My Boyfriend’s Boyfriends

He’s got a paintball gun like a rifle hanging from his shoulder.

‘You OK with this?’ His knuckles graze my cheek softly, and he cups the back of my head. I look up into his face, like it’s going to tell me something I need to know. But his expression is closed, as always, his eyes watchful but betraying nothing. Everything about him is reserved. Except when we fuck. It’s one of the few times he opens up.

No, he’s not going to be my forever guy. But he’s a good man, I think. And good to me.

‘I reckon so,’ I say, my voice a little weak. I’m scared, but I want to try this. I want to take the leap. I want to do something that isn’t just fantasy. These guys … they’ve done stuff for real. Here in their woodland hideout they’re playing a game, but it hasn’t always been a game to them. They’ve killed people, I suppose, and that freaks me out a bit. They’ve hunted people down. They’ve been places I can’t imagine, and don’t want to. When they run round with their paintball guns, they are just pretending – but these are men who don’t have to pretend.

I don’t want to just pretend either, any more.

‘I’ve told them the rules,’ he says, one hand on my waist. I can sense the tension crackling off him, and as our bodies brush together I feel the push of his erection. ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about.’

‘They’re all up for it?’ Even the married ones? I might have added.

‘Oh, yes.’

I nod, and decide to ask. ‘What’s this clothing about then?’

His gaze flicks to my breasts. For a long moment I think he’s going to blank me, but then he speaks. ‘That’s how Lelia was dressed. In the hotel.’

Oh. Lelia.

That makes sense.

Lelia is a framed photo on his desk. She’s standing in the courtyard of a nice-looking house, with a bright-pink bougainvillea vine sprawled over one tiled wall. She’s got her hands on the shoulders of a boy in front of her, and both face the camera with grave, formal smiles. Wearing a long-sleeved, embroidered blouse, she looks Southern European or maybe Arabic. The kid looks about ten years old in that picture – though I think it’s an old photo – and he’s fair-skinned, but with dark curls and eyes like hers.

‘Who’s this?’ I’d asked, picking up the frame.

Dane came up behind me, and looked long and hard at the picture before replying. ‘Lelia,’ he said quietly. ‘The boy’s Yusef.’

‘Who is she?’

‘She was a lobby girl. She worked out of the lobbies of the tourist hotels.’ He suddenly spoke with the contempt of the military for civilian parasites: ‘Journalists, businessmen, diplomats … pond-scum like that.’

I recognised that tone of voice. I had a sinking feeling that I’d stepped into deep waters. ‘Where?’

‘Somewhere we weren’t supposed to be.’

When he said ‘we’ I knew he meant his troop. I didn’t know what to say to that, and didn’t feel keen to ask. But he carried on.

‘We were pinned down for two days. They dropped all sorts of shit on us – the roof shaking, great chunks of concrete falling down. We thought we were all going to fucking die. Three of us did.’ His voice dried up and he swallowed. ‘She stepped up and kept us sane. This … girl. She was … like a light in the dark. The only light. You can’t imagine. You won’t understand.’

I couldn’t imagine, but I think I understood. A bit. That was the only time he’s ever really talked to me about Lelia, but I know he sends her money regularly, and she writes to him. I wonder if Yusef is Dane’s son – but there’s no obvious resemblance.

I’m not jealous of Lelia. If I was going to be jealous of anyone, it’d be the ex-wife with the two kids. Like I say, older men come with baggage. I’m not escaping it now, on this sunny evening in this beautiful woodland. Whatever this is, it’s not escapism.

‘Oh. I see,’ I say now, and lay my hand on his breastbone, as if I might feel his heart. ‘That’s … heavy stuff. Are you OK?’

He pulls his mouth – only his mouth – into a smile. ‘It’s been tough since February. The funeral. For all of us. But you’re going to be fine, babes.’

I nod, letting him know I trust him. He responds by kissing me – gently at first, then more warmly.

‘Ready?’ he breathes.

‘Yes.’

He leads me outside.

‘Where’s everyone gone?’ The cars are still there, but the men have vanished.

‘They’re out there in the woods. Waiting for you.’

‘Oh.’ I stare into the green shadows, wondering. My legs feel wobbly.

‘You’ve got twenty minutes’ grace. The boundaries are the road that way, the river over there.’ He sweeps his arm in broad gestures. ‘And the deer fence up where the open fell begins, but you won’t get that far.’

