(3) church on sunday

[waywardious]

He wakes up first, before Vincent who sleeps right through his rustling about as he gets to his feet and hobbles over to his clothing chest, fishing out a fresh pair of breeches. Despite the softness and the warmth of the sheepskins, despite the fireplace that has been burning throughout most of the night, Claude is knackered, his body feeling no less stiff and uncooperative as the range of movements he forces it through broadens. Grimacing, he glances out of the east-facing window, at the morning that's creeping across the sky in pretty touches of gold and pink. All the world really is a stage, like Shakespeare wrote. It looks like an exact copy of something tulle-thin and frilly Marise wore once.

Placing himself in the middle of his practice space, not a piece of furniture in sight to stub his toes on or stumble into, Claude goes through his usual morning routine. Stretches first, working through all positions - first to fifth, dévellopé and battements, though he skips the jumps. If they irritate Monsieur Samson downstairs, they're certain to wake Vincent up and look at him. Claude does, observes him while seating himself to warm up his feet, cracking his toes and over-extending his arches for good measure, too. With the note they ended on yesterday, he doesn't begrudge the other man any additional minute of undisturbed peace. The world will catch up with him soon enough. Reluctantly, he scurries around, placing himself in a split with his back to their little love nest, stretching his right arm over his head, pressing in against the shoulder joint with his left hand to keep the pressure up. Like this, he's staring right at the door, the bare walls, the lamps that have all gone out overnight.

The definition of emptiness.

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[thecountofthree]

He flutters into existence – that’s the most apt description of how it feels as he wakes up, his body heavy from sleep still. He hasn’t been dreaming (been doing a lot of that with his eyes open last night as it were) but even so, the faint echoes of church bells seem otherworldly. Disruptive, too, once his mind catches up. Eyes flying open, he sits up with a startle, eyes fixed on the nearest windows, his whole body stiff as a board. What… oh God, it’s Sunday. It’s Sunday and he’s slept too long, far too long. Around him, the sheepskins feel almost luxuriously warm from his body heat, from Claude’s too. Claude… who’s…

Head whipping around fast, he almost believes himself alone for a second’s worth of additional panic. But no – sitting over there with his back to him, Claude’s stretching out his body in a way that ought to be physiologically impossible. Staring at him, his mind screeching at him to get up and run, be late if he must, stand in the back, go on - he slowly settles back against the floor once more. Stretches out his legs, a convulsive stiffness making his limbs seem shorter somehow. Stuck in a way. Not the worst description, really.

There’ll be an excuse, yet another, and Vincent will return to a life full of lies and deceit – except this time, he won’t be a mirror to the world will he? He can’t possibly go back to that, to reflecting other people’s desires back at them. He can’t. Toes curling, he sighs loudly and runs a hand through his hair, strands sticking up in all possible directions. “I should have asked you to wake me up.” There’s no reproach in his voice, only a faint hint of regret. Looking Claude over, he leans back slightly, drawing the sheepskin tighter around his lower body. The air’s cool around him and in a moment, he’ll probably have to get up and get dressed. In a moment.

[waywardious]

The sound of Vincent's voice makes Claude pause, his arms dropping to his sides in order to support him as he leans back with his elbows scraping over the floor and his head turning to meet Vincent's gaze across the distance. The tug at the inside of his thighs is almost unbearable at this angle (and for that very reason, perfect), but he ignores the pain with practiced ease, instead focusing on Vincent's features painted slightly rosy in the morning light. Like the ghost of a blush. Judging by his voice, the underlying resignation, perhaps a blush would be the least obvious leftover from yesterday's altogether carnal feast. The moral remnants, everything still unspoken, weighing much heavier now, with the fire reduced to ashes and chilly drafts from the door. Reduced to a resounding silence between the lines. "I'm sorry," he apologises, but only for the current - for Vincent's hair that looks aimless without Claude's fingers to redirect it, for the situation as it is. Not for what formed it, what led them here. "I suppose a part of me was hoping you didn't have anywhere else to be."

Slowly, he releases his stretch, legs moving back into parallels, his pointed feet drowning in the loose-hanging fabric of his trouser legs. Claude flips onto his stomach, resting one cheek on his folded arms and granting the other man whatever time he needs to respond. To uphold the dialogue. Or not, depending. It's a strange feeling to suddenly embrace, this realisation that he might have to see Vincent off before too long, never to see him again and that he would resent it. Resent the given nature of it. How it's simply the conditions under which they live. The rules they must abide. He frowns. Kicks his feet restlessly, his muscles only at this point beginning to soften from his half hour work-out. The halfway approach, yes? All of it.

