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“Come in!”
Raffles heard the study door creak open and click closed, then a tentative call of, “Good afternoon?”
“Good afternoon indeed!”
He stuck his head through the doorway that separated his little bedroom from his study. A gangly boy with freshly-cropped hair the colour of sand stood beside his unopened trunk, looking around the room at the bare shelves and empty desk.
“And you are…?”
The boy started and stared at Raffles. “Housemaster sent me. I’m your fag.”
“And does my fag have a name?”
“Harry Manders.” Raffles smiled and the boy smiled back. “You probably don’t remember, but when I was in first form and you were in fourth, you were coaching us new boys and I couldn’t hit a single ball you bowled at me so you called me your bunny and it stuck.”
“I barely remember being in fourth form at all. Pleased to meet you.” Raffles walked into the room properly and held out his right hand. The boy at least had a firm, warm handshake. “Well, Bunny, you can start unpacking. Group my books by subject, will you? Then fix that infernal squeak in the door.”
“All right,” Bunny replied, kneeling and working at the buckle of the trunk. “Housemaster said I can use the pantry to make tea and toast for you if you’re hungry. But I suppose you know all that because you would’ve fagged for someone else when you were in fourth.”
Raffles returned to his own task of unpacking his clothes. Bunny kept up a steady stream of undemanding chatter while he sorted books and knick-knacks onto the shelves. After Raffles folded his last spare shirt into a drawer, he leaned against the door frame and watched. Bunny ceased his flow of words right in the middle of a sentence, stood back, cast a critical eye over the shelves, moved a photo frame two inches to the left, hummed and nodded, then continued talking as if he had never stopped at all.
“I say, Bunny, do you ever stop chattering?”
Raffles walked over to admire Bunny’s work. Bunny turned quite pink and stood in silence. Raffles frowned at him.
“My dear fellow, I didn’t mean it like that.” He put an arm around the younger boy’s shoulders. “I rather like hearing all the gossip. In fact, I expect you to tell me every little tidbit of tattle you hear with those big ears of yours.”
To emphasise his point, Raffles tweaked Bunny’s ear gently. Bunny jerked his head away in surprise. Raffles released him and lounged in his armchair. “I only have one rule about gossip, Bunny.”
“What’s that?”
Raffles gave Bunny a cool, level stare. “Nothing you see or hear in these rooms is to be shared. Gossip flows only one way—into my room and never out of it.”
“Oh!” Bunny looked horrified. “I would never!”
“Glad to hear it. Now, fetch the porter to take my trunk and my valise into storage, then come back with that tea and toast you promised. In fact, bring a tray. You look like you need feeding up.”
By the time Bunny returned with a tea tray, Raffles was no longer alone. Another sixth form boy occupied the armchair while Raffles sat at the desk, and their talk was of cricket and cricketers.
“Put that here.” Raffles tapped the desk. Bunny came in and set the tray down. “Thanks, Bunny. Off you go.”
Bunny’s cheeks reddened at the dismissal, but he left quietly. Raffles’s companion laughed scornfully. “Good lord, you even learned his nickname. I shan’t bother with mine.”
“And that is why,” Raffles said as he poured for both of them, “I get tea served on a nice tray and you get your shirts crumpled. Sugar?”
“Do you know how to polish a cricket bat?”
A month had passed since the start of term, and the end of the cricket season was near. Raffles and Bunny had settled on a schedule that brought Bunny to his study once in the morning before breakfast (with tea) and once in the evening after supper. If Raffles was alone he’d invite Bunny to stay after he’d tidied up and either swap gossip about their schoolmates or curl up in the armchair and read if Raffles had work to finish.
This was a Saturday, so Raffles was in a mood for company. Bunny poured their tea and settled in the armchair while Raffles paced the room in his dressing gown. He collected his cup and sat at his desk.
“Clean it with a dry cloth then use linseed oil.” Bunny shrugged. “Cleaning and polishing is the only part of cricket I’m any good at.”
