It's like this: The sky splits, and the earth readies itself and his mouth is like velvet quicksand; there's no hope, and even though he's speeding up, metaphysically, you're slowing down, right down, to the point where every single possible detail of every single thing around you comes sharply into focus exactly at the moment where none of it does, because you slip into that trippy headspace called blinding white-out where it's just you and random matter particles floating in the ether ... so we're talking science, here, physics, and then topography, because he's got you mapped – he's memorized the terrain, and inside you there's this complex, intricate circuit board which measures everything in electronic tremor-pulses, and as he keeps at you, deliberately prodding the fault line, it starts zigzagging back and forth like a needle on a richter scale until the ground finally gives way and the earth cracks open and …

You wake up and you're in a fucking movie house.

I look at him in disbelief, still trying to catch my breath.

"You are," I pant, "an absolute nutter."

He laughs. He stands and reaches out a hand towards me.

"Yes. Completely."

He seems tickled, positively giddy at what he's just done; with nary a stitch of worry or fear that we might possibly not have gotten away with it. I look round, half expecting the cops to barge in, or management to grab us by the shoulders and throw us out on our arses ... but there is only the teenaged uniformed theatre attendant going round with a broom and rubbish bin.

"Come on, Tone. Let's get cracking," he says, grinning away like a million watt bulb and impatiently grabbing my hand.

"Seriously, though," I ask, as he leads me slowly, wearily along the row of seats. "Are you completely off your head ?"

"Yes," he nods emphatically. "Quite so, when it comes to you."

"But Max-"

He stops dead and looks at me.

"-Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe I'm hearing a single thing about just exactly how fucking amazing that was, or how good it felt …?"

At this point the attendant approaches and glares unhappily at the popcorn-covered floor and seats we've just vacated.

I point.

"His fault."

"So, tell me something," Max says, addressing the kid. "Did you see anything ? Notice anything odd during the film ?" He points. "Cuz he's paranoid."

"Huh ?" Is all the pimply boy offers.

Max yanks on my hand and begins moving again.

"Never mind."

I stop suddenly and gesture towards the screen, remembering why we're here.

"Fuck." I whine. "Missed the bloody ending. What happened ?"

He turns to me.

"Don't know, Tony," he harrumphs. "I believe I was facing away at the time."

In that instant, looking into the disappointed-hurt-pouty face I've caused, I crumble. Just what kind of a world class arsehole can I be ?

"Yes. You were," I grin, pulling him closer. "I believe in fact that you were blowing me."

"Shhh !" he says, head jerking and eyes darting toward the boy who has moved off down another row.

"What," I say, turning his face back towards me, "now you're gonna be shy about it ? Too late," I offer, and bring my lips to his before pulling away, just. "It was fucking epic, Max," I whisper, caressing his cheek with my thumb. "Trust me. Fucking completely crazy, out of here epic. Best ever." To which he responds with the sweetest, rosy-cheeked, gushing grin, so adorable that it just has to be kissed away.

During which, I feel it. The increasingly familiar sense of blissed-out love … one really could float away on such a feeling, never to return … but then there is also guilt that I would ever dare take such a creature for granted, or disappoint him, or bitch about missing a scene in a bloody movie, when here he wants only to immerse you in his own version of industrial light and magic.

At some point we pull back, murmuring and nuzzling away, and then, when we finally begin moving to leave, there is the kid, wide eyed, open-mouthed, gawking.

"Good looking lad, huh ?" I crack, gesturing with my head. "Sorry. Mine."

In the theatre loo we wash our hands at adjacent sinks, eying and grinning knowingly in the mirror, each thinking the same thing: the blokes milling about us have no clue what we've just gotten up to.

"Should we tell them ?" I ask his reflection in the mirror.

He laughs softly and turns to dry his hands, and as I look at the back of his head, I'm struck by the energy between us, and wonder if others can feel it … the buzzed, low level arousal which always seems to be present, but which by all rights should surely have ebbed, immediately following orgasm, correct ? And yet, here we are, or at least, here I am ...

Which makes sense. It's Pavlovian, in that I can't help, I suppose, but associate the person who has awakened me sexually, who has brought me willfully and repeatedly over the screaming edge, with orgasm itself.

