He still fucks women. He likes women, likes the way they look and smell and taste, likes their conversation, likes dancing with them; and the fucking, he still likes the fucking.

They are a little older now, he has no desire to look foolish or inappropriate, and maybe a little more intelligent, innocent enthusiasm is no longer enough; but they are still beautiful, and he still enjoys their company.

But all that said, he still can't believe he didn't know. If it had not been for the annual physical fitness tests, he might still not know and that worries him a little, when he thinks about it. Standing on the side of the pool, hoping that last night's martinis hadn't taken off too much of his edge, he had glanced to one side and saw his partner checking out Mark's ass. And a damn fine ass it was too, which was why Illya had caught him checking it out as well.

So they both knew and neither said anything. He still wasn't sure why. It was probably habit as much as anything; years of suppressing such wants, of never letting them become needs, that had kept him silent.

That and a healthy touch of fear, nothing he might have with Illya could be trivial or frivolous and he liked trivial and frivolous, he knew how to deal with them.

Then it all changed, in a hotel room in Valparaiso. He had, he knew, been more than usually reckless that day, and more than usually lucky; two inches to the left and the bullet would have gone through his skull and not several inches of THRUSH-issue sheetrock. He also knew that his partner, no more than a couple of yards away, had seen it all and had not enjoyed the view.

So he was treading carefully back at their hotel. Illya in a bad-temper, while aesthetically pleasing, was bad for the health. He had pottered around, trying to act normally, a shower to rinse away the adrenaline and the bits of wall, then back into their room, a towel round his waist, looking for clean clothes.

He had realised his mistake the moment he went back into the bedroom. Illya, still in his day clothes, was sitting in an armchair, watching the bathroom door, waiting for him. The moment the door closed, Illya got to his feet and strode across the room, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket as he did so.

Napoleon opened his mouth to speak and then tried to jerk backwards as the handkerchief was stuffed into his mouth. A strong hand on the back of his neck prevented that and, unless he was prepared to hit out and mean it, there was little he could do about it except try to spit it out. The hand on the back of his neck came round to cover his mouth. The other hand wrenched away the towel he was wearing.

He gasped into the mouthful of cotton, it tasted of gun oil and coins and sweat, then he forgot it as a warm hand grabbed him by the balls.

He froze, for a moment terrified he was about to be castrated, then the hand began to move, slowly, seductively, rolling and tugging. Then up to grab his cock, coaxing it into life, a strong, skilled hand, the thumb rubbing the glans on the up-stroke, not impatient or rough, just firm.

He looked down at the hand, and at his cock, rapidly lengthening and hardening, and found he couldn't look back into his partner's face. He hadn't been shy since the Truman presidency but he couldn't look up; he didn't want to see what was on Illya's face, afraid he would see love and then more afraid he wouldn't. So he shuddered and closed his eyes.

A thumbnail flicked just under the head of his cock and he groaned, the muffled sound appallingly exciting. He was shivering now, pressing into the hand round his cock, circling his ass to vary the sensation and somehow it never occurred to him that he ought to take charge, to demand what he wanted. All his other encounters with men, all before he was twenty, had consisted of a man on his knees before him sucking his cock, a favour he granted and never expected to return. This was different. Here he would get what he was given, if he was given anything at all.

The hand over his mouth slid away but it never occurred to him to get rid of the handkerchief because now there were two hands on him, cradling his balls, pulling on his cock. He was panting and shivering and the realisation that he was naked and his partner fully clothed suddenly struck him as incredibly erotic.

His head spun as he was turned abruptly to face the wall, his hands automatically coming up to brace himself. His feet were kicked apart. There was a small popping noise and something skittered across the parquet floor. He started, shocked as something cold and wet slid between his buttocks and into him. Without thinking he tilted his hips and bore down, letting the fingers open him up.

The fingers twisted painfully and left and into the shocking silence came the unmistakable sound of a zip. A few more seconds, wet sounds behind him, his mental picture almost unbearable and then... and then Illya was into him.

It hurt. He'd read about it, fantasised about it (and for the first time he now realised who he had fantasised about) but he'd never done it and it hurt. He bit down on the cotton in his mouth and accepted it all. The hands on his hip, the thick wet cock moving inside him, the pull and push. For a few horrified seconds his mind tried to match the sensation to something it knew and was disgusted, but that couldn't last, not when his whole body was caught in the movement, back and forth, and the strange pang deep inside his guts and not when his mind was crying yes, yes, yes oh please yes.

The hand on his cock was almost a shock, the nails raking across his chest, across both nipples were, and he came before he knew he was ready, before he wanted to. His elbows gave way and he fell forward into the wall, cushioning his forehead on one arm as Illya pounded into him, giving Napoleon all the strength he usually didn't bother to display.

It seemed to Napoleon that Illya's climax was almost painful. He rammed himself into Napoleon and froze, hands gripping hips so tightly he left bruises. Then he leaned over and whispered in Napoleon's ear a single word. "Mine."

They both hissed as Illya withdrew. The usual post-coital fatigue was magnified tenfold or maybe he magnified it to himself because he didn't know what to say, didn't want to say anything, just wanted to sleep. Didn't want to talk to Illya because it might mean something or nothing and either was, in its own way, just as bad. Because he was afraid as he had never been afraid of bullets or bombs or exotic pharmaceuticals.

They didn't speak of it next morning either, or on the plane going home, not even when it was obvious Napoleon could not find a comfortable way to sit.

But it happened again and it's happening more and more often. In Jakarta Napoleon tried to refuse, to see what would happen. He spent the night with his hands tied behind his back with his own tie. That night he came so hard he passed out.

He's seen the cock that fucked him now, he's even sucked it, been taught how to deep throat it during one patient, insistent night in Mombasa. He's pretty sure it's not really any bigger than his own, but seen from his knees, it looks enormous on those slender hips, and he has come to crave the feeling of it moving inside him, in his mouth or up his ass.

He still fucks women, it's what he does with his cock, but the rest of him belongs to his partner and his partner takes what he owns whenever he wants it.

Napoleon still fucks women.

Just not as often as he used to.