“Excellent. Come up after play later and polish my bat. Are you coming out to watch?”
“I always watch when you’re playing.”
Raffles smiled into his cup. “I’m glad to hear it. It’s boys versus masters to round off the season this weekend, then it’s rugby. Is your rugby better than your cricket?”
“I’m afraid not. I can run but I’m rubbish at throwing and catching. I’m just no good at sports.”
“What are you good at?”
Bunny seemed surprised by the question. He frowned for a moment. “Writing. I’m going to be a writer. Maybe I’ll be a journalist and write about all your cricket matches when you’re a famous cricketer playing for England.”
Raffles warmed at the implied compliment. “I’d like that.”
“You would?”
“Of course! So you like writing?”
“Yes.”
“How’s your verse?”
Bunny’s face lit up. “Good enough for the school magazine!”
Raffles leaned forward. “Really! You must show me. Right now.”
“I’ll fetch my copy from my dorm.” Still beaming, Bunny got up. “Back in a tick.”
As soon as the door closed, Raffles opened and arranged the books on his desk. A couple of minutes later, pink of face and short of breath, Bunny held out the school magazine, open at a page of poetry. Raffles claimed the armchair and read it, a smile splitting his face.
“Bunny, this is by some clever chap called Harold Manders in 4C.” He winked. “Where’s your entry?”
Bunny laughed and sat at the desk. He cast his eye over the books to see what Raffles had been working on and shook his head.
“Oh, Raffles! You have so much work to do this weekend on top of all that cricket. I’d better stop wasting your time or you’ll never get it done.”
“Wait.” Raffles raised his eyebrows as if a great idea was in the very process of forming. “What if… no, it might be cheating. But…” He turned his gaze on Bunny, who was staring back at him with wide eyes and parted lips. “Bunny, how would you like to watch the cricket from my study window? I have some opera glasses you could use if it’s like watching ants.”
Bunny looked out over the field then down at Raffles’s unfinished work. “I would have an excellent view of the whole game. I suppose while I was watching I might learn how to copy your handwriting and finish that Latin translation you’ve started.” He picked up the Latin book to see what was under it. “And write your verse for you.”
“Bunny, you’re an absolute genius! That’s a brilliant solution. You wouldn’t mind?”
“Not in the least. It’ll mean…” Bunny stopped, hand over his mouth.
“Mean what? Bunny?” Raffles wagged a finger at Bunny. “No keeping secrets from me!”
Bunny sighed and looked out the window. “It’ll mean I can watch you and the other boys won’t rag me about it.”
Raffles frowned. “What do you mean? It’s just cricket. Why would the other boys rag you about watching cricket?”
“Doesn’t matter. Leave the door unlocked and I’ll come back when the cricket starts.”
Bunny fled. Mystified, Raffles watched him scamper away.
He found out the cause later. One of his team-mates clapped him on the shoulder as they waited to bat. “I say, Raffles, something of yours is missing.”
Raffles looked quizzically into green eyes set in a handsomely freckled face. “What do you mean, Williams?”
“That blond boy. Looks like a wet piece of string. Always following you around.”
Raffles laughed. “He’s my fag. He’s supposed to follow me around.”
“All the same.” Williams lowered his voice. “You oughtn’t to encourage him. You’ll be tarred with the same brush.”
Something lurched in Raffles’s stomach. He frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Williams scoffed. “Didn’t you know he’s a fairy? Henderson said his fag told him that my fag said your fag dreams about becoming your catamite.”
“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.” Raffles gave his team-mate a stern look. “And if I hear anyone repeat it, I’ll make them regret opening their mouth.”
Raffles would have said far more, but he was called to the crease. He started batting angry, but as he thought of Bunny watching from his study window he concentrated on playing as well as he could. He’d give Bunny a century, if he could do it.
