This story was posted several months ago on LiveJournal and Archive of Our Own; I hesitated to post it here because I've had such very negative reactions to posting slash on , even with warnings, but recently some things have happened that made me want it archived here as well. Warnings: Men in intimate situations (though no marriages were harmed in the creation of this story). Women enjoying themselves. Potentially unethical relationship in terms of power/position - monarch/subject, therapist/patient. Potential abuse of correct idioms for the eras and countries involved. Potential mangling of real history and the lives of real individuals based on fictional source material, though I want to make it clear that these characters are based on their film versions and not their historical counterparts; I did borrow some small details from Lionel Logue's grandson's book and from Wikipedia entries on George VI and his family.
(1)
"Something's bothering you." It isn't only Bertie's trouble with his Ks and Qs that alerts Lionel to his mood. It's the way Bertie holds his neck, tossing his head a bit as if to snap it into place.
"It's j-j-just the bloody speech." Bertie looks surprised at himself, then resigned. He raises the hand holding the sheaf of papers, rustling them, though Lionel suspects that isn't the only meaning of speechhe intends. Those sputtered consonants are the real culprits. Bertie knows as well as Lionel that the stutter is a symptom of some deeper concern.
Lionel sits, waiting, but Bertie remains silent, tilting his head from one side to the other as if he can force the muscles in his throat to relax. After a bit, Lionel asks, "May I?" When he receives a stiff nod, he pushes Bertie's head down, down, until the neck is fully stretched forward. In this position, the tension in the muscles is all too evident. "Have you been sleeping well?" Lionel asks, kneading the offending knots with his thumbs.
"N-not really. You may have noticed that I've a lot on m-my mind." There's a catch in Bertie's breath apart from the stammer. Thinking that he's pushing too hard, Lionel softens the pressure of his fingers, making broad strokes down to Bertie's shoulder blades. The bones jut sharply from his upper back. He's lost weight since he became the King of England. The flabby belly is entirely gone.
"Apart from the war and the kingdom and your family?" Lionel asks lightly. He succeeds in drawing a small laugh from Bertie, more of a moan, really. Under his hands, the neck muscles are slowly relaxing. Lionel lets his fingers stroke to the roots of Bertie's thick, soft hair.
"It's of more of a p-personal nature. I've been having odd dreams." Abruptly the shoulders go rigid. "I wish you'd stop doing that."
Lionel thinks he must have poked a tender spot. He stills his hands, though he keeps his fingers on the warm skin of Bertie's neck. "Nightmares?"
"Not exactly. Just odd." Bertie's cheeks are flushed. Were he another man, Lionel would ask whether there was trouble with Mrs Johnson, but Bertie will tolerate no line of questioning that involves private matters pertaining to Elizabeth.
"Yet troubling enough to distract you from your speech. When did these dreams start?"
"A few nights ago. There was only the one. I would feel more comfortable if you'd stop touching me."
Lionel withdraws his fingers. He knows better than to be stung when Bertie of all patients asserts a demand for his private space. The King exists in the same bubble of isolation as the rest of the Royals, though at the moment he looks particularly hunched, folded in on himself, knees bent at an awkward angle.
And because he is the King, it takes Lionel a few seconds to recognize the posture. It isn't as if he's never seen it in a patient before. The man on the sofa is trying to hide the bulge in his trousers. Had Lionel caused that, with just a few minutes of rubbing at Bertie's neck? Definitely trouble with Mrs Johnson, then.
Bertie is still blushing. Casually, Lionel tells him, "Modern science believes dreams are symbolic," and rises to pour Bertie a drink, trying not to think about the fact that he's apparently given the King of England an erection. Upon consideration, he pours himself a drink as well. "For example, a dream about riding a horse might represent one's wish to master an intellectual or scientific problem that requires taking a mental leap. A dream about stealing someone's trophies might suggest that one wants to possess not the accolades, but some quality in the person from whom they are being stolen."
Bertie smiles into his glass. "I thought modern science believed most dreams were about intimate relations," he says softly, though without any trace of a stammer.
Aha. "Doctor Freud seems to think so. Although a dream that directly involved sex might be about something else entirely...a longing to go fishing, perhaps." It's a poor joke, but succeeds in making Bertie laugh. "I suspect Doctor Freud focused on sex in dreams because it's so common to dream about sex, even with the most inappropriate people, at the most inappropriate times."
