, how to make it part of my daily life. But now the misery's getting out of hand, it's like a fucking dark hood over my head, and I can't breathe, I can only breathe much too fast.

I've got to do something. I can't just stand here in the corridor all night. Got to move. Move into the living room. It's still dark but there's a light blinking on and off. A small red light. Oh yes, it's the answerphone. I'll press the button, I'll see what's happening. It's Viggo. What do you know. He's at the Grand, with Karl, they'll be there till midnight or so, and do I want to come?

Yes, yes. That's a good idea. That's what I'll do. I'll go out with them and get rip-roaring drunk. That's a great idea. That's a brilliant idea.

Except it's not. It's not really, because how can I stand talking to anyone else who's not Dom? How can I even bear it? And what's that noise outside? Is that rain? What have I done? I've pissed off with the jeep and I've left Dom in town, in the rain, he'll get soaked. Well, he can take a taxi, I wonder if he's taking a taxi now, I wonder what he's doing, oh God, I just can't stand it.

I can't bear being with him and knowing I'll never be with him like that again. But I can't bear being without him, either. And if I'm going to be miserable and lonely, I might as well start tomorrow; what's the point in starting now? What's the fucking point?

-------------------

Dominic staggered up the side street, back on to the main concourse. He didn't know where to go now or what to do. His instincts were all impelling him to do one thing but he didn't trust his instincts any longer. They'd only lead him to more falling. So he just wandered on aimlessly.

Clusters of people gathered round the open doors of pubs. Laughter floated on the evening air. The dull hum of bass notes emerged from back rooms. Saturday-night revellers strolled by with their hair done up and their eyes sparkling. Someone jostled Dominic, said "Sorry, mate"; Dominic barely took note. He moved through the streets like a fish through an aquarium, and it was true, the air did feel strangely viscous, it was difficult to inhale it. He came past a man leaning against a 'Loading Zone' sign, smoking, and it must have been the same brand that Orlando smoked because a sudden gust of memory hit Dominic. His eyes started to sting, and that was no doubt caused by the cigarette smoke. So he crossed the street but was in such a state that he almost didn't see a motorbike coming and earned himself an angry shout.

After that, he felt a bit shaky. He also didn't understand why he couldn't see properly. There was something in his eyes, in front of his vision, and then he realised it was rain. His eyebrows were moist and the tops of his ears were coated in tiny droplets of water. A gust of wind was whipping empty plastic bags around in spirals. Then, in one of those typical Wellington weather turn-abouts, it really started to pelt down. People ran past, holding handbags over their heads.

Water was seeping into Dominic's scalp, trickling down his nape. He kept walking for a few hundred yards, blinking rain out of his eyes and dodging knots of pedestrians who were dashing from doorway to doorway. Then he saw a phone booth. It was empty. Dominic pushed his way in and pulled the glass door shut behind him.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in a phone booth. He didn't need public telephones, he had his mobile. Only he didn't have it today, of course. He'd left it at home, lying on the floor next to the big bed in Billy's room. Billy's and his room. Billy's and his bed. He'd deliberately left it there this morning when getting changed and before leaving the house with Orlando. He hadn't wanted to be reachable. He hadn't wanted to be rung by Billy.

Dominic stared at the oblong box that housed the phone in the booth. He dug around in his wallet for some change and, miraculously, found a handful of coins. He piled them up on top of the box in a neat little stack, inserted one into the slot and dialled a number. The receiver felt uncommonly heavy in his hand. It was greasy from thousands of strangers' hands. Dominic listened to the ring tone at the other end. He listened to it for eight or nine rings, then he hung up. Orlando was not home, or he was home and had turned his answering machine off. Or maybe he was home and listening to the phone ringing and didn't pick up on purpose.

Dominic pressed the 'ring-another-number' button and stood there for a full minute before deciding which number to call. Rain was lashing against the panes of the booth. A pool of water collected around his feet. The wall was decorated with pictures of dicks, drawn in felt pen, and stickers featuring semi-nude women. Finally, Dominic keyed in his home number. He let it ring seven times and as soon as he heard the click that announced that he was being switched over to the voicemail, he pressed the star button, dialled his code number and listened to his messages. There was nothing special. The usual cheery 'hellos' from Elijah and company, more or less identical to the ones left on Orlando's machine. 'Where the hell are you? We're off surfing,' and so forth. Then nothing.

