From: ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca (Ruthless)
Subject: Story: Mark
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 02:15:33 GMT
Approved: moderated.stories@bigfoot.com
MARK Part 1 of 4 by Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca
DISCLAIMER: This story is a work of gay fiction and depicts sex
between a seventeen year old and a fifty-one-year-old-male. If you are
underage or offended by material of this sort, don't read it.
As always your comments, criticism, questions and requests for
missing installments are welcomed by the author at
Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca
I cracked open the store room door and went in. His head was
bowed over his knees. I think he was asleep, even in that doubled up,
uncomfortable position, because it was several seconds before he
lifted his head up and looked at me.
After six days of being locked in the store room, he looked
pretty bad. He looked old. First time I saw him, I thought he was most
likely a guy in his late thirties, but now when he met my gaze with a
haggard, unshaven face and bloodshot eyes, I realised that he was in
his forties, maybe even his early fifties.
I squatted. "Hi ya." I threw him a grin.
He drew a long uneven breath. His face was pale. He didn't say
anything, just putting his mouth together in a grim line.
I heard you singing." I said. "What was that, that you were
singing?"
"You're... You're the faggot kid." He stated unsteadily.
"That's right." I didn't take offense. I looked him over. He
had his feet tied together in front of him and his wrists roped behind
his back. In that position he couldn't do much but sit. "How long
since they had you untied?"
"Yesterday morning."
"I heard you yesterday when they kicked the door and told
youto shut up. What was that that you were singing?'
"Goodnight Irene."
"What kind of a song was that?"
"Just... a folk song." His eyes were fixed on me grimly. "What
did you come here to do?"
"Well," I said. "Joe is drunk. There's nobody much keeping an
eye on you, and I thought I'd check in and see if you want water."
He had to be thirsty because I knew for sure nobody had been
to check on him or give him a drink since yesterday, but he didn't say
yes to me. He just looked at me with bleak mistrust.
"Or maybe you need to pee, anything like that. I thought I'd
come and give you a hand with it." I was talking easily, chattily
even, trying to set him at ease, because he was as grim and grey as a
concrete wall.
I didn't expect him to make teeth at me. His mouth set in a
snarl. He shrank back. "No!"
I rocked back on my heels and looked at him in amazement. I
didn't say nothing. I didn't know what to say. Here I was, offering
him a favour, one that might even get Joe pissed off at me, if he ever
sobered up enough to realise I'd been in the storeroom, and there the
old guy was, snapping at me like I was a threat. But that was the
thing. It was written all over him, in the tense anger on his face
that was making him shiver. He was scared. To him I was a threat.
"Goodnight, Irene." I said. "I liked the sound of it, kind of
husky and wistful all at once. That was a good song, I thought."
"Did they tell you to come in here, Kid?" His voice wasn't
sounding right, but dry and scratchy. He was making himself talk, with
an effort.
"No. I came 'cause I wanted to."
His eyes were grey. His hair and the stubble on his face was
brown. He looked me over, trying to decide if I was an amiable idiot
the way I was sounding or not. "Is it true you raped someone? A man?"
He asked me directly.
"Yeah, it's true." I said slowly. "He tried to kill me. First
he tried to shake me down and I beat him up. Then he came back with a
friend and they had knives, you know. So I hit him in the face with a
brick and his friend ran away. And then I did rape him. It was that or
kill him. I wanted him good and scared of me, so that he'd leave me
alone." I cocked my head and looked at the prisoner."Is that what
you're afraid of, that I'm going to rape you?"
He didn't answer me directly. His chest was rising and falling
as he breathed deep and he squirmed against the ropes. He paused
awhile, which was enough of an answer. He was making himself ask what
he was scared about, so he went on. "Did they tell you to come in here
and kill me?"
"Why would they do that?" I was startled. "They told you
they'd let you go, soon as they laid hands on the horses. Didn't they
say that?"
He didn't answer my question.
"Oh, man." I said. "Everybody thinks I'm their pet perv. Yeah,
I'm gay. Yeah, sometimes I fight. But I ain't fighting for them.The
only reason I'm hanging around here is that they owe me on a deal.
They owe me a horse and I'm waiting around to collect my payment for
work I did for them this summer. I don't work for them now."
He breathed out shakily, several breaths. His mouth crooked
feebly in an attempt at a smile that failed.
