No one would dare say so, but many thought that the queen had gone mad. Not only had she decriminalized sexual acts between members of the same sex, but had begun requiring churches to recognize their marriges. Though many did not understand, many aristocrats came out almost immediatly. Several noble families disregarded the "proclivities" of their members, some had been willing to allow them some say in their marrital arrangements. Among these were the Midfords and Cheslocks.

They came out to together at one of their school's balls. They pulled their families aside to an unnocupied room to explain to them that they were a coupling of sorts. Since neither were already engaged to anyone, and both of their families could have something to gain from a marrige, they agreed to have the boys be engaged. While the Cheslocks saw it as an acceptable formality, the Midfords were exited. Lizzy and their father already loved Edwards new fiance, as did his mother, but she would never let him know so easily.

Now, while their families had seen their union as mostly a business venture, the boys saw it differently. They had been in love since they were fourteen, even before they could really show it. Homosexuality was illegal, the term had only just become public knowledge, yet still most people would refer to them as "mollies" and "mandrakes". Both didn't know what to do with these "sinful desired" as most preists would put it. God knows what made Queen Victoria decide to support them in this time when so few people would dare even speak of them, but it set them free.

Once the news was out, every student, teacher and janitor at Winston couldn't believe that they didn't notice earlier. Cheslock would always try to fight anyone who insulted his "friend", and edward would insist on holding doors for him. Now that they were engaged, it was almost sickening. Ches would write every song for him and once had to drag Edward away after insisting that he must duel a man who called Ches a Molly for his fiancé's honor.

Things were looking up for the two, but there were to things that only the boys knew; one was that Edward had been abstaining from anything more intamate than closed mouth kisses since he was the "waiting until marrige" type of guy. The other though, was that both of them were turned on constantly, and would fuck eachother like rabbits if not for those pesky rules of the upperclass. But now that they were set to marry, they agreed that they would get to some experimenting.

Poor Edward knew next to nothing about sex. Thanks to an awkward talk with his father full of flower metaphores he had when he was twelve, he understood "penis goes in vagina", but had no idea how it would go with two men. But he had stalled long enough, so on a summer day, while both their families were on vacation at the Midford's beachouse, he waited for his lover to sneak into his room as they had been planning for the past two weeks.