Nothing. Billy hadn't rung.

Dominic tried to still his thoughts, tried to understand why Billy hadn't rung. Billy always rang. Billy rang for the most trivial reasons. He rang from the supermarket to ask which type of orange juice to get. "Billy, why are you ringing me about this?" he'd say. And Billy would answer, "Because you gave me this phone, Dom; I like to keep it in use."

Silence from Billy could mean only one thing: Billy must have known, known with stone-cold certainty, that Dominic would take him up on his crazy suggestion. So perhaps Billy was simply being tactful, didn't want to risk barging in on something. On the other hand, maybe Billy had hoped Dominic wouldn't do anything, and now he didn't want to ring so that he need never know either way. Or perhaps, and this was most likely, Billy suspected the seriousness of the situation. Billy was forcing himself not to interfere, he wanted Dominic to be sure, he wanted to give him space to make up his mind.

In effect, Billy was abandoning Dominic to his own devices. There was no one to help with this, nothing to hold on to, nobody to suggest to Dominic what he should do. He had to make up his mind all on his own, and that was a desperate prospect. Perhaps he needn't rush into a decision. Perhaps that would be just more evidence of falling. Perhaps he should wait instead, ponder, weigh up his options. Perhaps he should make plans like Orlando, colour-code his life.

The first of Dominic's coins rattled through the innards of the phone box. Dominic inserted another coin and re-dialled his number. This time he didn't press the star key but waited for the voicemail greeting to come on.

'Hello,' came Billy's voice. 'You've reached Dom and Billy. We're obviously not here but you know what this is and you know what to do. So, just do it after the beep.' There was a brief silence, then the sound of a giggle in the background, possibly even Dominic's own giggle, laughing at Billy's message as he was recording it. Then the 'beep'.

Dominic listened to the empty static for a while, then he hung up, re-dialled, listened to the greeting a second time. Billy's voice sounded lovely and familiar. Listening to Billy's voice was like eating warm bread. Dominic put his hand over his eyes, leaned against the phone, practically crawled into the receiver, pressed it against his ear so hard he was sure it would leave a red mark.

'Beep', went the voicemail. And 'kerplunk', went the money. Dominic inserted another coin and re-dialled. Listened to Billy again. This time he didn't hang up after the 'beep'. Instead, he started talking to Billy. Talking to Billy's voice, conjuring up his presence. Needing something reassuring to cling to.

"Billy," Dominic said, his hand still over his eyes. "Billy. I... Billy, why did you say that this morning? Why did you tell me to do that? Because... Because I..." The ether hissed into his ear. "God, Billy, this is so difficult. We've had such good times together, haven't we? And I've often said I love you, and I do. I do, my dear friend. But I have to leave you now. I have to go and be with Orli now. That's just the way it has to be."

Outside, there was the splash of car tyres through puddles. A wet passer-by knocked against the door of the phone booth but Dominic ignored her, just huddled in on himself and curled into the receiver.

"Because..." His voice was so low now he could almost not hear it himself, over the noise of the rain and of the cars on the road. "Because, guess what, Orli's in love with me. He told me so. He said, 'I love you'." It was absurd but just repeating this news made Dominic's stomach glow. It wasn't the floating sensation he'd had all day, not those gut-churning and topsy-turvy commotions but a deep, solid glow, as if his belly was being filled with porridge, substantial, warm, incredible. Incredible that Orlando loved him.

"And I really, really... I love Orli." God, saying the words sucked the breath out of Dominic. He paused, the syllables still sounding in his ear. "But you knew that, didn't you, Billy? You've always known that. Remember when I first came back from Dunharrow? In the hotel at Minas Tirith? You asked me, had I fallen in love with Orli? And I didn't answer, remember? I just... I just cried. But that was an answer, wasn't it? That was almost like saying yes. And I had. I had fallen in love with Orli. And Billy, I'm so sorry. I'm so very, very sorry."

He had to stop for a moment to blink. The phone went 'click' and he hurried to insert another coin. Only one coin left now.

