Dorian listened to the telephone ring unanswered at the other end of the line. Someone in Klaus’s household wasn’t attending to duty. Or, perhaps, duty to the telephone was not considered paramount there on Christmas Day. It was Dorian’s third try at reaching Schloss Eberbach.

Frustrated but thoughtful, Dorian returned the receiver to its hook. A simple "Fröliches Weinachten" shouldn’t be this difficult to convey.

Perhaps it would be best to say it in person, and incidentally to assure himself that all was well with Klaus and his slowly-knitting femur. Dorian began to smile. Eroica’s smile. A lightning trip to the Rhine Valley for Christmas sounded lovely.

* * * * *

He tried the telephone once more, two days later, before he set out from his hotel to see Klaus on his home ground. This time it was picked up on the second ring. "Eberbach."

The curt voice was, indeed, the Eberbach Dorian wanted to hear, sounding brisk and impatient and remarkably healthy, no longer edged with pain or slowed by painkillers.

"Hello," said Dorian, trusting Klaus to recognize his voice. "Have you time to talk to me?"

"No," said Klaus, sounding annoyed. "Why have you called?"

"Why, darling, to wish you a happy Christmas," cooed Dorian, just as he would have a year ago. A year ago he’d have had every expectation of receiving only insults in return.

"You are ridiculous," said Klaus, even-toned, without heat. Waiting.

"That’s not all I am, darling."

"Meaning?" Klaus’s diction suggested that he was frowning, perhaps irritated—but intrigued.

"I’ll bet you have a terrible time sleeping properly these days. How’s the leg?"

"This conversation has gone far enough. Good-bye, Eroica." The sound as Klaus rang off was not a slam but a click. Dorian smiled in glee. His beautiful Major had heard the message. Klaus was learning.

* * * * *

The proper way to make a social call was to dress in something conspicuously fashionable and drive up to the front door—of the Eberbach castle, the front gate—and ring for admittance.

Dorian, instead, made his way to a little-frequented side door. He was wearing inconspicuous black and entered unannounced and, he rather hoped, unremarked. He’d taken a certain amount of trouble to have the castle’s security system recognize him as a friend.

Passing silent and unseen through the populated castle Dorian overhead occasional snippets: "I regret that the master is not available this evening…" in English; an old man’s voice pronouncing scathing Germanic comments on the current Bundestag; a trio of women talking of French cooking—or at least talking in French of cooking. Dorian bypassed them all.

He found Klaus’s invalid room on the first floor, examined the impressive lock on it with care and went in silently, without knocking. Klaus would expect as much. From the room’s bed came steady breathing and then, softly, a line of German doggerel.

"Yes, lover, it’s me," said Dorian, equally softly.

"Why are you here?"

"In your bedroom at night? Do you need to ask?"

"Don’t be offensive, Eroica."

"Goodness, I hope not." Dorian crossed to the bedside. "Do you always sleep with a night light? At home?"

"No. It’s for the nurse." One side of the bedcovers bulked high over Klaus’s cast, and Dorian noted odd bits of paraphernalia in the dimness of the room.

"That could be a problem. Will she, or he, bother us?"

"She. Not tonight," said Klaus with such certainty that Dorian knew some maneuvering and careful orders were behind the assurance.

"Oh, good," purred Dorian, sliding a hand under Klaus’s neck and leaning down, at last near enough to touch his beloved in the flesh, at last able to hope for a welcome.

But Klaus looked uneasy. "Don’t…"

"Why not?" Dorian waited, lips an inch from Klaus’s.

"I can’t… I don’t want to start…"

"Yes, you do," said Dorian firmly, and kissed him, muffling the next protest. Klaus had ensured their privacy himself.

"…can’t finish," said Klaus indistinctly when his mouth was freed.

Dorian suddenly understood the objection. "Ah. You can hardly be sure of that. I haven’t been here before." He began to unbutton the pajama top, not hurrying, fingers moving steadily. "Don’t say anything yet. Just wait."

Klaus, naturally, did not obey. "Dorian, this is not proper. My own house…"

"That’s all right, lover. It’s not my house. I’ll do it," said Dorian, and cast about for some simple nonsense to distract Klaus. "Just think, if we were being proper I’d have come in by the front door and someone would have announced me and everyone would know I was here and we’d be talking about the weather. Do you think you’re a Roman-era Briton?" He kept his voice as low as Klaus’s, but no lower; Klaus would know the soundproofing here.

"What?"

"It’s in Caesar and Cleopatra," said Dorian blandly, "by George Bernard Shaw. Have you never read it?" For whatever reason, Klaus was bare beneath the pajamas.

"Not recently. Shaw is a very dangerous writer. But crude."

"Really?" Dorian rubbed a hand down Klaus’s chest. "I suppose it depends on your point of view." He paused to pull free the pajama-pants drawstring.

Klaus put one hand on Dorian’s, and reached for Dorian’s other hand as well.

Dorian said quickly, "You can’t run away from me, Klaus. You’ll have to talk your way out of this. If that’s what you want." He did not shake Klaus’s hand off but simply began exploring down Klaus’s abdomen, which was flat as ever but softer, after the weeks of enforced rest. Klaus’s hand moved with him as he discovered the faint stirring of an interest he’d hoped to find. Klaus did not pull away, did not pull him away, and didn’t try to talk at all.

"How’s this, lover?" said Dorian, stroking interest into stronger response. "Want me to stop now?"

Klaus’s free hand clenched on Dorian’s as he took in a deep breath. "Dorian…you are…"

It was not a protest. Dorian kissed him quickly. "Yes. Anything you say."

Klaus reached up and pulled at the black sweater, freeing Dorian’s waistband and unsnapping it. "I want you in here. With me."

Dorian was less startled than apprehensive. "In your bed? Won’t that be awkward?" The single-sized sickbed was not overlarge for Klaus’s big-boned frame and Dorian was wary of jostling the cast. He didn’t want to bring this carefully-planned interlude to an abrupt and painful end. For either of them.

"I want it," said Klaus. He dropped Dorian’s hands and pulled himself sideways in the bed, just far enough to leave Dorian a little room. The next words were very soft: "I want you."

"My, you’re better," Dorian whispered happily, as Klaus leaned up and tried again to undress him.

"It’s not ‘proper,’ as your folk would say. None of this is. What does the bed matter?"

Dorian chuckled. "If this were proper, Major, I’d be wearing blue—something in a staid pinstripe, probably—and your nurse and a maiden aunt or two would be sitting here watching us. Is that what you want?"

Klaus’s grip became painful for a moment, then loosened. "Don’t be an idiot."

"And just when we were all remarking that the clouds were very nice for this time of year, I’d reach over and…" Dorian, half undressed now as much by his own efforts as Klaus’s, reached to let one hand trail over Klaus’s body, "…feel you up. Or, rather, down." He suited action to words.

Klaus appeared to be choking, but the stirring under Dorian’s hand did not subside.

"And they’d leave us alone. You know they would." Dorian discarded the last of his clothes and climbed cautiously onto the bed, easing down beside his lover, murmuring the words into Klaus’s ear, hearing his own kindling excitement roughen his voice. "And then after I’d felt you all over—" He was making good on this promise and continued to do so; Klaus shivered and wound one hand into Dorian’s hair while the other groped for Dorian’s shoulder. "—I’d work my way down between your legs and stroke you here, where you want it most." He let his fingers toy lightly at stirring flesh, then drifted away to caress the thigh not covered by the cast.

"Dorian!"

"Yes, lover."

"Dorian, you…" Klaus closed his eyes and his voice sank lower. "Come up, onto me. And stop trying to frighten me with words." The hand under Dorian’s neck lifted, urging him upward.

"What could frighten Iron Klaus?" Dorian elbowed himself up obediently, sprawling half on top of Klaus’s supine body as best he could without disturbing the immobile left leg.

Klaus’s hands found him, pulled at his torso with unexpected strength. "Not you, Eroica. Not you yourself, with me. Not any more. But you may not know how…unpleasant would be the results if anyone found you with me. Here and now."

"That’s why I didn’t come in the front door and have myself announced," said Dorian, finding himself poised over Klaus’s body. He managed to plant one knee firmly between the cast and the healthy leg, wary of the fiberglass. "I like to announce myself, and I’m very selective." He smiled down at the four-fifths of Klaus that was available. "Have you been thinking about me, then?"

"Dorian. Shut up and do what you came to do."

Dorian chuckled. "Happy Christmas," he whispered, and gave Klaus an easy, social kiss. "May I stay a while now that I’m here?"

Klaus’s hands tightened on him, one fondling Dorian’s erection, the other holding Dorian’s head down for another kiss. Klaus’s mouth was hard and biting, wakened to hunger. The hand at his groin was insistent also, and Dorian could feel himself responding far too quickly. Klaus was not going to be a passive bedmate just because he was weighted down.

"Easy, lover," whispered Dorian when he could pull his mouth away. "Are we in a hurry?"

"Not…for danger," said Klaus, voice strained. "I need…you now." He cupped Dorian’s buttocks, pulling him down so that their genitals pressed roughly together. It should have been too much, too fast, but it wasn’t. Lust claimed Dorian’s senses.

