The day of Connie's wedding is hotter than anybody expected, and the bridesmaids are all fanning themselves at the bridal party's reception table. Tom mops his forehead with his handkerchief and keeps an eye on the crowd, waiting for a signal to go see the Don. There's a lot of business on the schedule today, and he's got his notes prepared, waiting in the study so that Theresa won't get mad at him for glancing over them during the reception. There's also the fact that Michael is supposed to be here but hasn't shown yet, which, Tom knows, is the Don's chief concern.
“Where the hell is Michael?” Tom asks when Sonny falls to sit beside him. He's chewing on a dinner roll he swiped from the buffet, sweat streaking down his jaw line from his temple. Tom would pat it away with his handkerchief if nobody was looking.
“Don't worry about Mike,” Sonny says. “He's not gonna skip his sister's wedding. Hey, you busy?”
“Busy?” Tom looks around the table. Theresa is feeding Andrew little pieces of roast turkey from her plate, and Frank is running around with Sonny's twins, chasing them while they shriek in delight at the attention.
“C'mere,” Sonny says, though Tom hasn't really answered. He gets up, drags his hand along Tom's shoulders, and walks away without looking back. Tom stares at him in disbelief for awhile, because he thinks he knows where he's going, what he's asking. Then he gets up and follows like a trained dog, hating himself a little, but not enough to still his excitement.
The thing with Sonny is the great mystery of his life. Or maybe the great mystery is Sonny himself. When Tom was eleven years old, he was already close to encasing himself in an unbreakable shell after a hard winter on the streets. Everyone he saw seemed to be after him for something: the church wanted to put him in another orphanage, the orphanages wanted him to work like a slave because he was old enough to mop a floor, vagrants with hollow eyes wanted to take everything he had and eat him alive, and he learned to stay the hell away from everyone. He only came out of hiding to steal food, and he hated the risk of being seen. He prayed to God, asking to become invisible. That was only one small step away from praying to die, and he knew it.
He finally got caught over a goddamn orange. He should have known not to try and steal something so brightly colored, but his body had gotten good at telling him exactly what he needed to eat to avoid developing new and terrible illnesses, and that orange looked more delicious than the pastries in the glass case at the little grocery store. The shopkeeper's wife caught him stealing from the street display and dragged him into the store by the wrist. There was a boy at the counter with curly hair, and Tom saw him slip two packs of cigarettes into his coat pocket while the shopkeeper was distracted by his wife's report on the little thief she'd caught. Tom met Sonny's eyes, and he certainly didn't mean to plead; he wanted to give Sonny the most hateful look possible, because he had the luxury of wanting to steal something useless like cigarettes, but Tom was hungry and sick and shaking hard, so he broke down instead, what began as a glower devolving into a wince as the old woman's nails dug into his wrist. Sonny was the only one involved who seemed to notice that Tom was sobbing, or maybe the adults just assumed he was faking to gain their sympathy.
“Hey, Mrs. Banco,” Sonny said, rushing over to them. “It's okay, here, he doesn't know.” He smiled at the old woman like she was his grandmother and reached out to ease her fingers off of Tom's wrist. “He's my little cousin, see, and he's kinda dumb.”
“Your cousin?” Mrs. Banco spat. “A Corleone with blond hair and blue eyes? Don't lie to protect your friends, Santino.” She narrowed her eyes at him as if this went beyond citrus thievery.
“Cousin is just a figure of speech,” Sonny said. He and Mrs. Banco both had their hands around Tom's arm, and Mr. Banco was looking back and forth between them in confusion. “It means he's real close to my family, understand?” Sonny was still smiling, but it was different now, and Mrs. Banco let go of Tom. Sonny paid Mr. Banco for the orange and led Tom out of the store by the wrist.
“What are you, stupid?” Sonny asked as they walked away. “You can't steal from them when she's around.”
“You did,” Tom said, wiping at his face. “I saw.” He was embarrassed but relieved. Normally he would have taken off running after such a random act of kindness, assuming there was an ulterior motive behind it, but he was too exhausted, and he let Sonny pull him down the street, still holding his wrist like Tom was his disobedient younger brother.
“That's different,” Sonny said. They came to a bench near the park where Tom sometimes slept inside a maintenance shed with a small window he could just barely slip through, and Sonny sat down. Tom stood staring at him, not sure what was happening, and Sonny pulled the orange from his coat pocket, along with one of the packs of cigarettes he'd stolen. He handed Tom the orange and opened the cigarettes.
“Sit down and eat your damn orange,” he said to Tom, lighting the cigarette with a match from a book that said Uptown Gentleman's Lounge on it. “Never seen such an idiot in my life, in that kind of trouble over a piece of fruit.”