"You don't believe that an erotic dream about a specific person implies an attraction to that person?"
Who on Earth has Bertie been dreaming about? His older brother's much-resented wife? His daughter's pretty Bavarian nanny? "Sometimes that's the simplest explanation. But even the notion of erotic attraction is complicated. If a man has a sexual dream about his best friend's wife, the dream may suggest more about that man's underlying envy for some personal quality in his friend than a hidden lust for the woman."
"What if a man were to have a sexual dream about his best friend? Would that mean he secretly wants his friend's wife?"
Lionel laughs warmly. He deserved that after the fishing joke. "Perhaps it means the man is feeling misunderstood and longs for some more direct means of communication."
"Well, in that case...I had a dream about you." Bertie swirls the liquid in his glass. "About us."
It takes a moment for Lionel's mind to piece the conversation together, though less time for his heart to begin to race. "Oh," he says stupidly, his tongue suddenly thick in his mouth. Bertie's face is scarlet, eyes fixed in the distance. "It isn't unusual to dream about one's doctors."
"Even unlicensed ones?" A smile plays about Bertie's lips. "I suppose you're going to tell me that it represents a desire to heal oneself."
"That would depend on the particular patient." Lionel is nearly stammering himself, grasping at anything that sounds rational. "I'm no psychoanalyst, but if a healer has relieved a patient of a great deal of pain, it might represent the patient's wish for a perpetual state of physical comfort. If a healer has played a paternal role for a patient, it might represent a desire for the patient to reconcile with his real father."
Bertie takes a swallow from his glass, then laughs a bit. "No psychoanalyst, but that's never stopped you from trying. I don't think you represent my father, Lionel."
King George V had been a looming, terrifying presence in his son's life. While this news is discouraging for Lionel's ambition to play Richard III, he's fairly certain that from Bertie, it's meant as a kindness. "What doyou think I represent, then?" he asks.
Silence. Perhaps Bertie isn't ready to answer. Lionel frowns a bit.
"In the dream, was I...pushing you?"
"In the dream, I couldn't have been more willing."
Wrapping away his response to this admission to examine later, Lionel takes a swallow of his own drink. "That may explain why you find it so troubling. If it isn't about how you see yourself as a man, but as a King..."
"It wasn't troubling at first. I woke up feeling very good. I was happy." Now Bertie meets his eyes, uncrossing his legs. "So much so that it took several hours before the shame and fear and all the rest started to crowd in."
"Bertie, I've been trying not to ask the 'trouble with the wife' question..."
"None at all. This has nothing to do with her." The words flow smoothly; Bertie doesn't want to discuss it, but he's telling the truth as he sees it.
"Yet you can't bear to have me touch you, even clinically."
"I think you enjoy touching me. You like to elbow into my space."
The retort is not vicious but swift, and undeniable, one guilty confession traded for another. Lionel knows better than to disagree with it. Offering a chuckle instead of a reply, he asks, "Would you like to believe the dream is myfault?"
"Absolutely. You don't mind, do you?" Bertie smiles, and Lionel feels grateful they've talked about his own work with soldiers who needed an outlet for things they couldn't express to anyone else. By now Bertie should know better than to blame the therapist for the symptoms. He does seem much more relaxed. Perhaps he merely needed to know that Lionel didn't think there was cause for concern.
All of which would be fine if Lionel weren't now the one with a bulge in his trousers. That's not an entirely new problem, and Lionel has several theories about why, involving Bertie's pedigree and position and the things he'll say only to Lionel. But Lionel has been extremely careful to hide such reactions from Bertie. Suppose he's slipped up? Has Bertie noticed? As he contemplates the bottom of his empty glass, another question occurs to Lionel that might provoke Bertie to reveal any unvoiced resentment. "Should I mind? Was Ienjoying myself?"
That makes Bertie laugh out loud. "I believe you were, yes. As much as I was. Did you want to know which of us was on top?" Lionel jerks his head up, then finds he can't take his eyes off the flushed, glowing face of the only man who has ever aroused him in this way. Years of laying the blame on title and station now seem disingenuous - a coward's excuses. He fears that his own gaze reveals too much. A pregnant pause, then, "You were. You had me - let us say in an exposed position - and I was quite excited to be there."