The boys’ eleven won. Raffles and his team-mates were permitted to celebrate with one bottle of beer each while the masters commiserated with the rest of the three dozen that had been bought in for the occasion. The headmaster, who had been a strict but fair umpire, ushered the boys out with promises that should any of them eventually play at Lords, he would be there to cheer them on. Cricket bag in hand and sweater over his arm, Raffles walked up to his room with two of his friends tagging along. He pretended to have trouble unlocking his door, and when the three of them entered his study there was no sign of Bunny.
“Come on, Raffles, my lovely,” Williams said, clapping him on the back and letting his Somerset accent slip in front of his careful school diction. “Where did you stash it?”
Raffles laughed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The beer.” The other boy attempted to take Raffles’s cricket bag from him. “I saw you with two bottles in your hands, then I blinked and they were gone.”
“Now, now, Henderson!” Raffles took the bag into his tiny bedroom, laughing. “You know you should never interfere with another chap’s wood and balls without permission.” He looked around, only realising when disappointment descended through him that he’d expected to find Bunny lurking in a corner. He opened his wardrobe to put his sweater away, clapped a hand over his mouth to prevent himself from laughing and closed it again. Taking two bottles from his cricket bag, he went back into his study.
“Go and drink these elsewhere. I have Latin to finish.”
Henderson accepted the first bottle. “Why bother? It’s your cricket that will get you into university.”
“I don’t want to sound like an idiot when I get there.”
“Oxford and Cambridge will be fighting over you.” Williams held out his hand and Raffles gave away the second. “Thanks, old sport. See you at supper.”
Both boys left. Raffles locked the door quietly behind them.
“Bunny?”
Bunny appeared in the bedroom doorway a minute later. Raffles sighed. “You should have told me about the rumours. Williams warned me off you right before I went in to bat. I was furious.”
Bunny went beet red and stared at the rug. Had Raffles not been blocking the way, he thought Bunny might have bolted.
“Oh, not with you, Bunny! Sit down and talk to me.”
“It’s the stupidest thing,” Bunny said, then he sat in the armchair with his legs under him and his arms around his chest. “Someone put it about that I said your name in my sleep. And it all came from that.”
“Did you? Say my name?”
Bunny snapped his head up and glared at Raffles. “How the devil should I know? I was asleep!”
“I can’t fault your logic.” Raffles smiled. “Look, it’ll all blow over.”
“I bet he made it up to get you to say you didn’t want me fagging for you any more.”
Raffles knelt on the rug in front of the armchair. Bunny looked to be on the brink of tears. He laid a hand on Bunny’s knee. “Why on Earth would anyone do that?”
“Because he wants to swap.” Bunny blinked rapidly. “Because you’re kind to me, and your friend Williams isn’t kind to him.”
“Williams is a donkey who made his fag hate him.” Raffles grinned and squeezed Bunny’s knee before taking his hand away. Bunny choked back a laugh and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “There’s my brave little rabbit! Now, you make yourself scarce while the coast’s clear. I’ll see you tomorrow. Unless…”
Bunny raised his eyebrows. “Unless?”
Raffles sat back and chewed his lip for a few seconds. “No, it’s not fair to ask you to help me break the rules.”
Bunny unfolded his legs from under him and sat forward. “I already did your translation and your verse. I bet that broke at least one rule.”
After a brief show of thinking about it, Raffles nodded once. “All right, I’ll do it. Now, I’m trusting you not to let me down. You won’t, will you?”
“Of course not! I would never!”
Raffles grinned. “Meet me in the masters’ common room after lights out. Midnight should do it. Will you be there?”
Bunny promised, and left with a smile on his face.
So began a weekly arrangement where Bunny would help Raffles out of the window, pull up the rope, then wait and watch for his return and help him back in again. Bunny only asked Raffles where he was going only once—the day after the first time—and Raffles told him one truth and four outrageous lies, each more shocking than the previous, until Bunny was helpless with laughter.
