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I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring.
Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.
--Edna St. Vincent Millay
****
He wouldn’t do this in public, admittedly. It isn’t fair to Gabrielle, and he supposes junior faculty aren’t assumed to go in for that sort of thing anymore. But then, he thinks, as he runs his hands idly through the dark ringlets, Camille is the habit of my salad days. I can’t help fraternizing. And is this not his flat, his wine, his food, his table, his chairs? A man can do what he likes in his own house.
The expression on Max’s face is only an incidental benefit.
Camille rearranges the arugula in an artful fashion, setting the contents of his quinoa wrap into disarray. “I made that especially for you, you know,” Danton points out mildly, and Camille’s face crumbles.
“Well,” murmurs Max, peering at his phone, “Dare we hope for some variety in the news coverage?”
“I expect we’ll see a rash of tragically unfunny Twitter accounts now,” Camille says, re-animating his face as if by sheer force of will, half-heartedly pushing a scraggly piece of lettuce around his plate. “@Iamtheroyalbaby, @royalbabyofficial, et cetera. Predictable references to animated films and tedious naming speculation.” He crosses his legs. Caught by the movement, Danton allows his gaze to trace the smooth curve of the calf, lingering on the whiteness of the skin where the plum-colored lace has ridden up. It is a physical effort to tear his eyes away. Max appears to be gritting his teeth.
But Danton’s voice, when it returns to him, is surprisingly measured. “Rash seems an admirable choice of words, beloved, but are you pretending to be Hérault again?”
“Hérault is rather decent in person. He hardly deserves parody,” Max offers. He seems tired, uninspired: or perhaps the sight of Camille’s legs has ruined him for the evening.
“Dear god, enough talk about Hérault,” Danton says firmly. “Camille. You will eat. By any means necessary.” He lifts him up, a bit roughly, and sets him upright on his lap.
In truth, he would normally reserve this for their private time together. But he feels suddenly reckless, covetous, from the sight of all that sighing and yearning, looking but not touching. He feels inexplicably offended by it. God knows, he is usually quite content to watch Max drown his lust for the charming Camille in his sleep medications, his citrus peels, his excessive book purchases. But now, Danton thinks, more drastic action is called for.
“Careful, darling,” he says. Camille is shivering in his arms. By way of encouragement, he slides his hand up his leg, artfully straddling the line of decency, and with the other hand calmly folds a slice of pitta bread and feeds it to him. Camille melts, biting obediently.
Max is carefully absorbed in his Twitter feed, but Danton can see the color spreading across his neck and cheeks like a livid bruise.
“More wine?” inquires Camille breathlessly. “Or coffee. I think I shall make coffee.”
“Georges, don’t let him make coffee.” Max’s eyes flit to the two of them briefly, like Icarus drawn to the incandescent sun.
“I wouldn’t do it, sweet,” he agrees hastily, feeling a stab of guilt for this dramatic display of concupiscence. In the interests of honesty, he very much wants Max to leave: his acquaintance with the inside of Camille’s thigh has provoked the usual physical rejoinder, and he had only planned to carry this so far.
“Oh, but I don’t intend to sleep very much tonight,” says Camille airily, sliding from his grasp and making his way toward the kitchen. Max wears an expression of mingled horror and longing. Danton thinks of saying, poor dear. He leans across the table and pats his hand.
Should I leave, mouths Max.
“Well. If you’d like to go.”
“I suppose. It’s late. I’ll see you at 10 tomorrow, then.” His tone suggests: you will forget, and I will have to ring you, and you will have to untangle yourself from Camille’s limbs to take my call. “Good night, Camille,” he calls, and gathers his things without allowing time for a response.
The latch closes decisively behind him. Danton breathes a sigh of relief.
Camille comes up behind him softly, his light-footed step preceded by the faint scent of lavender. “You are very unkind, Georges,” he says, and gives him a lingering kiss on the mouth. Danton lets out a breath sharply when he breaks away.
“I love you,” says Camille. “Also, I want you to tie me up. Only you are not to feed me pitta bread.”
“What?”
“The relevant question is where, I should think. The bedroom seems so quotidian.”
Danton shakes his head. “Well, if it makes you happy.” Perhaps I was too firm about the pitta bread, he thinks. He takes Camille by the hand and leads him to the bedroom, despite his objections. Surely unorthodox experiments demand controlled settings.
Camille sits on the edge of the bed, looking up through his lashes. “Your tie,” he says softly, almost shyly. “I like the blue one. It brings out your eyes.”
“If it’s your favorite, why do you want to inflict such violence on it?”
Camille smiles demurely. When he lies down, sighing a little and running a hand through his hair, Danton feels the glib words die in his throat. “That is a delightfully short skirt,” he observes.
“Oh, do you like it?” inquires Camille idly, fingering the fabric.
“I think it was about to give Max an aneurysm.”
“Poor Max. You shouldn't torment him so, Georges.”
“You torment me,” he says distractedly, attempting to tie Camille’s wrists to the iron headboard. “It’s slippery,” he complains.
“Oh, Georges, if you really can’t manage it…”
“Did I say that? Lie still.”
His tone seems to have had the desired effect, because the color in Camille’s cheeks is distinctly higher when Danton looks down from his labors. “Comfortable?” he inquires.
“Yes.” The stutter is back, he observes with interest; in lieu of words, Camille hooks a willowy leg around his thigh and tries to pull him down on top of him. Danton holds himself just out of reach, propped up on his elbows.