Tom knew he should be offended, but there was something charitable in the way Sonny spoke to him, like maybe they were going to start a band of child thieves together, like he would teach Tom what was worth stealing. Tom sat beside him and dug his fingernails into the orange peel, wiping the juice on his pants and throwing the peel into the grass. Sonny leaned back and watched him eat, frowning a little, like he was trying to figure Tom out.
“You starving or something?” Sonny finally asked. Tom glared at him.
“No, I just really like oranges and my parents won't let me have them,” he said. Sonny stared at him for awhile, then broke into a grin.
“That's funny,” he said. He took a drag. Tom had never seen a kid who was so obsessed with acting like an adult. Sonny wasn't really pulling it off; an adult would have ditched him already, and every other puff on the cigarette resulted in Sonny swallowing up a little cough.
They spent the rest of the day together, wandering around the city. Sonny bought Tom a hot dog, and he threw up immediately after eating it. He thought Sonny would make fun of him, but he just patted Tom's back and got him a Coke to wash the bad taste out of his mouth. Tom told Sonny about his dead parents and the nightmare orphanage. Sonny told Tom he came from a family of dangerous criminals and that everybody in the neighborhood was afraid of them. Tom wouldn't believe this until he'd lived with the Corleones for several years, and to this day he thinks that part of the reason Sonny brought him home was to convince him that he hadn't been lying about that.
He walks up the stairs inside the main house now, ducking quickly past the study so that the Don won't call him inside before he can find out what Sonny is up to. His heart is racing and his cock is lifting by the time he gets to the door of the bedroom that used to be his when he lived in the main house. He knocks twice, and it opens just a crack. Tom pushes his way inside, and Sonny smirks at him in the buttery glow of late-afternoon sunlight through the closed curtains.
“Lock it,” he says, as if Tom wasn't going to anyway. He does, his hands trembly and uncertain like they're still kids.
When they were sixteen, Sonny said he wanted to show Tom something, and he locked the same door they're leaning against now. Sonny unfastened his trousers, pulled down his shorts, spread his knees apart and made his cock hard while Tom watched, stunned and mesmerized. Sonny had certainly never been modest, but he'd never so intentionally presented Tom with such a sight; he'd never locked the door before. Tom had always struggled not to stare when Sonny got undressed in front of him, which seemed to happen more often than really necessary, but it was already a well-known joke at school that Sonny had a big dick, and Tom was as curious as anybody, even after he'd come to be pretty familiar with the sight of it when it was soft and hanging between his legs.
“Check it out,” Sonny said when he'd brought his legendary dick to its full length, intimidatingly thick and perfectly straight. Tom was hard in his pants just from looking, his hands gripping the mattress so tightly that he was afraid the fabric would pop apart under his fingernails. Sonny leaned down toward his lap and stuck his tongue out. His cock was so tall that he could lick himself, just barely, and Tom listened to Sonny's breath get heavy as he ran his tongue in circles over the fat tip of his own cock. Tom moaned involuntarily, and Sonny looked up, his face red from exertion.
“Jealous?” he asked, and Tom misunderstood him. He nodded and walked across the room, fell hard onto his knees. In some kind of crazed trance, he leaned forward, put his hands on Sonny's knees to spread them further apart, and licked him from the base of his cock to the tip. Sonny sucked in his breath in surprise, but Tom didn't stop, licked the length of him again and again and then took his cockhead into his mouth, wrapping his hand around the long stretch that his mouth couldn't cover. He didn't know what he was doing, but Sonny wasn't pushing him away, and he wasn't ready to stop.
“Tommy,” Sonny said. He closed a hand into Tom's hair and twisted it between his fingers, not in any attempt at guidance but in a bare display of possession. Yeah, that's right, I'm yours, Tom thought while his head bobbed, and he reached down to press the heel of his hand against his own cock, palming it roughly through his trousers. Sonny's breathing was wild and hard, and Tom wanted to see his face, so he looked up at him, his mouth and chin wet with his own spit, and when their eyes met Sonny winced and came, shooting most of his load onto Tom's left cheek. Just the way Sonny's face pinched when he came was enough to set Tom off, and he leaned forward to press his face into Sonny's shirt, making a mess of both of them. Sonny held onto the back of Tom's neck while they both tried to regain their breath, his other hand still in Tom's hair, and Tom wiped his face with the underside of Sonny's shirt before he looked up at him. He wasn't sure it was going to be okay until Sonny smirked like things had all gone according to plan.