"Will you still be my friend? And shall I still live in our house? I'll go back to the room I used to have. The one near the front. And, and I promise not to leave the ice cream out any more. And, shit." Dominic put his right hand in his pockets, searching for a hankie but of course, he didn't have one. He hunched his shoulders, tugged the collar of his shirt up, no, not his shirt, Orlando's shirt, and used that to wipe his eyes. The phone clicked. Dominic stuck his last coin into the slot.

He could almost not speak anymore. His mouth felt as if it were filled with razor blades. Each word a blade to cut into Billy. And Dominic didn't know how to make the words less sharp, less keenly honed, less terrible.

"You knew this would happen, didn't you? Might happen? No, perhaps you didn't. You didn't know Orli was in love with me. Did you know Orli was in love with me? Maybe you did know, and anyway, I think I've told you that already. Except he's run away now, I don't know where he is. I guess I'd better try and find him. I don't know why he ran away, we were having such a nice time."

By now, he wasn't really addressing Billy any longer. He was rambling. He was talking to himself, and it was only his voicemail after all, and somewhere at the back of his mind was the thought that he must remember to erase this message before Billy got home. Then the phone went 'click' and the last coin clattered through.

Dominic stayed in the phone booth for a few minutes longer. He scrambled through his pockets, in pursuit of another coin because he wanted to ring Orlando again. He didn't find any change, though. He stared at the puddle growing larger around his shoes, then he stared out at the night, through his own hollow-eyed reflection in the glass. Finally, he pushed open the door and squeezed into the rain.

He walked in a random direction at first, vaguely looking out for a taxi stand. Near Cuba Mall, a cab pulled up in front of him and a woman got out. Dominic jogged up and climbed into the front passenger seat. "Seatoun," he said. "Marine Parade."

Because Dominic was speeding up towards the hills in the cab, he never saw the jeep that came creeping along the kerb only minutes later. The driver's face peered out through the windscreen wipers, looking left, looking right. It was Orlando. He passed the phone booth but someone else was already ensconced in it, chattering blithely, twirling the metal cord.

When Dominic arrived at Orlando's place, he saw immediately that all the lights were out. He got out anyway, dug around for his last remaining cash and watched the cab disappear down the road in a cloud of carbon monoxide. He ran up to the porch, ducking his head to avoid getting too wet, and knocked at the front door. Knocked again. Rang the bell. Walked towards the side, called out Orlando's name. Stepped into a puddle, swore, called out again. Hammered on the door.

"Orli? Are you in there? Open up! Where are you? Where the fuck are you?"

Dominic began to feel disoriented. He flattened himself against the front door where there was a small overhang, not enough to keep him dry but at least a shelter of sorts. The wind was rushing through the trees, smashing the branches together. The roar of the ocean was drowned in the air's wailing. From far away came the sound of an ambulance siren.

Well, he couldn't stay here. He'd have to go home. Perhaps Orlando would be there. Unlikely, but perhaps his jeep would be parked outside on the road. Where the hell was he? And why hadn't Dominic brought his mobile with him? As it was, he couldn't ring anyone, couldn't ring a cab, either. He'd just have to walk. How long would it take? Forty, fifty minutes? Better than standing pressed up against the door of an empty house, at any rate.

Dominic set out. He was drenched within minutes. The rain streamed down in long strings, and blasts of wind whipped it into his face. Dominic ineffectually pulled the collar of his jacket up, shoved his fists into his pockets and continued walking at a steady pace. The rain felt almost good, washing over his head, making his scalp prickle, dripping from his chin, trickling along his cheek, like long, cold tears.

By the time, Dominic finally reached his home, his jaw was tense with cold. He unlocked the door with slippery fingers and dripped all over the floor. He sneezed, sniffed and said, "Shit." He kicked off his shoes, pulled off his jacket, heavy with moisture, pulled off his jeans, fumbled with the buttons on Orlando's shirt. On his way to the bathroom, he sneezed again, then turned the heat of the shower up and stood under the scalding current until he felt the blood return to his chilled toes. He put his hands against his face and rubbed the water off. He bent to pick up the shampoo, some sort of apple scent, bought by Billy; trust Billy to take their usual shampoo with him. He lathered it through his hair, lathered again, watched the foamy blobs make their way down his chest and nestle in his pubic hair. He stared at the pastel green tiles of the shower cubicle, at the geometric pattern on the shower curtain, all the things he looked at every day. The small things, the banal things, the crack in the top left-hand tile, the oval shape of the soap in its plastic tray, the gummed-up slots of the soap dish.

