“Your name.”
“Stéphane.”
“Your lips now.”
Amused, Stéphane complies. Rémi closes his eyes. A cry pierces the thin partition. Others are already coming. He no longer listens.
Stéphane nibbles his upper lip. Rémi catches the lower one between his own. Gently, he orders himself. Their noses brush; their breaths paw impatiently. Let his desire crumble as though it were sand. The first taste of saliva is good. His favourite moment, when their touching still observes protocol and the imagination is already galloping beyond the territory conquered by their hands.
“You’re beautiful,” Stéphane says.
“That’s nothing. You haven’t seen me completely naked.”
Stéphane laughs.
“May I?”
“That’s what we’re here for…”
Stéphane unties Rémi’s towel, then loosens his own. Gently, Rémi tells himself again. He closes his eyes and reaches toward Stéphane’s approaching face. Blindly, he explores its features. Stéphane lets him, sliding a hand across Rémi’s chest by way of reply.
A rhythm takes hold, made up of suggestive appeals, silent asides, and hesitant yet frankly lewd invitations. No lies.
Rémi listens to the sauna’s confused noises: laughter muffled by the maze of partitions and corridors, doors closing, more laughter, and pain as well, sated and orgiastic. He slowly loses his footing and clings to his companion’s increasingly urgent caresses; he forgets the sauna, folding over its occupants’ passions like an oyster closing around its pearl.