Lionel scarcely dares to breathe. He may be no psychoanalyst, but he knows the dangerous terrain of responding to a patient's misplaced adulation or adoration. Lionel hasn't been able to forget the time Bertie revealed that he and his brother had shared a woman in Paris; by the time Bertie had explained that they hadn't actually shared her at the same time, Lionel had been as hard in his trousers as he is now. It was not a subject he could pursue, just as it's probably treason to ask the King whether he has ever in life been in such a position outside of a dream.
"Have I shocked you?" asks Bertie, looking down and spinning his glass in his hand.
"You must know I don't shock easily." There is gratitude in Bertie's eyes when he glances back at Lionel, who feels it his duty to add, "Were you trying to shock me?"
"No. I didn't want to scare you away." Bertie sets down the glass and leans forward, close enough for Lionel to smell the alcohol and stale cigarette smoke on his mouth. Too close. "I need you too much."
Lionel's breath sounds quick and shallow in his own ears. There are boundaries that are never meant to be crossed with patients, but this is no mere patient; this is his beloved friend, the King of England. "You know that I'm yours," he says hoarsely - not quite what he intended, not the professional reassurance for which he'd been grasping. And Bertie takes his face in both hands - one bearing his wedding ring, the other the ring of his coronation - and kisses him.
It's a gentle kiss, but Lionel feels it in every part of his body. Men once believed that a kiss from a divinely crowned monarch could heal their diseases; if all kisses from Kings are as affecting as this one, Lionel understands why. He makes no effort to remove himself, nor does Bertie, so they sit like that for quite a long time, with Bertie's hands cupping Lionel's face. "Thank you," Bertie says finally, without a trace of stammer.
Lionel manages a smile. "Nowyou've shocked me."
"I would apologize, but I'm not sorry." They both huff a laugh, breathing practically into each other's mouths. "I'd do it again."
What Lionel should be doing is carefully pulling Bertie's hands from his face, explaining why this is risky for their professional relationship and by extension for Bertie's progress. Part of his mind knows this as he leans in to kiss Bertie back. The hands slide around the back of his head, tilting it, and the kiss changes, becomes heated and wet and hungry. Bertie shifts, tugging on Lionel, until Lionel is practically on top of him and there's no longer any chance of pretending he feels anything other than what he does.
"You're as hard as I am," Bertie whispers, voice quivering not with uncertainty but a delight Lionel has only ever imagined hearing. A hand slides down his chest in the direction of the proof. "Have you thought about this before? Why didn't you tell me?"
Lionel stares at him. Then they both begin to laugh, clutching at each other. "I can't imagine," he manages to choke out between spasms of hilarity that block out thought. When the laughter finally stops, he and the King are fully embracing, faces pressed together, legs crossed over one another's on the sofa.
"It's your dream. What do youthink it means, Bertie?" murmurs Lionel.
"I think..." Bertie's breath is warm in his ear, and the pause has less to do with speech problems than the fact that Bertie's nose has become distracted rubbing against Lionel's cheek. "I think it means that I love you."
Before Lionel can absorb these words, let alone reply to them, he hears voices in the hallway. Bertie's head lifts, turning toward the sound. The King has important business, and Lionel has other appointments, a lifetime away in Harley Street. They have hardly rehearsed the speech. Sitting back quickly, they tug their clothing straight before the knock they both know will follow. "Tomorrow?" Bertie asks, and though his posture has returned to that of a monarch, his voice has a breathless, frightened catch that puts Lionel in mind of a much younger man - a man unused to expressing affection and doubtful of its return.
"Tomorrow." He can see the fear and hope in Bertie's face as clearly as he could see it the first time Bertie ever came to see him, when Lionel had promised Bertie that his speech defect could be cured. There is no time now for carefully chosen words. "Bertie, we need never speak of this again, but you must know that I've loved you for a long time..."
Bertie has bowed his head in acknowledgment, not quite smiling, his nostrils flaring, when the knock sounds and his features go as still as if he's pulled a mask over his face. But he looks up, eyes bright with happiness, and Lionel knows that even if they had another moment, he would not try to take that away from Bertie with a defensive attempt to reestablish professional boundaries. By the time the door opens, they are sitting far apart, the King reading steadily from his sheaf of papers, Lionel nodding studiously with his chin in his hand.