As I'm pondering this, trying to ignore the vivid, full colour flashbacks of him out in the theatre, just now, on his knees, I turn the faucet all the way on cold and begin splashing my face in an effort to distract, to turn everything off, because really, it's ridiculous, I mean, I'm at risk of addiction, here. I can't be like this all the time; we can't do it twenty four hours a day, and here is Maxxie behind me, all fine and normal and geared up to go shop and sightsee and swim …

And then ... I mean, it could be because the loo is small and a bit busy at the moment due to another film having let out ... but as he finishes with the hand dryer and moves by on his way to the stall, he brushes against me ... and in that instant the voltage spikes, just ratchets upward, with body temperature following suit … which is just so crazy. Because. How he can do this ? Turn me to jelly; pull me round by a leash without even meaning to and I'll go anywhere, no matter that I've just come. My body does not care. Irrelevant. It simply sees Maxxie, and it wants.

So I turn, helpless, in his direction, like a starving man, and watch as he shuts the stall door behind him, and as the patrons move round me pissing into urinals and washing hands and clinking their car keys, I'm standing, stock still, riveted to the floor, everything whizzing by in a blur as I focus, transfixed by this one thing: the pin in the little metal door latch, which, I notice, he has yet to engage, and suddenly it's a message that I'm clinging to with my life, suddenly it's absolutely everything in the world, and also, as the miserable anxiety-ball in my gut tells me, a symbol of just how very weak he makes me, sick with need, standing here watching and waiting like a pathetic, low-life perv, a drooling man at a playground, and just as I successfully make myself turn away – jerking my head to the side and moving towards the sink in a last ditch attempt at some semblance of dignity ... I hear it.

"Tone ?"

I jump slightly in place, nervously turn on and off the faucet, wipe my hands on my trousers, cough, clear my throat, trying to sound normal.

"Ya ?"

I wait. Nothing. I wait more.

Nothing.

"Ya, Max ?"

What, am I hallucinating now ? Imagining I've heard his voice when I haven't ?

"Um," he says.

I tentatively approach the door.

"What is it ?"

Nothing.

I lay a hand against it, a bit worried. Is something wrong ?

"What's up, Max ? Y'alright ?"

When he doesn't answer, I press with my fingertips, opening it just a hair ... and in a flash, he's pulled me inside and shut and locked it behind us.

"Are we alone ?" he whispers, all flustered.

"Huh ?" I whisper back, not getting it. "Ya. Last bloke just left. Why ?"

The corners of his mouth turn slowly up.

"Can't help it. It won't go away." He takes a big breath. "I'm horny as fuck."

I pause a moment, searching his eyes, trying not to burst out in mad, rapturous jubilation, trying not to let on that my cock has just absolutely solidified.

"Okay," I say flatly. "So … back to the hotel, then ?"

He hesitates, eyes twinkling with equal parts shyness and mischief.

"No."

Christ, I think, staring back at him and taking a quick, disbelieving glance round the stall, hoping that when my face returns to his, that his expression will show he's bloody well kidding … but no, there it is, determination, or at least, intrigue, coupled still with the remnants of a small, embarrassed smile, which I recognize as the way out – I'm really turned on, it says, but I'm not about to force the issue; I know this is insane and risky and horridly cliche, even ... but that's exactly why we should do it, exactly what makes it so fucking tantalizing … however if you shake your head no, (it continues), ... I'll listen.

I mean, okay, ya, a minute ago I was dreaming of this, my expression tells him, positively transfixed by the very notion, in fact ... and now you're handing it to me on a platter … but it's fucking so out there, and ya, gay encounters in mens' rooms are so bloody cheezy… but … fuck … It really is wickedly exciting, as well as slightly terrifying ... not to mention, it turns out, sorta dangerous, being your boyfriend.

He half shrugs – his second attempt to let me get away, if I want to.

"It's just that … doing that to you, it makes me-"

"-Doing what to me ?" I hear myself say in a far off voice, settling the matter right here.

He takes a step forward.

"Sucking you off."

My cock twitches in my trousers.

I gulp. I say it.

