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George says it like it’s a reasonable thing to ask your mate.
They’re sitting near the swimming pool, with the naked trees and empty flower pots. The colourful walls of Kinfauns fight against the grey of another January afternoon and Paul, who’s already bracing against the cold, curls a little more into himself. After their disaster of a meeting a few days ago, he took it upon himself to come alone and appease George, prove he’s willing to make an effort to keep the band together, aware the problem lies somewhere with him (and John and Yoko, but he can’t do anything about that, can he?).
So Paul keeps his tone as soft as possible. “You can’t be serious.”
“You said ‘anything’.”
And he’s not sure what he expected. More tracks on the next album maybe. Something he could get out of in the long run if needed, once every song is done and this one and that one just happen not to fit with the rest of them, sorry George. Working on a song together. Something about the music. Not this.
Not “let me have you.”
“But it’s got nothing to do with the band and I’m—”
“It is about the band,” George says in a cloud of smoke. The stubs are piling up on the white table between them. He’s stared at Paul for a long time. “You let John do it. You let John do whatever he wants.”
“Who says I let John…?” His heartbeat is picking up. The idea of George knowing he’d bend over when John asked nicely, hearing, watching… “Come on, Georgie—”
“Don’t ‘Georgie’ me, man. You say you’ll do anything. You say you want to show me.” He crushes another cigarette against the table. “Show me, then.”
Paul stares at the still water of the pool. The reflection of John’s doodles on blue mosaic. In the back of his mind: the few times he and John shagged anywhere near the other two and still went beyond the quick mutual handjob. Seems like an eternity ago, the last time he had to bury his face into pillows to muffle his own moans. He can’t imagine risking it close to George, but he can’t remember, really. He remembers the high, the heat and the mind-blowing orgasms, he remembers John’s big hands digging into his hips; his surroundings, not so much.
“John told me, by the way,” George continues. “Said every time we heard him fuck on tour it was you instead of a bird.”
“That’s not true.” He doesn’t look back up. Wonders when and why that conversation could have taken place. His ears are heating up with something akin to humiliation, a feeling he’s only now getting familiar with. “It wasn’t—it didn’t happen that often.”
George laughs at that, humourless. “Right.”
“Anyway, he’s in love, you know?” He leaves out ‘with someone else’. “Can’t do anything about it. So we haven’t… You know.”
“You would, though, if he wanted to.”
He meets George’s eyes again, and they’re brimming with something complicated, shiny with it. They’re reaching through his soul. He wonders if he looks at John the same way, and sort of hopes he doesn’t.
“Alright,” Paul says, finally, with a nod. He said he’d do anything. And it’s just sex, isn’t it? “Alright.”
He won’t lose them both.
He hangs his coat and tucks his shoes near the front door. In the middle of the kitchen he realizes he doesn’t know where the bedroom is. Never needed to go beyond the drawing room here, never slept over at any of their houses. Paul was the party host, and when he wasn’t he’d always have a nice drive back to Cavendish in the golden hour.
Maybe George would like it there on the kitchen counter. It wouldn’t be comfortable but that’s really the point, isn’t it? There’s doing what John can do and there’s putting Paul in his place. The way things are going it may just be what he deserves. He keeps fucking up. Even if he wasn’t—he wasn’t really trying to keep George down and out, he was just—
“…want it now?”
He turns to George, who’s hovering by the entrance like a guest in his own house.
“Don’t you? Did you want to wine and dine me first?” There’s that look again. Paul turns back, focuses on the doodle-covered fridge. The weight in his chest, the one that’s been growing there since the first morning he couldn’t be arsed to shave, gets heavier. “Sorry.”
“As if you’d let me,” George says, shuffling past him and down the corridor.
Paul catches up. “What?”
“When’s the last time we had dinner just the two of us?”
Hitch-hiking holidays when they were teens, cooking tins of spaghetti on the side of the road. Talking about music and girls while watching the sunset. It was a little less than ten years ago. It was a lifetime ago. Paul doesn’t need to say it out loud.
“You always went with John after that.”