(2)
"Mrs Roosevelt says that the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams," Elizabeth reads aloud. She and Bertie have been discussing inspirational quotes and how insipid most of them are; Bertie would rather quote the Bible, but there's always the likelihood that some denomination or other will feel left out, and it's a time for the whole of Britain to unite. She doesn't understand his astonished expression. While it's true that no such platitudes were uttered to the King and Queen during their visit to America, Bertie has seen enough of the Roosevelts on the newsreels to know the sorts of things they say in their speeches.
Straightening, Bertie says something even more astonishing: "I want to invite the Logues to dinner."
Elizabeth looks at him, letting the paper slip from her hand onto the sofa. She knows that Bertie still worries overmuch about his own speeches, and that Lionel Logue has transformed her husband in ways of which he probably isn't even aware, but that's something quite different than trying to force a friendship with his family. "Both of them?" she asks, a note of alarm in her voice. "Not the children, too?"
"Not the children, but I don't want to appear to be snubbing his wife. This is important to me."
Bertie seems agitated, though not unpleasantly so. His voice is clear. "If it's important to you, then of course we shall," Elizabeth says briskly. Perhaps it would be better to have both the Logues. It has not escaped Elizabeth's notice that the King has something of a schoolboy crush on his speech therapist - terribly inappropriate, since the man is a commoner and Australian at that, but far less troublesome than if he'd developed a passion for some nobleman's wife, or, worse, for some nobleman. It is, after all, because of Logue that Bertie is no longer too timid to fancy himself rather dashing in his uniform.
"You don't mind terribly much, do you, darling?" Her husband looks chastened, again like a schoolboy. Elizabeth can't help but smile at him. It isn't as if she hasn't been enjoying the benefits of Logue's work with Bertie. He often leaves his sessions full of passion, eager for a romp in her bed, and if all that passion isn't entirely focused on her, no matter; she is still his beloved wife. Under no circumstances does she wish to risk another pregnancy, particularly after the pneumonia. A distraction would do him good, provided it can be managed, which she believes this one can.
"Of course I don't mind. You seem quite different now that you're sure of your voice. Not only as a speaker, but happier," she tells him.
"I am happier. He's helped me more than I can p-possibly repay." Elizabeth studies her husband's profile. Is he blushing? "I owe him...well, a very great deal. I know he's being compensated for his time, but it's beyond that."
Bertie's fingers make a thoughtless gesture, opening and closing, and his thumb rubs the knuckle of his forefinger. It's a gesture she remembers from their courtship, from a time when he was too nervous to kiss her. So it islike that. Better to keep it where she can keep an eye on it, for the protection of all of them.
She doesn't have to consider Logue her equal to know that he is trustworthy. He hadn't even told his own wife that the Duke of York was his patient.
"I'll have an invitation sent," Elizabeth says matter-of-factly. "I suppose we had better ask them to stay after dinner. I imagine it would be a thrill for Mrs Logue to spend the night in the Palace. Dancing might be a bit much, though."
Bertie is definitely blushing. "I imagine it would," he agrees.
(3)
Things don't quite go according to plan, or perhaps they do. The Queen invites Myrtle to accompany her husband to Buckingham Palace, and though they have little else in common, children are always a safe subject. Myrtle doesn't think of herself as an impressionable person, yet it's hard not to be awed in the presence of Their Majesties, at least until she's had several glasses of wine. After dinner, the four of them move into a drawing room with a turntable and proceed from wine to sherry. The son of a brewer, Lionel hardly ever shows any sign of drunkenness, and Elizabeth is careful to take tiny sips, but Myrtle and the King are only too susceptible, particularly once they've put music on and Lionel and Bertie have goaded each other into singing. Which is how Myrtle comes to find herself dancing around the private rooms of the palace in the arms of the monarch while her husband and the Queen watch.
The King appears to have eyes for no woman other than his wife, even though his wife is not the focus of his attentions here. Myrtle has the impression that it's Lionel they want to impress, for reasons she can't fathom. Now she can guess that all the little extras around the house must have come from payments from the Palace, so it isn't as if the King hasn't paid Lionel for his time.