“C'mere,” Sonny said, pulling him up, and they lay together in Tom's bed for awhile, their chests shuddering like they'd run around the block a few times just to see if they could. Sonny slid his ankle across the mattress until it was resting on top of Tom's, and something caved in Tom's chest, like he'd just heard a prophecy about his own death. He was afraid, and so happy his eyes watered.
This is the same room where that and everything else happened. Tom lost his virginity in this room, and Sonny has a habit of bringing him back here, like it's an altar. He presses Tom against the door now, grinding their hips together and licking the thin sheen of sweat from his neck. Tom whispers insincere protests, smiling into Sonny's hair.
“Your father will be after us soon,” Tom says. “He'll wonder where we are.”
“This'll only take a minute,” Sonny says, tearing at Tom's tie. Tom pushes his hands away from it, and Sonny refocuses on Tom's belt. He lets Sonny tear it open and worm his hand inside his trousers.
“Tommy,” Sonny says when he has his hand around Tom's cock, Tom gasping into his mouth as he strokes it. “Like you're gonna walk away with this in your pants.”
“I didn't say I was gonna.” Tom loves this more than anything, talking with his lips over Sonny's, like they can't really hear each other unless they can punctuate every word with a lick. He loves the roughness of Sonny's hand on his cock, like he's come for what's his. Tom whimpers like a fool and Sonny laughs against his cheek.
“When do I ever get to see you in a tuxedo, huh?” Sonny asks, pushing Tom's pants down. “Blame Connie, the wedding, I couldn't resist.”
Tom steps out of his shoes, leaves his black socks on. He can't even imagine what he must look like, kneeling down to free Sonny's cock from his trousers and suck it hungrily into his mouth. This is what Sonny's done to him, and all he can do, even now, married and respectable, is be grateful. He closes his hands over Sonny's ass and squeezes it before moving down to his thighs. Sonny moans happily and bucks into Tom's mouth with as much restraint as he can manage.
“You gonna let me fuck you, Tommy?” Sonny says, mindless and speaking to the ceiling, his head tipped back. “Yeah, you are, right, aren't you, nice and hard, nobody takes it like you, do they?”
“Shut up,” Tom whispers, looking up at him. He jerks his head toward the door. The house is full of people; anybody could walk by. He licks over the head of Sonny's cock, and Sonny smiles down at him, blissful and pretty in the room's dull light. Tom remembers when the light would get like this after school, and he would lie in his bed for a little while before starting his homework, just watching the calm glow of the window.
It was glowing like that after his last day of high school, when Sonny banged inside and locked the door behind him. It had been awhile since he'd fooled around with Tom; he always took a break when he had a new girlfriend, and Tom knew it must be nice, feeling normal for awhile. It didn't stop him from hating all those girls who could hold Sonny's hand at the movie theater and brag to their friends that he loved them. As if he actually did.
“What's wrong?” Tom had asked that day, sitting up in bed. Sonny looked angry. Tom had been expecting something sweet and quiet between the two of them, cozy in the bed the way it always was when Sonny remembered himself and returned to him. Sonny walked to the window and groaned, pulled a hand through his hair. He didn't like his curls anymore and had been wearing it short.
“Nothing,” he said. “I guess you'll go off to college now, huh?”
Tom had been so excited about the locking of the door that for a moment he didn't know what Sonny was talking about. Then he remembered his forthcoming graduation ceremony, the black robe and cap that Vito and Carmella had purchased for him. Sonny had left school shortly after that first day when he came into Tom's room and locked the door, and there would be no graduation for him this year or any other.
“I don't want to,” Tom said, and it was true. He didn't want to leave the Corleones. He didn't want to eat dinner without Sonny next to him, stealing off his plate and hooking their ankles together under the table.
Sonny walked over to him. Tom was sitting on the bed, waiting. He was eighteen, and he understood already that he would be waiting for Sonny for the rest of his life, and that Sonny would come when he could, or when he wanted to, or until things changed forever. Sonny put his hands on Tom's shoulders and looked down at him like he was about to say something awful.
“I think I could fuck you,” Sonny said. Heat sank into Tom like a hole had been punched into the ceiling, like the sun was inches from the roof. “I tried with a couple of girls, but once they, you know, saw it, they said they couldn't.” Sonny looked so sad that for a moment it was almost hilarious, as if he were a bum on a street corner, begging for sexual alms. “You're the only one, who. You know.”
The only one who'd sunk to his knees like he couldn't stand not to. Tom knew what he meant. He shook his head, suddenly angry, and pushed Sonny away.
“You can't make me do whatever you say,” Tom said. He was mad because he was almost certain that Sonny could. It wasn't because Tom felt he owed him anything, though he did. It was more than that.