"You thirsty?"
"Yes."
"I'll get you a drink."
I went out leaving the store room open. I went along to the
bucket of drinking water that stood in the kitchen and I dipped some
up in a cup. I brought it back, along with my bandanna, which I'd
dripped water on.
"Okay," I said when I squatted down beside him again. "What's
your name?"
"Mark."
"Here's water, Mark."
I tilted the cup, he drank it and the water dripped off his
lower lip. His voice was high for a man when he talked again. The
scratchiness in it was gone after a few gulps of water. "Would
you help me, please?"
"Depends on what." I said.
"Would you...undo the ropes?"
"I guess I gotta, if I'm going to give you a chance to pee.
But I'm not letting you loose, now." I warned.
"You don't have the handcuff keys?"
"Handcuffs? You're in handcuffs?" I shook my head.
"Then I'm not going anywhere." said Mark. "But I am very
cramped here." For a moment his eyes turned up as he tensed against
the ropes.
I took a look behind him. Sure enough, it was like he said.
They had ropes keeping his knees doubled up, and his feet together,
but that was just to be nasty. The handcuffs on his wrists went
through a ring on the wall. They could have left him with his feet
free and it wouldn't have made any difference.
"Yeah, sure." I said. I wondered if I was going to get into
analtercation with Joe when he sobered up. He'd know for sure that the
prisoner wasn't roped the way he'd left him, if I untied Mark. I
shrugged. To fuck with Joe. I was going to let this poor s.o.b.get a
few of his muscles unkinked.
Mark stank. He smelt like a guy who had been sweating and not
washing. I had to get my nose practically against his clothes to reach
my arms around him to get at the rope on his wrists. "I'll have you
undone in a minute..." He gave a grunt when I loosened the rope that
held his knees doubled up. He stretched them out. It took awhile to
pick the knots apart since the ropes had been pulled tight.
He looked up at me while he moved his feet and ankles and
wriggled them, trying to get the kinks out. "Thanks, Kid." he said.
"Okay now," I said. "I got a potato baked that I thought I
could give you to eat. But with you like that, I'd have to hand feed
it to you. You're not hungry enough to want to eat like that, are
you?"
"Yes, I am."
"Okay." I went back to the kitchen and brought the potato
back. I held it up to his mouth and he took a mouthful, biting it with
careful teeth and I kept holding it for him. His eyes looked at me,
meeting mine.
"How old are you, Mark?" I asked.
"Fifty-one."
"Then you're old enough you could be my Dad." I said.
"How old are you?" he asked.
"Sixteen, seventeen. I don't know. What's the date?"
"It's the twelfth."
"Then I'm seventeen." I grinned. "Fifth of November is my
birthday."
"Is your name Guy Fawkes?"
I looked blank. "No, Sorry." I said after a moment. "I don't
know him. You mistook me for someone else."
He was smiling wryly. I saw him swallow as the mouthfuls of
potato went down. The smile went. "The men aren't back yet from going
after the horses?"
"No, not yet. But I wish they would be soon."
"Any idea how soon they will be back?"
"Should be any time." I shrugged. "Trip back should be quicker
than the trip there, since they'll have horses to ride back. Unless
the horses aren't broke enough to ride. They are broke enough to ride,
aren't they?"
"There are no horses in the barn at Smithville."
His voice was so level when he said it, that it took me a
moment to comprehend what he was saying.
"You lied?!" I exclaimed. "You sent them to Smithville and you
lied? There's no horses there?"
He met my eyes calmly. He didn't say it again.
I drew back. "Fuck." I said. "They are going to murder you.You
sent them all the way to Smithville. The horses'll be long gone before
they get back, won't they?"
He nodded.
"Well, fuck." I said. I was amazed. "No horses... Where are
the horses?"
"I'm not saying."
I realised I was staring at him with my mouth open. I shut
it."Fuck." I said. "Fuck. They are going to butcher you when you get
back. They need those horses. And they owe me one of those horses."
Then I didn't say anything more while I thought about it.
**** **** **** **** **** **** ****
The day they picked him up on the road outside of Green Valley
was the first time I'd seen him. By the time I'd come down to the
group of men, he'd had a bloody nose and it was taking two guys to
keep him standing on his feet. They were trying to make him tell where
the horses were. There was a carpet of yellow leaves on the dirt road
under us and spots of red blood from his nose, bright on those leaves
at his feet.