The rumours stopped for a while after Bunny appeared one evening with a red swelling on his cheek that turned purple overnight and almost closed his eye for him. Bunny claimed that he’d taken an ugly tackle in rugby, but set alongside Williams’s complaint that his fag was laid up with a broken hand and might be sent down for fighting, Raffles thought he knew the truth. And it gave him a little thrill of pride to think of his Bunny standing up for himself.
“Good lord, you’re almost as tall as I am!”
Raffles stared at the young man standing in his study. Bunny grinned. “My father was not best pleased at having to fork out for new clothes again this Easter after I already grew out of my school uniform at Christmas. I had a clear six inches of sock showing below my trouser hems and my sleeves didn’t meet my Sunday gloves. He made me promise not to grow any taller.”
Raffles wagged a finger. “I’ll hold you to the same promise. I can’t have a fag taller than me. Simply won’t stand for it.”
Bunny’s voice had deepened as his height had risen. It was still light in tone, but was definitely the voice of a young man rather than the boy he’d been six months earlier when cricket gave way to rugby. Now rugby was put aside for cricket again and Raffles looked forward to the first practice of the new season. He took a moment to look properly at Bunny. He was still the same gangly lad with a natural expression of wide-eyed innocence, but his taller frame suited him and, although still soft-looking, his features had sharpened around the nose and jaw. Raffles resisted stroking the backs of his fingers along Bunny’s cheek to feel for the stubble of the soft, downy hair that used to grow there.
“Perhaps I ought to call you Harry now you’re getting all grown up.” Raffles affected an offhand manner. “When’s your birthday?”
Bunny shook his head. “I like it when you call me Bunny. It was my birthday last week when we were away.”
Raffles clapped Bunny on the arm and pointed into his bedroom. “Well, happy birthday and sorry I missed it, my dear rabbit. You can unpack for me.”
“Of course.”
Bunny went into the bedroom and opened the valise Raffles had slung onto the counterpane. Raffles listened from his armchair as Bunny shook out clothing, hung up his suit, refolded his shirts, set his shaving kit on the little washstand in the corner, opened and closed drawers.
“Raffles!” Bunny appeared on the hearthrug, grinning, gift-wrapped package in hand. “You didn’t forget, you rogue. You even drew a bunny-rabbit on the label.”
“Are you going to open it, or just stand there waving it around?”
Bunny knelt on the rug and picked at the knot to loosen the ribbon. He pulled off the paper and opened the box underneath. He stared, and Raffles smiled.
Raffles sat forward. “You like it?”
“Raffles!” Bunny tested the weight of the fountain pen. The initials BM graced the silver barrel with decorative loops. He looked up, a blank expression on his face. “It’s lovely. Thank you. This is thoughtful of you.”
Their gazes locked for several seconds. Then a clatter at the door sent Bunny scurrying off to finish unpacking.
Williams’s voice preceded him into the room. “Raffles, have you got the cricket team lists for the noticeboard?”
Raffles stood and reached over to his desk. He handed Williams the lists. Williams looked over the names and nodded.
“Good-oh. I’ll put these up. There’s a Spring Ball in town tonight. A couple of the masters have volunteered to see that we don’t bring the school into disrepute. Are you coming?”
“Of course.”
“Do you good to be seen getting your hands on a girl.”
Raffles huffed out a laugh. “Whatever you say, old chap.”
”People talk.”
”People like you, for instance?”
Williams scoffed. “I’m beginning to think you’re getting more out of that fairy of yours than tea and tidying.”
“Do be quiet, there’s a good fellow.”
“Oh? Are you still holding to that promise you made to shut my mouth for me?”
Raffles smiled coldly. “Let’s just say that if any rumours resurface, I’ll rearrange your smug grin the next time I’m bowling and you’re in my sights.”
Williams slapped Raffles on the shoulder. “You might fix my nose too, if you did. Can’t you take a joke, man? See you in the pavilion.”