And Claude honestly hates doing things halfway.

[thecountofthree]

He watches as Claude takes his body through various exercises, none of them familiar to Vincent who’s spent most of his life sitting down or running about, producing no art save for seemingly endless numbers in blacks and reds. Perhaps he could have been a dancer if someone had thought to set him up for it – he’s never been particularly clumsy, though he doubts he’d be able to withstand the sort of pain Claude goes through to make the magic happen. All the same, the thought’s faintly amusing and his lips quirk upwards a fraction. Imagine the two of them as dancers… entwined on a stage, limb by limb…

Shifting slightly, a by now rather familiar heat spreading in his groin, he cocks his head slightly at Claude’s answer. I’m sorry he says. Vincent’s about to correct him, to tell him how meaningless such a sentiment is. After all, hasn’t Claude handed him a bit of heaven in return for an altogether miserable bouquet of roses? But then, he adds those last words to his sentence and all Vincent can think is relief. Once more, an almost overpowering sense of relief that maybe, just maybe, there’s something at the end of this other than… than hopelessness. The return to nothing much. Unwillingly, he glances out of the window, the church bells silent once more but his non-attendance an irrevocable fact, just like the sticky traces on his thighs and stomach, the tingling waiting just beneath his skin.

“My parents were expecting me. For church.” He draws one long, slim leg up underneath his body, a chill spreading down his thigh and calf. His voice changes slightly, goes from cool to something less categorical. “Did you really, though?” Pause. “Or were you merely being polite as ever?” He’s not looking for reassurance, not as such but in this society, in their time and age, politeness is not just a matter of decency. Sometimes (more often than not), it is a mask for other things.

[waywardious]

Even Claude - who's learned to live with the constant chill of his loft and has muscle mass enough to keep his core temperature up without much additional activity needed - can feel the coldness that has overtaken the room once more and Vincent's skin is a pale (almost bluish) testimony written in goosebumps, although the hint of cock that you might glimpse in the folds of sheepskin if you're observant (or just specifically looking) doesn't seem to suffer under it. Getting to his knees, then to his feet, Claude shakes his head slightly and grabs his duvet from the bed, pushing aside the small pile of clothing that they left there the evening before, bundled together in an even messier pile on top of the mattress. Walking over to Vincent, he slides into a fluid cross-legged position next to the other man, holding the duvet out for him to take. To wrap around himself. God knows, no guest of Claude's should leave his home feeling any colder for it.

"Trust me, Vincent," he assures him, rolling his shoulders a few times each before settling into a relaxed slouch. "I'm not exactly known for my manners. What you get is real and it's as good as you will find it anywhere." One should think that perhaps Claude was the typical product of the milieu he's grown up in, but even amongst the artists and the patrons at the Opera, he's always been the peculiar sort in this respect (if not in so many others). The odd one out. He's too temperamental a person to simply accept any patronisation beyond the financial and injustice has never been something you could buy your rights to with him, not at any offered price. So, amongst his fellow dancers, Claude has become well-known for skipping titles and any designations of rank, beyond those he himself deems appropriate. They all found it rather endearing once, then the La Bayadère disaster struck and since then, he's had to acknowledge more dukes and counts than he might have liked, for the sake of the civil tone. And his chances, however minimal he's slowly come to feel they've shrunk.

There's a long pause while he looks Vincent over. Church wasn't something he would have associated Vincent with by his own accord, then again - neither would he have guessed the man was an accountant. They all find shelves in life, to create that sense of belonging until it all goes to Hell anyway and you realise the categories are inherently flawed. "Is your family very religious?"