When Arval saw me come down he'd put a nasty grin on his face.
"See that kid? That kid is a faggot. If you don't tell us
where those fucking horses are, we're going to let him rape you. He
likes raping guys."
I hadn't said anything, I'd been so surprised. I was
embarrassed, so I smirked and flushed.
"Is this shithead cute enough for you?" Arval had demanded.
"Yeah, he's cute but.." I'd never finished my answer. The
staggering man with the pinioned arms had turned white.
"No!" he'd croaked. They punched him in the belly. A few
moments later he'd been on his knees and in between retches he'd been
talking.
"Horses in Smithville...Don't let the kid do it.. Don't... In
the barn in Smithville..."
Arval had tried to tell me that I had to go along with them to
get the horse they owed me. I'd laughed in his face. "If I go on a
raid with you, then you're going to owe me two horses instead
of one! You want me to fight for you again, this time you're going to
have to pay me in advance!"
I don't think anybody had seriously considered if the old guy
was stringing them a line or not. It was obvious that he was scared to
death by the threat that I'd rape him. The armed raiding party had set
on its way within two more hours, leaving a skeleton crew at the fort
and locking the prisoner from Green Valley up in the store room so he
wouldn't go streaking back and warn of the raiders coming.
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****
"Can I have another cup of water?"
"Why'd you do it? Lie, I mean?" I demanded. I moved towards
the door with the empty cup. "Jesus, you don't own those horses. Are
they worth so much you'd protect them with your own skin?"
He sighed heavily and bitterly. I went out for the water.
"I need a horse." I complained when I came back. I knelt
beside him tilting the cup. "Holy fuck, Mark. You were nuts to lie.I
can't believe you did that."
"What are they going to do?" He asked painfully. "When they
come back."
I hesitated. "Well... They'll butcher you."
He was breathing deep and scared. "Will they shoot me?"
"I don't know that." I said. "Man...." I shook my head.
"They'll kill me, right?"
"I kinda think so." I met him soberly. "If you lied, then
they're going to have to start over. I don't think they're going to be
able to get those horses at all. They'll be fucking mad. Arval, he's,
I don't know, he's gonna maybe kick you to death or something. Fuck.
It's pretty bad for you, Man."
He leaned his head back against the wall with a heavy sigh.
After a few seconds he looked back at me again and when I let him meet
my eyes, he gave a little shrug.
"Sorry." I said lamely. "But look, this is all I can help you
with. Do you need to piss?"
"Yes." His voice was still tight and guarded.
"I'll help you with that. Only I can't uncuff you. But I can
get you something to do it into."
He didn't say yes, go for it, please. He said nothing. I knew
what that was. It was him being afraid of me.
I went and got one of the empty tins from the garbage heap
outside the kitchen door. It had weathered long enough that it wasn't
too nasty to hold. I brought this back. "Look, I said to Mark. "I know
this is embarrassing. Haven't you ever pissed when there were other
guys around before?"
"Of course I have."
"Don't be so uptight." My voice was irritable. I put the can
down between his thighs. His legs were tense. I could see it in the
way they were pulling back away from me. I looked up at his
face."You want me to skip it?"
"No."
"I'm gonna unzip your pants."
"Don't touch my dick, Kid." He said grimly.
I unzipped him. Underneath there was pale blue jockey shorts.
I looked at him with a twisted mouth and raised one eyebrow. Now what?
I challenged him silently.
Awkwardly he shifted about. When he struggled his feet
underneath himself he could kneel. I moved the can about so that it
stayed directly in front of him. He looked down at the can, breathing
heavily.
"What are you going to do, bounce it out? C'mon, Man." I
said."You want to piss, you are going to have to let me dig your dick
out for you. I am not going to feel you up. I could do that if I
wanted to. Don't you know that?"
"Take it out." He said admitting defeat.
I reached in. His prick was soft and warm. It was cut. Even
limp, it was a big handful. I let it drop.
He took a deep breath and the stream started. For a moment I
stared at the shapely pink head, eyes caught by the sight of the pale
golden liquid pouring from the slit. Then I yanked my eyes away. I
looked at the opposite wall. I heard the liquid trinkling in the can.