After Williams left, Raffles listened for his footsteps to go down the staircase then he peered around the bedroom door. Bunny was nowhere to be seen. Raffles laughed softly.
“Come out of your rabbit-hole, Bunny.”
The wardrobe door clicked and swung open. Bunny unfolded himself out of it.
“That was easier when I was shorter.” He stretched, revealing a strip of white shirt and the tiniest glimpse of skin between his trousers and his waistcoat. “You’re not really going to knock his teeth out, are you?”
Raffles dragged his eyes up to Bunny’s face. “As surely as his fag broke his fist on your cheekbone.”
Bunny looked furtive. “You weren’t supposed to know about that.”
Raffles laughed. His stomach churned and his head felt lighter as he said, “I don’t think violence is the answer. Not really. And I think the more angry we get about the rumours the worse they’ll get. They’ll say there must be a speck of truth in it if we’re so determined to deny it. No smoke without fire, et cetera.” He pressed his lips together and shook his head at Bunny. “I think we should try a different tactic.”
Bunny stared, eyebrows high. “What did you have in mind?”
Raffle shrugged. “Ignore it. As long as it’s just name calling.” He looked Bunny in the eye. “It is just name calling, isn’t it? You’d tell me if there was more to it?”
“The comments started up again, but no one has tried to push me around this time.” Bunny sighed. “You’ll be gone off to university soon and then it’ll stop.”
Raffles forced himself to smile. He patted Bunny’s cheek, giving in to the desire to feel the slight roughness where he’d shaved unevenly.
“Good. Next time anyone calls you that, act like you couldn’t care less. Ignore them completely.” His smile turned mischievous. “I think I can fix Williams without incurring a foul.”
Bunny raised his eyebrows. Raffles shook his head. “Best if you don’t know. Meet me in the usual place at the usual time.”
In the early hours before dawn, as he climbed up the rope Bunny had let down for him, Raffles thought of the item in his pocket and almost laughed aloud. Bunny waited to help him through the window then they tidied up meticulously before the earliest of the masters might want to take tea in their common room.
It wasn’t his usual style, Raffles reflected as he positioned his stash carefully, but breaking into a very particular bookshop had been both unchallenging and rewarding. Breaking into Williams’s room after having seen him drink more champagne than was wise for an eighteen year old and having helped him stagger to bed gave him a slight thrill only because of his anticipation of what would happen when the post arrived on Monday morning.
Dear Headmaster,
A boy from your school came to my shop on Saturday evening and demanded to purchase a copy of a very unsuitable title from a rather specialist collection I keep at the back, under the counter. I, of course, refused to sell him the title on moral grounds, but when I checked at the end of the day it was gone. He was a tall, athletic boy with light brown hair, green eyes, freckles and a rather misshapen nose. Unless I am very much mistaken, there is a slight Westcountry air about him when he gets upset.
You will excuse me if I do not sign this letter, but you will understand why if a search of the boy’s room unearths the book.
Williams was gone by Monday evening. Any slight spark of shame or guilt Raffles might have felt was extinguished when he heard in passing (specifically in passing two masters talking in hushed voices near a door that had been left ajar) that Williams had been selected for Somerset and news about his proclivities should not be forwarded or the school would be smeared with some of the same mud for not setting the boy on the straight and narrow.
Being unable to crow about his feat to Bunny was more than Raffles could bear. Especially when on Tuesday morning Bunny somehow sensed that Raffles knew more than he was letting on about the reason for the boy’s expulsion.
“His fag said they searched his room and found something,” Bunny said in lieu of good morning, here’s your tea. “You must know what it was. He says he doesn’t know because he never dusted the shelves or tidied his drawers or made him tea because Williams was horrible to him.”
Raffles tutted and poured for them both. “I couldn’t have any secrets from you, my dear Bunny. You’re so thorough about your duties that you know every item I possess.”
Bunny nodded, turning a little red and looking down. He kept his voice low.