[thecountofthree]

He follows Claude with his gaze, his fluid, easy movements. There’s something about Claude’s built that would have you assume that he’d be the heavy sort – a square, powerful body. But the man’s nothing like that, is he? Not when he walks, not when he dances and certainly not when he… Vincent looks away quickly, suddenly mindful of his rising excitement. He doesn’t blush this time, however. Perhaps he’s too cold to manage, the joints in his fingers feeling slightly stiff. Just when he’s about to resign himself to his fate – after all, Vincent’s been freezing more or less since he was born – Claude seats himself next to him, all elegance and ease. God, the man is so unfairly attractive. And here he is, making dirty observations when he ought to be praying instead. But unlike the bright glass windows of his mother’s church, Claude’s brought him warmth; the duvet from the bed, presented to him like a matter of course. It takes him less than a second to accept it, slinging it across his treacherous lap first, then his upper body. The heat effulges him, making him feel almost drowsy from contentment and he very nearly misses Claude’s question, wrapped up as he is in goose feathers and the other man’s scent. Mm.

“Uh.” He shifts. Sideways. Enough to leave their shoulders touching, naked skin against skin. “Yes, I suppose so. Roman Catholics - my family’s not the modern sort.” Spoken with a raised eyebrow, not at the question itself but at the underlying implications of his answer. Modern would not be a word easily associated with neither Laura nor Samuel Fortesque. They flow with the stream, his parents, whilst Vincent tries not to drown amongst its waves. “I take it you’re not. Religious.”

He’s seen no symbols or signs anywhere in the room, after all. Besides, if his mother’s opinion on art and theater is anything to go by, a religious man probably wouldn’t in good conscience throw off most of his clothes, cover himself in golden dust and take to the stage. Neither would he take home a complete stranger and… well. It just doesn’t seem likely.

[waywardious]

With a slight smile, partly entertained by the sight of Vincent sinking into his duvet like a lapdog (a dachshund if breed is a requirement), partly amused at the thought of himself affiliated with any religious institutions, least of all the Roman Catholic church, Claude shakes his head once. "Nothing of the sort. I'm not radical about it, though - everyone should be allowed to believe and worship whatever they like," he replies, turning the rubbing motion of their shoulders into a full bump, "but it's always seemed to me that the Church liked to function as an easy excuse for people not to think for themselves." A moment's pause as he thinks the thought through, their upper arms touching and Vincent's skin cool against his own. "Then again, politics runs every risk of doing the same thing, so I guess our personal autonomy is no less threatened, regardless of where we go." Unless, of course, people should choose to barricade the theatres. Culture and art really remain the last bastions these days. And see who came, isn't that so? Claude turns his head slightly and leans to the side enough that curling his right hand around Vincent's shoulders becomes a natural movement, easily disguised behind the intention of keeping the duvet in place for him.

From this angle, Vincent's cock creates the prettiest (far from little) hill in the otherwise rather heavy duvet and Claude settles in against Vincent's side with his cheek resting snugly on his nearest shoulder, their difference in heights perfect for the occasion. His eyes follow the slight bulge, the curved arch and he hardly even notices how one eyebrow is rising to match it. Well, something else is beginning to respond as well, but it's a reaction at another pace entirely. Claude has never had an epic libido, not as such, though it was certainly far more difficult to rein in when he was still an adolescent - and too much of his energy has been distributed to other activities since, but he's got a very responsive body, if nothing else. A body that he's been intimately familiar with long enough to recognise the signs and the processes.

[thecountofthree]

He shifts further sideways, Claude’s arm around his shoulder a comfortable weight of warmth, the side of his body solid. The subject matter doesn’t surprise him in the slightest. Artists, necessarily, must cultivate more than just their impressive bodies whilst creating lasting narratives for the masses. A small shrug before he leans his head against Claude’s, blinking slowly to keep himself from actually closing his eyes. Comfortable. He’s so comfortable.

“Religion and politics – no, there’s not much of a difference these days.” He thinks about his employer, a fat pig of a man with riches enough to eat himself even fatter as the days go by. He likes to present himself as a devout Christian and no doubt it’s a little bit of theatre much adored in his social circles. But beneath it all, he swindles and cheats with no conscience at all, milking the system for all that it’s worth because money and wealth… He shakes his head, sarcasm seeping into his voice. “So long as the rich get richer, they will pledge whatever it takes. It’s a game well-played, when you think about it.”

Noting only now the way Claude’s… chosen to angle his head, he follows his look halfway down his own front, realising only now exactly how pronounced his arousal has become. This time, he flushes all the way to the roots of his hair, his hands shooting towards his lap uselessly. “Oh – I…” I’m sorry, he wants to say, but the words seem to be stuck in his throat. Besides, Claude doesn’t exactly look like he’s waiting for an apology, does he? Thus, Vincent simply trails off, breathing in and out just a bit shallowly, Claude’s soft hair tickling his nose and vibrating lightly with every exhalation.

