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It was a cold rainy late evening in early spring. Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr Stephen Maturin were lodged at the inn called The Grapes in the Liberty of the Savoy in London. They had taken their supper that evening in Stephen’s room. Afterwards, they played Corelli’s Sonata IX in A major, opus 5 late into the night. It was the longest piece they had performed together since Maturin's ordeal in Mahón. He was clearly fatigued from the effort. Jack looked at him with concern, afraid they had overdone it, especially given the inclement weather conditions. He thought he could see pain in his particular friend’s face. Aubrey put the ‘cello away for his host and then placed his own violin atop the cupboard as Stephen sat close to the fire, absorbing the heat.
"Shall I rub your shoulders, brother?" Jack asked, gently.
"If you please," Stephen said, looking at him over his shoulder. Jack placed his massive hands on Stephen's shoulders, rubbing his thumbs on the periphery of Stephen's scalpulae. "Thank you, soul." Jack bent forward and kissed his neck at the top of his neckcloth. Maturin reached backwards and grasped Jack's hand. He twisted backwards looking up and Jack's lips were on his. When they had ceased kissing, Stephen said, "Shall we retire then?"
"As you wish," Jack said, his eyes shining. He took Stephen's hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing it. Stephen stood and embraced him.
"Why do you always say that I corrupted you, joy?" He whispered in Jack's ear.
"You knew what you were about and I did not. And, Stephen, I..." He blushed pink, "I fancy the idea of it."
"Of being corrupted?"
"By you," Jack said, looking into Stephen's eyes. "Of being corrupted by you, old Stephen," Jack said, his voice getting deep and hoarse. Stephen kissed him hard and started undressing him. He undid Aubrey's neckcloth and then his shirt, kissing his neck, his shoulders, his chest. Jack trembled.
"Why do you fancy that idea so, Jack?"
"Because so you did," Jack said very quietly, "and it was so very enjoyable." Stephen kissed his neck below his ear and then kissed and bit Jack's neck softly as he moaned.
"Shall I, joy?" he breathed in Jack's ear and felt Jack's heart pound faster. His hand dropped and he stroked Jack's erection through his breeches. Jack closed his eyes and shuddered. "Shall I corrupt you more?"
"If you please," Jack said. Stephen bent and loosened the knees of his breeches. He straightened and reached into Jack's breeches and loosened the girth and then reached for his prick through his small clothes. Kissing, they both undressed completely and Stephen indicated Jack should sit on the bed. He did and Stephen sat next to him, kissing him and pushing him back to lie down. Jack smiled and raised an eyebrow and Stephen moved and lay down prone between Jack’s legs, his knees bent so his own legs would not hang off the edge of the bed. Stephen's face disappeared and he moved Jack's legs further apart. Jack lay looking up at the ceiling and his prick became stiffer and his torso jerked as Stephen's lips met his anus.
"Soul, what are you doing?" Jack said quietly and Stephen stopped.
"Is it not pleasurable?"
"It is very pleasurable, but what exactly..." Jack trailed off.
"I am kissing you."
"Kissing?"
"Yes, my dear."
"Kissing how?"
"Using my mouth, as it is generally done, I collect. Is it not pleasing to you?"
"Are you actually licking me?"
"In point of fact, yes, I am," Stephen said. He sat up and looked at Jack's face. "Do you object?" Jack was silent. "Jack, does it vex you in any way? If so, I shall stop."
"Ain't you... don't it...?"
"You are perfectly clean enough," Stephen said. "For all love, is it pleasurable or no? Or do your Brahminic sensibilities make you so very ill at ease that you cannot even gauge your reaction?"
"It is pleasurable, God help me," Jack said. "Very."
"Does that bother you?"
"I cannot rightly say," Jack said. "I am somewhat horror struck and then I want to say for the love of God, pray do not stop." Stephen smiled.
"I shan't."
"You are the most prodigious lover," Jack said. Stephen bit his lip trying to not smile.