It was almost musical in the metal. I kept my eyes fixed in the other
direction until the note stopped.
"Okay?"
"Yeah."
"Need to shit?"
"No."
"Good." I said. "I don't know how we could manage that." I
turned back again. I pulled the can away first. His dick still drooped
from his fly. I took it businesslike, felt the dot of wetness at the
tip as I tucked it in again and zipped him up.
"Thank you." he said. He sat back down again. He was looking
at me a lot more steadily, a lot less crazily now that he'd survived
my groping him. I picked up the can and felt the warmth through the
metal sides. I carried it off.
When I came back again Mark was flexing his legs back and
forth again, stretching them out over and over again. He looked like
he was trying to swim on his back. He was looking at me considering.
"You really go for guys?" He asked. "The rape wasn't a one
time thing?"
"Well, maybe the rape was." I said. "But I go for guys. I like
to fuck 'em." I shrugged. "Gets me in trouble. That was why that guy,
that I hadda rape, kept coming after me. He figured since I'm a faggot
that I was a victim. He thought he could put the screws on me.
Asshole."
He was frowning. "You're only seventeen. How did you get into
that?"
He was really curious, I think. I gave a laugh. "Man, I knew I
liked guys from way, way back; from back when climbing on Santa's lap
and getting a kiss was something, because he was a man giving it to
me. It's not a decision a guy makes, that he wants to be a sicko perv.
I couldn't be any other way. It's what I want. Girls don't work for
me. I don't get no say in it."
He nodded slowly. He had lost most of his frown.
"Listen." I said. I held up the bandanna. "As long as we've
already gotten intimate, I figured, maybe you'd like to wipe off your
face or something. I was going to let you do it, but you can't. You
want me to do that too?"
"Okay, Kid." said Mark. "Please."
When I was doing it I went back to thinking what they were
going to do to him. There was a bit of a bruise still on the side of
his face that I could see, yellow under the skin as I ran the cold wet
bandanna over it. They'd punched him in the face some the day they
picked him up. They'd given him a going over just because he wasn't
one of them and they wanted to make him talk. When they lit into him
this time, yeah, it was going to be bad enough. I was real glad Mark
wasn't a friend of mine, that it wasn't a buddy of mine who was going
to take hell like that.
"How's that?" I said. "Better?"
"Yes, thanks." His grey eyes were turned up inquiringly. "Why
are you doing this?"
"I dunno." I paused. "I liked your singing. It made me think,
somehow, I dunno. I liked you, singing away in here like that."
"It gave me something to do, sitting in here." His smile was
unsteady.
"They sure as fuck didn't appreciate you singing." I faked a
laugh. I was trying to make things easy, pretend I wasn't carrying
around a sick, confused knot in my guts thinking about him being got
by the angry guys when they got back. "Sounded like a lullaby to me."
"Would you have raped me if I didn't talk?" said Mark.
The question surprised me again. "No." I said. "No. I don't
work for those guys. I did this summer. But not now. I was only
staying here until I got paid."
I'm going to get out of here, I thought. If they aren't coming
back with horses then I'm going to go, and I'll be gone before they
work their anger out on him.
"They stiffed me my payment." I said. "They were supposed to
get me the horse before October. Actually they said they'd get me two
cows. Only by the end of August they'd killed the herd, slaughtered it
for beef, so we agreed they'd give me a horse instead. They don't pay
their debts. I bet I never collect. And that shit-for-brains, Arval,
he wants me to stay the winter with them, work for my keep. He thinks
I'm fucking stupid."
"Then you don't work for them?"
"Not never again, I don't." I said.
"Kid? Would you help me, please?" His voice was quiet and
level.
"What could I do?"
"You could intervene."
"They won't listen for me, if I say don't kill you."
"You could do something, somehow."
"I don't know what." I said. "You want me to plead or
something? You don't know what those guys are like."
"Yes, I do know." said Mark.
"It wasn't me lied to them." I said.
I sat on the floor beside him. It seemed to me that there
wasn't much to say. It wasn't the kind of thing where you can console
a guy by telling him don't sweat it. I was thinking most likely
someone would go off furious and maybe shoot him or hit him real good
and that would kill him quick. But I was also thinking there was a
pretty big chance when Arval came back they'd lay a beating on the guy
and that was how he'd die, after half a dozen guys had spent the day
laying into him. They'd be pounding on him or kicking and it could
take him hours getting beat up like that.