[waywardious]

Rude as it may be (but he did tell Vincent that manners weren't his strongest point), Claude only halfway listens to the other man as he rants on about the rich and their games. Mostly he just notes that it's something they should definitely discuss at a later date, at some point when Vincent's cock isn't so obviously distracted and Claude, as a consequence, equally so. Vincent trails off without apologising for himself and compared to the introduction of their previous night, it's already quite the improvement. Smiling, Claude listens to his shallow breathing, eyes moving only slowly from his hands clasped in his lap, blocking his view of even the slightest semblance of hardness (seeing as Vincent's fingers are all elegance and lines and soft, soft skin) to his face, burning red from embarrassment. Honestly, he finds it completely captivating, how Vincent navigates the waters with such an unspoiled attitude. The men he knows from Marais have all been ruined a little too much and a little too soon, himself included. Vincent isn't like that, not yet at least. A frown. The smile fades gradually. Claude draws back somewhat, arm still a warm embrace along the pronounced shoulder blades that spread out like wings across Vincent's back. If he can help it, there's a never to be added to Vincent's future, in that regard. If he can in any way help it. If Vincent will let him.

"There's a place I go sometimes," he begins, a bit hesitantly despite himself. It's not that he feels any sort of shame in relation to his familiarity with Ganyméde, firstly it's a pure Paradise in comparison to certain establishments in the surrounding area, but mostly because the games that they play there wouldn't be necessary had they lived in a society that was ready to accept them as equals. He's not going to willingly carry with him a guilt that's made necessary not by him, but by everyone else. "A gentleman's lounge. For people like --" Another pause, as he's once more forced to weigh his words. He doesn't want to assume anything. Hell, enjoying to flute doesn't automatically place you within their circle, simply because it does place you outside society's conception of the normal man at large. "-- me. If you want, I'd love for you to accompany me."

It's an open invitation, bordering on a request. He doesn't specify a time, he doesn't even make it as unspecific as someday. He quite simply holds it out on flat palms, with no intention to take even a little finger, if Vincent does take his first.

[thecountofthree]

Claude mercifully doesn’t belittle him for his lack of restraint and honestly, he probably never will. Never. Presuming that there’s a time span long enough between them to warrant that particular adverb. Running his palm across his forehead, sweat already forming on his skin despite the coldness of the room, he leans into Claude’s embrace further, almost desperately so. The fact that the other man’s drawing away only makes the movement more pronounced – of Vincent following along, grasping for… for straws. He ought to be humiliated by now and maybe, deep down, he is. A little bit. Not by Claude, no. It’s worse than that.

“I…” Pause. Again. He looks down into his lap, at the way his hard cock strains beneath the duvet, the skin underneath growing more sensitive by the minute. He shuts his eyes, tries to imagine something unpleasant to chase away his arousal, a strategy that never works. Not this time, either. When he continues, his voice is slightly flat, eyes still closed. “I probably shouldn’t. It’s…” It’s not proper. What a ridiculous notion, all things considered. He’s sitting here, leaned against a half-naked man with his cock sticking up in the air! Opening his eyes and rolling them for good measure, he finally shrugs. A harsh motion, enough to jumble Claude’s arm around his shoulders. “Well, never mind. So long as it’s nowhere close to where I live, I’ll be glad to come.”

Verbalising the painful aspect of it – of secrecy, of knowing how wrong it all is and doing it anyway - is making his chest hurt. It's also making his cock less stiff and that's something, supposedly. He knows with absolute certainty now that his mother will never succeed in her matchmaking. That the girls will never appeal to him, that he’ll never marry a woman. And maybe the worst part isn’t even her inevitable disappointment, the shamefulness of it all. No, it’s how he’s always wanted to believe in it, just a little bit. That if he only tried hard enough, he’d find a way to be better.