"Faith, you are the most agreeable and pleasing beloved," Stephen said and he leaned forward and kissed the underside of Jack's scrotum, his perineum and then spreading Jack's legs more as he drew up his scrotum, he moved lower, his lips brushing Jack's anus, the tip of his tongue darting against Jack, swabbing, teasing, gently probing as Jack gasped loudly, his torso jerking as Stephen reached around his thighs to steady his hips. Jack shuddered deeply and moaned. Stephen continued pulling with his lips, running his tongue in circles, darting, stroking with his fingertips the inside of Jack's thigh, then scrotum, then anus, slipping his wet fingertip in and out with the lightest, briefest of penetration and Jack was now gasping and moaning, his voice breaking and quavering as his hips squirmed of their own accord and his prick grew harder still and Stephen continued as Jack’s gasps turned to panting.
"Stephen, now; if you please, my dear now, now!" Jack said, his voice trembling. His glans was deep red, verging on purple and he could not resist the urge to take his own straining prick in hand, his pre-ejaculate copiously dripping over his fingertips and to start rhythmically stroking his prepuce. Stephen relentlessly drove him far beyond any brink he had ever known. The minutes stretched out as Jack teetered on a precipice, desperately desirous of penetration. The prospect of Stephen immediately plunging deep into him and his current spasmodically quivering state, his sinews convulsing in a state of high tension like his taut E string fretted to A# during vibrato kept him pinned on his back as opposed to rising, easily overpowering Stephen, pushing him onto his own back and setting upon Stephen's hard prick, as did his desire to see what Stephen would do next to him. Jack groaned, his back involuntarily arching. Stephen moved his hands to pull Jack's hips back down towards his face as Jack panted and his hips thrust involuntarily. Choppy, incomplete and incoherent thoughts pounded against Jack's consciousness over and over -- Upon my soul, Stephen, what a fellow you -- oh dear God, more, harder now, be so good -- his tongue is, oh, my God, his tongue... now, if you please, please now, old Stephen, pray, it must be NOW, inside, deep inside, your prick, I need your prick now, Stephen, now, oh, fuck me now, dear God, fuck me now, Stephen my love, hard, hard, I beg of you, oh God's my life... Jack was so completely beside himself he did not chide himself one second for those extremely coarse words ringing in his head of begging his best friend to bugger him post haste as his body involuntarily jerked and slammed against the mattress and tears ran from his eyes.
"Dear God, I need you now, right now, soul, now, please, now..." Jack begged, whispering, though it felt as though he were in fact screaming. Stephen slowed, assessing him thoughtfully, considering, hearing the plea in Jack's voice, observing him in toto, his arched back, swollen red-purple weeping prick, testicles drawn up tightly, his involuntary pelvic thrusts, the deep spasms in his anus and he sat up and moved, taking his own rigid prick in hand and obliged him and Jack sighed deeply as Stephen first penetrated him and then grasped his prick. Firm, slow, gentle thrusts first and then a bit harder and faster as he found Jack's prostata, and made the connexion with his meatus and made firm, increasingly hard rhythmic nudges until Jack was panting, his hips thrusting at an angle and his prostata grinding against Stephen's prick, his own prick sliding in Stephen's hand as Jack moaned and wept and finally came off, a fountain of his spend cascading down his hip onto the bed. Stephen finished shortly thereafter. Jack was trembling in his arms, speechless.
"God's my life," he said, finally. "You drove me quite mad with desire." Stephen coloured and said nothing. "Ain't you...don't it...?"
"There is no part of you that is not pleasing to me," Stephen said, "nothing. If I might give you pleasure and God made us so, then it must be good." He kissed Jack's forehead. "I know given your sensibilities, that proposition may be difficult for you to accept. It is not viciousness on my part, the expression of my very great affection and esteem for you, Jack my dear, the desire to please you as best I might."
"No," Jack said slowly, "though it is hellish indecent how thoroughly you have corrupted me, Stephen, truly it is."
"Do you regret it?" Stephen said seriously, stroking his hair.
"Not in the least, I am afraid," he said, trying not to smile.
"Soul," Stephen said, stroking his hair, "soul, what we do..." he looked away for a few seconds. "Jack, I am a medical man and my sensibilities are entirely different from your own," he said and stopped speaking. "I suppose I should be wholly grateful that you have never evinced any distaste or repulsion of what we do up until this very evening."
