Lap of Luxury, Part 4

IV: A Season of Miracles

Matt stepped into a world of darkness.

The bathroom light illuminated only a bare stretch of hallway and no further. A wall wrapped around the bedroom, keeping the light from penetrating any further. So when Matt reached the end of that wall and felt his way around the bend, he could see a slit of orange along the floor where the heavy curtains that concealed the windows fell, but there was no other light there to greet him. He fumbled for the switch.

Don’t.

It was his first indication, other than the soft music playing, that anyone was even there with him. “Mohinder? Why is it so dark in here?” Between sex, champagne, and bath, Matt was feeling a little woozy. “Did you go to bed already?”

A gentle laugh. “No. I was waiting for you.”

The yanking of a rope, the sliding of a heavy drapery, and all at once the stars were out.

Manhattan in all its glory sprawled out above and below, an endless panorama of glittering lights. The king and queen of the city, Empire and Chrysler, wore bright crowns of gold and blue above their cacophonous chessboard of office windows, billboards, neon, and streetlamps, which stretched out to the horizon. Dark rivers framed the scene, and suspension bridges dotted the borders with even, delicate white lights like lace or frost.

Mohinder was standing by the window, in his bathrobe too, smiling. As Matt’s eyes moved over him he saw for the first time that the bed and floor were inundated with dozens, no, hundreds of red rose petals.

“When did you–” Matt couldn’t say any more. He was overwhelmed. It was hard to breathe or swallow.

The lights that were glimmering on Mohinder’s face were reflections, but they looked as though they were born there. His smile was radiant. He reached out a hand to Matt, who walked forward and took it. Together they stared out at the cityscape as piano and strings and winds rose and fell like their gentle breathing.

After a while, Matt slipped his arm around Mohinder’s waist, bringing his head in to drop onto his shoulder. Mohinder gave a little sigh. But they didn’t speak. What on earth would they have to say, when this view already said it all?

Then the song was over, and another began, with ascending chords on a piano, subdued and yet unabashedly romantic. It was “Unforgettable.” And Matt felt a need to break the silence.

“Care to dance?” he asked. In answer, Mohinder broke into a smile of delight against his shoulder.

Matt led him by the waist into the largest pool of carpet he could find that was uninterrupted by furniture or wall or bedpost. “Who leads?” he wondered aloud.

“We’re partners. We do it together,” Mohinder replied.

“That’s what I thought,” whispered Matt, gathering the other man in his arms. They swayed together, cheek to cheek, fingers of their hands laced together on one side as they held each other on the other. The music on the stereo was instrumental, but the lyrics were threading through both their heads.

“Like a song of love that sings to me …”

Mohinder could feel Matt’s lips silently forming the words against his skin. He shivered and held him closer. Rose petals kissed their bare feet.

“It’s a beautiful song,” he said. His voice, small as it was, seemed to fill the room.

Matt began to reply, then stopped. “Mohinder, I…” he began again, unsure what was going to be said. “I don’t remember ever being this happy.” His tone was a little panicked.

Mohinder replied with a note of teasing competition. “I’m happier.”

“Wait.” They were still swaying, but Matt’s hand had hardened on his waist, the fingers now pressing insistently into the small of his back. “Wait, you did all this. Why are you happy?” It sounded funny aloud, but it made such perfect sense in his brain. Mohinder shouldn’t be enjoying this, at least, not as much as Matt, who didn’t have to lift a finger for it!

Mohinder drew back, stared at Matt with a bit of a scowl on his face. “This is not a zero-sum game, you know.”

“See, now you’re a little annoyed, that’s what I’d expect,” Matt’s voice got louder, more panicked.

“I’m serious,” frowned Mohinder. “That’s not how it works. But here, if it helps, think of it this way: I get to enjoy all of these things along with you, but I have the additional pleasure of seeing your face as you are amazed by it all. It’s more for my money, so to speak.” He sighed. “Does that make sense?”

Instead of answering, Matt buried his head in Mohinder’s shoulder. “You,” he whispered hotly. “You feel so damned good in my arms. I can hardly believe it. I didn’t ever think it could feel this good just– to touch, to be able to…” A gulped breath. “I feel like– I feel like I lost the plot a couple of scenes back, and we’re supposed to be doing something, or going somewhere, or something’s supposed to happen to us. But we’re not, it’s not, we’re just being together and that isn’t supposed to make me feel this way.” His eyes were squeezed shut against Mohinder’s shoulder. “What am I so excited about? I think there must be something I’m missing, but I can’t think what it is because everything I want is right here.“

Mohinder thought his arms felt like branches tossed by a storm.

When some of their shaking had subsided, he spoke up. “This isn’t a television show, Matt. It doesn’t need a plot. It’s life. This is what real people feel.”

