Residual Glow

The first thing Reg felt was cold moss against his back.

Then the ache in his thighs—thick, powerful legs that had carried him through decades of raves and boardrooms alike, now stiff from exertion. Then the weight on his chest—his own broad, barrel-like torso, still strong but softened by years of rich meals and too many pints. His skin was flushed, his thick fingers twitching slightly as if still chasing the rhythm of the night before.

The trees above swayed in the thin morning light, branches blurring into gold-green halos, as though the forest itself hadn’t yet sobered.

The bass was still there, just barely—a low, primal throb carried across the air in waves, as if the earth itself were remembering the night better than he could.

He blinked. His mouth was dry, his teeth slightly sore from clenching—a habit he’d never shaken, whether from stress or suppressed desire. Dried mud flaked from his arm as he lifted it, shielding his eyes. A few feet away, a string of LED lights blinked from a bush like a confused Christmas decoration. Someone’s hoodie lay tangled around a tree root.

Then he turned his head and saw Harry.

Face half-buried in his elbow, wire-framed glasses smeared with condensation. Also naked. Pale, lean, with a light dusting of chest hair that rose and fell with the shallow breath of dreamless sleep. His body was still taut, disciplined—years of self-control etched into his frame, though his shoulders carried the slight hunch of a man used to making himself smaller. One of his knees was hooked slightly toward Reg’s waist, like they'd fallen asleep mid-embrace and drifted apart only as the cold settled in.

Reg felt the blood drain from his face.

He sat up slowly, wincing, his body stiff in all the wrong places. There was grass in his armpits. A glowstick bracelet was looped around his ankle. And in the churned-up moss between them—an unmistakable shape: a condom wrapper, half-crushed, glinting silver in the light.

His stomach turned.

“No,” he said aloud, quietly, to no one.

Not because he remembered anything specific—he didn’t. Not a moment. Not even a kiss. But the physical facts were unignorable. The proximity. The lack of clothes. The faint musk in the air—sweat, cologne, the small, contented exhale that emanated from Harry. Intimacy. Familiarity.

Reg staggered to his feet, brushing soil from his skin, avoiding looking too long at Harry’s body. His own body felt foreign, like it had been borrowed during the night and returned out of place. The only thing intact was his watch, blinking 7:42 AM in defiance of whatever had transpired.

Their clothes were scattered like the aftermath of a storm. His boots—somehow laced together—hung from a pine branch like a prank. A crumpled blazer was jammed behind a log. He didn’t see his underpants anywhere and didn’t feel like searching too hard.

When he finally caught sight of the narrow trail—or what sufficed as one—winding its way back toward the distant strains of music, he gently shook Harry awake. Harry opened his eyes and glanced at him with a knowing look, as if he was all too familiar with the unspoken routine they had fallen into. Reg felt a heavy reluctance to converse, particularly about that particular subject.

Three Days Later – Glass Tower, Canary Wharf

Reg Forsythe sat at his desk on the thirty-second floor, his bulk settled heavily into the ergonomic chair that still creaked under his weight. He stared at the curve of a pie chart while a flickering image burned somewhere behind his eyes.

Harry’s mouth, smiling. Lips too close to his ear.

“You’re always like this on it,” the voice whispered—a memory voice, maybe imagined. But real enough to make his stomach tighten.

Reg blinked and leaned back in his chair, his thick fingers drumming against the desk. His office was all chrome and silence.

But all he could think about was dirt. Sweat. The sticky back of Harry’s neck beneath his hand.

He hadn’t meant to take that second pill. It had been stupid. A 55-year-old man, dancing in a converted warehouse under strobing lights, trying to recapture the nights when the music had made him feel invincible. The rave was part of a series billed for “Original Ravers”—those who had once crawled through fence holes or climbed scaffolding to party in disused airfields, motorway underpasses, and abandoned textile mills back in the late 80s and 90s.

Back then, it had been illegal and electric, all basslines and ecstasy, sweat and police raids. Reg remembered one night in ’91, when he’d danced until dawn in a decommissioned train depot near Milton Keynes, the air thick with dry ice and laughter. You never knew who you were with—students, bikers, city boys, crusties—it didn’t matter. The music had dissolved the borders between people. He’d never felt more free, or more alive.

The newer, legal events attempt to recreate this experience for those with mortgages and colonoscopies. But when the right track dropped—an early Underworld cut or a lost Orbital remix—something clicked back into place. Reg would throw his arms around strangers who knew the same old lyrics, and for a moment, it was 1992 again.