“I could make you want to, though,” Sonny said. He'd grown up so handsome that girls lined up on the fence after school just to watch him walk up to meet his brothers and sister. Tom couldn't believe he hadn't found a girl who would at least try to take him in, but maybe he'd grown a few more inches since Tom had last seen him undressed.
“How the hell could you do that?” Tom asked, sour but motionless on the bed.
“Watch,” Sonny said. He pushed Tom back onto the mattress with tenderness that Tom tried to find manipulative, and Tom shut his eyes. Sonny spilled onto him and kissed his mouth, soft and slow with his elbows pressed around Tom's ears. Tom arched up into him, already hard and happy and almost ready to give in, but what finally won him over wasn't anything that Sonny did. Tom pushed his hands up under Sonny's shirt and felt the smooth skin on his sides, tight and warm, and that was when he knew he'd take whatever Sonny gave him.
And he did, slicked with only spit. It took an hour and three different positions to finally get Sonny all the way inside him, and when it finally worked Tom wasn't afraid that he would burst apart or split in two or anything so concrete, just that he would stop existing, that Sonny had erased him, but then Sonny kissed the back of his neck. His lips were shaking, and Tom wouldn't have known, it was such a small shake, but Sonny was inside him and Tom suddenly knew everything, felt the blood moving in Sonny's veins and every pulse of anxious pleasure trembling through his nerves. Tom hadn't stopped existing, he'd just turned into something else, and maybe it had been a long time coming, but Sonny was a part of whatever the new thing was, and that made everything less frightening. When Sonny came they fell onto their sides, Sonny still behind him, sliding out slow while Tom groaned at the sting. Sonny reached around and yanked Tom close, tucked his face to Tom's neck and crushed him back against his chest. Tom didn't know what to say. His whole body was throbbing with something like pain, but it wasn't pain exactly.
"Oh, God," Sonny said, and he sighed like he was going to fall asleep. They could hear the sounds of dinner starting downstairs; soon Ma would send Connie up to find them. At some point the sun had gone down. "Just don't go anywhere far away," Sonny said, and he meant for college, but Tom would have promised a lot more.
"You either," Tom said, and Sonny laughed at the idea that he would ever go anywhere.
Sonny wanted to fuck him on a regular basis after that, and Tom wasn't sure how he felt about it. He dreaded it and looked forward to it in equal measure. It started to hurt less, and then to feel good in a strange way, like scratching at a dry patch of skin until it got red and sore. Then they had the idea, when everybody except the two of them went to the shore on a particularly hot day, to try something other than spit as a lubricant. Sonny filched a jar of Vaseline from the bathroom, and the difference in the feeling made Tom shout Sonny's name in an unrecognizable animal voice and slam back against him rather than cringe forward. They had sex five times that day, until their legs were shaking with exhaustion and Tom was weeping with delirious happiness. Sonny shushed him and laughed, leaned onto him in the bed, the blankets on the floor. They were wet as fish and sticky as theater floors. Sonny combed his fingers through Tom's damp hair, and Tom just couldn't stop crying, at first because it was the only appropriately torn-open reaction he could come up with, and then because he knew that the rest of his life would not be filled with afternoons like this, that he would be lucky to ever have another.
He did, though, and he thanks God for the precious few as Sonny lifts him up now, throwing Tom's legs over his arms and propping him back against the door as he slides into him, Vaseline-slicked like the old days. Tom pants frantically, panicked at the feeling of being suspended like this, afraid his heart will leave his body like a toy rocket. Sonny leans in to moan against his neck as he's encased completely inside him, gravity doing most of the work. Tom is limp in his arms, his blood pounding in his ears as he sinks into the feeling of having Sonny stuffed deep inside him, his seams itching with the pressure of being stretched open again. It's been almost three weeks since they had the chance, and for a few seconds it feels a little new.
"Ah, fuck, Tommy," Sonny breathes, hot into his ear. "That's good, that's so goddamn good."
"Yeah," Tom agrees blearily, and he laughs at the sound of his voice. He still doesn't know who he is when he's with Sonny, some sweeter counterpart of the boy who saved him.
"Hold on," Sonny says, and Tom reaches out to brace his hands against the door frame. Downstairs, women are laughing, and there's the sound of music from the reception, clapping and chattering from below Tom's second story window.
"Hey," Sonny whispers, and Tom pulls his eyes open to look at him. Sonny holds his gaze for a moment, and Tom's arms start to shake from the effort of holding himself up.
"What?" He wraps his legs tighter around the small of Sonny's back, prompting him to get on with it. They don't have much time before they'll be needed downstairs.
"You know what I been thinking?"