[waywardious]

"It's on the corner of Rue Malher and Rue Pavée, right at the border between 3rd and 4th," Claude specifies rather than outright asking Vincent his address. Leaves the man to determine by his own standards what's too close and what isn't. Heaven knows, if Claude lived with his family still, perhaps even just within the same city limits, the distance from Ganyméde's entrance to wherever the farthest French colonies are located might prove too close, the risks taken into consideration. Thus, there's no attempt from him at sugarcoating the situation, no feeble and inevitably futile comforts to grant. In this particular aspect, reality is shitty. Foul and bone-breaking like the gutter. He can't change it, so he won't try. What he can do is providing a place for Vincent to go that's -- well, if not safe, then safer. Sometimes you have to settle. You don't have to like it and God knows, Claude doesn't by principle, but if you don't just take it, you can't make anything better of it either. Looking at Vincent, at his down-cast gaze and his sharp profile, Claude likes to think himself smarter than that kind of pride. Even as Vincent shrugs, he doesn't let his arm drop.

Claude made that mistake once. Thinking himself raised above the politics and tendencies of general society, thinking a place in and by itself offered any sort of security. He thought the Opera really was as vast and all-embracing as the stories they tell there would lead you to believe and he was wrong. And much, much too late he realised that safety wasn't something any one place could guarantee you, it was something you'd have to claim for yourself and something you'd only find with another. Perhaps if he'd opened his eyes to that fact sooner, Pavel would still have been alive. Then again, if Pavel hadn't walked his own path, Vincent wouldn't have sat here now in this gentle April morning light and made Claude ponder the great mechanisms of it all, would he? He might not be religious, but you learn - maybe especially as an artist - than when one door closes, it's simply your cue to find the one that opened instead. Wherever it might be hidden.

[thecountofthree]

Claude doesn’t move away and that in itself is its own conclusion, isn’t it? To this thing, to whatever they have left now. After last night. Leaning closer, Vincent finally looks back at Claude, gaze grey. Feeling tired somehow despite his sleep-in, despite the night’s many releases.

“It’s far enough.” He doesn’t specify. When he leaves, he’ll make sure to scribble down his address for Claude, leave the initiative in this apartment because there’s nowhere in Rue de la Roquette that it would truly thrive. He’s been living his life pacing about in the same, ridiculous circle and whilst they’ve managed to break it together this time, it seems such a fragile thing compared to 25 years of holding back. An easy miracle to undo, to turn it all into a trick of the light. Blinking harshly, he manages not to let his frustration run away with him, gaze fixed on Claude’s face, on the contours of his cheekbones, of his jaw and nose. According to some, men aren’t beautiful, exactly, unless you’re talking about Gods or giants – they’re handsome or attractive at the most. But surely… surely, concerning Claude, anything less would be a vast understatement.

“Claude…” He shifts. Turns to face him more fully, staying within reach of his arm. “I wanted you to know…” Pause. Sigh. Brow furrowing, his chest feeling suddenly tight again, he simply leans in close, a slow, even motion. When he presses his lips against Claude’s, there’s a gentleness about it that has nothing to do with hesitation. Sometimes, words only serve to disrupt the conversation, to make interaction bland and fragmented. And if there’s one thing he doesn’t want to leave the other man with, it’s the feeling that… that he doesn’t care. Really, he probably cares more than he can stand. At length.

[waywardious]

He allows it all to take its natural course. How Vincent speaks first, but finds that words don't truly embody what he's trying to express, proceeding to lean in closer instead and press his lips against Claude's. Softly. The distinct feeling of morning is clinging to them, a chapped aftermath of last night and the hesitant knocking of the approaching day, but Claude likes it. The rawness of it. The complete lack of facade, masks and salvaging makeup. God knows, he gets enough of that at the theatre. Life is all the more beautiful for how it can't pretend. How it doesn't even try. Indeed, if the world is a stage, people are the actors, but any actor would know that the stage sees more than just the performances themselves, fully-fledged and finished. There's rehearsals, there's missed cues and mistakes, there's the breaks in between when roles fade into nothing. Just like now.

So, Claude follows the curve of Vincent's shoulder blade with his hand, up his back, to the nape of his neck where he takes hold. A gentle hold, more of a caress of warm palm and splayed out fingers. Cocking his head and shifting for a more comfortable position, a better angle, he leans in and deepens the kiss, pushing his tongue in between Vincent's lips without much of a prelude. Not beyond the wet slide itself, spreading over Vincent's bottom lip hotly. His mouth is heated and he tastes like himself, no feasts of wine and cheese, just him. Full and slightly harsh. Oh, Claude likes that as well. With a hum at the back of his throat in approval, he pushes the duvet aside with his other hand, fingers colliding only a bit clumsily with the flat expanses of the other man's chest.

