“Touch me!” Dax hissed, urgently. His chest heaved in great, shuddering breaths, and his mouth pressed on mine again. His hands slid around my waist, scrabbling under my vest to feel my skin against his. His fingers were like firebrands: he broke from me, gasping, as if he felt the heat, too. “Touch me - and then I can touch you! How long have I waited for you to see me like this? I’ve admired you since I first saw you; since I was so scared of you, so feared of your displeasure. I never thought I’d be worthy of you, but I’ve listened to every word you said - I’ve tried to be a fine Bronzeman.”

“You have! You are,” I gasped. “But this is wrong -”

“I can’t have mistaken it all!” he cried. He grabbed at my hand and pressed it to his chest. His heart was hammering even more loudly than my own. “The look in your eyes, sometimes, when we talked like companions, not soldiers - did I imagine it? I begged for it. These feelings have always been in me, whenever you were with me… it’s been a torment, since the day I joined the Household. At first, I didn’t dare hope you had the same respect for me, but I sought you out regardless - wanted to be near you. Maen, I wanted to be a Silver Captain - so very much! To do you honour, but also so that I could have you, like they all use each other. So that I could feel you take me, your body covering mine, your hands on my ass, your cock inside me - if you so wanted -”

If I so wanted? I felt that my body was alight with desire; that if I didn’t crouch between his legs and slide my fingers up into him right now, I’d expire from the frustration. It took only that second - only that first, hungry kiss - to know that I’d wanted nothing but that, since the day I saw him.

“I’d have put up with their pawing,” he ground out. “All of them - women and men. They want me, I know. I can smell it on them when I pass, do you think I don’t notice? And it’s all the same to me - it’s nothing much to want, or to hate. But to have you - ! I’d do anything. I heard the Silvers at night, and that’s what I wanted with you. I knew that to be more true than anything else in my life.”

“But you’re still a Bronzeman, not yet a Silver,” I protested. “It’s the most hideous crime…”

He ignored me, and couldn’t I admire that youthful arrogance? His mouth sucked at my neck: his fingers pinched at a nipple, up under my thin vest. And when his hand cupped the front of my trousers and squeezed my agony there, I heard him suck in his breath. “You mean you can’t touch me like this. You can’t have me.”

“No,” I groaned. “You’re not for me. You’re only for the Ladies - for the Mistress. You could satisfy yourself in the Household, with them. You’ve no need of anything, Dax - no need of anyone else.”

“I don’t want them,” he hissed, holding me tight in his palm, pumping at me. To my shame and my increasing delight, I leaned into him eagerly, bucking my hips, straining for his touch. My hands grasped at his buttocks, feeling the muscles clench under the thin fabric of his trousers. “I don’t want the Ladies,” he muttered, “with their soft, urgent bodies, and their begging for my seed, not in the way that I want you!”

It was too much - I couldn’t think straight. I despised the way that my body no longer followed my commands, and yet I felt inflamed with the thrill of him; the desire for him. I was becoming a man that I barely recognised! My fingers were at his hips, and he was fumbling at his trousers opening, trying to wriggle the cloth away from his skin so that I could touch more of him. He was panting, softly. “Is this all my imagination, Maen? Am I the only one who wants this? Are you angry with me? It’s commonplace in the barracks - I know what men do, even you, I’m sure -”

“Don’t be stupid, Dax!” I spoke harshly, because it seemed I had no control over my voice, either. “You’ve never had a man - it’s not an easy thing -“

“Do you want me?” he said, bluntly, his voice urgent and thick with desire. “Because I want you - I want to couple with you. I never wanted anyone before, not like this. I want your mouth on my cock and your hands caressing me. I want to wrap my legs around you and feel you push into me, possessing me. I want to give you pleasure, Maen: I want you inside me. I want everything! I’m not going to be very experienced, of course, but I know I can learn - I can make it good for you -”

I groaned aloud. “That’s not what I meant.” Foolish man! As if it had ever been my concern, for coupling to be good for me! My heart ached that he should care for that. “You’re talking nonsense, Dax - it’s the fear of this time; the strangeness of our situation. We can forget this, now, then perhaps when you’re Silver, we can think again -”

“No!” he snapped. “It was bad enough in my Training, taking those Devotions, allowing the Ladies to Call and use me when they wished. Don’t you see what the Bronzemen become, Maen? They’re breeding animals, that’s all, until they’re older and more manly, and then they’re pumped full of the Devotions until they become dullards - muscle-bound, fodder for the battles of the City. I don’t want to wait for you until my brain is dull and my body’s a tool for others - I never did! All right, I never thought I’d have any other choice, but we’ve escaped that, now. And don’t tell me you can’t feel the difference in you, here at the Place. I want to share this time with you - this bright spark of my flame, before it’s caught in duty and death and snuffed out - ”

He shifted suddenly, pressing himself back against me and trapping my leg between his. His own arousal was very fierce and very hard, dragged halfway out of his clothing, the heat of his flesh pressing insistently on mine, and making me gasp. “I want you here, Maen. As we are now - as the men we are now.”