He hadn’t danced like that in years. Hadn’t felt that version of himself—looser, bolder, more forgiving—rise up through the layers of adulthood. That night, they’d all egged each other on, laughing about bad knees, blood pressure tablets, and how long it had been since anyone had pulled an all-nighter. Some skinny German kid with pupils like saucers passed him a capsule, and Reg—falling back into the part of himself that used to say yes to everything—swallowed it with a grin and a half-warm beer.

And then things had blurred.

Not blank—blurred. A smear of sensations. Someone grinding against him near the bass bin. Fingers running down his back, exploring. The tickle of facial hair against his throat.

He shut his laptop with a snap.

Men’s Room – 11:47 AM

Reg stood in the last stall, hands pressed against the cool tiled wall. His forehead touched the metal of the door.

He wasn’t panicking. Not exactly. But something was stirring in him. Memory—or fantasy—leaking in through the cracks.

That night had happened before.

He didn’t remember it clearly. But now that the thought had opened like a wound, he realized this wasn’t the first time he’d woken up near Harry in the aftermath of a rave. There had been a night in Barcelona, 2004. Another in the Lake District, during the rain. Always the same: Ecstasy. Music. Blurred lines.

And him—Reg Forsythe, the CEO of a digital logistics firm, a man who wore cufflinks and said things like “circle back on that”—slowly melting into someone else.

Someone whose hands didn’t flinch when they touched another man’s chest.

That evening, back at home, Reg poured himself a whiskey and opened his photo folder labeled '89–'92".

He clicked slowly through. Faces lost to time. Fluorescent hair, pupils like dinner plates. Bodies pressed together. In one, he saw himself grinning—shirt off, mouth open, arm slung around Harry’s shoulders.

He zoomed in.

Harry was staring at him. Not the camera. Not the crowd. Him.

Reg sipped his drink. Closed the photo.

In the silence of his living room, the bass returned. Not real, but persistent. Like memory, or guilt, or maybe desire—still pulsing, deep beneath the skin.

Blackburn, 1988

The warehouse loomed like a concrete cathedral in the middle of nowhere—walls streaked with soot and piss, windows like broken teeth. Blackburn. February. Cold enough to see your breath indoors.

But inside… inside, the world was blooming.

The sound was everything. Bass like rolling thunder, high hats clattering like chains. Light strobed through the dark like divine punishment—white, then red, then seizure blue. Hundreds of bodies, shifting in a single, liquid pulse. Trainers thudding on the oil-stained floor. Boys in oversized denim. Girls with whistles around their necks and stars in their eyes.

Harry had come alone.

That was the sort of thing he did in those days—slipped away from his flat in Manchester with a lie about “drinks with a barrister friend,” and ended up behind some factory, standing awkwardly in a queue full of kids with pupils like coins. He didn’t even know how he’d heard about this one. A flyer passed in a pub. A phone number on a lamppost.

The music was too loud. The crowd too loose.

He stood at the edge of it all, arms crossed, feeling thirty-five instead of twenty-five. A tweed blazer was the wrong choice—too stiff, too buttoned. He looked like someone’s uncle lost on the way to the train station.

“First time?”

The voice came from behind him—shout-speak, trying to be heard over the kick drum. Harry turned.

Reg was grinning.

Even back then, he had that bullish charm—chest out, sweat-slicked curls, grin a little crooked, like it wasn’t sure if it wanted to laugh or kiss you. He was already shirtless, a yellow hi-vis tied around his waist like a belt, rave beads around his neck. Skin gleamed with sweat and youth. He looked like a builder who’d been teleported into a dream and decided to dance until the sun came back.

“Pardon?” Harry yelled back.

Reg leaned in closer. “You look like you're wondering whether to file a noise complaint.”

Harry flushed. “I'm… observing.”

Reg’s laugh was like a slap on the back. “Well, that’s a crime round here.”

He handed Harry a bottle of water. Already open.

Harry hesitated. “Is it spiked?”

Reg winked. “Hopefully.”

Then he clapped a wide hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Come on, mate. Can’t spectate your way through this one. You’ve gotta feel it.”

And somehow—Harry did.

They danced for hours, Harry following Reg’s lead, his body loosening in degrees. One pill, then a second. Time began to shimmer. His hands didn’t feel like his. His feet floated. The music stopped being sound and became sensation—like someone was pressing their fingers into his chest with every beat.

At one point, they were against the far wall, beneath a massive rusted ventilation pipe, breathing steam like two bulls.

“You always like this?” Harry asked, teeth chattering from the comedown spike. “So... extroverted?”