He'd forgotten to bring a towel into the bathroom with him and had to hop out into the bedroom, leaving wet footprints in his wake. He dried himself, he went back to the bathroom, he gripped the edge of the basin until his knuckles went white. He brushed his teeth, he had a pee, he picked up his wet clothes from where he had dropped them near the front door. Then he walked into his old bedroom, looked at the bed with the fresh sheets he had thrown on it hastily, only that morning it was; it seemed like a hundred years ago. He was still feeling a bit shivery, so he put on some jogging trousers, put on a tracksuit top, took it off again, put on Orlando's shirt, slightly damp but not too bad, put the tracksuit top on as well. He pulled out one of the cuffs and smelled it, smelled the collar, too, but the shirt didn't smell of Orlando, just smelled of rain and ginger chicken.

Dominic fell on the bed, found a blanket, curled up on the left-hand side, hugged himself with Orlando's shirt. That lasted for about three minutes, then he had to get up once more. He padded into the living room, accessed the voicemail, listened to his messages again, sank into the armchair, listened to himself say 'I love Orli', whispered it along with his phone voice. There was no new message. Orlando hadn't rung. Dominic erased all the messages and said, "Shit". Got up and turned on the lamp.

There were little spiders everywhere, scuttling into the corners as the light came on. They must have crawled in under the door, fleeing the rain. They made no noise as they scampered into the corners of the room. Dominic got up, and by accident he stepped on one; he could feel the softest of scrunches under his bare foot and knelt down to peel it off his sole. He held the tiny thing, still half-alive, wiggling its crinkled legs. Without warning, Dominic burst into tears.

He sank to the floor, sobbing, cradling the dying spider in his palm. Then he realised that he was sitting against the sofa, the sofa on which Orlando and he had been kissing and coming that morning. He buried his face in the cushions but they didn't smell of Orlando, they smelled of musty chintz and beer. When Dominic looked at his hand again, the spider had that curled-up appearance of a dead invertebrate.

Dominic stood up. He tried to gather himself together. He squared his shoulders, he rubbed his eyes, he tiptoed into the kitchen and dropped the small corpse into the bin. The kitchen was still full of breakfast paraphernalia. Two bowls of congealing cereal remains, two half-empty mugs of coffee, a banana peel, left on the counter top by Billy, a carton of orange juice, drunk by Billy, bought by Billy. Everything contained traces of Billy. There was a note stuck to the cupboard door with Billy's scrawl on it, 'Back Sunday, 4.20 p.m.'

Sunday. Four-thirty. That was in-- Dominic had no idea in how many hours that was. He wasn't wearing his watch. He didn't want to know what time it was. It was still night, the wind was still howling. He walked back to the living room, then walked into Billy's bedroom. Their bedroom. There was the mobile next to the bed. Dominic turned it on but there was no message there, either. Nothing. He held the phone in his lap and stared at it as if willing it to produce a message. He called up the numbers menu. His thumb hovered over Billy's number. But it was much too late to ring Billy. And what to tell him? He could text him, of course, but after spooling about twenty-three different versions of a text message through his mind, Dominic couldn't think of anything textable. He keyed in Orlando's number and stared at the display panel. In the end, he didn't press the 'ring' button. Orlando had left him in the restaurant, Orlando had said he didn't want Dominic to stay the night, Orlando probably didn't want to be rung. Dominic put his head in his hands.

He got up again and prowled through the house. Everything, literally everything, had Billy imprinted on it. Billy and him. He had been living here with Billy for so long, long before Fangorn forest, way before they'd started doing stuff in the trailer. When life had still been simple, when they'd just been Merry and Pippin, two housemates, two friends. He couldn't remember a day in New Zealand when he hadn't been friends with Billy. It seemed as if as soon as he'd first set eyes on Billy, they'd already been instant friends. Being friends with Billy was just like breathing.