He was staring at me and wriggling his feet about. I glanced
down at them, seeing them wiggle. "You want me to take your boots
off?"
He gave me a nod.
I leaned over his feet and tugged at the laces. The boots were
stuck on the damp socks. I had to tug hard and the socks came away.
His feet were sticky.
"There." I said. "I'll put them on again in a few minutes. But
that I can do at least. Let 'em dry out a little."
"Kid?"
"Yeah?"
"You really like to fuck guys?"
I thought he was making conversation, trying to distract
himself. He was back on that subject again. But still he wasn't saying
'dirty faggot!' or nothing like that. "Yeah, I do." I said absently.
"If..." His voice was broken up, so I looked up quick. "If I
let you fuck me, will you get me out of here. Please?" He had horrible
anguished eyes, all of a sudden. "I'll do anything, any kind of way
you want me to. Whatever."
I think my eyes got big with surprise. I opened my mouth to
tell him something and then realised I didn't know what I was going to
tell him, so I shut it again. I just stared at him.
If I got him out of there, I'd have to release him. He was
asking me to rescue him. And if I did that, that was going against
Arval. Didn't he realise that he was asking me to go up against
Arval and wind up with all his bunch enemies after me? Yeah, he
realised it. How the hell did he think I could do it?
I didn't say any of that, because I was purely amazed. There
he was, fifty years old for fuck's sake, smelling of unwashed feet,
bristly with a week's dirty beard, and his disgust for me written all
over him and he was offering me the use of his body like he was some
kind of an irresistible actor, like as if he thought I was going to
throw myself at the chance to fuck an old stud like him. He thought I
had a hard on in my jeans for him?
Only I did, actually. I'd been doing a good job of ignoring
it. I don't think he could have seen it, with my jacket in front, but
crazy as it was, yes, I did have a hard on for him.
All the while I was thinking this, he wasn't saying nothing.
He had his eyes glued to my face. He wasn't saying a word, but his
eyes were saying Please? and his quick waiting breaths were saying
Please? He waited for me to answer him silently.
I opened my mouth again. I was going to say, I don't want to
fuck you like that, but all I said was, "I can't get you loose because
I don't have the handcuff keys."
I went out of the store room. Mark lay down with his back to
the wall, which must have been twisting his arms awkwardly. I closed
the door up after me and I walked slow through the fort with my hands
in my pockets, thinking.
The key. Joe had the key. And how the fuck did that stupid
shit in the storeroom think I could get the key?
Joe was in the office room that they use for the officer on
duty. He had his elbow on the desk and his head on his elbow. When I
came in softly he gave me a silly grin.
"Hi, Joe." I said. I slouched down in one of the chairs
opposite him. "No sign of the guys yet?"
I got a boozy shake of the head. "Want one?" Joe slurred.
"Yeah, thanks." I sat up straight, animated. "Shall I pour you
another at the same time?"
Joe was drinking beer, home brew that hadn't been allowed to
ferment long enough, cut with vodka. I had a swallow. I couldn't
believe how bad it tasted. Well, they say a drunk will drink anything.
>From the look of the empties rolling about on the floor, Joe had been
fulfilling that prediction.
"How come the guys from Green Valley owe you guys horses
anyway?" I asked. "I don't quite understand how that came about."
Joe wasn't up to explaining it. "Those pussies..." he
mumbled," Those pussies made a promise... They promised."
I sat along side Joe companionably. I kept putting my lips on
the rim of the mug and not drinking from it. For awhile Joe rambled
about the cunts and pussies from Green Valley. Then he started to peer
at me.
"You're not a pussy, no... Kid's not a pussy."
"Have another one." I said. "No, I'm still finishing my
first." When I poured it for him, I made it one third vodka.
"Ain't a pussy, huh..?" He was blearing over the desk. I kept
smiling. He must have been damn fogged.
"S's not a pussy... s's a fuckin' fruitcake."
"There's no fruitcake here." I said. "It's not Christmas."
"S'ss just a fruitcake...ffffag boy...yeah."
When his head rolled off of his elbow onto the desk, I stood
up. I leaned over him. "I think you're drunk, Joe. Want me to help you
out to your bunk?" I patted over him, cautiously at first.