“So what, are you telling me this is t– true love or something?” Matt was trying to joke, but his mouth caught around the key phrase.

“Exactly,” Mohinder said, his smile brilliant in the darkness. “True love.”

“Wow,” said Matt.

Mohinder laughed.

Matt held him at arm’s length, looked at him, and repeated himself. “Wow.” Drawing him in loosely enough to see his face, but close enough to feel his breath and his warmth, Matt gazed at him with the seriousness of a man having a religious experience. “What amazes me is, I could talk for an hour and a half about all the things I love about you, how you’re gorgeous and brilliant and caring, and it’s all true, but it’s not why I love you. I love you because you’re you, and I’m me, and that works, just really works really well for me.”

Mohinder’s smile was a thousand watts. “I know. For me, too. Although anytime you’d like to reiterate that list, especially if I’m within earshot, feel free.”

“Oh, right, then, I see,” Matt nodded with great blster. “Hm, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” He put up a hand as though to count on his fingers, but Mohinder cut him off with a soft voice.
“I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.”

The last line was whispered. Mohinder’s eyes were burning. Matt gasped.

“Elizabeth Barrett Browning,” Mohinder said by way of explanation.

“Oh, my God,” Matt said, slack-jawed. His cheeks were flaming red and his eyes were stars. “Do another one.”

“That’s the only one they made me memorize in high school.” Now he was staring at the floor, self-conscious. “The rest are lovely as well– even lovelier, in some cases– but I never had to recite them, so unless you want me to buy a book…”

“Buy it,” Matt insisted, pressing him close briefly. “Oh my God, I think my heart just flew up through the roof. I thought I hated poetry!” He laughed shakily. “I guess I just never had you around to read it to me before.”

“I’ll put Sonnets from the Portuguese on my to-buy list.” Mohinder’s voice was bewildered.

Matt drew back, took both his hands. “Have I mentioned yet tonight that I love you?”

A shaky grin. “Perhaps once or twice. In passing.”

The music had long since faded to nothing. They were just standing in the dark, looking at each other.

“Are you tired?” Mohinder asked.

“A little.”

“Maybe we should go to sleep?”

“Fat chance.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Matt growled, and, for the first time since he’d walked into the room, leaned into kiss Mohinder. “There is no way,” he murmured, “no way in hell I’m going to sleep, on that bed, without making love to you one more time.”

Mohinder shivered and smiled.

They walked hand in hand to the edge of the bed and sat down there. Matt scooped up a rose petal from the folds of comforter, drew it across Mohinder’s face and down his jawline slowly. He felt like he was painting him, creating him from thin air as he traced. The petal’s softness benath his fingertips, he parted the line of the white bathrobe, pulling it down to expose Mohinder’s shoulder. He was reminded of foamed milk sliding along the surface of dark coffee, and he leaned forward to sip from that shoulder. Mohinder shuddered and clapped his arms around him, refusing to let him go. Matt moved up to kiss his lips, and mouths and bodies together, they tumbled onto the pillows.

Mohinder pressed a flat palm on Matt’s chest, parting his bathrobe, and slid it downwards. Harsh terry cloth gave way to smooth and tender skin beneath his touch. He scattered petals across the white stomach, a different shade of red caressing each of the four pink scars. Matt hissed at the coolness of them and at Mohinder’s still-descending hand, willing it to continue its achingly slow journey south. The myriad baby kisses they shared were starting to pull harder, morphing from feathery to frantic. Before long they were moaning into each other’s mouths, hands pulling the last of the fabric away and then on hips and sides, naked bodies clasped together like hands in prayer.

Matt was the first to pull back when it became too intense. “No,” he said. “Not like this. I want to enjoy you.”

Mohinder rolled onto his back, Matt sitting up onto his knees watching the rose petals pool around his body. His thoughts flowed forward. You were made for this. For rose petals. Your skin.

No, you were. I’m too brown, too boring. You’re ivory.

You mean pasty.

“Shh.” Strangely enough, it was the only thing that was said out loud.

Matt reached over, twined his fingers with Mohinder’s, settling on top of him with a groan. Their hips began a slow, sweet, rocking rhythm together– just pleasure, just contact, not desperation or even teasing– as they kissed, long and slow and deep, a kiss with a promise tucked inside it like a love letter. Matt drew his hands up Mohinder’s arms slowly as Mohinder gripped his hips and guided them, arching his back and neck and gasping wordlessly. To feel that hardness aginst his own, heat answering his, never ceased to amaze him.