She lets herself think of stories of lecherous monarchs and the wives of subjects, outrageous demands leading to scandals and duels. Horrifying and a bit exciting, though having nothing to do with her own situation; that Myrtle is safe, she has no doubt. She glances at the King's aristocratic jaw. He is facing her, yet barely seems to see her. Even the cigarette-tainted kiss planted on her cheek at the end of the dance is not truly for Myrtle. Lionel is watching, his glass held loosely in his fingers, feet calm on the rug, yet his eyes are dark and intense, his gaze focused not upon Myrtle but her flushed, laughing dance partner.
The Queen seems to find it amusing. "Sweetheart, you'll make Mister Logue jealous, kissing his wife like that," she says mildly.
"Then I shall have to kiss him, too." The King releases Myrtle and turns to Lionel, extending a hand to help him to his feet. Lionel accepts it as easily as he accepts the King pulling him up and into his arms, and, a moment later, kissing him full on the mouth in the view of both women.
Abruptly the evening makes sense to Myrtle, embarrassed though she is to be the last to understand. She has a strange feeling in her belly, not quite jealousy, certainly not anger. It is not until she sees the King's hand slide up Lionel's back into his hair that she recognizes it as arousal. If the King is not ashamed to be seen kissing her husband thus, why should she be ashamed to enjoy it? She steals a glance at the Queen and notes through the fog of drunkenness that Elizabeth's expression is tolerant, even a bit fond.
Myrtle expects Lionel to break free with a self-deprecating laugh, but the kiss goes on longer than propriety could possibly allow. The Queen's eyes have dropped, and when Bertie - bloody hell, not Bertie, the King- lets out a soft noise without tearing his mouth from Lionel's, the Queen rises and walks over to Myrtle. "Darling," she calls over her shoulder, "I think I'll show Mrs Logue the salon. You play bridge, don't you, Mrs Logue?"
In her astonishment, staring at the Queen, Myrtle nearly fails to notice the men's heads swiveling toward them. The King's expression is frankly grateful, her husband's more complicated. "That would be lovely, ma'am," Myrtle says to Elizabeth, though her smile is for Lionel, whom she is certain doesn't need her reassurance but perhaps might like her blessing. "I'm sure the men can manage without us."
The Royals have an astonishing collection of playing cards, many produced as souvenirs of royal weddings, bearing the faces of ancestors and relatives of the very King whom Myrtle last saw clinging like a lover to her husband. She wonders whether Lionel will ever tell her what is happening in the room from which the Queen, with a polite if resigned smile, has escorted her, to the sedate salon with its game tables and ornate chairs. Even drunk, Myrtle is a better card player than the Queen, but she lets the Queen win by deliberately tossing her best hands, pairing jack and king with no queen between them. The Queen may not treat her as an equal, but she is unfailingly polite.
After an hour passes, the Queen presses a button Myrtle had not even noticed beneath the table, and before long, she has been escorted to the finest bedroom in which she will ever pass a night, with a magnificent dressing gown already laid out for her and an assurance that her husband will be along presently. The alcohol is taking its toll. She falls asleep practically the moment her head comes to rest on the pillow, and wakes much later from a happy dream of trying on the Queen's jewels to find Lionel snoring comfortably beside her in the dark.
(4)
Lionel watches his wife leave the room with a combination of relief and terror. He can tell from her smile that she isn't angry, but at the moment she's a bit drunk, and more than a bit enchanted to be here at Buckingham Palace being treated with such solicitation by the Queen of England, no matter the reason. "Her Majesty is very understanding," he murmurs to Bertie.
"She knows how much I need you. She sent me to you after my father died, you know - she knew I would want to talk to you. She's more at ease when I'm happy, and nothing has made me happier than you have."
It's hard to say which arouses Lionel more - the physical presence of the King in his uniform or the intimacy of the words. He squeezes Bertie hard, knowing that no amount of physical affection he offers can erase abuse at the hands of a nanny and parents too neglectful to notice. He'd wanted to cry for the small boy with the stammer and leg braces, but Bertie had learned not to cry, and that often took longer to unlearn than not to stammer. Was that why he was so eager to return these ardent kisses?
"Come with me," Bertie breathes in his ear, neither a command nor a plea but a joyful request. There are no servants, no palace staff, not a single royal handler anywhere in the rooms through which they pass, Bertie's fingers holding his own. Is the King planning to take a commoner to his own private room? Lionel knows that traditionally, the King and Queen do not share a bedroom, though their rooms will be connected by a door. His own imagination has never permitted him to conjure this; even since those first kisses, he's never dared progress beyond what boys might do pressed in cabinets or hidden in alcoves.
