The Book of Firsts

Twenty-Six

The last evening of the school trip was uneventful, featuring a banquet meal that I left early. Lania brought me into a few different chat circles, allowing me to watch any number of people speculating over who had left marks on Bran’s chest, and analysing Meggan’s every reaction.

Since she didn’t go to the banquet, consensus was that Meggan indeed didn’t like that Bran had apparently stopped languishing after her. My own feelings about Meggan were complex, since I couldn’t decide how I’d feel in her situation. Her ultimatum had been unfair, but probably whatever hurt had prompted it had not been possible for her to bear. Jealousy. I hoped to never suffer from it.

The remains of the trip week were free study, and didn’t require campus attendance, so I spent my time profitably getting through household tasks, shopping for some winter clothing, and then reviewing my study plans, setting out a schedule that would calm my nerves while hopefully not exhausting me completely. So long as Bran didn’t flip-flop again, and I had my Three Kings branded sleep aids, I could return to enjoying my studies rather than frantically trying to make fractional gains in subjects I already knew.

And then on Tuesday, as I waited once again in the rain, I reminded myself that it would be important not to become too reliant on outside factors. Managing my sleep was something I would always need to do, and I absolutely could not rely on other people to help me with it.

The green indicator appeared on the garden before my patience ran short, and I headed along the fence to find the bars already removed, and Bran waiting underneath a large, black umbrella.

"Sorry, held up," he said, looking unhappy.

"It happens," I said, closing my umbrella and ducking through the fence.

Because we were at a risky place, I didn’t say anything further, and simply turned and replaced the bars while Bran held the umbrella.

"Can rain trigger that motion sensor?" I asked, after he’d locked the gate.

"Hail might," he said. "I’ve also added a second sensor at the very beginning of the path, and a camera above the gate. I’ve prepped an update to the app so it automatically displays the camera feed when the sensors are triggered, along with adding better chat features."

Inside the summer house I put my umbrella aside and dug my phone from my backpack, handing it to him.

"Do you program?" he asked, sitting on the coffee table and drawing his own phone from a pocket.

"Basics of MATLAB, Python, C, and C++. I’ll wait until classes start to decide whether I need them in more detail."

He handed me back my phone, and I opened the app, then laughed, surprised. The background had become the picture Kyou had sent me of Bran and a cat girl.

"I never know how much of conversations you three will repeat to each other."

"Sometimes word for word," he said, shrugging, and then pulling blankets out from the couch storage. "There’s a few subjects we know to stay away from, but we don’t have a lot of secrets."

Meggan, and her ultimatum, being something he hadn’t been able to talk about, evidently. I couldn’t decide if he was now at peace with the breakup, or simply in a more neutral mood today. He certainly seemed calm as he spread the blankets below the window.

"What was behind that very pointed speech last week?" he asked, pulling off his tie, but then added as I lifted my hands: "Don’t get undressed—I want to strip you."

I watched him take off his clothes, while explaining the hike, and the background to it.

"Would this Sirocco really target Lania just because she blushed in Rin’s general direction years ago?"

"Rin liked Lania the first couple of years here," Bran said. "But he was shy at the time, and has since developed a phobia about short girls—thinks he’ll hurt them—so he moved on. Perhaps not surprising that Sirocco picked up on his interest: she’s very sensitive to Rin’s behaviour."

"But would she enjoy managing a game company?" I asked, repeating a thought I’d had previously, while wondering what Lania’s reaction would be if she ever learned this piece of history.

"We’re all looking forward to seeing how she reacts to next year," Bran said, with a savage grin. He dropped his socks on his shoes and stood naked and already half erect before me. "In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you redid these love bites."

"Another kind of pointed speech?"

"Your name didn’t appear anywhere on the list of possible suspects," he said, sounding cheerful. "Not sure why the frontrunners are all teachers. I’m not known for paying attention to teachers."

He stopped as I moved to stand in front of him, and I remembered him telling me he was looking forward to it too much, and noticed that his eyes had widened ever so slightly, though he maintained his otherwise amused expression.

Ignoring love bites, I wrapped my arms slowly around his neck and kissed him. His arms closed around my waist as he responded, and tightened with every minute that passed. I moved to kiss the side of his face, and then did as he asked and reapplied the mark at his shoulder, and then moved down.