Reg leaned in, forehead nearly touching his. “Nah,” he said. “Normally I’m a right bastard.”

Harry laughed—really laughed. His knees went weak. In solidarity with his new friend, Harry removed his sweat soaked shirt revealing a lank physique in contrast with the chunky Reg

Later, it happened in fragments.

A cigarette shared in the shadows. Hands that lingered too long. Reg whispering “Don’t overthink it, posh-boy” as he leaned in close, breath hot on Harry’s jaw. They didn’t kiss—not properly. But their faces touched. Noses. Lips grazing like a mistake.

And Reg—eyes wide, pupils blown, voice low—said something Harry would never forget.

"You feel good. Like... honest. Never felt this way before."

Then the lights changed, and soon found themselves in a darken corner

Their bodies pressed together in that shadowed corner, inhibitions dissolving like smoke in the pulsing air. Reg's mouth found Harry's with surprising tenderness that quickly gave way to hunger. Years of unspoken desire crashed through them both as their lips met, tongues exploring with urgent need.

"Christ," Harry gasped between kisses, his proper accent slipping as Reg's hands roamed beneath his waistband.

They were all movement then, Reg's broad palms sliding down Harry's chest, tasting salt and heat as he dragged his tongue across the lean contours of his body. The warehouse bass provided cover for their ragged breathing as Reg dropped to his knees, unfastening Harry's trousers with trembling fingers.

Harry stifled a moan as Reg took him in his mouth, his head falling back against the concrete wall. The sensation was overwhelming—wet heat and pressure building as Reg worked him to fullness. Harry's fingers tangled in Reg's sweat-damp curls, guiding him, encouraging him.

"God, please," Harry whispered, almost inaudible beneath the music.

Reg rose to his feet, turning to brace himself against the wall. His massive shoulders flexed as he looked back, eyes wild with desire.

"Don't make me beg," he growled, voice raw. "Just shag me. Now."

Harry pressed against him, one hand steadying himself against the wall, the other gripping Reg's hip. They moved together in the darkness, finding an urgent rhythm that matched the distant thunder of the music. Harry's slender frame contrasted with Reg's bulk as they rocked together, the experience both desperate and tender.

The warehouse shadows cloaked them in anonymity, their bodies moving with increasing urgency. Harry's rhythm grew frantic, his fingers digging into the flesh of Reg's hips with surprising strength. Each thrust drove Reg harder against the cold concrete, the friction against his own throbbing cock building to an unbearable tension.

"Fuck—I'm close," Harry hissed, his posh accent completely undone.

Reg could only grunt in response, one massive palm flat against the wall, the other wrapped around himself, stroking in time with Harry's movements. The dual sensations overwhelmed him—Harry filling him from behind while his own hand worked furiously.

When it happened, it was simultaneous—Harry's body going rigid as he buried himself to the hilt with a strangled cry, while Reg's release spilled hot against the warehouse wall, his body shuddering violently through waves of pleasure that seemed to pulse with the bass itself.

They collapsed against each other, breathing ragged, skin slick with sweat. For several minutes, they remained there, Harry's forehead resting between Reg's shoulder blades, neither speaking as the music continued to thump around them. A brief, dreamless darkness claimed them both—not quite sleep, but a floating disconnection from reality.

Reg was the first to regain his senses, fumbling with his clothes awkwardly. "Christ," he mumbled as reality gradually returned to him. He looked back at Harry, who was blinking rapidly, perhaps expecting something more to happen. It was clear, however, that Reg was too out of it to respond appropriately, and both boys made their way back to the party.

When they parted—just a quick nod, no numbers, no promises—Harry walked away with wet hair, trembling fingers, and a strange sensation growing in his chest like a bruise.

Berlin, Present Day

The club's name was “Grube”, which meant “pit” in German, though the word felt more like a promise than a warning. Buried in the disused basement of a brutalist office tower near Kottbusser Tor, it had no signage—just a red bulb above a black steel door, pulsing faintly in the drizzle.

Reg had worn his best suit. Navy wool, Savile Row, two-button—appropriate for a man nearing fifty-six and still closing deals across continents. His tie was cinched tight. He had shaved that morning. Cologne subtle but expensive. His job in Berlin was to impress.

He hadn’t realized the client—Anton—was going to be so... unfiltered.

Anton was one of those Berlin types who oozed both sex and derision. Forty, lean, and sculpted like something out of a decadent film, with a thin moustache and a grin that seemed permanently entertained. He wore a translucent mesh shirt, trousers that clung like wet silk, and spoke English with the carelessness of someone who’d never needed to ask permission.