Abruptly, they are in a room with a sofa and a bed. It seems too small to be the King's bedroom, but with the exception of the grand ballroom and central hall, the rooms in the palace are mostly smaller than Lionel expected - and, despite their grandeur, impersonal. Someone has set out a bottle of brandy and glasses on a rolling table. He's already drunk too much tonight, though his head seems very clear.
"I'll tell you what you p-probably want to know," Bertie says, turning toward Lionel, an ironic smile twisting his lips. "No, I've never done this. Not even in the Navy."
"That isn't what I want to know." Though perhaps Bertie's statement implies a question. If Lionel had a history of this sort of thing, it would be vitally important that the King discover it before anyone else talked. "I never have, either." There are small details he's omitting, a bit of rambunctiousness when he was little more than a boy, but nothing that could lead to blackmail or disgrace. Lionel finds Bertie's hand again. "I suppose I want to know why now. Why me."
"I've already told you," Bertie replies, fixing him with a look of such intensity that Lionel can't take it in. He launches himself at Bertie in a manner that would certainly get him seized and tossed out of the palace by the guards if any guards were present. Bertie catches him, arm around his waist, the other hand cupping Lionel's head and reeling him in. There is no restraint in these kisses, and Bertie is already shuffling him to the sofa, tugging him down, smelling of sherry and cologne and cigarettes and sweat, purely masculine, irresistible, though nothing to which Lionel has ever responded before.
How will he ever return to the quiet familiarity of being Bertie's speech therapist after this? He won't, Lionel realizes with a fresh frisson of terror. Either this will go forward or it will be a disaster and he will never see Bertie again. He clings more tightly, pressing Bertie back into the cushions, and senses from the way Bertie arches beneath him that Bertie really does enjoy being on the bottom.
"I should ask you the same question," Bertie pants when they break apart to catch their breath, eyeing one another as if they've only just met and need to size each other up. "Please don't tell me it's because I'm the bloody King of England."
"You know I try not to think about that. It's just your job." A pause, then Bertie smiles at him, and Lionel can continue. "You're the most extraordinary man I've ever met, Bertie. You don't see it because you think you need to be perfect. Spending time with you is the greatest joy of my life." He knows what Bertie wants him to say. How seldom Bertie has likely had the words said aloud when they mattered. "I love you."
"I shall never tire of hearing that," Bertie whispers with a catch in his voice, though not a stammer. When Lionel kisses him again, he feels Bertie's legs move apart, letting one of Lionel's slide between them. It's the most exciting invitation of Lionel's life, even more than the first time Myrtle pulled up her skirt for him; he feels himself tremble like the young man he'd been then. He'll never last if he doesn't find a way to control his thoughts, yet he has no wish to diminish the intensity of the passion they inspire. This is Bertie, and if it weren't enough that his beloved tightly-wound aristocratic friend is offering himself, this is the King, this is England spread out on the sofa inviting him in.
"I'm yours," he whispers between kisses, rocking against Bertie, who's surging slowly up and down like waves under a ship. "Tell me everything you want."
He feels Bertie's laughter quivering his own chest. "I'll never last long enough for everything I want."
"That's both of us, then." Lionel has imagined this scene hundreds of times since that first kiss cracked open the vault where he'd tried to lock away such inappropriate thoughts about Albert Frederick Arthur George, yet he'd never guessed that it would be so filled with smiles and laughter that leave no room for fear. He'd thought it would change him, and Bertie, and particularly the way they spoke to one another, something Lionel has valued too highly to dream of putting at risk. Instead it seems that every moment has been leading them here.
Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.He laughs again, at himself for being so ridiculously sentimental and at the world with its skeptics. Shakespeare, he feels certain, would approve of dramatic hyperbole during lovemaking with the King. "Would you think me terribly forward if I invited you to bed?" Bertie asks, his tone seductive and confident.
"You've already been terribly forward. I should have no choice but to accept." They are still chuckling as they stumble to their feet together, looking over one another's rumpled clothing and straining trousers. They step apart to strip off in silence, Lionel piling his clothes as neatly as he can manage on the sofa, Bertie draping his across a small table.