When Matt’s big, bearlike hand came down to grip both their erections at once, squeezing them together, Mohinder convulsed and cried out, hands gripping his shoulders. Matt growled in return and buried his head in the crook of his elbow, tongue tickling Mohinder and sending goosebumps to attention all over his body. Fists releasing a spray of rose petals, he sunk his nails into Matt’s skin. Matt thrust against him dangerously, and leaving his own cock to twitch in the open air, he wrapped his hand around Mohinder’s erection, stroking and pulling at him by turns. Mohinder reached down to reciprocate and Matt sighed, then moaned at the contact.

“I want to be inside you,” Matt whispered. Mohinder nodded and began to turn, but Matt stopped him. “No. Just like this. Facing me. I need you. I want to see you.” He stroked Mohinder needily, provoking a cry. “Thank God we’re such slobs or I’d have to get up again,” he laughed, reaching across the bed for the bottle and package that had been so carelessly abandoned there earlier. Readying them, he kneeled, pulling Mohinder forward with brute strength so his hips lay square against Matt’s stomach and thighs, his back flat on the bed, legs folding up and over Matt’s shoulders. Their eyes locked and they both breathed deep in anticipation.

Matt kissed the back of his knee, making him kick wildly with the sudden coolness of it, and kept his mouth plastered on the inside of his thigh as he slowly got him slick and wet and ready. Mohinder bucked beneath him, crossed ankles behind his neck squeezing him forward. His head tossed. A rose petal found its way between his lips and Mohinder bit it hard; Matt thought it was one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen.

He unrolled the condom onto himself and braced his arms around Mohinder’s thighs. His cock probed at the deliciously accessible opening. Mohinder’s hands found Matt’s knees and held on for dear life.

They both groaned in utter abandon when Matt slid inside him.

It was too amazing to feel those muscles clench around him, to feel long legs powerful against his chest, to see that face contorted in pleasure. Matt knew he’d have to go very, very slowly. He wanted this to last. He gripped Mohinder’s hips, guiding them forward and back, pushing in slowly and withdrawing almost but never actually completely. He hugged both legs with one arm, his other hand drawing wicked patterns across the flesh of Mohinder’s cock and then fully and gloriously stroking his length. Mohinder jumped and cried out at the game of tease and appease, the alternating agony and relief turning him hot and cold by turns.

And with all that their eyes were locked together, never closing, never leaving. For a time, as they rocked and pumped together, their cries faded to only hurried breathing, and it was silent, sacred lovemaking. The look on Mohinder’s face was adoring, and the one on Matt’s was dead serious. They devoured each other’s expressions, just gasping and feeling.

Mohinder was the one to break the silence, gasping the other man’s name as he felt that familiar tingle and pressure. “Matt– there–“

“Yeah–” Matt grunted more than whispered, so intense was his concentration. His jaw was set, trembling with the tension of keeping the rhythm slow and deliberate when everything in his body was crying out to go fast, hard, deep, drive toward completion. But denial was delicious, and Mohinder’s face, his raised chin and open neck and heaving chest, kept him from losing himself. “Honey, you feel incredible–”

The pet name was one of Mohinder’s favorite new treasures; Matt had tried it for the first time a few weeks ago and gotten thrown up against a wall and kissed within an inch of his life for it. It still sounded like a golden word decked in diamonds and wonder, even though Mohinder had been calling him “love” for months. Mohinder seethed “yes, yes, yes” through bitten lips; his patience was starting to deteriorate. He clenched insistently around Matt’s cock, making him shout and drive forward.

They were trying so hard to make it last forever, but the slide toward madness was inevitable, and the slope was getting steeper. Every pump, every thrust, every movement of silken skin against sheets or rose petals or scratchy stubble beneath lips was another tumble forward into the abyss. Just the tension of trying to maintain control made everything more intense. It didn’t even need to be said or thought that they were going over the edge; they were poised together on that waterfall, clinging to each other as they lost themselves in its spray.

It was with wide-open eyes and gaping jaw that Matt felt himself pass the point of no return, pull on Mohinder’s legs hard enough to bruise, cry out, lunge forward, body shaking, breath ragged, still with the crescendo building somehow, breaking against him, full, filling, emptying, flowing, spilling, spent, kissing the ankles that were taut and tense with passion near his face. Mohinder followed, the soft kisses and enveloping fullness and burning sweetness turning him to pure gold, molten inside, and he cried Matt’s name and a million endearments and promises and syllables that made no sense as he jerked and spasmed in the warm hand. White fireworks lit the sky and splashed into the sea around him. They shuddered, found each other’s arms, held each other tight as the city lights and errant stars loosened their dizzy looping dance and came once more to stillness.

Once more the sounds of the city could be heard behind their heartbeats and ragged breathing. They pressed fervent kisses into each other’s mouths and faces and hair, still unable to speak. They were warm and wet and perfect in that moment.

