The story is based on this photograph from The Hong Kong Shilling Affair: .
.
I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the schoolboy's brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
.
.
LONGINGS
.
Fragments of sound came through the speaker Napoleon was leaning on. Street sound: voices, a bamboo wind chime, traffic, a trilling finch, sandals slapping on wood; the everyday clatter of Hong Kong. It would take Bernie twenty minutes to reach the Dragon's Tooth on foot, then, if things went well, the woman he'd meet there would tell him what they wanted to know. For now, there was nothing for Napoleon to do but wait and listen...and idly watch Illya play mah jong with Jade.
.
"The devil finds work for idle hands ", he remembered his grandmother scolding when she'd find him sitting on the old wooden stairs going down to the beach, staring with dreaming eyes at the ocean, chores forgotten.
"What about an idle mind?", Napoleon would ask her with a smile once he was old enough to know he could charm her.
She would look at him and shake her head. "You're going to end up just like your grandfather" she would say ruefully. But then she'd sit down next to him to tell him stories of love and adventure.
.
Illya's hands were never idle, Napoleon thought. Even when he was still, his hands were whispering if you knew to listen; slight movements revealing things that his countenance never showed. He found himself unexpectedly charmed by the look of concentration he now saw on his partner's face, tip of his tongue peeking out between his lips as his thumb absentmindedly stroked the tile in his hands.
Jade reached in to straighten one of her pieces just as Illya decided to place his, and their fingers touched. Napoleon watched the girl's color rise and the look she gave his not quite oblivious partner from under her lashes.
Her robe would be crimson, he decided, crimson with white chrysanthemums, sliding loosely from her shoulders. They would be kneeling, facing each other and Illya would gently push the fabric down her arms, revealing skin the color of old ivory, as smooth and cool as the mah jong tiles, smelling faintly of Peonies. It would flush and warm when he cupped her breasts in his hands. Then Illya would lower his head to taste her, and she would bend her neck and the black silk of her hair would cover the blond satin of his. Illya's hands would move to her waist...
...and suddenly Napoleon could feel the touch of those hands, large and warm and sure on his skin, and it was he and Illya who were thigh to thigh, chest to hard chest, mouth plundering mouth, their cocks trapped between them, brushing against each other with exquisite friction. And Illya's hands were sliding lower now, pulling their bodies closer together, so close that all he could feel between them was heat; pulsing heat, hard heat, a fire ready to explode. Napoleon could feel his heart pounding in double time, louder and louder, so loud that it rang through the room, so loud that...
.
The speaker crackled and Napoleon came to himself with a guilty start. His partner and Jade never looked up, still intent on their game. The street sounds were gone, and a dull thump in double time was playing counterpoint to the sounds of the Dragon's Tooth. "Do you hear that odd noise in the background?" he asked.
"That's Bernie's heart", Illya answered.
"Perhaps he's scared", Napoleon said, more to himself than the others.
"No", Illya shook his head as they heard a woman's voice ring out above the heartbeats. "He has met his heart's desire". With a small smile he turned back to his game. Napoleon stared at him, and felt the world tilt on its axis.
.
#####