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~ Free at the Flesh Margins ~
He arrived on time and alone. Keys in the bowl. Shoes at the door. The lamp already on, softer than the ceiling light. I had folded a towel on the chair, set a glass of water on the low table, and left the window open enough for the air to breathe the room.
He watched me move. I watched him notice the care.
“Drink for me,” I said.
He lifted the glass. Water touched his mouth. He swallowed once, then again. The room tilted from ordinary to present. Not performance. Presence. The body hears patterns. It relaxes when it recognises the song.
He set the glass down. I nodded to the floor. He knelt because he wanted to. Not because I told him to. Because something in him asked for it, quiet and sure.
No safewords spoken tonight. We had spoken before. We knew what this was. We knew what it was not. Silence could carry the weight. So could breath.
He did not bow his head like a servant. He raised his eyes. Offered them to me. Like a question. Like a promise.
I stood over him, still dressed. My hand loose at my side, not reaching. Not yet. I needed him to feel it. That kind of stillness. The kind that does not wait for permission, because it already holds it.
“Are you here?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Not for me.”
“For you,” he said.
His chest rose. He did not look away. There was a small tremble in his shoulders, not fear, not cold. Anticipation. The kind that holds a scene together with restraint and breath alone.
I stepped around him once. A slow circle. Not circling prey. Circling prayer. The floor received his knees like an altar receives knees. His spine stayed straight. His mouth open. His hands resting palm up on his thighs. Not fists. Not clenched. Offered.
I touched him with the back of my fingers. One soft brush against his jaw. Not to take. To bless.
My thumb found his lip. Rested there. Felt the heat of his breath bloom against it. I could have pulled him closer by the mouth alone. I could have made a spectacle of it. I did not. I stood still and let his breath name the moment.
“You are not mine,” I whispered. “But this moment is.”
He nodded again. His knees pressed firmer into the wood, like gravity was sacred too.
I traced down his neck. Over his collarbone. To the centre of his chest, where his heart thudded like a chant. I did not touch his cock. Not yet. That would be too easy. I wanted him to feel chosen before he felt claimed.
I dragged my fingers down his sternum. Slow. Firm. Like I was writing psalms into skin. Like his body was scripture and I had been starved of gospel.
He shuddered.
Not from the cold. From being seen.
“Still with me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he whispered. “God, yes.”
I unbuttoned his shirt with patience. Each button a breath. A space between offerings. When the fabric opened, when his chest was bare beneath me, I did not touch right away. I looked. I let him be looked at. He held still through it, even when his thighs trembled.
“Hands behind,” I said.
He crossed his wrists at the small of his back. I lifted a silk length from the table. He watched my hands. I tied him loosely, two fingers under the binding, enough space for his pulse to keep speaking. The knot settled like a vowel. Soft. Clear.
“With me,” I asked.
His gaze met mine. “With you.”
I knelt then, close enough that my knees touched the outside of his. Not to match him. To meet him. Forehead to forehead. Breath to breath. The room narrowed to warmth and the quiet clink of the glass settling as the cooling air carried it.
“Open,” I said.
He parted his knees an inch. Then a little more. The outline in his trousers strained against the fabric. I wanted to give him that touch. I waited. I touched the hollow of his throat instead. A thumb pressed gently. A check. He swallowed under my hand and exhaled in gratitude.
The first kiss was not on his mouth. It was to the place my thumb had blessed. I pressed my lips there and tasted salt and patience. He made a sound then, a small one, the bell that rings when a body is met where it asked. I felt it in my chest like a second heart.
I spoke lightly. The liturgy we learned together.
“I am moving to your left shoulder,” I said.
He nodded.
“I am tightening the silk. Tell me if it steals.”
He breathed. “It holds.”
“If you tap twice I will stop.”
He tapped the floor once just to feel the signal in his bones. He smiled, and the smile taught the rest of him how to soften.
My hand returned to his jaw. Back of the fingers. Thumb to the lip. A blessing repeated until it became memory. I let my thumb slip into his mouth just enough to remind him of hunger. Not enough to satisfy. His tongue greeted me. He closed around the pad and moaned. I could have fed him then. I did not. I withdrew and felt his exhale bloom across my thumb, hot and grateful.
I stood. I moved behind him. The back of his neck was warm. I bent and kissed the vertebrae one by one, a slow descent. When I reached the collar, I eased the fabric down his arms, guided by the silk, careful. The shirt fell to the floor with a small soft hiss. He shivered again. I cupped his shoulder and kept him where he was.
“More?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Pressure?”
“Please.”
I placed my palm between his shoulder blades and pressed him gently forward until his forehead hovered a breath above the floor. He found the angle. He found the breath that fit. The position expanded inside him like a room with better light.
I touched his sides. Ribs like the staves of a drum. The sound he made when I found the tender place under the last rib told me which notes belonged to this body. I played them slowly. The room learned the song.
Only then did I let my hand travel lower. Over the band of his trousers. Across the curve of his hip. Down the outside of his thigh. The line back up. The inside. I was careful where I avoided. I let the not touching do some of the work. He shook, not from lack, from knowing I was choosing.
“Still good?” I asked.
He nodded. “Keep that.”
I palmed him through the fabric once. Just once. Not to arouse. To remind him he was seen entire. He cried out, soft and sharp. A sound like breaking. He did not fall. He stayed. I stayed with him. Hands steady. Heart full.