“Your tie,” Anton said as they queued behind two shirtless men in leather harnesses, “you are not mixing in.”

Inside, the club was a womb of red light and sound. No signage, no rules, only suggestion. The music wasn’t music so much as pressure—deep techno with basslines that carved tunnels through your sternum. Bodies moved in slow, intentional undulations. A fog of sweat, latex, and perfume.

Anton disappeared for drinks.

Reg stayed near the edge, blinking in the heat. He didn’t understand what they were doing here. This was supposed to be a deal-sealing dinner. Maybe a cocktail after. Not whatever this was—sex in the shadows, someone dancing with a leash, a man in stiletto boots spinning like a ballerina on MDMA.

Anton returned with two glasses. “You’ll like this. Tastes like peach.”

Reg hesitated. “What is it?”

“Europe,” Anton said, smirking.

Thirty minutes later, Reg realized something was happening.

His skin tingled. The back of his neck flushed. The music slowed down—or maybe he sped up. His hands felt like foreign things. The lights—red, blue, purple—started to feel intimate, like they were touching him.

“Jesus,” he muttered, loosening his tie.

Anton was watching him with amused calm, like a cat watching a goldfish trying to swim backward—bemused, faintly predatory, perfectly still.

“You’re glowing,” the client murmured, voice low and unbothered by the punishing tempo around them.

The club was nothing like the ones Reg remembered. Raw concrete walls pressed in at odd, angular intervals, pulsing with LED veins that blinked in time to the beat. The bass was violent, serrated, like industrial machinery chewing itself to bits.

Reg could feel it in his throat, his ribs, his teeth.

He didn’t usually go in for this sort of thing anymore. The raves of his youth had been warmer, stranger, more chaotic—more forgiving.

Reg turned back to Anton. The man looked sculpted for this space—sharp in his posture, bone-white under the strobes, utterly composed. Reg, by contrast, was unraveling in slow increments, the pill thinning his thoughts like sugar in hot water.

“I don’t usually…” he began. But the words were soft. Slippery. Dissolving before they could even form.

Anton only smiled, and Reg felt suddenly, terrifyingly transparent.

He felt his hips start to move, just slightly. The music carried him. Someone brushed against his back—shirtless, warm. It didn’t matter.

Later, in the club’s private rear chamber—velvet-draped walls punctuated by mirrors—Reg sprawled in a crimson leather booth, shirt discarded, chest heaving. Glitter sparkled on his nipples where someone had applied it. An hour earlier, a stranger had pressed a kiss to his lips—and he’d let it happen, even welcomed it.

Anton lounged beside him, exhaling sweet smoke from a joint.

Reg leaned back, lips glossy, torso exposed, and laughed as if something inside him had finally shattered.

Anton’s friend—a sleek, androgynous figure with piercing glints under the strobe lights—sidled in, hands already exploring. In tandem they traced his soft belly, stroked his thick thighs, and paused over the faint outline of an old tattoo. Reg’s breath quickened; half panic, half thrill glazed his half-lidded eyes. Exposed yet electrified, he surrendered as the club’s onlookers formed a tight ring around the booth.

With a deft, almost ritualistic motion, they ripped his belt open. Reg's stomach twisted violently—a chaotic storm of nausea and raw anticipation. His mind was a frenzy, desperately trying to catch up with his treacherous body, still soaring on the remnants of his high. Faces swirled around him, eyes burning with lustful hunger, as someone pressed a rubber dildo against his lips, its synthetic taste mingling with the sharp sweetness of peach cocktail clinging to his tongue. Behind him, Anton's fingers were a flurry, slathering cold lubricant over his cock before positioning himself at Reg's entrance. The pressure was immediate and insistent, as Anton thrust forward, invading him with a torrent of shock and euphoria. The dildo disappeared, replaced by the friend's unyielding length. Engulfed in a whirlwind of dual sensations—his mouth filled to the brim, his ass stretched to its limits—Reg surrendered to the pounding bass that seemed to dictate his every move, urging him to embrace each intrusion. The crowd watched, spellbound by the symphony of his moans resonating off the velvet walls, eagerly unbuckling their belts, anticipating their own moment with the naked and willing middle-aged chubby Englishman.

He awoke later in a hotel room that wasn’t his own.

Above him, the ceiling was painted flat charcoal. The sheets smelled faintly of cedar and sex. One shoe perched on the windowsill; his shirt draped over the hanging light like a warning.

His mouth was parched; his memory a blank.