There's a moment of awkwardness, not meeting one another's eyes, as Bertie approaches one side of the bed and Lionel automatically moves to the other. Then Bertie switches off the lights, leaving the room almost completely dark, and Lionel hears the rustle of covers being drawn back. He sits, pulling his legs up, and leans awkwardly on the pillows, at a loss for proper etiquette concerning whether the monarch or his chosen subject should move first. "Now lie back, open your legs, and think of England," he murmurs as if to himself.
They laugh so hard the bed shakes, though not hard enough to crash into the wall behind them, Lionel is relieved to note. He turns, and Bertie meets him in the middle, warm and exuberant, arms circling his waist and mouth finding his unerringly.
"It's true what they say about Australian men," Bertie whispers.
"That we're enormous?"
"That you're hairy." Bertie tugs a bit on Lionel's chest to prove the point. Lionel can't stop grinning. When their pricks bump between them, they duel for a minute, each refusing to let the other get on top, until Bertie laughs and concedes, "I must like hairy."
He rolls back, and Lionel rolls on top of him, following his mouth; Bertie's legs come up off the mattress, holding Lionel there, still rubbing against him. "I'm glad you like Australian men," Lionel tells him.
Most lovers are shy, or at least pretend to be shy the first time, and Bertie is naturally so reticent at all times. It hadn't occurred to Lionel that in bed Bertie might be so much the opposite, eager and playful, unafraid to speak. "I'm told that olive oil makes things easier," Bertie whispers conspiratorially. "But I couldn't come up with a reason to have it sent up, and I was too afraid to try to sneak down and steal it myself."
Startled, Lionel chuckles and gives his hip a reassuring squeeze - he hasn't quite worked up the courage to touch Bertie's bum. "Next time, tell them that your speech therapist said it's good for coating the throat. Or, even easier, I'll bring some myself."
"Next time," Bertie repeats exultantly, belatedly making Lionel realize how much he's presuming. How much he wants to presume. "This time, I might finish just like this."
The thought of Bertie finishing is more than Lionel can withstand. He groans, thrusting against Bertie, and conversation gives way to grunts and whispers of yes and harder and oh fuck, that last articulated so clearly that Lionel thinks manual stimulation of the genitals should be added to the list of treatments for stammerers. The seed of the House of Windsor spills over his hand and prick and belly, and he comes to completion rubbing himself in it.
Fingers stroking through his hair bring him back to himself. "That was...unprecedented," Bertie whispers, his voice gratifyingly breathless.
Lionel isn't a dogmatic man, yet the first phrase that comes to him is from King James. He can't help chuckling. "Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over."
He fears that Bertie will think he's being disrespectful, but Bertie hums and nods agreement, squeezing him close. "Exactly." Bertie lets Lionel shift his weight to the side, but they lie together like that till the sweat has cooled and semen has stuck them to each other like glue. "I don't ever want to move."
"Let's not. Let's stay like this and see if the world stops turning."
It doesn't, of course, and presently they get up, make an attempt to make themselves presentable, and summon the valet who takes Lionel to the suite of rooms where Myrtle is already asleep. She will know that he and the King did not spend the evening playing cards. What will the maid think in the morning when she changes those sheets? Perhaps she's paid not to think. As for Myrtle, he could leave her alone - there's another bed in the outer room of the suite - but thatmight constitute a betrayal, so he goes inside. She's breathing deeply and steadily, her sleep, at least, untroubled by what she's seen tonight. Maybe she had more to drink than he realized. He'll try to figure that out before explaining anything in the morning.
He dreams of dancing, twirling around with Myrtle and the King and the Queen, and his children and their children, and eventually the whole of England at one great ball where everyone smiles and waves at one another.
Lionel isn't certain that they'll see the King or Queen at breakfast, or even whether breakfast will be served in some public area of the palace. It is, and the Queen comes to bid them farewell, except the conversation seems more directed at ascertaining Myrtle's mood when giddiness has been replaced by a headache. Myrtle only picks at the food, though she seems content, smiling serenely at Lionel. In her haste to arrange her hair, she had asked no questions when they dressed.
The King puts in an appearance as well, albeit a brief one, since he has papers to sign. "I'll see you very soon. I have a speech to p-prepare," Bertie tells Lionel. His face is impassive, indifferent, yet Lionel knows his choice of the verb was deliberate. He allows himself a wink, and Bertie allows himself a smile in return.