There was a big ring of keys, chained to the belt loop of his
jeans. I took my knife out and slit the loop.
"Fruitcake..." Joe murmured from the desk. I tucked the keys
away.
"That's right, you'll get fruitcake at Christmas." I told him.
I took his shoulder and dragged him back. I was afraid he was going to
roll off of the desk. I left him with his cheek squashed up against
the surface and with one arm dangling limply.
I went out to the road first. Nobody on the road. I was
checking how much time I had. I had this creepy feeling that the
raiding party could be back at any moment.
Then I went up to the bunk I'd been sleeping in, in the loft
with a dozen other hangers on. There was nobody there. I rolled up my
blankets and punched my spare shirt into a bag. I had those things
together in about a minute.
My gun was in the armoury. That was no problem. One of the
keys on Joe's ring was the key to the armoury. The wall racks were
half empty because of the raid, but my rifle was there. I took my
rifle. I considered turning thief and loading up on guns. It wasn't
practical, not without transportation. So all I took was my own rifle
and the ammunition to go with it. I could have taken more, they owed
me much, much more, but then again, I was taking something more.
When I went in the store room again, Mark raised his head up.
He looked at me kind of startled to see me, and when he saw the gun
that I had on my shoulder, I think it made him afraid.
I dropped to my knees. "One of these keys better work."
Mark sat up and leaned far forward. "You got a key?!" He
started to breath real fast.
"I only hope I got the right fucking key." I muttered. When I
found it I threw him a grin. "Sure, I do. Think I'd miss the chance to
fuck a virgin ass like yours?"
His breath exploded in a great gasp as I got one wrist undone
and his arms fell wide. He staggered up to his feet with me bringing
him up by his shoulder to speed him up.
"Now, listen." I said. I was going to tell him that he had to
move quick and be quiet, but then he fell on his face. "Oh shit!" I
said instead.
Of course, he was all weak from not being allowed to move
around for six days. I should have realised that. I got him back on
his feet again and at first he flinched and jerked away from
me. But he stopped that flinching when I stood him on his feet.
"Aw, fuck it, Mark." I complained. "Can't you walk?"
"I can walk." he said. "He put his teeth together and managed
three staggering steps. Then he scrabbled for the wall and I stopped
him from toppling again.
"Fine fucking jailbreak, this is." I said. "Gimme your arm.
Stop it. Let go of the wall. That's it." I slung his arm behind my
neck and we lurched out the door that way. Mark had six or eight
inches on me, so the arm thing didn't work too bad and he walked all
he could.
I'd planned on sneaking him softly over the wall, but the way
he was buckling, wall climbing and quick sly sprints seemed out of the
question. Instead I just walked him towards the back gate, trying to
keep close to the buildings so that we would be less in sight.
The girls had been sent out into the fields earlier in the
day, so of all things the back gate turned out to be standing wide
open. I gave a grin when I saw it. Mark was swinging a bit,
hanging from my neck, but he was also making good progress. He seemed
to be able to take a bit more of his weight. I was real aware of his
sweat with him clinging to me like that.
We were maybe six steps from the gate, tangoing along when
Bernie the foreman turned up.
"Hey!!" Bernie gave a shout. I spun Mark around. Bernie was
pelting up a few steps away.
I shoved Mark off my shoulder. "Run." I ordered him. "Get
through the gate." I would have brought my rifle down and around but I
didn't have time. Bernie closed with me.
"What the fuck you doing!" he roared. We were grappling.
Bernie outweighed me by maybe fifty pounds. I had a hard time of it.
We fought for real. He brought his knee up and tried to pound with his
fists. Our bodies impacted. Bernie was taller than me too. I couldn't
manage a hit, not at first. I had to block him. We were too close
quarters to hit. Then, when he pulled back to get room for a good blow
himself, I managed a punch to his throat.
Gasping, Bernie staggered another step away from me. I hit him
again, the same place. He fell on his knees. I took a quick look.The
yard and the parade ground were empty, but that didn't mean nobody had
heard him.
I had to disable Bernie and make sure he wouldn't yell again.
I could have shot him. But I kicked him over onto his side and then I
kicked his face. Blood blossomed bright scarlet, exploding from my
boot. He jerked and didn't move. As I whirled around and sprinted for
the gate, I heard Bernie sucking loud broken breaths behind me.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I was angry. I was angry with Bernie most of
all. I hadn't wanted to fight. If I could have stopped Bernie by
pointing my rifle at him, I would have. But I hadn't been
able to use my rifle on account of Mark.
