Daytime friends and nighttime lovers
Hoping no one else discovers
Where they go, what they do, in their secret hideaway
It seems as if Thomas only ever comes alive in the intimacy of the night, with Jimmy tangled in his arms.
"My darling," he risks in a whisper while nimble piano fingers slowly masturbate him into orgasmic oblivion, and "my love," and that's the best part of it, really. Because he knows Jimmy will not scold him for such maudlin demeanour; not when their bodies come together like this, embraced by the secrecy of complete darkness.
And as much as Thomas longs to hear the words Jimmy himself withholds so tightly during their encounters, it's almost enough that he can feel them under his skin, rushing wildly in his veins.
Almost.
They never talk about it, and as soon as the sun rises on the horizon, Jimmy never acts any different than just a good friend. Sometimes during the day Thomas wonders if perhaps his love-starved mind is only constructing all these glorious nightly rendezvous and it tugs at his chest, but only a little, and not at all when, a few hours later, the blond footman wraps his trembling limbs around Thomas to ravage him, until his breath is wrecked and his body sore from their ecstatic coupling; until euphoria clouds Thomas's mind, dragging him away from here, away from Downton.
When Jimmy comes to him, there's no room for shame or embarrassment. It's all about touch and taste, taboo-free acts of feral instincts. Hands and mouths that are over-eager to explore each others' bodies with long suppressed desires of soul-mated lovers.
Surely there are times where Thomas envisions them making love outside at high noon, the sunlight so bright, it hurts their eyes. Imagines how he lays Jimmy down on a lush emerald meadow, amidst knee-high wildflowers, and watches this painfully gorgeous creature in all his glory: Jimmy's thick wheaten curls rumpled from the wind and Thomas's hands, a pink hue adorning freckled cheeks as, finally, he confesses between sighs of pleasure, "I loveyou Thomas, don't you know… I've loved you all along…always always..." while Thomas slowly sinks down on him in one smooth stroke, taking them both to a fantastical land.
Thomas knows it can never happen; not in this world anyway, so they give and take of each other as much as they possibly can. But every night is delicate, fragile like glass in free fall, and when they stumble through the fleeting hours until dawn, blinded by passion and Thomas by love, which is worse, probably - no, definitely - there's a ghost constantly lingering between the sheets: the ever-present fear of being discovered, exposed. The threat of being blown up into a great existence-shaking disaster.
Still Jimmy comes to him every night.
Still the night is theirs.