"What, Sonny, Jesus?" Tom tightens his muscles to give his cock a squeeze, but Sonny barely falters, only lets his eyelids drop slightly before they pop open again.
"We would have had a hell of a honeymoon. Me and you." He grins, but there's something sad in it, and Tom takes one hand from the door frame, grips Sonny's shoulder.
"Yeah?" he says. "Go on. Show me."
Sonny fucks him hard against the door, and Tom has to bite his hand to keep quiet, his head snapping back to pound against the wood when he forgets to be careful. He's sweating into his shirt, drooling from the corner of his mouth, and he's open wide around Sonny's cock, so accustomed to him now that he can't imagine going without even a half inch of him. Sonny is lost to it, his face buried in Tom's chest as he slams him back into the door and tries to keep his groans stuffed into Tom's damp shirt. Tom knows he's going to be sore all over, his arms and legs and ass and even his stomach, and he's glad that he'll be able to walk around all day with the ache of Sonny in his bones. Sonny is doing the low growling, teeth-gritting thing he does before he comes, and Tom grabs a handful of the hair at the back of Sonny's head as if to brace himself, but suddenly there's a knock on the door.
Sonny goes still, panting onto Tom, and Tom tries to remember where he is, almost curses out loud when he does.
"Tom?" Fredo calls through the door, sounding very drunk.
"It's me in here, Freddie," Sonny says, knowing that Tom isn't capable of speech at the moment. Tom hides his face against Sonny's neck, thankful that it's just Fredo and not somebody else. If they were caught – he can't even imagine.
"Oh. Sonny? Hey, Pop's looking for you, too. You seen Tom?"
"No, Freddie – tell Pop I'll be there in a minute."
They breathe onto each other and listen to the sound of Fredo's retreating footsteps. He's barely halfway down the staircase when Sonny starts thrusting up into Tom again, and Tom is going to protest, but suddenly it's a particularly good angle, and though he hates keeping the old man waiting he's not going to be decent for a couple more minutes anyway, so he might as well let Sonny bring him off.
"Tommy," Sonny says, soft against his neck. "You want it, huh? Innamorato, tesoro, you want – you –"
"Yeah, Sonny, yeah." Tom knows Sonny doesn't need his permission; once he starts up with the Italian endearments there's no turning back. Sonny lifts him away from the door and they both fall back onto the bed where they first had each other fourteen years ago. Sonny comes just as they land on the mattress, and the combined force of the drop and the push of Sonny's orgasm makes Tom so dizzy that he forgets to be quiet.
"Sonny," he says, sighing it out in a daze, and the shock of hearing his own indulgent voice while the band strikes up another wedding dance outside makes him spill his come onto Sonny's chest. He loves Sonny so much that it's crippled him a little, made him a quiet, half-invisible person, but he still gets off on the simple thrill of breaking the rules with him, like anyone would.
When they're through they lie still for awhile, noses together, clothes rumpled. Tom slowly works up the energy to sit up, but Sonny pulls him back down.
"C'mon," Tom says, cupping the slippery side of Sonny's face. "We gotta clean ourselves up."
"Let me look at your for one second," Sonny says, holding him in place. He grins. "You get all pink."
Tom scoffs and shakes his head, pulling out of his grip. He stumbles across the room and over to the full-length mirror that hangs on the back of the closet door. He's a mess, his tie crooked and half of his buttons undone, pants wrinkled. Behind him, Sonny is stretched out on the bed with his hands folded behind his head like he's got all the time in the world. He was smart enough to unbutton his shirt, but he'll still have to clean himself up before he buttons it again.
"Some honeymoon," Sonny complains, sitting up with a groan.
"Don't be ridiculous," Tom says, and when Sonny doesn't laugh, or even look at him with a smirk, Tom's heart just cleaves right in half.
They go downstairs and listen to the usual bull from a variety of familiar characters. Johnny shows up and asks the Don to see about a director who's giving him a hard time out in Los Angeles. The Don takes Johnny's requests very seriously, and he tells Tom to fly out and take care of it right away.
"Hey, Pop," Sonny says as Tom is headed out of the room, hoping that he'll be able to get a red eye flight. "Maybe I should go with him."
No Sicilian can refuse a request on his daughter's wedding day, so Vito shrugs, effectively granting permission, and Sonny jogs ahead to catch up with Tom, who bites down on his smile as they walk out of the room together. They'll get a room at the Roosevelt and have a late room service dinner, Sonny will drink too much and fuck him long and slow, Tom will take care of business the next day and Sonny will keep him awake on the plane ride back, eating airline peanuts and telling him how he should have handled things. Some honeymoon. It's gonna be great.