Right. The Isle of Wight. Paris. George, wondering where the hell they’d pissed off to. Paul, not thinking about him at all while his heart did little somersaults at John’s every laugh.
He mutters another “sorry.”
George scoffs, “I’m not complaining,” and opens the door to the bedroom. There it is. End of the corridor on the right.
There’s a beautiful lace cover on the bed. Big circular windows are letting all the daylight in, two spotlights on the main event. He suddenly feels a little trepidation, a tightening in his throat. The bit of grass he smoked before coming is wearing off. And as usual when that happens, Paul tries to take control.
“Alright,” he says, and starts taking his clothes off. His vest and shirt end up neatly folded on a wicker chair. The silence weighs him down, but what music could they put on? There’s the gentle tingle of a wind chime somewhere that’s better than nothing.
When he starts on his belt, George sighs. “Stop that.”
“Wha—”
“Just get on the bed, Paul.”
Paul huffs. He’s just trying to move things along. Just showing that he’s a willing and eager participant. He was trying to dictate the pace, alright, but that doesn’t change anything, does it? The end result is the same, it doesn’t—it doesn’t change anything.
He crawls over the bed. This is probably how George wants him—on all four, so he can grab him like John used to, dig his nails in, bruise the skin—so he stops in the middle of the bed, buries his face in the crook of his arm, squeezes his eyes shut.
He hears the soft noises of clothes dropping to the carpeted floor, and then: “What are you doing? Lay down.”
Paul lowers his stomach to the mattress.
“On your back? Get comfortable, like.”
He turns, confused. George is watching him with a little frown, like studying a curious insect, then crawls forward until his knees bracket Paul’s thighs. Slowly, he finishes unbuckling the belt, lowers the zipper, and removes Paul’s trousers. All things Paul could have done himself a minute ago. His socks go next, George’s hands curling around each of his ankles, gentle, before sliding back up his legs through all the hair and stopping at his briefs.
George pauses to give him a look over, and Paul can feel himself flush. He’s got pudgier over the last couple of years without the coke diet. Almost as much as when they first met, little George somehow drawn to his silly fat face. George has stayed the same, only looks like a proper man now, all handsome and chiseled. Belly as nice and flat and toned as it’s ever been above his half-open jeans. Paul shifts his eyes to the ceiling.
“Have you done this before?” he asks as fingers hook inside his underwear and tug.
Then here he is, naked on George Harrison’s bed. At his mercy, because he said he’d do anything. His cock faintly twitches at the thought.
George comes into view above him. “That’s none of your business.”
“It sort of is, you know? You’re going to p—“
The last word disappears into George’s mouth and a gasp.
They’ve kissed before. On one of those hitch-hiking trips, on the beach. They thought it’d make for a good place to sleep, sand as soft as any mattress. A couple of Salvation Army girls showed up like out of a dream once they’d settled down and after showing off with their guitars, they were willing to warm those scruffy boys up. His fingers were buried in pink knickers when he glanced aside and saw George kiss his bird with his eyes open, a closed mouth and a static hand on her back.
Being nine whole months older Paul felt responsible for George’s education in the ways of the world when his brother wasn’t there. His mum’s precious book and the things he’d done on his neighbours’ couch with Pat the baby-sitter gave him knowledge and experience. So after the girls had left more or less satisfied, when he and George were huddling for warmth on the sand that turned out to be as hard as any cemented road, he said: “You have to open your mouth when you kiss them. Use your tongue.”
“That sounds disgusting.”
“It’s gear.”
George blinked slowly. “Show me, then.”
Everything was always so simple with George. You want to do something? Just do it. You don’t like something? Just say it. You’re about to kiss your mate to show him how it’s done? Don’t worry about it. So Paul didn’t worry about it for once, held George’s chin and slipped his tongue inside his open mouth with all the bravado he could muster. He was still hard after rubbing against the girl’s thigh and getting no relief, made the first touch all the more electric. George’s hand tentatively pressed against his chest after a while, not pushing, just there, and he wished—he caught himself wishing it’d trail lower. He’d kept his eyes open to watch George close his.