He came across the wooden kitchen chair they'd painted together, some time last year, when they'd first moved in here. He came across the cork pin board, with dozens of photos stuck to it any which way, overlapping each other, curling at the edges. The hobbits with their surfboards. Billy, Dominic and Orlando at a barbecue. Dominic with his cool sunshades in the snow-- Well, they were broken now.

He came across the coffee table in the living room, with all their stuff jumbled up together, ageing newspapers, bills, a brownish apple core, joke postcards bought by Billy at Minas Tirith, a dog-eared copy of The Return of the King, a half-eaten bag of Minties, the TV remote covered in banana stickers. He remembered peeling those stickers off the fruit and affixing them to the remote, Billy rolling about and laughing. Billy having to eat a whole bunch of bananas very fast on a bet. Billy walking about the house, naked, and Dominic trailing after him, chatting, and lately, feeling him up from behind and kissing his shoulder blades. Kissing Billy's dear face, too. Kissing his sweet mouth.

Thinking of Orlando all the while. Remembering Orlando's mouth even as he was kissing Billy's.

Shit.

Dominic went to the kitchen, filled a glass with water from the tap, drank it in long gulps. He almost gagged on it. He stood at the sink for a long time, his hands on the cold metal. Then he went back to the living room, did not sit down on the sofa, sat on the armchair and turned the television to face him. He flicked through some channels, past re-runs of ancient sitcoms, a car chase through some generic American city, an out-of-date episode of Xena. Karl was in it, and Jay, and that provided distraction for all of five minutes. Then Dominic couldn't stand any more. He turned the TV off. He went to their bedroom to check the alarm clock. It was exactly the hour they normally had to get up during the week, to reach make-up on time. Dominic raked his hands through his hair, went back to his own front bedroom, pretended to try to sleep.

The night was still silent. The birds hadn't started, the first bus hadn't been by. The only sound was the growl of an engine but it spluttered and stopped. All was quiet again.

Suddenly, Dominic's pulse started to race very fast. There was something about that engine noise... He was out of bed in a flash and at the window. The rain had stopped, the sky was dark but washed clean. There was the humped silhouette of the jeep at the kerb.

It took Dominic precisely four-and-a-half seconds to race to the front door, fly down the garden path and run around to the driver's side of the car. Wet grit stuck to his bare feet. He yanked open the door. He pulled himself up onto the high step of the jeep, held onto the door with one hand and began to cover Orlando's face in kisses. The door swung around, Dominic nearly fell out but Orlando caught him around the waist and pulled him in and up, awkwardly twisting around the steering wheel. There was some fumbling for the seat belt buckle, then the catch clicked open and Orlando slid out of the jeep, with Dominic holding onto him. They landed on the street, pressed against each other and kissing as if they'd never tasted lips before.

Dominic pushed at Orlando's shirt and slid his hands around Orlando's waist, savouring delicious bare skin under his fingertips. He felt Orlando's arms about him, Orlando's nose against his neck, Orlando murmuring something, he couldn't make out the words, didn't care, just wanted Orlando.

"Where've you been?" he said, in between the kisses. "I went to your house, you weren't there. Why did you run away from the restaurant? Why didn't you ring?"

"I looked all over for you," muttered Orlando. "I drove round and round the city; I didn't know where you were. It was raining so hard, I thought you'd probably gone into some pub or something."

"No, I went to your place, then I walked home. I got wet. Why are you wearing sunglasses?" Dominic slid them off Orlando's ears.

"Because I look like shit. I feel like shit. I haven't been too well these past few hours."

It was true. Orlando's eyes were small slits, and there were red veins in the white orbs around his pupils.

"I love the way you look," said Dominic. "It's me who looks like shit. I am a shit. I'm a bastard." All the while, he continued to kiss Orlando, kissed his earlobes, his neck, his collarbone, squeezed Orlando's waist, breathed in Orlando's smell. He never wanted to let go.

"Why? Why are you a bastard?" asked Orlando, putting his hands over Dominic's ears, massaging his fingers into Dominic's scalp, leaning his forehead against Dominic's.

"Why did you run away from the restaurant?" said Dominic.

"I got upset."

"Why? What did I do to upset you?"