"Stephen, no, it ain't repulsion at all," Jack said. It was, truth be told, shock: complete shock at both the idea and its realisation. Shock at what Stephen Maturin was capable of doing to him, the unfathomable degree of pleasure Jack experienced, Stephen's skill, his complete and utter power over Jack, taking him beyond any place Jack had any inkling whatever existed and the realisation of how deeply and thoroughly he himself had reveled in this experience of Stephen being able to do absolutely anything to him, the sensation of completely letting go of all agency and knowing it would be quite more than alright in the end and how much he wanted to experience it again. It confounded him, it was so beyond anything he had ever known and his heart was fuller than he had ever known it, as though something extremely profound had come to pass between them.
It was by now very late. They both fell asleep as soon as Stephen had pulled the sheet and blankets around them as he still lay coupled with Jack.
Jack woke very early the next morning. He and Stephen had uncoupled in their sleep. He reached and opened the bedside table drawer looking for handkerchiefs. Instead, his hand found that which appeared to be a partially dissected organ. He pulled his now slimy fingertips out and leaned over and kissed Stephen's neck, holding his hand away from the both of them.
"Brother?"
"Mmm?" Stephen grunted.
"Have you any handkerchiefs? Or napkins or washing cloths? Soiled would be fine."
"Hell and death, what time is it?" Stephen said, struggling to open an eye.
"Dreadfully early and I apologise old Stephen, but I felt in the usual drawer and instead there was some piece of a something there instead."
"Pancreas," Stephen said, thickly.
"Just so." Stephen groped for his spectacles and sat up, got up naked and went to the cupboard to open a drawer. He gave Jack a stack of clean hand towels. Jack wiped his hands and then rose from the bed and got the pitcher of water and poured it on the towel and started washing himself from the waist down. It was the great inconvenience of their years of cherished intimacy in the Grapes that Jack had no means to discreetly bathe after they had made love, no warm sea to dive into in the morning, having to make do with towels and cold water. He thought it no hardship, for fresh water was, after a life at sea, a luxury and the relative solitude of Stephen's rooms that allowed them to sleep naked in each other's arms, the most treasured privacy they could ever experience regularly over the years.
"Shall I change the bed for you?" Jack said, looking dubiously at it.
"If I ask, Mrs Broad or Nancy shall do it."
"No," Jack said. "Never in life. My God, what would they think?"
"They send the laundry out, Jack. It is not as though they inspect the sheets. A quick wipe with a towel and all is well."
"Stephen, we -- they are quite wet and sticky all over," Jack said, blushing deeply and he pulled the bottom sheet off the bed.
"We might have made them stickier still, if it were not for your Abrahamic superstitions; for all love, Jack Aubrey, who changes sheets before six o'clock in the morning?" Stephen said, peevishly. He looked up and saw that Jack was bright pink. "How can you blush so like a schoolgirl at my words when we have been lovers for almost six years?" Stephen said quietly, but his tone was affectionate, not harsh. "Jack, it seems a waste to change the bed if the fresh sheets will be similarly soiled before the day is out. That is all I am saying, a chuisle. I shall go and purchase another two sets of sheets and more toweling as well. Perhaps with strategically placed towels, we may reduce the laundry." He said, taking the clean sheets and more towels from the cabinet. He sat on the bed with Jack after they had made the bed. He had perfunctorily washed himself off and the two of them sat there naked. "Would you be going to the Admiralty this morning then?"
"I must be there around eleven. Usual nonsense about countersigned account statements for the victualling of the squadron. They are all to seek in the Admiralty over it. Officials is all the same -- scrubs to a man."
"Jack, last night..." Stephen said and his eyes met Jack's and Jack’s arms were around him. "You come to my dirty, poky little rooms and sure, I know it must offend your sensibilities to make love in a bed made without fresh -- nay, with soiled sheets. I am heartily sorry for it, Jack, and I will make more of an effort."
"This room is very, very dear to me and I would never want you to think otherwise," Jack said. "Pray forgive me for going through your drawers and tearing your bed apart without your leave, Stephen: I was a presumptuous scrub for behaving so." Stephen protested softly. "I promise I shan't act so again, soul. Why, upon my word, I had no notion that we might..." His cheeks reddened and Stephen smiled.
"Later, my dear. Let us dress and go have breakfast," Stephen said leaning forward and kissing him. "I am with child for a cup of coffee from that new coffeehouse around the corner. Are you engaged this afternoon?"
"Not I," Jack said. "I shan't make it back for dinner, but I might no later than two."
"I should like that of all things, joy," Stephen said, deeply pleased to feel Jack's hand tremble under his.