Thomas will always remember the rain, running down the window in heavy rivulets the night he first coaxed pure, raw pleasure from Jimmy.
It was late. Very late. The rest of the staff had gone to bed, and with a hushed promise in the hallway, Thomas waited in the dark for Jimmy to softly knock at his door, enter, and then close it behind him.
Thomas had been patient and still was. Jimmy was skittish yet insatiably curious. When Thomas had returned from America, Jimmy had seethed at the thought of all of the "interesting and modern" things (or trousers) Thomas had gotten into. He had realized that his genuine fondness for the man was something more and his indifferent and ultimately disastrous courtship of Ivy became the final nail in the coffin. He had made his bed and now wanted to lie in it with Thomas.
And the night Jimmy crept into Thomas' room, he eventually found himself on the bed with his feet on the floor and his pajama bottoms and pants in a pool around his ankles. He blinked nervously at the cracked ceiling as if waiting for a doctor's examination. But there was Thomas, kneeling between his thighs, waiting almost breathlessly to take him into his mouth.
Thomas very gently cradled Jimmy's bollocks in the palm of one hand, and began dancing his fingers along the length of his cock. Jimmy twitched and groaned softly.
"I'm going to take such good care of you, I promise," Thomas whispered into Jimmy's smooth inner thigh. The older man tried to hide the rough-with-lust crack in his voice.
Thomas had taken great care to conceal any aural signs of his desire. When Jimmy first brushed up against his crotch while they were gently kissing and fondling each other, Thomas had let an awful moan slip out which was like an electric shock to Jimmy. It frightened him. Frightened him that he had the power to elicit such a raw reaction from a man.
This happened twice again, and Thomas finally realized that he needed to be as quiet as possible. Any ungodly noise would scare Jimmy away … perhaps forever.
"I promise you. I promise you," Thomas repeated as his gazed upwards at Jimmy for any signs of distress. Jimmy bit his lips together and nodded slowly, then let his head fall back onto the bed.
Thomas sighed and placed a very gentle kiss on the tip of Jimmy's cock. The footman hissed as if burned but then groaned in pleasure. Thomas smiled as he began to lap up the fluid leaking from Jimmy's slit.
"Mmmmm," Thomas murmured at the first taste. The sound vibrated around Jimmy's cock and he squirmed from the sensation. Thomas looked up almost in fear that even that noise was too much, but Jimmy had simply closed his eyes, his tongue darting back and forth between his lips.
Thomas held the base of Jimmy's cock in his good hand and traced the other over Jimmy's hip, running his thumb in circles around the bone that sharply thrust out from his skin.
Thomas took him fully into his mouth and Jimmy bucked at the overwhelmingly wonderful and strange feeling. Thomas quickly pushed the footman's hip down and hoped that Jimmy would take the hint; having a broken nose (which had happened once in the past with a hall-boy) was not something he was looking to repeat.
Thomas teased his tongue along Jimmy's sensitive underside and then settled on a steady rhythm, bumping him against the back of his throat, drawing him out and sucking him decisively back in. Thomas lost himself in the motions; this was better than he had ever imagined alone at night in his room. This was Jimmy. The object of his desires for three long, lonely years. His taste was earthier than he expected but was delighted nonetheless because it was now his to savor.
Jimmy gripped the sheets as his breathing became more erratic and his belly heaved. A staccato whimper began to fall from his lips, interrupted only by, "I don't want to but … but … I-I-think-I'm-I'm going to …"
Thomas pulled off of him to look into his eyes and tell him, "Let go. I've got you. Oh god, I've got you, Jimmy." He put his head back down to complete his labor of love and Jimmy arched his back and froze as the undertow of his climax started to pull him out to sea.
"Unngh, ahhhh. Tommy. Tommy! Oh god," Jimmy choked out and he came down Thomas throat, the underbutler swallowing enthusiastically but taking care to hold back the moans of joy he wanted to scream from the top floor of the Abbey.
It was only after Jimmy was back flat on the bed reeling from what he had just experienced that Thomas found clarity to process what had happened.
Jimmy had called him Tommy. Tommy. That dreaded name from his childhood. His mother always insisted that he was to be called Thomas, just like Doubting Thomas but his schoolmates thought otherwise. As he walked home, he would be pelted by rocks, a chorus of prepubescent voices shouting, "Tom-mee! Hey Tom-mee!" This was always accompanied by a barrage of insults that made Thomas wish that he could curl up in a corner and completely disappear. No one would care anyway, he thought.
When he finally left home at 15 to become a hall-boy, the nickname went with him as uttered by a bored footman who only came alive when he was harassing the younger staff. As soon as the butler's head was turned, the footman would occasionally put Thomas in a chokehold and whisper menacingly into his ear, "Tommmeeeee. You'd better be careful. I'm watching you." Watching for what, Thomas never knew exactly but the voice and the way the footman stared at him was enough to make his skin crawl.
Even Philip, the man he had once considered the great love of his life, delighted in calling him Tommy. It had first happened when Thomas went to get a drink of whiskey in Philip's bedroom and saw that not one drop remained. He had turned around disgusted that at five o' clock, Philip was already drunk.
"Oh come on, Tommmmmeeee, let me have my fun," Philip had said sloppily, throwing an arm around Thomas' shoulder and licking his cheek. "My Tommmmeeeee."
Despite his alcohol-fueled haze, Philip felt Thomas bristle at the name. After that evening, whenever he truly wanted to get a rise out of Thomas, all he had to do was to call him Tommy.
But now, with his face buried in the sweaty musk of Jimmy's groin, his taste lingering in his mouth, Thomas had a revelation.
This "Tommy" had come from an utterly pure source: Jimmy. It was in a moment of love and lust that he had called out the name. Thomas had done it to him; Thomas had opened him up and away went the formalities and the ridiculous rules so that only an affectionate, passionate utterance remained.
Thomas shook his head softly and then reached into his own pants and stroked himself a few times. He wanted to shout his desire, to tell Jimmy everything. Everything that this boy did to him inside. Everything that could be theirs now that they were together. This was only the beginning of what was about to unfold.
Instead, he came as quietly as he could, with just the name Jimmy softly on his lips as the rain continued to fall.