Pinky Promises

Sonny

A proper vegetarian fry-up. Veggie bacon, veggie sausage, two organic free-range eggs from the hens in the gardens, hash browns, grilled tomato, beans, mushrooms, and a fuck-tonne of ketchup. Not an avocado, or slice of halloumi, or ramekin of cold wilted spinach in sight. Perfect. And I didn’t even need to ask them for it.

I’d arrived at the dining room, after following my nose like one of those cartoon dogs, and was promptly told by Oggy to take a seat. I chose the same place Claude and I had occupied last night because... I didn’t know why. It felt comfortable, and right.

The radio played in the kitchen. Folk music drifted through to the dining space. John sat in his usual chair, though there was no sign of Jasper or the infamous Helena. Thank gods.

I had planned to call on Claude on my way downstairs so that we might get breakfast together, but when I knocked on his door, he didn’t answer, and when I poked my head into his room, I was sure I heard the shower running, and I couldn’t wait. The smells had hypnotised me.

Last night, sharing a bed with him, talking about sprouts and antique cloches into the early hours of the morning felt like a fever dream. I felt giddy. Like we’d spent that time doing much more adult things than chatting about my allotment. I was smiling. I knew I was smiling, my cheeks were hurting, but I couldn’t seem to stop it.

Halfway through my second serving, Oggy placed a plate of what appeared to be eggs on toasted muffins with smoked salmon and hollandaise sauce on the other end of my table. Mere seconds later, Claude came into the breakfast room and dropped onto the seat opposite me.

He looked decidedly more dishevelled than I’d ever seen him. His copper curls were wild. His silver freckles shone brighter against his dark skin, like underneath them all he was blushing. His shirt didn’t seem as militantly pressed as it usually was, and he hadn’t shaved. Had he slept badly? Was it because I’d been next to him, farting all night? He was sound asleep when I’d left a couple of hours ago.

“Morning,” he said, smoothing down his jacket and scooping up his knife and fork. “You’re wearing the otter shirt today.”

It was such an unexpected statement that I had to look down and check. I chose not to comment on my T-shirt, or the way Claude had said “the otter shirt” like he had chronicled all my tees. “Good morning. Sleep alright?”

“Very well.”

Odd. Must be another reason for the rumpled vibes.

“I will try to find somewhere else to sleep tonight,” I said. “When I returned to my room this morning, my chair had returned. Perhaps I could sleep there.”

Claude’s hand hit the table, rattling the crockery. It took him a few seconds to form words. “I’m not letting any guest of mine sleep in a chair. Besides, I have a suspicion you could spend the next two months looking for somewhere to sleep that is not my bed and forces beyond our control will see that does not happen.”

“Okaaay,” I said, drawing out the word. I had no immediate objections to sharing his bed for a fortnight or so while we figured out this ritual together, so I didn’t offer any counterarguments. “Today, I thought perhaps we could look for the library again, or you could show me the ley lines. There’s a few folk stories about mushrooms we could explore. You know, experi—”

“Sonny, I need to tell you something,” he said, his brow pulled down into a deep V. He glanced around the dining room as though making sure no one was eavesdropping. John paused his fork halfway to his mouth, but he was human, and too far away to hear us over the kitchen ambiance and radio din.

“Why does this sound like I’m about to be told off?” I joked, but my smile dropped immediately when Claude didn’t reciprocate.

He closed his eyes for a few seconds, maybe finding the words, and my heart started knocking against my ribs. “I just want to make it clear you’ve done nothing wrong.”

There was a but coming. I braced myself. This was the moment Claude was going to say, “I’ve figured the ritual out on my own and you’re superfluous. Sorry, Sonny, but I’ll no longer be sharing my secrets with you. Good day.”

“But...” he began. Here we go. “Gods, how can I put this? Do you remember when I said the house was magical?”

I nodded.

“Well, it’s not only magical. It’s sentient. It …” He blew out a breath and closed his eyes again. “It likes to be called Jenny, and has independent thought and reasoning, and it’s perhaps a little scheming, and um...” Another breath. “It’s watching us.”

“Jenny? Okay,” I said again, because other words were failing me.

“Always watching us …”

“Okay.”

“Except here in the guest house. Apparently, it can’t see us well here, but in the main house... Jenny sees everything.”

Jenny sees everything.

“Oh.”

Everything.

“Oh.”

My wank. Oh, gods. It had seen that? But how much did a house really understand about... those sorts of activities?

As though Claude read my thoughts, he said, “It started talking to me. I had a shower and... afterwards, the house... Jenny, spoke to me.”

I swallowed. Pretended I didn’t feel my cheeks and ears catching on fire.

Claude closed his eyes and shook his head. “It... oh, fuck... it questioned the necessity and enjoyment levels of...” He paused. “Actually, I can’t do it. I can’t tell you what it saw.”

But he didn’t need to. Presumably the house had witnessed my wank and had then tattled to Claude. Damn, why would it grass on me like that? I scrubbed my hands down my face and groaned. Now both a sentient house and Claude knew I’d masturbated the very second I got back to my room. How much detail had it gone into when relaying this info?