I spent by far the longest time on the mark on his hip, feeling the way he shifted and then tried to hold back eager impatience. His hand touched the top of my head, drew away, and I tried his self-control for a count of thirty before I turned my head and licked his penis. It was tempting to then just stop, but I decided not to tease him too much, following Rin’s instructions with solemn gravity, until heat filled my mouth, and Bran had to clutch at the window frame to keep on his feet.

Sitting back on the coffee table, I watched him breathing deeply, eyes nearly shut. He looked more beautiful every time I had a chance to study him. His faintly curling oat-coloured hair had fallen forward to cover his eyes, and his porcelain skin had a hectic flush. The three hickeys I’d given him stood out like signal flares.

"It’s getting a little cool to be running around with your shirt off," I pointed out.

He’d regained some composure, and was now looking at me with deepening intensity. "Rin, Kyou and I are temporarily in the Basketball Club," he said. "Plenty of opportunity to pull up the shirt to wipe my face. And I’ll wear something sleeveless."

He sat beside me, and I had to wonder what anyone who managed to get into the garden unexpected would make of me fully dressed and Bran very naked, sitting side-by-side.

"You’ve cut your hair," he observed, pulling it free.

"Had it trimmed," I agreed.

"To maintain this dressed-down look?"

"Because the longer it gets, the more time I have to spend drying it and conditioning it. Some years I have the patience for that, but this year it made going diving and swimming a lot less work-intensive."

"I like longer hair," he remarked.

"Looks like you’re out of luck this year."

"The breasts are more satisfying than I expected."

I had to laugh. "Are you trying to provoke me?"

"Well," he said, pulling off my tie. "In one respect it was a compliment."

He slid my blazer off my shoulders, so I shifted to let him pull it free before he moved on to unbuttoning my shirt.

"The exam schedule will be out tomorrow," he said. "Do you want us to rearrange days for the mid-years?"

"No need. They don’t have any impact on Helios admission."

Leaving my bra, he tugged me to my feet and worked on skirt, and underwear, then had me sit back down so he could take off my shoes. That left him in a kneeling position before me. He paused, then said: "It’s like some kind of public art project. Or graffiti."

He meant the faded hickeys that decorated my chest, stomach and sides.

"I’d threaten you with two in obvious places for every one you give me, but I suspect that’s going to be less effective than it was with Rin and Kyou."

"It doesn’t look like it was very effective with them," he said, reaching behind me to unhook my bra, a process that apparently required him to press his cheek against my unexpectedly satisfying breasts.

He threw my bra across the room, and kept rubbing his cheek against my chest, like an affectionate cat, occasionally catching glancing kisses and licks, that turned into longer contact, bringing his hands up to rub and knead, then darkening each of the faded hickeys in turn.

The improvement from the first time he’d indulged himself was considerable, and I felt my face growing increasingly flushed, and had to grip the table to control an urge to twitch and make small, involuntary sounds. I was very impatient by the time he began to work his way down my stomach, and had to breathe deeply to keep myself still as he reached my thighs, and lifted my legs in turn to reapply the two hickeys he’d given to me on the tender inside skin.

I leaned back as he began the oral challenge in earnest, jumping straight to sucking hard. My backpack was behind me, and I used it as a lumpy pillow, and made little patterns on his shoulders with my feet.

Limp in the afterglow, I gasped when he immediately rose up and pushed into me, but then he said: "I suppose this counts as on a table?" and we moved to the blankets he was kneeling on.

I’d intended to go to Art Club after lunch, but ended up nearly being late for my next lesson, because Bran’s powers of recovery had not faded, and I’d neglected to set any kind of alarm.

An enthusiastic Bran was vastly preferable to a reluctant one, but his apparent desire to announce that enthusiasm might cause difficulties. The attention focused on the Three Kings was even greater than I’d initially understood, and I could only hope he was sensible enough to not make the timeframe of those hickeys too clear.

I didn’t score the challenge until I’d finished homework that night, in part because I’d really enjoyed all three encounters, and couldn’t decide firmly between them. In the end I put Rin first, Bran second, and Kyou last, but the decision was influenced as much by flipping coins as anything else.