A black wristband still looped his left wrist—GRUBE, it said in embossed block letters. The club. Right.

What had happened in there? he wondered, blinking at his reflection: bloodshot eyes, that post-debauch glow—raw, flushed, unsettlingly serene. His tie was gone. His chest ached, but not in the way soreness felt.

No time to unravel it now.

He had a meeting at the Intercontinental in under two hours.

By noon, he was once again Reginald Wexler, Executive Director, crisp in a backup suit, his voice smooth and confident. He delivered the numbers, massaged the pitch, and secured the German contract he'd flown in for. Anton, seated opposite, sipped his espresso and smirked throughout.

“A fine performance,” Anton said as they shook hands in the parking garage. “Much better than last night.”

Reg gave a thin chuckle. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Oh, you will be,” Anton said with a wink. Then, when no one was looking, he slapped Reg lightly on the ass. Not playful—familiar.

Reg flinched.

And it hit him—a soundless surge of memory:

The press of bodies.

The taste of skin.

His hands around Anton’s waist.

The glint of mirrors.

His own voice moaning Harry’s name.

He staggered slightly but recovered with a cough, adjusting his tie like it might restore order to his mind.

“Safe flight,” Anton said, turning away.

Reg didn’t answer.

Back in London

Reg sat in his high-rise kitchen with a mug of black tea he didn’t remember making.

He had been home for an hour. The apartment was quiet—too quiet. Too clean. He stared out at the skyline, but it offered no clarity. The memory had lodged itself just beneath the surface. Not a full picture—just impressions: warmth, laughter, surrender. Harry’s name from his own lips.

Had he…? No, impossible. Not again. Not after all these years.

He reached for his phone—instinct more than intention. Checked email. Messages. Calendar. The usual litany of business and logistics.

Then it rang.

Harry.

He stared at the screen.

Don’t answer, he thought.

But his thumb betrayed him.

“Hello?”

Harry’s voice was calm. Always calm. Always two steps ahead, too careful.

“Reg. That thing I mentioned. The reunion. It’s happening next month.”

Reg swallowed.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Same lot as before. Not in the forest this time, thank God—an old train depot somewhere in Wales. Off-grid, phones discouraged, music all night. You know the drill.”

Reg didn’t respond immediately.

“I thought,” Harry continued, and there was the barest flicker of something in his tone—caution, maybe, or hope—“you might like to go again. Like old times.”

Reg looked down at his wrist. The GRUBE band was still there. He hadn’t taken it off. Couldn’t.

The memories weren’t gone. They were blooming.

His voice came out low. Almost guilty.

“I’ll think about it.”

There was a pause.

“I hope you do,” Harry said, then added softly, “You sounded happy. That night.”

Click.

Reg stared at the phone.

He exhaled slowly, then reached up and ran his fingers along the back of his neck.

He wasn’t sure if it was sweat or the memory of someone’s breath.

Wales, Present Day

The storm had not been in the forecast.

One moment they were under pulsing lights, lost in the throb of bass and bodies in the repurposed depot; the next, the heavens cracked open and the ground turned to swamp. Cables hissed. Lights flickered. People screamed, laughed, scattered.

By the time Reg and Harry reached the rental car, both were soaked, their jeans clinging to their thighs, shoes heavy with mud. The music was still audible behind them, distorted by wind and distance, but the euphoria had long drained from the night.

They drove in silence, windshield wipers straining against the rain, following signs that seemed increasingly rare and increasingly Welsh. The GPS cut out miles back. The hills loomed, shadowy and ancient, and everything smelled like sheep, loam, and wet wool.

Then, like a mirage, the sign emerged from the mist:

The Hen House – Lodging & Cream Teas.

It looked like something out of a 1970s horror film—peeling whitewash, cracked windows, a wooden chicken swinging from rusted chain—but it was shelter.

They knocked. Waited. Knocked again.

An elderly woman answered, peering through the cracked door with the tired suspicion of someone long past caring.

“We’ve only got the one room,” she said after a long pause. “Double bed. Heating’s temperamental.”

Harry opened his mouth. Reg cut in.

“We’ll take it.”

It was a small, uneven space with wallpaper patterned like old tea towels and the faint, comforting scent of lavender sachets and mildew. A single lamp cast a cone of amber light across the rumpled bedspread.

They peeled off their wet clothes in silence, tossing them over the radiator. Reg stood in his briefs and undershirt, hair matted, legs spattered with dried mud. Harry, ever modest, turned his back, slipping into a worn flannel robe he’d found hanging on the back of the door.

The storm hadn't let up.