(Once a journalist from a teen mag or other asked about their first kiss and Paul noticed the quick glance George threw his way before answering. He couldn’t be, though, could he? George had kissed a bird right before, right there. So he’d tried to find George’s eyes after the interview and, away from the others, George said: “first proper one, wasn’t it?”)
Now George is licking into his mouth like a man who knows what he’s doing and Paul feels a little light-headed.
There’s no hand on his chest but in his hair, caressing. A thumb brushing his cheekbone, his beard. It’s tender, careful, makes him loosen his jaw, let himself be kissed. George smells like sandalwood and it’s wrapping all around him. The crashing waves aren’t here to cover the smacking noises of their lips or the air pushing through his nostrils. His cock is filling up against rough denim. A moan fights its way out.
When George pulls back longer than a breath to rummage through a nightstand, Paul can’t help but ask the ceiling: “What are you doing?”
A pause. The wind chime tingles. “You said ‘yes’.”
“Yes, yes, I’m not—I mean why are you so…” Is romantic the word? Tender. He can’t say any of them without feeling daft. He waves his hand in the air. “So…”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Paul,” George says, lying next to him and coating his fingers with vaseline. His expression doesn’t change. He hasn’t smiled once. “If that’s what you think.”
There’s a vague sense of disappointment. How are they supposed to get even then?
George doesn’t seem keen on continuing the conversation at first, bending Paul’s right leg, circling his entrance. His other hand stays on Paul’s knee, warm and somewhat comforting as he pushes in.
“I only want you to see me,” he says eventually. “Trust me. Let me in.”
“You’re in, alright,” Paul laughs, throat tight, and gets a small smile at that, a squeeze of his knee.
It really has been a while. With a slow exhale he tries to relax, get used to the discomfort. Part of him thinks he can tell the difference, that no one else can feel like John. Those beautiful hands.
His eyes fall shut. John. John.
There’s a second finger and it burns a little. Usually John would say something here, about the stretch, or how long he’s been waiting for this, or how much Paul is gagging for it. The last time he’d been on the backseat of his car, hands clinging to the open window, one knee burning on the hot leather. He can almost smell the asphalt, the roadside flowers under the sun. You and me Sunday driving. The fingers curl and bump about the right spot. It’s starting to feel good. God, John—
“Are you thinking about him?”
Paul jolts, his knee nearly clocking George in the nose.
Right. George. Bed. He’ll do anything.
“I’m not,” he lies, a little breathless. “Go on. Feels good.”
“Does it?” George is watching him, not moving his hand, reconsidering not hurting Paul maybe. It’s not a genuine question.
“Yeah,” Paul answers anyway. He shakes his hips, trying to get the fingers deeper inside him, grind on them. “Yeah. Come on.”
George shakes his head, and as if he’s just remembered how they work, his fingers move again, driving straight into Paul’s prostate.
“Oh.”
“It’s funny, you know,” George is saying, “because that’s sort of what I mean. You’re here with me, but your mind is gone someplace else.” His fingers are relentless, pushing constant noises out of Paul. “We’re working on one of mine and the entire time you’re thinking—”
“Fuck.”
“—‘I wish you were John’.” He adds a third, dry finger and shoves them deep. There it is, the hurt. “’I wish you weren’t here at all’.”
“No, I—uh—” He never did think that, not that last one, he’s quite certain. He can see himself sitting there listening to George talking like a parent indulging their babbling child, nodding here and there, going “yeah” when he pauses, and he might have wished he’d talk about something else, but never, ever— “Never, George, I never thought—”
George lets out a frustrated sigh. The hand on Paul’s knee slips to his thigh, digging in the tender flesh to spread him further.
“—and when,” Paul pants, “when I wouldn’t take acid, you—oh, God.”
His entire cock, engulfed in the warmth of George’s mouth.
The fingers inside him still, then resume their back-and-forth in rhythm with the bob of George’s head, slow and wonderful. He keeps his eyes open and wills lingering thoughts of John away, watching George’s lips, George’s nose, brushing against his pubic hair again and again. His hips move by themselves, bucking up—God, he’s hitting the back of his throat—and he’s firmly held back down.