When Matt recovered his voice, he asked tremulously, “Do we get to keep doing this?”

Mohinder, sleepy and sated, replied, “Not at the Plaza, we don’t.”

The sarcasm was lost on Matt. “But, you and me,” he insisted. “Do we…” He exhaled loudly, pulled back, stared at Mohinder. “This was so good,” he said plaintively, “I’m afraid it was too good to ever happen again. Is this the last time?”

His worried face was grabbed by two eager hands. Mohinder kissed him all over his face. “No, no, no, no,” he cooed. “Far from the last time.”

Matt laughed beneath the tickling touch of his kisses. “You mean I get to keep waking up next to you? And going to sleep next to you? And all of that?”

“Of course you do.”

“For how long? When is my time up?” It was a question that had behind it a lifetime of bad memories, bad endings, things that didn’t last.

So Mohinder sighed, found his hand, lifted it to his chest and laid his own hand upon it. Matt could feel the thumping of his heart, and it sounded so real and solid in that moment. “Shh. Shh,” he said. “Matt. Look at me. Listen to me. I’m yours.” And, after a moment of panic of his own, Mohinder caught his gaze and whispered, “Forever.”

“Forever?” The word seemed too much to dare believe in.

“Yes. For the rest of our lives. If you’ll have me.”

It wasn’t quite a proposal, but it was something, just the same. There was a long silence. Beneath them, an ambulance siren wailed, and they both shivered at just how fleeting life and health and love can be in the uncertainty of this world. Matt wondered if he could dare believe in such a promise– and if he could live without it.

Mohinder had to know. “Will you?”

Matt wrapped his arms around him. “Oh my God, yes. Yes. Thank you.” He practically sang it into the hollow of Mohinder’s shoulder, shaking with happiness and relief. “I love you. Thank you.”

“Shhh.” Mohinder thought he might break in half with joy. “It’s OK.”

“Damn right it’s OK!” With a burst of energy, Matt grabbed the rag from the corner of the bed, began playfully cleaning them both off. He buried his head in Mohinder’s side, making him shriek with laughter; he threw the blanket over his head and landed on top of him, nuzzling his ear; he folded his arms about him and felt his happy sighs send a warm breeze through his hair. They settled into the bed together, kissing deeply, feeling the combined warmth of their skin send pleasant shudders down to their bones.

Then Matt opened his eyes slightly and was puzzled by what he saw. “Hey, Mohinder,” he said languidly, “you’re spotted.”

“What?” With an errant finger, Matt started following the strange gray shadows that were darting across Mohinder’s face. “What are you talking about— hey, stop that!” He wrinkled his nose in annoyance.

“There are these little lights all over you.” Matt was too sleepy to say more than that. “Hey, they’re on my hand, too.”

“What kind of lights?” Mohinder’s eyes were closed.

“Good question.” He turned to the side to see the source of the strange patterns, and abruptly woke right up. “Oh my God, honey… look!”

It was snowing.

Huge, shimmering flakes were dancing and drifting across the cityscape by the thousands. Every light that had been merely shining before was glittering now, multiplied tenfold, like rainbows projected by crystalline prisms. The snow filled the whole room with sparkling fragments of light and shadow, like they were beneath a disco ball or in the middle of a snowglobe or kaleidoscope.

“Wow,” breathed Mohinder.

Tears welled up in Matt’s eyes. He squeezed Mohinder tight. “How did–? You did this, didn’t you? You’ve been hiding a secret superpower all this time. Admit it.”

“You’re crazy,” Mohinder laughed. “It’s just good luck.”

Matt shook his head. “Can’t be. I’ve never had as much good luck in my whole life as I’ve had tonight.”

“Getting lucky doesn’t count.”

Matt smacked him with another of the pillows. “You’re such a comedian. OK, if it isn’t a secret superpower, then it has to be a miracle.”

“A miracle I’ll agree with,” Mohinder smiled, yawning slightly. “This is supposed to be the season for miracles, after all, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, it is. You’re right. You’re so damned smart.” Matt’s expression softened, and he pulled Mohinder over to rest on his chest; they watched the snow fall for a time. “God knows we’ve had a season or two of nightmares,” he observed languidly. “I think miracles sound like a nice change of pace.”

“Yes, indeed.” Mohinder was draped against him like a large, brown, sweet curtain, and it made Matt sleepy and very content. “Let’s pray for a season full of them.”

“I thought you weren’t a praying man,” Matt said with some surprise.

“I’m not.”

“Yeah, me neither.” He yawned loudly. “So let’s just go to sleep and hope that when we wake up, it’ll be a season of miracles.”

They did. And it was.

:deck the halls!: