Daniel twisted under his fingers, back arching, for once beyond speech. Curtis tightened his grip on the nipple, pinching, and gave a triumphant grunt as Daniel gasped and thrashed and jerked with climax, spilling over Holt’s stolen shirt, and his own bare chest, and finally Curtis’s fingers, as he milked the last few drops till he heard the whimper of oversensitivity.
Daniel slumped against him, boneless. Curtis bit his lip against his own arousal, enjoying this moment. He felt like a conquering hero, and Daniel, tousled and spent, looked entirely conquered.
“What are you grinning at?” Daniel asked, without opening his eyes.
“Nothing.” Curtis looked at the almost hairless chest, the dark nipples. “Why do you only have one of them pierced?”
“If you could do that to me with both tits, I’d never get out of bed again.”
Curtis had to laugh. Daniel’s mouth curved responsively. Curtis carefully cleaned him off as best he could with his handkerchief, straightened up his clothing, and tugged him up and closer, pulling a heavy, scratchy blanket over them both.
“Let me—” Daniel began.
“No, stay there.” He owed Daniel this pleasure. And he would not have another chance to hold him in his arms all night. That had seemed inevitable two days ago; last evening he’d have been pathetically grateful to know he was alive; now it felt unbearable that it had to end so soon. He held on to him, keeping him warm and safe and close.
Daniel’s hands were tracing shapes on his legs. He spoke after a few moments. “Tell me, how did you get me back from the cave?”
“Carried you. Why?”
“The small matter of your injured knee, that’s all.” Daniel sat up. “Good God, Curtis, I was hoping you’d say you had a bicycle, or a cart, or a native bearer. Have you damaged yourself?”
“Not at all. It feels better than it has since Jacobsdal. I’m serious,” he insisted as Daniel twisted round to give him a look of incredulity. “My doctors have told me for months now there’s no permanent damage done, no reason for the pain, and that exercise was all it needed, and perhaps they were right. It’s been better since I came here, in fact. I wouldn’t have described this as a rest cure, but it seems to have worked, all the same.”
“Really?” Daniel reclined again. “Hmm.”
“What?”
“I met a chap in Vienna, an up-and-coming young doctor, who had some interesting ideas on this sort of thing. He’d probably tell you that your mind created the pain, and took it away again.”
“What? Why would it do that?”
“The idea is that your unconscious mind—you know what that is?—operates on the body. So, for example, you might have felt guilty about not fighting as a soldier any more, so your body acted as though it was wounded, creating the pain to justify you being out of action. Then once you were recalled to active service, as it were, you no longer needed to inflict the injury on yourself and the pain went away. Something along those lines.”
“What absolute hogwash. Why on earth would one do such a thing to oneself? How?”
“It’s unconscious, that’s the point. Look, that African magic one reads about, when an unfortunate is placed under a curse and pines away. Does that happen?”
“It does, yes. My uncle saw it a few times.”
“Is that magic at work?”
“No, of course not. The victims are persuaded they’re going to die, so they do.”
“Exactly. The unconscious mind affects the body. Isn’t that the same thing?”
“But that’s native superstition,” Curtis protested. “I’m an educated Englishman.”
“With a much less painful knee.”
“Yes, but… No, really, it’s nonsense.”
Daniel shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. It’s a new theory, but the doctor struck me as a very bright man. That said, I actually went to see him about my fear of the underground, since he’s already achieved some remarkable results with phobias, and he told me it was undoubtedly related to my homosexuality, so judge for yourself.”
Curtis blinked. “To your…?”
“Homosexuality. Inversion. Attraction to one’s own sex, dear heart. You must read Krafft-Ebing.”
Curtis had no idea what that was, and suspected that he would rather not find out. He struck back to the point at issue. “This quack said you’re afraid of caves because you’re inverted?”
“Such was his theory, yes.”
Curtis had no trouble spotting the logical flaw in that bit of claptrap. “Well, that doesn’t hold water. I’m not afraid of—” He stopped dead.
There was an electric silence for a few seconds, then Daniel spoke, tone light and casual. “Thus, we have a hypothesis to test. How many times must one toss a chap off before a cellar paralyses one with terror? Feel free to research the theory in depth.” He batted his eyelids absurdly.
“You do talk a lot of nonsense.” Curtis brushed a grateful hand over Daniel’s fingers.
“Don’t blame me, blame the Viennese doctor.” Daniel paused. “He did have fascinating opinions, though. Do you know what he said came between fear and sex?”
That sounded like it was going to be another of those appalling modern ideas. Curtis asked, cautiously, “What?”