Rain still battered the crooked slate roof, and the radiator in the corner hissed without conviction. The room was dim, illuminated by a yellowing bedside lamp and the occasional flash of lightning silhouetting lace curtains. A faint tick of a clock on the wall made the quiet feel heavier.

Reg sat at the edge of the bed, peeling off his muddied socks. Harry was standing by the small window in his t-shirt and damp jeans, arms crossed, staring out at the black fields that stretched beyond the glass.

“It’s not exactly how I pictured ending the night,” Reg muttered, dropping the socks near the radiator with a wet slap.

Harry didn't respond.

Reg rubbed his hand through his graying hair, fingers trembling. He turned to Harry. “You’ve been quiet since that storm broke.”

Harry’s eyes were dark hollows. “I’m just tired.”

“No you’re not,” Reg snapped. “Ever since we left the site, you’ve been… off.”

Harry pivoted slowly toward the window, rain spattering the glass. “We’re stuck in a damp room in a falling-down farmhouse, no heat, soaking wet, fresh off a rave ruined by thunder. I’ve got a right to be off.”

Reg studied him, heart hammering. “No. You seemed disappointed. Not just about the rave.”

Harry’s jaw clenched. Silence fell, broken only by the torrent outside.

Reg let out a long breath. “Can I ask something?”

Harry shrugged. “You will anyway.”

Reg lumbered to his feet, feeling too large for the small room. His shoulders hunched as he paced the creaking floorboards.

"I need to know what happens when we take those pills," he said finally, his voice rough. "At the raves."

Harry froze, his silhouette rigid against the rain-streaked window.

"What do you mean?" His voice was careful, measured.

"You know exactly what I mean." Reg stopped pacing, planted his feet. "I wake up naked. With... evidence on me. On my stomach, my thighs." He swallowed hard. "Dried cum. And I don't remember how it got there."

Lightning flashed, illuminating Harry's face—pale, wary, caught.

"And you," Reg continued, his voice dropping lower, "you're always there. Always nearby. Always with that look on your face like you're waiting for me to say something."

Harry's fingers tightened on the windowsill. "We're adults, Reg. Sometimes people—"

"No." Reg cut him off. "I need the truth. Because I keep having these... flashes. Images. Your mouth on my neck. Your hands on my hips." His voice cracked slightly. "Your name in my mouth. But I can't put them together. Can't make them real."

Harry turned fully toward him now, his thin frame tense with something like resignation.

"You really don't remember?" he asked quietly.

"I wouldn't be asking if I did."

Harry sighed, running a hand through his damp hair. "It's not like I'm taking advantage, if that's what you're thinking. You're always... enthusiastic."

Reg felt heat crawl up his neck. "So we do...?"

"Yes." Harry's voice was steady now. "Every time. You initiate it, Reg. Always. The pills just... unlock something in you. Something you keep locked away when you're sober."

Reg sat heavily on the bed, the springs protesting. "Why didn't you ever say anything? The morning after?"

"Because the one time I tried, back in '96, you looked at me like I was speaking Martian. Then you avoided me for six months." Harry moved closer, perching on the edge of the dresser. "I figured you needed the... plausible deniability. The chemical excuse."

Reg stared at his hands—broad, calloused, capable. Hands that had apparently done things he couldn't consciously remember.

"What exactly do we do?" he asked, voice barely audible.

Harry chuckled quietly, a hint of melancholy in his voice. "It's everything, Reg. Sometimes it's tender, other times... intense. Your emotions are overpowering and unpredictable, mixed with the music, the sweat, and the nakedness... these have been some of the most unforgettable nights of my life."

Reg’s breath hitched; the room spun.

“You never told me.”

Harry’s voice cracked. “Because you would have stopped.”

They stood in that musty room, years of silence pressing in like the storm outside. Harry turned to him, really turned—scrutinizing the man Reg had become, caught between the executive façade and the boy he’d once been. And in that fierce, revelatory gaze, Reg saw all the answers he’d been chasing.

Reg stood for a long while, staring down at the wet clothes near the radiator. Then he switched off the lamp and crawled in beside him, the mattress groaning with old springs.

They didn’t touch.

But they also didn’t sleep.

The wind had stilled outside. The storm had done its shouting and now retreated inland, leaving behind a hush that magnified every creak of the old bed frame and the distant dripping from the corner gutter.

The radiator still hissed, useless.

Reg lay awake, facing the ceiling, listening to the slow breath of the man beside him. The dark was total, yet he could feel Harry's presence as though it glowed—familiar, close, unguarded.