"Dom. Everything you did today upset me. The whole fucking day. Why, Dom, why are you like this? Why are you so nice to me?"

Dominic didn't know what to reply. He closed his eyes and let himself be kissed on the cheekbones, on the forehead, as Orlando continued talking.

"Why, Dom? I just don't understand what any of this means. And we haven't got much time because... Because Billy's... We'll never talk about it if we don't now. So you've got to tell me, Dom, even if it's awful. It's driving me round the fucking bend not knowing."

"What? Knowing what?" Oh God, Dominic felt faint. He didn't want to open his eyes. He didn't dare look at Orlando's expression.

"What am I to you, Dom? Just tell me once so I know. Is it just the sex? Because that would actually help, if it were just the sex. Or is it more?"

Dominic didn't reply at first. They stood silently in the silence of the early-morning street, the streetlights guttering in the first onslaught of dawn.

"More," Dominic finally whispered.

"More? How much more?" Orlando, too, was whispering, and his fingers were digging into Dominic's hair.

Dominic opened his eyes.

"A lot more," he whispered.

"God, Sblom," whispered Orlando.

"Orli, Orli, are you okay? Why are you shaking like that?"

"I don't know. Just got to get used to this, I guess. Just... Lack of sleep. I don't know why I'm shaking."

"Maybe it's because we love each other," said Dominic.

Orlando squeezed Dominic's head so hard it was almost painful. As if he were crushing Dominic's brain out. "Why are you saying this?" he asked, still whispering. "Sblomie, dear Sblom, why are you telling me this? Because, you know, you are breaking my fucking heart."

"Why did you come back?" asked Dominic.

In reply, Orlando pulled Dominic's face to his and kissed him. They made their tongues soft and curled them gently around each other. They closed their eyes, Dominic ran his fingers up Orlando's spine, Orlando moved his hands through Dominic's hair and then onto his neck and around his shoulders, and he moaned at the back of his throat, a helpless moan. But he had stopped shivering.

"So why? If it upsets you, why did you come back here?" asked Dominic again.

"Because it upsets me more to be away from you," said Orlando.

Dominic's face crumpled.

"Don't," whispered Orlando. "Don't, my sweet, don't cry."

"Sorry. Shit," sniffed Dominic.

"What's this you've got on? Is that my shirt? Are you still wearing my shirt?"

"Yeah. I went to bed in it. I was missing you."

Orlando kissed him again. Dominic couldn't kiss him back yet, he could just hold onto him and feel Orlando's soft mouth on his face and try to quiet his own trembling lips. Orlando's tongue was against his lower eyelid, kissing at the tears, lapping them up. Dominic leaned into Orlando, sighing, and then he opened his mouth and welcomed Orlando's tongue into it. He still had moisture seeping out from under his eyelids but his lips were on Orlando's, and his tongue was just resting, just lolling, being caressed by Orlando's tongue. And he couldn't help it, he was getting hard from kissing Orlando, it was awful.

The big thing that had been encircling them all day was wrapped tightly around them, binding them together, twining its feelers about their throats, almost choking them. It was love, and love is big, love is terrible; it was wrenching the guts out of them. It had swallowed them up and spun them around and was now spitting them out onto the street, naked, shivering, open like split nuts. And into that openness they started pouring each other, not only in words but wordlessly, too. They sank little roots into one another, trying to anchor themselves. Trying to be steady.

"Shall we go inside?" asked Orlando.

"Yes. No. No, not here. Can we go to your place? Or do you still not want me to stay there?"

"No, of course you can stay," said Orlando.

"How long for?"

Orlando's hands stopped moving against Dominic's shoulders. "How do you mean?" He was whispering again. "How long did you have in mind?"

"I don't know. It's just... I'm going to leave Billy, you know."

"Dom," whispered Orlando. "You can't. This is madness. I don't want you to leave Billy because of one day with me."

"But it's not right that I stay with Billy," said Dominic, and his lower lip was quivering again. "I have been thinking and thinking about this. It's just not right to... to be with Billy and think about you all the time."

"Shit, Dom," said Orlando, his voice faltering.

"It's been like this ever since Dunharrow. You think it's just now, it's just today, and that... that I'll forget about you once Billy's back. But that's not the way it is. I never forget you. That's the terrible thing. I'm always... always... I'm such a bastard, I really am."