When I dashed though the gate, the road was empty in front of
me. I looked around. Mark had gone over the fence into the potato
field. He was cutting his way diagonally over the furrows up hill,
headed towards the nearest trees. He'd gotten a lot farther than I had
expected. As I looked up, he pitched over, caught himself on one arm
and just kept going hardly losing speed. I vaulted the fence after
him.
Mark turned a white, mud stained face at me when I caught up.
I grabbed the old guy by the shoulder again. He was labouring, mouth
agape. I kept dragging him. We went on at a speed that wasn't a run
but made good progress all the same.
Halfway up the field his feet gave out under him. He didn't
stop moving. He just couldn't stand. I took his arm over my shoulders
again. "Jesus, fuck.!" I exclaimed. "You're a cripple. It's like
running with a one legged man!"
"Sorry..." We staggered our way to the top of the hill.
Mark needed to stop there. His legs were just not taking his
weight any more. Only we couldn't stop. We were way too close to the
fort to pause for breath. How long would it be before half a dozen men
with guns came spilling out after us? Well, maybe they wouldn't all
have guns, I thought. I'd carefully locked the armoury up behind me
and it would take them awhile to get anything better than the sentry's
weapons.
MARK Part 2 of 4 By ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca
I didn't want to stop, not even for thirty seconds, but I let
Mark kneel there, just inside the naked grey scrub trees while I
counted seconds and listened tensely for pursuit. From below he
looked up at me. His eyes were shocked. Something halfway between a
grin and a gape of terror was turned at me. "Are we okay now, Kid, you
think?"
"Not by a long shot." I retorted. "Get up as soon as you can."
"Sorry... My legs are so weak."
"Yeah, I know. It's a fucking miracle you can run at all,
after spending a week hog tied."
"What did you do about that guy?"
"I kicked him unconscious." I said. "You better be fucking
worth this, you know that?"
"I'll try." Mark swallowed.
"Yeah? You know they are most likely going to come after us
with guns? You know what it's like when a guy gets shot? Have you even
seen it?"
"Yeah, I've seen it."
"You better pray you can move fast enough it doesn't happen to
us."
He gave a shaky laugh and put his hands together. "I'm
praying!"
I was still mean from the adrenalin. Looking at him down on
his knees made certain ideas come into my mind. "You like being on
your knees like that? I may just take my payment from you in
cocksucking."
His laugh went completely. "Now? You want me to do it right
now?!" He drew back chagrined.
"Here, less than a quarter mile from the fort?" I laughed at
him. "Man, I know I've given you reason to think I want to drill you,
but I am not so stupid that I'd stop to get my rocks off this close to
the fort."
He got up and we went on. It was painfully slow. At the top of
the hill he was bearing left, headed East. I pulled his arm. "This
way."
"I want to go back to the road."
"The road! Are you crazy?"
"No. I've got stuff I have to pick up."
"Whaddya mean?" I demanded.
"My tools. When I realised that there was an ambush closing
round me, I stashed my tools. I have to go back for them."
"Oh shit." I said.
"I need them, Kid. I can't work without them."
I know what a guy's tools mean to him. A lot of trades need
tools. If a guy can't work, he most likely can't eat. Going around
again onto the road where we might meet the raiding party was not
something I wanted to do. But Mark said he needed his tools and I had
no argument to put up that would counter that.
"We'll get shot." I said. We cut a wide circle across country.
He lost the lay of the land, but I'm pretty good at that, so I took
him around. It was about six miles away from the fort, in the area
where people paid taxes to three or four rival militias. He said if I
got him within half a mile of the place where they caught him, he'd be
able to find them. We scrambled across fields and skirted around farms
making slow progress. I wanted to yell at him for not being able to
run, but I knew he was doing amazingly well.
Pink twilight closed in when we were crackling through woods
above a marsh. A hollow formed a vee out of the wind. "We can stop
here." I said. Mark folded like a puppet. I left him in a heap and
began cutting boughs.
"What's that for, Kid?" He roused himself to watch me working.
"Our bed."
"Oh."