“George,” he sighs, releasing the duvet to thread his fingers through George’s hair when George moans around him. It feels incredible.
Rain starts tapping at the windows, barely louder than the sucking noises, his heavy breathing, his heartbeat.
He could stay like this a while if his body would let him.
“George, I’m close.”
George lets him go with one last lick at the head, then finally shimmies out of his remaining clothes. His chin is shiny with spit.
And just like that Paul is nervous again, watching George’s cock spring free, hard and pink and surely painful after straining against those jeans. He’s stretched more than enough, can feel himself clench around nothing in anticipation, but it’s as if George wasn’t the one who’d just had his fingers in the depths of him. As if he’d never seen George naked, never seen George use his dick on anybody.
(He’d heard it many times but only seen it once, really. Sitting in the middle of a party that was starting to look like an orgy, smoking and watching a lass bounce on George’s cock with unbridled enthusiasm. George lying there on the sofa, lost in a haze and barely touching her, not heeding Paul’s advice from all these years ago. He’d almost crawled to them to move George’s limbs around. Like this.)
It’s his limbs George is moving around, pulling Paul’s legs over his shoulders. He’s slowly stroking himself, slick with plenty of vaseline, tip against the hole. He looks good, better than good. His eyes flick to Paul and back in a way that could be taken as nervous if Paul didn’t know better, and he pushes in. Paul’s breath hitches. He never thought… After all those innocent teenage fumblings, he never thought it’d come to this. It might have gone further once before, when he considered palming George on a bed somewhere in Sweden, feeling bored and blue. Another case of wishing he were John, maybe. John.
John.
No. No, he grabs the hand clutching his thigh, tries to focus on the drag of George’s cock inside him.
George.
They both cry out when George slides all the way in after another couple of thrusts. He falls forward, pushing the legs off his shoulders so they hang around his waist. Paul’s hand dives into his hair again when George drops his forehead against him, mumbles “Paul” against his skin before catching it between his teeth and kissing it.
“George,” he breathes. He’ll say his name again and again, he’ll show him—he’s not thinking about anyone else.
George is moving slow, as careful as he was undressing Paul, lips catching on his neck here and there. Like making love to a fragile bride, the way Paul makes love to his women sometimes when he can tell they won’t be in the mood for anything else.
This is making love. He swallows around the thought.
“George.” With his legs he pushes at the small of George’s back, asking for more. “George. Please.”
The steady rhythm of the thrusts doesn’t change but they get deeper and harder, keep hitting that sweet spot inside of Paul as the headboard hits the wall. George is looking into his eyes with something like wonder now, up on his elbows, and Paul realizes he wants to be kissed again. He stops kneading at the muscles of George’s back to wrap his arms around his neck, trap him there, pull him closer and take his mouth. He sucks on his tongue, would have sucked his dick had George asked for it. He should have asked for it.
The pressure in his groin builds again. He comes after George sneaks a hand between them to tug him off, mouth still full of him. His back arches off the bed and Paul would say his name again if he could. He lays there breathless, floating, his entire body singing, until the thrusts carefully start again, George panting in his ear. Paul kicks at his legs, tries to grab his arse and egg him on. He doesn’t care—he never cared if it hurt.
“Come on. Harder, Georgie, harder—make me feel it—faster, yeah—yeah—”
They’re kissing again when George finally comes inside him.
The heat of the kiss simmers down to light brushes of their lips. Eventually George backs away to smile at him in a way he rarely does anymore, and Paul’s heart skips a beat. How he’d missed it. He didn’t even know how much he’d missed it. He wants to ask if that was good enough to come back. To start liking him again.
“Love you,” George mumbles, and gives Paul one last peck before pulling out. He looks down and stills for a bit—watching his come drip out, Paul figures, marvelling at the proof of what he just did—then fetches a pack of cigarettes from the nightstand. Paul’s own spunk is drying on his stomach but he’ll wash up later, can’t move now. Love you. Love you. He’s warm all over. George is tucking a cig between his lips and smiling at him. He won’t lose them both.