There is a serenity that comes to Gibson when he is on his knees, and it is at such moments that he knows this is a disposition he has been given, and not a workmanlike convenience in the absence of women. That alone would discourage him from partaking too often — the pleasure of the act is outlasted by the awareness of himself, of his own nature.

“There’s a good fellow, there’s a pet,” Cornelius says to him, thumbing into his cheek. His hands smell of picked rope and tar; though small, they are fine and tapering. “You take it so prettily. You’d make a fine whore, Billy.”

Gibson likes to suck him to the root, to bury his face in the sweat-damp mossy tangle of his groin and breathe in the taste of him with his eyes closed. Taking a man in your mouth gives the measure of him like no other way in the world — whether he presses you down to fuck your throat until you choke or lets you work him with a hand around the shaft of his cock, until he can only be said to fuck your mouth, your lips, your tongue. Cornelius is an odd fellow but a dear one — he does not rut against him except in moments of desperation, when they are both near the brink but Gibson’s hands are occupied with flogging his own prick.

Hickey has an unremarkable tool in every way, except that it is circumcised — it makes a welcome mouthful. Billy grips him in his hand, feeling the blood-heat of his balls in their purse, and draws his mouth over him in strokes, until his attention turns to the naked head of his prick.

Hickey makes small shocked sounds when Gibson rubs his tongue into the slit of his cock, broken and virginal sounds that Billy finds gratifying in the extreme. He could work at just the head of him with broad strokes of his tongue, or shape him out in careful wet tugs — the salt-taste of spend is thick in his mouth and he rasps the tender flesh beneath his tongue, cheeks hollowing until his mouth is only a hungry sheath. He sets the pace, he is used as he is using.

“I’m close,” Hickey says. “Close now.”

Billy draws back, mouth riotously wet and open, and lets Hickey finish against his face — down his lips and painting his beard, so the tidal taste washes over his open mouth.

Gibson exhales through his nose, in a shudder of profound satisfaction. Hickey makes a delighted little sound, humming through closed lips — that is the sound of his pleasure, the sign that Billy has done well. Gibson looks up at him through salt-spiked eyelashes, and Hickey fondles his curls like a sweetheart. This arrangement suits them both. When Gibson rises up on trembling legs, Hickey catches him in a kiss — even with the salt of his own spend on his lips Hickey cleaves to him and gives him warm embraces.