He didn't know what woke him. Maybe the quiet. Maybe the warmth that had finally built beneath the covers. Or maybe it was the slow, unfamiliar ache in his chest—the ache of clarity.

It wasn't like before. This wasn’t chemically propelled or dreamlike. This was weighty and real. Unmistakable.

Desire.

He turned on his side, careful not to shift the mattress too much. Moonlight finally broke through the clouds and cast a thin silver band across the bedspread. Harry's profile was visible in the pale light—relaxed, lined, and absurdly beautiful in a way Reg had never dared to admit before.

Reg studied him, not as a memory or a guilty curiosity, but as the man he’d known for decades. The man who had waited in silence. Who had never asked for anything.

And yet—

The look came without thinking. The same look he gave Harry before the warehouse kiss in ’88, before the night in Cornwall, before that lost moment beneath the trees months ago.

Harry stirred.

Eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the dark. For a moment, he was confused—then he saw Reg, and the years slipped from his face. He blinked once. Twice.

Reg didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

Harry gave the smallest of smiles—wry, affectionate, afraid—and in response, he reached down and pulled his undershirt over his head, slow and quiet, as though afraid the moment might vanish if hurried. The fabric made a soft rasp as it slid from his skin and was discarded to the floor.

Reg leaned in. He kissed Harry gently at first—uncertain but hungry—and Harry responded without hesitation. His fingers reached up to touch Reg’s face, calloused thumbs brushing the ridge of his cheekbones as though to make sure this was real.

Reg's shirt tore open under Harry's touch, exposing the smooth expanse of his chest. The room was thick with the scent of rain and their shared past—stale beer and diesel, sweat, and a hint of mint from the bathroom's complimentary toothpaste. Harry's eyes locked onto Reg's, questioning, hungry, as he leaned in. Reg's gaze held steady, his heart thudding in his ears. Their bare chests met—Reg's solid and warm, Harry's lean and cool—their chest hair tickling and sending shivers down their spines. The kiss deepened, growing more insistent. This wasn't the messy, desperate passion of their drug-fueled hookups; it was the tender, knowing kiss of two men who had circled each other for decades. Harry's hands slid up Reg's back, tracing the curves of his spine, feeling the solid reality of his flesh. Reg's hands found Harry's hips, fingers digging into the bone with a silent demand. They broke the kiss, breathless, their bodies a tangle of limbs, their hearts pounding in sync with the rhythm that had first drawn them together in the shadow of a forgotten warehouse.

Their pants hit the floor, revealing their erections, hard and eager against the cool air. Harry's hand wrapped around Reg's cock, stroking it firmly, drawing a groan from deep within him. Reg's hand reached for Harry, his thick fingers circling the shaft with surprising skill. Harry paused, savoring the sensation, before climbing onto the bed, his knees straddling Reg's chest. He leaned down, taking one of Reg's nipples into his mouth, teasing it with his tongue, feeling the man beneath him shiver with pleasure. The room was silent except for their breaths and the distant rumble of the retreating storm. Reg's eyes rolled back, his body responding to Harry's touch with a primal need long buried. Harry felt a warmth spread through him, both soothing and electrifying. He could feel the weight of every shared glance, every unspoken desire, every rave that had brought them closer without their realization. As Reg took Harry's cock into his mouth, he knew this was more than just a wild night—it was the culmination of a lifetime of unspoken rhythm, a dance that had always played beneath the surface of their friendship. Harry's hands gripped the bedsheets, his body arching as Reg's head bobbed, his tongue teasing and coaxing. The taste of him was a memory made flesh, something they both knew intimately but had never fully explored until now.

The room grew warmer, heated by their entwined bodies. This was their truth, a moment of honesty amidst the lies of their youth and the responsibilities of their adulthood. They were finally allowing themselves to feel what they had always felt—what the pills had let them act upon but never truly embrace. As the storm outside began to fade, the thunder of their hearts grew louder, echoing through the old farmhouse, claiming this night as their own.

With a gentle urgency, Reg's hand guided Harry's legs upward, exposing the taut, muscled expanse of his ass. Harry's eyes widened in surprise and anticipation as Reg leaned in, his tongue tracing a wet path down Harry's body. When the tip of his tongue touched Harry's anus, he felt Harry tense briefly before relaxing into the sensation. Reg licked and probed, the musky taste of Harry’s body mixing with the lingering scent of rain.