“Look at me,” I said.
He lifted his head. I moved to his front again and sank to my heels. I loosened the silk and drew his wrists forward. I laid his hands back on his thighs, palms up. I placed my own hands in them, heavy enough to be felt, light enough to be moved.
“You choose,” I said. “Take what you can hold.”
He curled his fingers around my wrists and pulled me closer. He did not lunge. He did not beg. He brought my body into his space with a care that answered mine. Our foreheads touched. Our noses brushed. Our mouths hovered a breath apart.
“Speak,” I said.
“Please,” he said. “Please let me kiss you.”
“Yes.”
The kiss was not a conquest. It was a seal. His lips were soft and hungry. Mine were slow and sure. We found the pace together. The room narrowed again. Tongue met tongue and withdrew to make room for breath. He made the bell sound again and I answered with a quiet groan that surprised me with its honesty.
I stood and undid my belt. I left the trousers on. He looked up at me, eyes wide, mouth open. I took his jaw again, the familiar blessing, then offered two fingers. He parted his lips and took them with reverence. Breathing through his nose, tears bright at the corners, not from distress, from fullness.
I could have fed him more. I could have undone everything and let him worship until the floor forgot our names. I did not. I withdrew my fingers and pressed my thumb to his wet lip.
“Stay,” I said.
He stayed.
I unfastened his trousers and lowered them to his knees. I did not strip him. I wanted the press of cloth to hold him in. I placed my palm over his cock. The heat trembled against my hand. I did not stroke. I held. I let the weight of my attention do the work.
He shook like a wire pulled tight. He tried to push into my hand. I did not move. He adjusted. He breathed. He let the tremor travel across his body and settle as something that looked like prayer.
“Say what you need,” I said.
“Touch me,” he breathed. “Where you wrote the psalms.”
I lifted my hand to his chest. I laid my palm over his sternum and pressed. Slow. Firm. He exhaled like surrender. I circled the nipple with a fingertip, not to tease, to witness the way it gathered under attention. I bent and took it into my mouth for a heartbeat. He gasped and reached for me, then stopped himself, then reached again. I took his hands and placed them back on his thighs.
“You do not carry me,” I said. “I carry you.”
He nodded. “Carry me.”
I took him in my hand then. Not the frantic grip of release. The hold that says I am not going anywhere. I stroked him slow, almost absentminded, as if the true scene lived where our eyes held. Which it did. He watched me. He waited. He shook. He did not beg. He named.
“More,” he said, and I gave him more. “Less,” he said, when the wave rose too high, and I obeyed. We learned the shoreline together.
He came with his forehead pressed to mine. Not loudly. Not theatrically. A soft, sharp sound like a secret breaking open enough to breathe. I held him through it. I did not take. I received. My hand stayed where it was until the tremor finished speaking. Then I wiped my palm on the folded towel and kissed his mouth with the taste of himself soft on my tongue.
We stayed on the floor. Breath to breath. The silk lay beside us like a ribbon pulled from a gift. The window carried in quieter air. The glass of water waited. I reached for it and held it to his mouth.
“Drink for me,” I said again.
He drank. He smiled. He leaned his head against my chest and listened to the rhythm settle. The room widened back to ordinary. It still held us. Nothing fragile had been broken. Something tender had been proven.
After a while I rose and fetched the second towel. I warmed it in my hands and cleaned him the way I had touched him. Slow. Clear. I did not make meaning too quickly. The body spoke first. Then words.
“One thing you loved,” I said.
“The way you did not rush,” he said. “The way you looked.”
“One thing you would change next time.”
“More pressure at my shoulder,” he said. “I wanted to feel your palm there longer.”
I nodded. “Kept.”
I made coffee while he dressed. The grinder’s growl felt almost obscene in the quiet, which made us both laugh. I brought him a mug the way I had brought the water. He took it with both hands. He sipped and closed his eyes.
“Coffee tastes like praise,” he said.
“It does,” I said.
We sat at the low table. The open window let the city pass by without intruding. He looked at his palms. I looked at the place on his chest where my psalms had dried. The silence had weight and kindness.
He set the mug down and touched the edge of the folded towel. “You did not take anything from me,” he said.
“You gave,” I said. “I held it like a breakable truth.”
He stood and gathered his things. He came to me before he left and pressed his forehead to mine again. Not to match. To meet. A small benediction between bodies that had done the work and come back to names.
“Message me tomorrow,” I said.
“I will,” he said. “I will say I am good, and that the bruise looks like a little cloud.”
“Say that,” I said. “And send a photo if you want to.”
At the door he looked back. The lamp was still soft. The towel waited for the wash. The glass was empty. The room felt like a bowl that had held us both and could hold us again.
He smiled. “Bless me,” he said.
I lifted my hand. Back of the fingers to his jaw. Thumb to his lip. The sign we had made together. The only blessing I trust.
“Go,” I said. “Carry it.”
He left. I stood in the quiet and felt the bell ring again, faint and real. I washed the cup. I changed nothing else. The room remembered us, which was enough.
🖤 A Queer Romance That Doesn’t Ask for Permission. It Just Undoes You.
Rowan Thornwells debut novel, His, Theirs, Enough is queer literary erotica for readers who crave intensity, intimacy, and prose that reads like poetry with its mouth open.
You’ll ache for this MMF romance. And you’ll come back for more. Learn More
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Poetic and intimate x