"In public."

He nods, takes another step, and reaches for my hand. "In public."

From here on, I slip into a certain state, hazy, blind, forgetting where we are, letting my cock do the talking.

"Like a filthy little slut ?"

"Yes," he says immediately, steamy eyed, lids blinking slow, moving close and pressing my fingers toward his zipper. "Definitely," he says with assurance, like he's waited all his life to hear it. "Wanna see ?"

And quickly I'm spun round to sit on the toilet, Maxxie straddling my lap and instructing me to lift his legs at the knees should anyone move into the next stall, and I'm not really hearing it because we're inside each other's mouthes, hands tangled in the other's hair, and Maxxie's rocking in place, lewdly grinding his hips and pleading in breathy tones and making me completely fucking crazy.

"Call me a slut."

Which, when I don't do it quick enough …

"Call me a slut."

"No", I snap, in mock disgust. "Fucking slut."

Which makes his voice shoot up an octave as he gasps and pants and grinds harder and reaches between us.

"More. Tell me more."

At another time I will find the humour in the ironic discovery that good shepherd, sweet-faced, earnest little Maxxie is seriously into smut talk – something he's never admitted, or perhaps, I think, liking this idea very much: it's a first for him, too.

"Take your cock out," I instruct him. "Show me what a sleazy little cocksucking whore you are."

He shrieks in excitement, practically bouncing up and down in my lap.

"But I want yours," he pleads, looking down.

"Yes. Take them both out. You made me hard by how slutty you are."

He's practically squealing in delight as he pulls them both free, eyes swelling up like balloons.

"You are," he says, the picture of bliss. "You're harder than me. I turn you on; I totally turn you on." And without further adieu he grabs a hunk of hair at the top of my head and proceeds to wrench me forward by it, toward his mouth whilst his free hand jerks and twists and strokes below, and I've meanwhile got a hand on each hip, guiding him in his increasingly furious grindings, and it strikes me that each time we have sex I stupidly think it can't get better …

And then someone's opened the main loo door and Maxxie instinctively flings his knees up into the air, to keep it from being detected that there are two sets of feet in this stall, and we freeze solid and hold our breath and wait for the sound of the flush and then almost immediately another bloke wanders in, taking his time, pissing, whistling and fiddling with his hair in the mirror and I want to scream: "WILL you HURRY the fuck UP ? !" Because it's slight agony, both the terror of being detected (and the knowledge that these people could very well be employees, or security, or management), and the sheer discomfort at sudden, extreme stoppage when you were absolutely well on your way.

And our eyes meet in this moment, anxious, stressed, fearful ... but then it turns. We examine the other's face and for me at least, there is such beauty there, such sincerity and joy and love being reflected back that it just about kills me. I forget for a moment what we're doing, where we are and why, and we exchange the most extraordinary grin, like we're lying outside in the sun on a blanket of daisies, the deepest and closest of friends who've fallen completely head over heels to the point where we're doing mad, ill advised things ... to anyone looking on, but to us, it's simple. We're in love. We feel a passion beyond anything we've ever known or could have imagined, the type that makes you go any where and do any thing for your 'other', for the person who is IT, to you, the one you intend to embed yourself with, to wrap your whole life around.

And then we're alone again, kissing and grinding slow, each tenderly caressing the other when what the situation calls for is mad and furious, and yet we can't help ourselves. It's not, we've decided, a thing we want to rush.

But before long, Maxxie pulls back, eyes closed, panting into my hair and gripping my shoulders.

"Sorry. I gotta ... I gotta come."

Sorry ?

Ah, a perfect Maxxie-ism. He had wanted to bring me off first.

"I want you to," I whisper, as he tilts his head away so that I have a perfect view. "Please. Come for me, baby. Come for me."

And what I then witness is something almost spiritual. He's holding his breath, eyes tense, nails digging deep, teeth clenching his bottom lip which is as flushed as the rest of him, his face holds … holds ... and then as his body erupts, bursts wide open, trembling with several small, gorgeous, fluttering anguished exhalations … and I'm left quite extremely in awe, to have witnessed, at close range, something so intensely private, so unspeakably beautiful.