Now I’m nervous. Now I feel like I’m being hunted. ‘What about you?’

Dane checks his watch. ‘I’ll be following. Run.’

Somehow it takes me by surprise. I want to protest that I’m not ready yet, but I know it’s too late. I start off at a jog, following the timber trail into the trees.

At first my legs don’t want to work properly, but soon my body grasps what’s required of it. I’ve been running cross-country most days, to get into training for this. My breath comes shallow and easy as I follow the path. It’s not so easy when I pick a random point at which to leave the trail, and plunge off downhill through the bracken. This is the Lake District and the ground is damp, and soft with moss underfoot, and almost never flat. I don’t have any plan except to keep moving. I slither down into a little valley, follow the stream a ways, then realise I’m leaving obvious footprints in the mud so jump the water and head up the bank opposite. The sunlight is yellow and low, shining in my eyes whenever I turn west. I wade through the undergrowth from one twisted, lichen-tufted oak to the next, my hands green where I’ve touched their bark. I’m soon lost in a broken landscape of hills and rocks and trees.

Twenty minutes later I’ve stopped to rest and catch my breath, out of obvious sight – or so I think – behind a big ferny boulder, when a brawny arm goes round me and a hand like a slab clamps over my mouth. I squeal in genuine shock – I really had no idea that anyone was close – but that palm muffles my voice. So I struggle. I’m allowed to struggle: that’s one of things I told Dane I wanted from this. But it does me no good, as the grip tightens until I can hardly breathe. I catch a glimpse of camo, but I’ve no idea who’s caught me. I thrash vainly, trying to wriggle free, but he pushes me into an almost doubled-over posture, my head locked under his arm, and hauls me at his side as he heads downhill again. My feet nearly skid from under me. My heart is banging against my breastbone.

He finds a spot he likes, under an overhang of rock, pulls me up against his chest and turns me to face him.

‘Now … suck my cock, Pussy,’ he orders, his words a little muffled through his mask. I manage a glimpse of his head, or what’s visible of it around the paintball goggles; it’s the blond guy. Karaoke star.

‘That’s not what you’re supposed to …’ I sputter.

He’s not looking down at me; his gaze constantly ranges the landscape behind me. He’s got his paint-gun braced in his right arm and facing out. ‘Don’t argue,’ he grunts, shoving me to my knees and rubbing my face against his crotch. ‘You can get me ready.’

The rough disdain makes my sex gush hot. I focus on what’s right in front of me, but I actually don’t think he needs much starting up. His erection is already apparent despite the broken camouflage pattern, mounding the fabric of his trousers. I pull at his fly, and when the buttons give his length jumps out in my face, already three-quarters hard. He smells hot and musky and alien, but I’ve no time to decide whether I want it before he pushes my mouth to his flesh, and I open to the thick smooth press of him.

‘Haaah …’ he exhales. He’s nudging at the back of my throat in seconds, filling my mouth. I make myself wet for him, sucking that big cock, suddenly unambiguously eager for it. But when I squint upwards I can see him watching out over my head, the gun muzzle swinging in a slow arc.

You know what? That irks me – that he can focus on standing guard against attackers, even while I’m mouthing his dick. I take it as a challenge. So I put it all out for him. I suck, I lick, I swirl my tongue over his glans in classic ice-cream style. I take him deep. I make hungry umh-umh porno noises as I bounce his thick rod to the back of my throat. And when I come up for air I make sure my hand is there, powering up and down his shaft instead. Dane says I give great oral, and I’m determined to prove him right.

Slowly, heartbeat by heartbeat, I win Karaoke’s attention. I feel it in the quiver of his thighs and the sudden seep of salt into my mouth. The gun quivers in the corner of my vision. His cock is like steel and his hips are jerking in time to my rhythm.

‘Haaaah,’ he groans, laying a hand on my hair to scoop me closer, deeper, tighter. A split second later I hear a huge crack just above my head and he recoils so hard that that his cock jerks from my lips.

I look up. There’s a great blue paint stain right in the centre of his chest.

‘Ahh – fuck!’ he cries, slamming his hand into the blue, his mouth twisting.

I lurch to my feet. He’s still got a hard-on like a flagpole, but he’s a dead man by the rules of paintball. I laugh like a hunted fox does: one harsh breath past bared teeth. And I run, like the fox.