“You look very striking, my dear. Fabre would be inspired to write you the ingénue role in his new play.”
Camille gives a little groan of frustration, but then seems to change tactics, lying back and flashing a piquant smile. “Please, Georges.”
He shouldn’t tease Camille too much; he knows from experience that it’s entirely possible someone might burst into tears. He hikes the skirt up gently, somewhat regretting the loss of the plum lace. “Bless this garment,” he says with reverence. “I demand that you wear it to your next tutorial.”
“Oh, but that won’t do at all,” murmurs Camille, arching into Danton’s hand as his fingers tread higher. “I’ll just think about you when I wear it. And my thoughts will not be entirely pedagogic.”
“Then you’ll be in good company,” says Danton seriously. “If I haven’t imagined you in some eccentrically revealing costume at least once, that’s a lecture wasted.” He slips between Camille’s legs and thrusts, experimentally. Camille gives a violent shudder.
“Georges, you are—” He stops speaking and closes his eyes, his eyelashes a dramatic contrast against the ivory skin, the violet shadows beneath his eyelids. He breathes softly, with difficulty. Danton thinks, as he has so often before: surely he’s putting it on? No one can be that artfully breathless. But he is, as always, enthralled by the performance.
He runs his hands down Camille’s thighs with exquisite delicacy, all too aware of his ability to bruise. “Look at me,” he commands, and Camille raises his eyes to give him a long glance of desperate adoration that makes the blood sing in his cock, even as he recognizes the coquetry in it. He isn’t sure he likes Camille this way; he prefers other uses for those clever little hands, and he is more than slightly discomfited by that black, longing gaze.
When he moves again, Camille slides away from him, the knot on the tie slipping awkwardly. “Oh, fuck it,” he snaps. He lacks the willpower to extricate himself from where he is so comfortably settled; and besides, he can hardly disappoint Camille by making an end to the experiment, Camille who is whispering Georges-Jacques, Georges-Jacques as if he can never say it enough, as if he might die with yearning.
Danton might blame his painful state of arousal for this miscalculation, because at a particularly vehement thrust Camille cries out, slips from of the ill-conceived knot entirely, and hits his head squarely on the headboard.
“Oh, god, Camille. I—”
“Perhaps,” mumbles Camille imprecisely from the mattress, “this was not my finest idea.”
“Don’t sit up. Do you want ice? Should I call 999?”
“I’m fine, Georges,” says Camille impatiently, pouting a little. “May we finish where we left off, so to speak?”
“I’m not sure I can, to be perfectly frank,” says Danton, discarding the tarnished tie. “Not when you've come so close to losing your life on account of my neckwear.”
Camille’s eyes travel downwards. “Would you like me to help you, then?” he inquires, his skin flushed.
“Oh, Camille, that’s hardly necessary after—” begins Danton valiantly, but leaves off his feeble protests soon enough, limiting himself to a hand in Camille’s hair and admonishments not to hold that lovely head at an angle that could cause dizziness, as Camille flicks his tongue inside him with pitiless sensitivity. He recoils instinctively, but Camille brings him back, stroking him with a gentle hand.
“I don’t know what I've done to deserve this,” he says philosophically, “After nearly putting you in the hospital.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.”
“Oh, please don’t talk. Only because it stops you, if you see—oh, god, Camille, perhaps we should get married.” He feels Camille shudder with release and lapses into incoherence, curling his fingers in the sheets, in Camille’s hair.
When it’s over he lies with his head on Camille’s shoulder, utterly spent, the tie discarded forgotten on the floor.
“Why did you say that, just now?” asks Camille quietly.
There can be no misunderstanding as to what he is referring; but he pauses as if he has forgotten. “Well, it got you off, didn't it?” he says. Even to his own ears it sounds unforgivably jarring: he touches Camille’s arm in silent apology.
“I won’t marry you.”
“I wasn’t asking,” he says gently. “Circumstances being what they are.”
Camille flinches. Danton strokes his hair and his wrists where the restraints have bitten in, gingerly feels the egg-shaped bump emergent under the smooth dark hair. He catalogs Camille’s injuries with the practiced skill of years; it occurs to him, not for the first time, that perhaps he could do more to remedy them.
“I should go.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” After all these years, Danton thinks, he still imagines he can play the windswept waif with me. He smiles, tries to keep the conversation light. “You don’t have to scurry away to keep me interested. I am interested, I can assure you.”
Camille shakes his head vigorously: or perhaps he is merely tossing his hair, as is his custom. He lies back down next to Danton, pressing his face into his shoulder like a lonely child. They stay there for some time, but for all that Danton usually enjoys the sensation of Camille’s hair and skin pressed against his own, it is hardly the most comfortable position, and hunger gnaws at his stomach.
“I’m going to make a sandwich,” he announces. “With pitta bread,” he adds thoughtfully. “Shall I make you one, beloved?”
Camille’s expression is wholly eloquent.
He procures the entirely deserved midnight repast and returns to the bedroom to find Camille sleeping in his usual fashion, curled tightly around a pillow, his face beatified by an expression of hope, or bemusement. The sandwich is consumed in four or five bites, spent observing every dreamy sigh, every drowsy movement.
Danton strokes Camille’s hair, turns off the light, and climbs into Gabrielle’s bed.