“I even know about the swag you keep under that loose floorboard and when I was shining your shoes I saw an article in an old newspaper about Reverend Bartholomew Mathieson getting burgled and losing a silver pen, so I know I can’t use it except in here. I used to think your midnight trips were to visit girls, but they’re not, are they? And I have never told anyone even the tiniest thing about it. So there’s no harm in me knowing what you know.”
For once the wide eyed and red faced of the pair, Raffles bit his lower lip. Bunny grinned in the knowledge that he had won.
“Well, I’ll tell you, but you must keep it absolutely secret.”
“I promise!”
“Put your tea down or you’ll drop it. Come here.”
Raffles leaned so close that his lips almost brushed Bunny’s ear.
”Pornography.”
Bunny squeaked. Delighted at this response, Raffles pulled him in again.
”About men with other men.”
Bunny’s hands flew to cover his mouth. He turned to look at Raffles, eyebrows raised in shock.
Raffles held up a finger. One more thing. Bunny bent his head down again. Raffles closed his eyes and quelled the rebellion in his gut.
”I put it there.”
“Raffles!” Bunny stared at him in horror then, miraculously, began to laugh. “I never even knew such a thing existed! I thought Greek poetry was the worst it could get.”
“Oh my dear innocent bunny!” Raffles struggled to regain composure, wiped his eyes and giggled again. “I wish I could have kept it for an extra day and let you read it. It was the most appallingly written tripe and I expect it would have rather the opposite effect than intended. Greek poetry is far more stimulating, in my opinion. I would far rather conjure up a fantasy about a nocturnal visit from Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium than any of the characters in that farce.”
There was silence as Bunny understood what had been said and Raffles understood what had been heard.
“Raffles,” Bunny said eventually, voice barely a murmur. “I’ve read that even though I’m not supposed to have. I had the Greek text in one hand and a dictionary in the other but I got the gist of it.”
Raffles cursed inwardly. “Not a single word is to leave this room, Bunny. Or are you going to tell on me and get me thrown out? I don’t have connections like Williams so I’d lose any chance of a career in cricket.”
“I. Would. Never!”
The vehemence in Bunny’s angry whisper settled Raffles’s mind. He ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath.
Bunny hadn’t moved away. He put his hand on Raffles’s forearm. “Can’t you guess why?”
Raffles scoffed but smiled. “No smoke without fire, eh?”
Bunny nodded and looked away.
Raffles covered the hand on his arm with his own. “Do you want to kiss me?”
Bunny snatched his hand back. “You don’t need to mock me for being mashed about you. I’ll come back for the tray when you’re out.”
“I’m not mocking you!”
But Bunny was already gone before Raffles, flummoxed, managed to get the words out.
Over the next few days, Raffles thought often about what might have happened had he simply kissed Bunny instead of speaking. Bunny was as attentive to his duties as ever and yet managed to avoid Raffles almost entirely. Tea was delivered early, and silently. Tidying happened when Raffles was at cricket practice. Verse and translations still got done without Raffles having to do so much as dip his pen in his inkwell.
The one time Raffles did use his pen was to leave a note for Bunny on Saturday morning’s tea tray before he went out to play cricket.
Usual time and place.
Just after midnight, Raffles—dressed in clothing that suggested a common man somewhat down on his luck and with a coil of knotted rope wound about his waist—snuck out of his room, along the corridor and down one flight of stairs to the master’s common room. The door was ajar and he frowned at it, thinking how best to chide Bunny for leaving it open and betraying his presence given that the boy wasn’t speaking to him. A sternly-worded note seemed inadequate.
“I’m telling the truth, sir! I swear I am!”
Bunny’s voice was louder and shriller than usual and Raffles heard it as a warning.
“I only came in because I wanted to see if there was an old newspaper I could use when I’m polishing Raffles’s cricket bat tomorrow.”
“Oh, you’re Raffles’s fag, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, you ought to have knocked on the door in the morning and waited and asked instead of creeping about in your bare feet at midnight looking for newspapers. We can’t have boys creeping about in their bare feet at midnight looking for newspapers, can we?”