Whatever Vincent is telling him in this way, tasting like man and need and assertiveness, Claude wants to respond to. Honestly and openly. Certainly, he doesn't want Vincent to think he's required to define his future only in the light of last night, but neither does he want him to doubt whether he's allowed to, should he want... Rather, Claude would really prefer to convince him that good things could be awaiting them, without promises and guarantees.

[thecountofthree]

Claude follows up on his lead, takes the cue with a precision not just owing to his stage profession. No, it’s quite obvious that between the two of them, lead and follow become two naturally interchangeable concepts, a smooth flow of give and take. Thus, when Claude pushes past his lips, Vincent responds after only a second’s pause, meeting him with ease and something bordering on new-found confidence, a wet slide of tongue against tongue. From home, he’s become accustomed to thinking of himself as a passive man, someone too afraid to act, the way he’s been for so many years now whilst his dreams alone drove him past the edge.

With Claude like this – with their bodies so close once more, the other man’s hand drifting over his chest and the scent of him filling his nostrils – he can almost believe that it’s not a matter of fantasy versus reality. That in truth, it’s simply two sides of the same coin and as luck would have it, this time it may just have landed in his favour, however shortly. Claude’s hand feels warm and gentle against the back of his neck and he breathes out slowly, relaxing once more into the warmth of their shared proximity. Vincent may be cold in general but right now, he certainly can’t feel it. The tightness in his chest pushed beyond any conscious connection.

Eyes falling shut, he runs his hand down Claude’s upper arm, his muscles hard and lean beneath his palm. Gods, but he can’t not – he can’t be expected to hold himself back now, not when the next step on the road is through that still-locked front door! Fingers ghosting over his elbow, he reaches down blindly between them, flattening his palm over Claude’s breeches right below the navel. Passive? Not right now with time passing by around them and Paris waking up to yet another slap of monotonous grey.

[waywardious]

The kiss becomes just another point of contact. An engagement. Their only manner of relation. In its basic sense, they exist within it at this very moment, as they suck breath and life out of each other. Scraping his teeth rather harshly over the probe of Vincent's tongue, the softer framing of his bottom lip, Claude can feel his body waking up finally, after a long morning of fighting his own muscles and weeks before that of descending into gradual numbness. He slides his palm further up Vincent's chest, trough the thin trail of soft down outlining his pecs to one darker nipple, though not as dark as Claude's own. As seems to be a repetitive theme between them. Claude who is darker, heavier, perhaps older, definitely more experienced and Vincent the opposite, yet the one to plunge his hand down between their fronts now, pressing his palm flatly against Claude's abdomen, connecting the dip of his navel and the -- suddenly much more prominent rise of his cock as it hardens at the sheer proximity of the other man's long fingers, tall body, altogether fulfilling self... Drawing back with a gasp, he lets his one hand sink to a rest on Vincent's shoulder, the other following Vincent's lead and seeking down between them, finding its way to the waistband of his breeches and undoing it with fingers that constantly slip over the contours of Vincent's.

"Wait," he's saying, begging before he can stop himself. "Let me get these off, I just need..." Does he need to specify? With a wriggle and a strategic backwards motion into a reclining position, so kicking his legs is actually an option, Claude manages to crawl out of his underwear, his half-hard erection having grown full in the meantime and as he looks up at Vincent, reaching out for the other man and urging him by his upper arm to either lie down next to him or on top, whatever should suit his tastes, it is all but showing the way, yes?

At the back of his mind, in the non-lust-ridden part, mind you, he finds it oddly vulnerable. This. How he's so sexually responsive to Vincent who he hardly knows, whom he hardly knows anything about when he is aware that physical relations are of the least importance to him otherwise. Something to be had to keep the body sated and the mind at ease. Even someone like Sylvain, he wouldn't let this close this quickly and they've known each other for years, also sexually. Perhaps sexually more than anything else. With a deep, shaking breath, he shifts a bit uncomfortably. His entire pelvis feels overheated, burning. He remembers the feel of Vincent's mouth from the previous nights. Remembers it well. "You should flute me, love," he adds. Voice soft, only borderline teasing. The nickname doesn't register, at least not to him. "I'd really like to feel your mouth again."