"But Dom, Dom," said Orlando softly, wiping Dominic's cheeks with his thumbs. "Don't decide anything now. Wait till Billy's back. Because you and Billy, you're so, I don't know, you're so in tune."

"I know," Dominic gulped. "We are. That's why Billy-- Billy knows about all of this shit. He knew even before I did. He's known ever since I came back from Dunharrow. God, Orli, Orli, just kiss me."

So Orlando did. He tried to make it a reassuring, sustaining kiss but his own uncertainty leaked into it so that the kiss turned out to be full of longing and fear. But also full of love, that too. Full of the terrible burden of love.

"Anyway," Dominic finally said. "Why d'you want me to stay with Billy so much? Don't you want me?"

"I'm just scared you'll go away again," said Orlando.

"Oh, Orli," said Dominic and framed Orlando's face between his hands. The curves of Orlando's cheeks felt smooth against his palms. Orlando poked his tongue out of the side of his mouth and licked Dominic's thumb.

"Let's go," Orlando said. "Get your shoes."

"Don't need shoes," murmured Dominic.

"Well, lock up the house or something."

"I will," said Dominic. "I will."

It was then that the birds struck up. They launched into a cacophony of pre-sunrise shrieking, squawking, screeching. Robins cheeped, tuis croaked, bellbirds went 'mackmacko'. Green wings fluttered from roof to roof. The streetlights gave up, and the birds took over the suburbs.

--------------------

So there they were, on Orlando's futon again. The sheets were still rumpled, the used condom still lay on the floor, but Orlando didn't mind these things any longer. In fact, he barely registered them because he had eyes only for Dominic.

He was leaning back against the pillows, piled together against the wall; he had his legs wrapped around Dominic, and Dominic was lowering himself onto Orlando's erection. This was the position they had tried during their last night in Dunharrow, and they were trying it again now, as if closing a circle. A circle between the past and the present and, yes, the future. The possibility of a future had opened up for them, a narrow window but unmistakably there, unmistakably bright, blindingly bright.

Orlando felt Dominic close in around him, slowly slowly, so slowly. Dominic's eyebrows were knit in concentration, and Orlando loved seeing Dominic like this, intent on what he was doing, intent on doing it just right, twisting just ever so slightly, making Orlando moan and throw his head back, lids falling shut.

"Open your eyes," whispered Dominic.

Orlando did so. And there was Dominic, looking at him with such soft eyes, with such softly incoherent eyes, incoherent with lust and something else, too, something dark at the back of his irises.

"Sblomie," whispered Orlando. "Are you okay?"

"Why d'you ask that?"

"You look sad. Lovely but sad."

Dominic stopped moving. He stayed propped on his hands and smiled at Orlando. Such a brave smile. It gave Orlando vertigo, just seeing that smile on Dominic's sad face.

"I'm all right," said Dominic. "I'll be all right. And it's funny that you say that about being sad. Because, you know what? You know why I first fell in love with you? Back in Dunharrow?"

Orlando shook his head. His throat was tight; he wasn't yet used to Dominic saying that he was in love with him.

"Because of this." Dominic lifted one hand, licked his forefinger and placed it in the corner of Orlando's mouth. "You've got something just here. A little crease."

"A little crease?"

"Yeah. And it makes you look sad. And that's why I fell in love with you. In the motel, you always had this little crease when we were in bed together."

"That's odd," said Orlando. "That's the only time I was happy in Dunharrow. In bed with you."

"Really?" Dominic propped himself up again and kissed the spot where his finger had just been. He studied Orlando's face, and his eyes were like the touch of two moths against Orlando's skin. Orlando could almost physically feel Dominic's gaze.

"You've got the crease there right now," continued Dominic. "Maybe it means that you're sad right now. Or maybe it means something else."

"Maybe it just means," Orlando said, moving his pelvis against Dominic and folding his fingers around Dominic's hard-on, "that I'm hot as all hell for you. Maybe that's what it means."

"You know the little crease?" Dominic said softly. "In Dunharrow, the only way to make it go away was to make you come."

"So make me come," whispered Orlando.

---------------

The End.

3 May 2002

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