Reg’s tongue pushed past Harry’s tight ring, and Harry’s grip on the bedframe tightened. He’d never felt this way with anyone else—so vulnerable, so open, so seen. Reg’s mouth worked him with a focus that was both thrilling and terrifying. Harry’s hips rolled in time with the strokes, the tension building in his core with every pass of that rough, wet tongue. It was like a secret part of himself had been found and was now being worshipped in a way he’d never allowed. His breaths grew erratic, his body a live wire of sensation. “Oh God, Reg,” he panted, his voice hoarse. The words seemed to echo through the decades of unspoken desire, resonating with every beat of his racing heart.

With a firm, gentle push, Reg's cockhead soon breached Harry's entrance, his tongue work helping lube Harry up. Harry's eyes squeezed shut, and he let out a guttural moan. Reg paused, giving Harry time to adjust, his own body quivering with the effort of holding back. Then, with a slow, steady pressure, Reg pushed in further, filling Harry completely with his thick, hard length. Harry’s moans grew louder, his body opening up to Reg in a way it never had before. Reg’s chest heaved with every inch he claimed, his stomach slapping against Harry’s firm ass, his balls tight against Harry’s cheeks. It was raw and real, a moment that transcended the fog of the past decades. Reg’s hands gripped Harry’s hips tightly as he began to thrust—his movements tentative at first, but growing stronger with each stroke, as if rediscovering a long-forgotten dance move that had once come so naturally to them both. Harry’s body rocked back into him, matching his rhythm, their skin sticking together with sweat and lube. The old bed frame protested, but the storm outside had moved on, leaving them in the quiet sanctity of their shared truth. And as Reg fucked Harry with the weight of his full, solid body, the years of unspoken love and desire crashed together in a crescendo that neither of them had ever dared dream could be so visceral, so alive, so utterly consuming.

The intensity grew, their breaths melding into a single, ragged symphony of need. Reg’s hips moved with a fervor that seemed to shake the very foundation of the farmhouse, and Harry met him thrust for thrust, their bodies moving in a timeless rhythm that was both ancient and utterly new. With a guttural growl, Reg reached his peak, his cock pulsing deep inside Harry. He quickly pulled out and turned Harry around to suck his cock, Harry snarled as his cum spilled into the warm, welcoming wetness of Reg’s mouth. Reg swallowed, savoring the taste, the intimacy of the moment, his eyes never leaving Harry’s. As the tremors of pleasure subsided, Harry collapsed onto the bed, Reg’s softening cock began its retreat. They lay there, panting, the silence of the room pierced only by the fading whispers of the storm.

Harry ran his hands across Reg’s chest, tracing softness and time. He whispered his name—not slurred, not shouted, but spoken like a word remembered.

And Reg, for the first time, let himself whisper it back.

Only the tick of the warped radiator and the occasional distant bark of wind against the old B&B roof gave any sign of the world outside. The room was warm now—stale with body heat and the lingering scent of skin and damp wool. A thin crack of dawnlight filtered through the slats of the crooked blinds, casting soft, broken lines across the tangled bedsheets.

Reg lay on his back, bare and still, one hand resting over his stomach, the other lightly touching the curve of Harry’s shoulder where it rose and fell with sleep.

He was wide awake.

There had always been a way to brush it off. To laugh, to call it the pill talking. A weird night. A one-off. “Madness, that. Wild weekend, eh?” Easy. Dismissible. A man like Reg had built a life out of dismissing things before they could dent the surface.

But now there was no haze. No music pounding the past into static. No pill to pin the blame on. Just the weight of another man’s leg resting lightly over his, and the memory of everything they’d done—unclouded, unforced, undeniably chosen.

He tilted his head, looked at Harry.

The man looked peaceful. Still damp hair curled slightly on his forehead, and one arm was crooked beneath the pillow. The frown he often wore in daylight had melted into something softer. Vulnerable, even in sleep.

Reg stared at the ceiling again, breath slow.

For once, there was no way to write it off.

He couldn't pretend Harry didn’t mean something to him—not anymore. He couldn’t pretend that this didn’t feel right in a way he hadn’t expected and couldn’t ignore.

Not just the sex.

The quiet afterward.

The stillness. The ease.

He closed his eyes, felt the warmth of Harry’s chest against his side, and exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he’d been holding for years.

Maybe there was a future in this. One he hadn't planned. One that didn’t come with a PowerPoint deck or a retirement timeline or a closet full of excuses.

Maybe it wasn’t too late to stop hiding from what had always been there.

Reg shifted slightly, carefully, and pressed a kiss to the top of Harry’s head.

Harry murmured something in his sleep—indistinct, but content.

Reg smiled faintly. This time he will not forget this.