“No sir. Sorry sir.”
Raffles smirked at the thought of Bunny’s innocent face turning those big brown eyes up at whichever master had caught him.
“Won’t happen again, sir.”
“What won’t happen again, boy?”
“Creeping around at midnight in my bare feet looking for old newspapers, sir.”
“Quite right. We’ll let this one slide but see that you keep your word. Off to bed with you.”
Raffles silently padded back the way he had come. He had not been back in his room—clad in pyjamas and sitting in his armchair—for long before the door opened and closed slowly, admitting Bunny. Raffles spoke quietly and with a lilt of humour in his voice. “I thought you just promised not to go creeping about in your bare feet at midnight.”
“But I’m not looking for newspapers. I only promised not to go creeping about in my bare feet at midnight looking for newspapers.”
Raffles laughed softly and got up. “Thanks awfully for the warning. I was about to walk in when I heard you getting a telling off.”
“I came up to warn you not to come down.”
Bunny reached for the door handle. Raffles beat him to it and Bunny’s hand landed on top of his.
“Stay. Talk to me. Or sleep in my bed for an hour if you’re tired.” Raffles moved closer, as close as he dared. “I’ve missed having you around.”
Bunny’s hand moved away from where he had accidentally grasped Raffles’s hand. Raffles released the doorknob, half expecting Bunny to dart through the door and away. But Bunny stood his ground.
“I wasn’t mocking you, Bunny. We each found out something about the other and I liked what I learned. Didn’t you?” Raffles put an arm around Bunny’s shoulders and led him away from the door. “I don’t know what I did to scare you off. Was it because I asked you to kiss me? Was that idea so awful?”
“That’s not what you said, though, is it?” Bunny’s eyes glinted in the light of the single candle Raffles had lit and set on the desk. “You didn’t ask me to kiss you. You asked me if I wanted to kiss you. I thought you were trying to get me to confess something so you could be cruel about it.”
Raffles wrapped his arms around Bunny and pulled him close. He put his lips near Bunny’s ear and whispered.
“Oh, Bunny. I. Would. Never.”
Bunny turned his head slightly. Their cheeks rubbed together lightly and one of Bunny’s hands found its way into Raffles’s hair. Raffles stroked Bunny’s back from shoulder to waist and turned his head in a little too. Their noses bumped. Bunny angled his head and brought his lips up to meet Raffles’s in the faintest ghost of a kiss.
Once was not enough. Neither was twice, and at three times Raffles slipped a hand behind Bunny’s head and held him there while they explored the delicate, warm sensations of each other’s lips. Raffles put his arms around Bunny’s back and pulled him close. Bunny hung on around Raffles’s neck, parting his lips when Raffles did, until without warning he pushed and twisted out of Raffles’s grip.
Raffles grinned. “Don’t be shy with me. I don’t mind in the least. I’m flattered.”
Bunny giggled and covered his mouth. “I never saw the point before. My father gave me the manly talk. About girls, you know?” Raffles laughed and nodded. “Well, I said I didn’t see the point in it. Kissing, I mean, not the… other things. I couldn’t imagine kissing a girl like that. Kissing you is different.”
“Like you imagined?”
Bunny scoffed. “I’m not answering that. You’ll think I lay in my bunk every night with my hand on myself, dreaming about kissing you. And your ego is quite big enough as it is.”
Raffles laughed in delight. “You did, you sinner! Didn’t you?”
“Yes, you egotistical demon. Kiss me again.”
“With pleasure. Come and lie in my bunk and we’ll see if I measure up to your imagination.”
He led Bunny into his bedroom and into his bed and kissed him again, lying on top and feeling the electric thrill of desire when Bunny pushed up against him. He matched Bunny’s shallow thrusts with rhythmic rolls of his own hips, wishing away the two layers of cotton that separated them but unwilling to stop long enough to suggest taking their pyjamas off.