Through the rush of heat and a touch of surprise—was Klaus tackling him for no purpose but sex?—Dorian remembered not to let his full weight land on his partner. "Easy, easy, just one minute," he said, short-breathed and eager but making himself think just once more of caution. "I think…"

He wriggled down the long, hard body, enjoying the skin-to-skin contact, and settled himself in a crouch that let him mouth and kiss at Klaus’s heat-flushed erection. Klaus made some sound then, and it was obvious that he didn’t need finesse, but only the deepest pressure of throat and tongue that Dorian could give.

A breathy, indrawn, "Ahhh," was the only sound of Klaus’s climax, and Dorian remained where he was, sucking gently, tasting the sweat and sexual musk for a long few minutes before he released the softening penis and looked up at his lover.

Klaus pulled him back up so they were face to face, though the awareness in the green eyes was a little hazy for an unguarded moment. The eyes began to clear. "That was…?"

"That," said Dorian, "was something I like to do." He planted himself over Klaus and descended on him slowly for a kiss. A long, deep kiss, searching and tasting, feeling for reactions.

Klaus met his tongue and never tried to pull away, although when Dorian at last raised his head, the eyes that returned his look were alert and curious. "What of you?" Klaus asked, hands light on Dorian’s waist.

"Oh, I like it too," said Dorian, pressing himself against one side of Klaus’s body, feeling itchy and impatient in his balls. It was definitely time for more-of-same. Or more-of-something. His balls weren’t fussy.

"How?" said Klaus, directly to his need.

"Not worried about interruptions, are we?"

"No. How do you want…?" One hand plucked at Dorian’s body, suggesting the obvious without further words.

"Do you want to?"

"You did," said Klaus.

"It’s not a game with a winner, Klaus. It’s just me." Dorian sat up and straddled Klaus’s body, his hungry erection within easy reach of his lover’s hands, reaching, he fancied, toward its goal. Klaus. "It’s just us."

"Come closer," said Klaus and, to Dorian’s surprise, grinned broadly. "Are you afraid I’ll bite you?"

Dorian looked at him, trying to curb the impatience of his aching balls, trying to see what Klaus could easily offer. He didn’t want to laugh, which would distract them both and delay release, but a chuckle escaped him. Klaus aware of him, trying to joke at such a moment, was too wonderful a thing to ignore. He gasped his breath back in. "That would be…too much. Even for you," he got out. The thought of beautiful white teeth touching him—just touching—had a weird appeal at this moment, and he knew it was not a good idea. "Do something. Else. Now."

Klaus’s hands on his hips pulled Dorian forward, and Dorian watched his cock approach the parted lips—no teeth visible now—until it met them. He was more than ready to feel the slow, hot envelopment, the liquid slide toward orgasm in Klaus’s mouth. The careful, exquisite delay of experiment, learning and response should have been too slow, too long for his arousal, but instead it held him to a measured, rising climax that, at the last, went on and on before it left him gasping and limp.

He remembered sinking into Klaus’s sidelong embrace before, some time later, he became aware of lying with his face pillowed on a fine sheet of black hair covering a hard-muscled shoulder. "Mmm, lover."

The warm body beside him moved infinitesimally, as if waking. "Dorian."

"Mmm?"

"You should leave before midnight," said Klaus’s precise voice.

"How long ’til then?" Dorian felt muzzy, exhilarated, exhausted, and disinclined to move.

"Half an hour."

"Soon, then," said Dorian. "How fairytale. Wie ein Märschen."

"Someone will look in on me then. Probably a maiden aunt."

"Ahh," said Dorian, galvanized into sitting up. "Really?"

"For all practical purposes, yes. She is a friend of my mother’s family. I would rather she were not surprised."

"I see." Dorian leaned down to brush Klaus with his trailing curls, teasing him. "I did wonder if I should bring you something, a present…say, a partridge in a pear tree…but I suppose it would have caused talk."

"Most certainly. Is that from the Christmas song?"

"Yes," said Dorian, dipping to brush his mouth with a kiss. "My true love." He kissed again, before Klaus could reply to that. "And I definitely like your partridges and your pear tree."

Klaus blinked twice and said, faintly, "Ah." One more blink. "Your visit was very welcome tonight. When you called, I was glad to hear you." He stopped and looked uneasy.

"When should I visit again?" Dorian managed to pull himself away from Klaus and off the bed to his pile of clothes.

"I don’t know. It is…" He swallowed. "I wish you could."

Dorian sighed. "I hate closets. But I’ll ’phone you, now and then. If I mention pear trees, you’ll know what I’m asking. Won’t you?" He was dressed now and came back to the bed to give Klaus one more kiss. And one more. "Lover."

"I’ll know," said Klaus somberly. "Dorian. Happy Christmas."

Dorian couldn’t help a brilliant smile. "It is, lover. It is." He slipped out the door in silence, but his mind’s ear heard birdsong and rejoiced.

END