I hadn’t been able to find privacy fast enough. Was barely inside my room before I jiggled Claude’s train-print PJs down under my balls and collapsed onto the magically returned chair. I’d been gasping for the release. It had been a long time since I’d come as hard as that on my own. There was even cum in my stubble.

But at least Claude couldn’t know I’d thought of him the entire time. Could he? My cheeks flamed all over again. I didn’t think I’d called out his name as I came. Or did I? Shit.

“Can Jenny read minds? Or can it only see and hear us?”

Claude paused, tipped his face towards me. I couldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t think it can read minds.”

My sigh of relief was altogether too obvious.

“Although...” he said, and my stomach dropped. “I never thought to ask, but Jenny knows what I like. What we like, I mean. It created two perfect rooms for our individual needs. It knew I like puzzles and trains and dark spaces. And I’ve only seen a crack inside your doorway, but I don’t think a more Sonny space has ever existed.”

I tried not to fixate on the way Claude seemed to know what I liked. Knew whether a space “suited” me.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” he said, driving home the mortification another mile or two. “It’s a perfectly natural thing to do, and well, I myself oftentimes partake in—”

“Holy shiitake!” I yelled, stopping him before he finished that sentence and caused me to combust from the sheer humiliation. “You can stop speaking now. Please.”

Claude nodded vehemently. “Yes. I’m sorry. Thank you.”

Last thing I needed was to picture the man opposite me with his dick in his hand. What kind of faces would he pull as he brought himself to the edge? What kind of noises would he make as he tipped himself over?

No, Sonny, shut it down, now!

We were quiet for the longest time. Claude continued eating his breakfast, occasionally shooting me glances and looking away the millisecond we caught each other’s eye. I tried not to think about wanking. Me wanking. Claude wanking. Wanking in general.

How was I supposed to cope with a fortnight or perhaps longer with no way to release my pent-up tensions? Especially a fortnight around Claude. A man who had been both the cause of and solution to those tensions for quite some time now.

I wondered if there was anywhere besides the bed and breakfast where the house wouldn’t see every movement I made. Perhaps the gardens? Or maybe I could take a walk into the nearest village, rent a room in a different B&B. A non-pervert one.

“So,” I began tentatively. “Apart from ratting me out, what else did Jenny tell you?”

Claude thought for a minute. “It said you, or rather we both, have the ability to figure out the ritual. That the answer is right in front of our faces. We just have to look and we’ll see it.”

“So, Jenny knows what the ritual is?”

“It does, but it can’t tell us because of the ancient shroom fae bonds.”

“Of course it can’t tell us. That would be far too easy. Fancy being able to tell us the one thing we need to do to keep it alive.” I sat back in my chair. “Well, I am a little more optimistic than I was yesterday. At least we know the answer is within our grasp, and not some long-forgotten spell neither of us had a hope of stumbling upon.”

“If anything, it makes me more nervous,” Claude said. He looked down into his half-demolished eggs royale. “I have a habit of screwing up even the most basic of magics. Always have done. My mother never shouted at me, but... Not important. It’s not important right now.” He shook his head as though ridding it of his memories. “I’ve never been responsible for anything, and this...” He motioned his fork in a circle, pointing to the room at large. “If we fail... It was bad enough when the house was only magic, but now that it’s real, sentient... It has a personality. It has a name—Jenny. And Jenny’s talking to me, and casually insulting me, though it also said some nice things, but... Sonny, what if I fuck this up too?”

I watched as the five-hundred-year-old fae opposite me seemed to shrink in on himself. His shoulders hunched, his bottom lip pulled under his teeth, his eyes downcast like he couldn’t bring them to meet mine, couldn’t muster the strength.

The “too” part of his question grated against something in my chest. What else did he believe he’d fucked up? One thing? Many things? Everything?

“You won’t fuck this up,” I said. Claude continued staring at his plate. “I don’t have any great skill with glamour either. Unless you count pickpocketing.” To prove my point, I placed Claude’s wallet on the table between us. Really, I just wanted to diffuse the tension. And in a roundabout way, show him that maybe, if he considered himself a fuck-up, he wasn’t the only one.

“But how?” He finally lifted his eyes to mine. “I didn’t feel a thing.”

I shrugged. “That about summarises all my magical abilities. But I’m not leaving this house until we find the solution to this rhizome ritual. Together. Okay?” Even if that meant abstaining from any form of self-pleasure while I was here.

Claude sucked on his bottom lip again, and I resisted the urge to think anything inappropriate about it. Inappropriate thoughts would have to wait until after the summer solstice.

“Okay?” I repeated.

He nodded, solemnly.

“Pinky promise.” I held out my baby finger and Claude eyed it. A smile ticked the corner of his mouth.

“First truth or dare, now pinky promises.” He wrapped his finger around mine, and I pretended as though the skin-on- skin spark licking up my arm didn’t feel like a bolt of lightning. “What’s next, kiss chase?”

I tried to laugh, even feign a titter, but my brain raced forward. It started concocting hypotheses, ranking them by their success potential and their likelihood of evolving naturally from the moment without raising suspicions. The result: Claude and I playing kiss chase.