After the inevitable conclusion of their actions, when Bunny seemed to be on the very point of falling asleep, Raffles tucked himself behind Bunny with every intention of waking up in half an hour or so to send him back to his own bunk. But he woke to grey light in the study and his darling rabbit still fast asleep in his bed.
Raffles extracted his arm slowly from under Bunny’s head and squeezed life into his tingling hand before peering at his bedside clock. Bunny murmured something unintelligible, turned onto his back and blinked a few times.
”I ought to go.”
”Good morning is the usual greeting.” Raffles stroked Bunny’s cheek. “It’s six o’clock on a Sunday morning. No one will have missed you yet.”
Bunny smiled. “Good morning, then. But I should still go before anyone else is up. I don’t want to have to explain why I’m in the sixth form wing in my pyjamas.”
Raffles laughed. He kissed Bunny once and released him. ”Better wear my dressing gown just in case.”
Bunny got out of bed and looked down at his stained pyjamas.
“Oh. Oh dear. Right. I see what you mean.”
Raffles stood to help Bunny into the dressing gown. “I hope I lived up to your expectations. It’s difficult to compete with myself.”
Bunny snorted a laugh as he walked into the study. “You win either way.”
”The best kind of contest!” Raffles grinned, then he kissed Bunny again just as they reached the door. “I’m going back to bed. Plato’s Alcibiades has some stiff competition in you, rabbit.”
Bunny put on a show of being indignant. “If you’d rather share your bed with Ancient Greek—”
“Hush!” Raffles listened at the door then opened it a crack. He opened it wider and let Bunny slip out into the deserted passage, but held on to the belt of his dressing gown. Bunny turned and leaned back through the door for one last kiss.
July brought Raffles the news he wanted: letters inviting him to try out for several university cricket teams that could lay claim to him. Bunny was ecstatic when Raffles gave him the news, but grew more solemn as the reality of their separation approached.
Before either of them was quite prepared, it was Raffles’s last morning. Bunny did his best to smile through the soft light and birdsong from the open window of Raffles’s bedroom as he lay nude on Raffles’s bed, face down with his head on his arms.
”You’ll be playing for England soon and I’ll be writing about you every week in the newspapers.”
Raffles grinned and tousled a handful of floppy, sand-coloured hair. “Will you miss me? Say you’ll miss me.”
”Of course I’ll miss you terribly. There.”
”I’ll write to you.”
Bunny’s face fell into a slight frown. “Better not, eh? I’d like it if you did, but…”
Raffles sighed. “No smoke without fire. I know.”
“And I better not come and see you off.”
Raffles rolled his eyes. “Bunny, that is cold. But you’re right. I suppose this is our goodbye.”
“I ought to get up and finish your packing.”
”I’ll do it. There’s not much left.” Raffles trailed his hand over the angles and curves of Bunny’s back, memorising the jut of his hipbone and the swell of his arse. “I’ll miss you too.”
Bunny yawned and stretched, then blinked sleepily. “You won’t. You’ll be all caught up with new people. You’ll have forgotten me in a fortnight. But I got you something. You’ll find it when you unpack. Promise you won’t go looking for it before then.”
Raffles laughed. “I promise. What do you want in return?”
Bunny got up and pulled on Raffles’s dressing gown. ”This. I’m keeping it.”
Raffles waited until he was alone in his new rooms in Oxford before ransacking his trunk to uncover whatever Bunny had left for him to find. It was a book. A copy of Plato’s Symposium, in Ancient Greek, inscribed on the flyleaf with the words: School Library. Not to be lent to pupils.
Underneath, lightly in pencil, Bunny had written, Think of me.
He sat in his armchair and flicked through it idly, recognising words here and there but without really reading. As he neared the end, he puzzled over places where words had been carefully inked over.
When he realised that Bunny had obliterated every instance of the name Alcibiades he laughed until he cried.