I threw him a grin. "Tonight we cosy up. The clouds are coming
up, there won't be enough light to travel by, I think. So we're just
going to cuddle up and get some rest, unless the clouds break. If they
break, I think we better go on."
"We're going to...do it there?" He looked at the heap of
litter and makeshift windbreak that I was constructing.
I turned around. "Look," I said. "You don't really want to bum
up for me, do you? And you'd rather eat entrails than suck my dick.You
honestly figure you can bring yourself to put out for me?"
"I said I'd do it. Any way you tell me to." He made his voice
strong with determination. "I will do it. I'm not going to try to
welsh on you."
"Whaddya prefer? Me, fucking your ass or you giving me a real
good tongue job, licking my balls and my asshole before you take it
all the way down your throat?" I jeered.
He winced. "I'll do what you prefer."
"Both."
He breathed heavily. "If that's what you think is fair."
"Well..." I said. "Fair, I don't know. But they owed me for
nine weeks work, good wages. And since I stole you I won't be able to
collect. Fair, I think would be to say that instead of my horse, I've
got me a sex slave."
He looked at me instead of yelping in protest. "They would
have killed me, Kid. You didn't have to tell me that. I knew that.
When I said that the horses were in Smithville, I knew that. I do pay
my debts, but... I've a job here, Kid, and people who are counting on
me. I can't go off with you wherever you come from. There was a woman
having a baby. I was going to go see her. I have to go see her. I
don't know if she's had the baby yet. But I know she's still expecting
me."
What I was saying, that Mark had to be my slave from here on,
I was just stringing him a line. I mean, obviously that was a line. I
couldn't keep him, make him go any place with me, if he didn't want to
go. I was sort of picking on him. I did think he owed me one, but not
like that. Only there he was, he took me seriously. He was talking
about it, like as if he really owed me a debt that I could collect on.
"You got a baby?" I said.
"Yes." said Mark.
"Where's the baby?"
"Farm above Stanton Creek."
"Okay. First you go see the baby, and then we can work out
what you owe me or not." I said. "But I'm not taking the kid's mother
in trade for you. I'm not interested in no woman."
"I understand that, Kid." Mark said. "She's not mine to give
away."
I had finished building the wind break. It wasn't much of a
one, just brush, but it would keep us off the ground and enclosed us
on the side that the hill behind us didn't. I dug the blankets out.
"You ready to lie down?" I asked him.
He got up stiffly. "What do you want me to do tonight, Kid?"
I was getting exasperated. "You know what I want you to do
tonight? I fucking want you to stop calling me kid!"
He was taken aback. All the same, he made a joke. "What should
I call you? -Sir?"
"My name is Eamon."
"Okay. Eamon." He agreed.
He lay down on the brush and I lay down and pulled the
blankets about us. I could feel the buttons on his heavy jacket
pressing against the jacket I was wearing. He fixed his eyes on
me, waiting to see if I would do anything.
In the fading light I could see his hand, pale and long
fingered. He had strong, sensitive looking hands, but they didn't have
callouses on them. They looked like hands that could play on you like
instruments, that could shiver out a guy's nerve endings if ever he
wanted to make love. Looking at them, I wanted to take two or three of
his slim fingers in my mouth and suck on them. Mark is beautiful, I
thought. I had a hard on in my pants again. I wasn't going to be able
to jerk off with the terrified virgin bedded down beside me. I didn't
let him know it was there. I closed my eyes resolutely.
We got under way again about three hours before light. Mark
stayed behind me at my shoulder. We found his tools no problem. He had
buried them in a thicket. He had them in a great big black sports bag,
and at least they weren't all metal because it wasn't that heavy. I
gave him my bag to carry with the blankets and stuff and carried his,
which was bigger and heavier.
We cut away from the road again. It would take longer to go to
Stanton Creek across country but we weren't going to run into any
ambushes that way.
Mark had his eyes on me wondering, every time I glanced back
at him.
"Eamon," he said. "Do you really want to keep me for a sex
slave?"
"You bet." I was short of breath from scrambling up an
incline, tugging Mark and carrying his bag.
"I couldn't tell if you were kidding last night. You sounded a
bit like you were kidding."
"Would I kid you in a matter like that?" I suggested. "Heck,
no. I'm going to force you to come with me, away down coast and open a
brothel with you as my bumboy and sell you out to hoards of drunken
sailors."
"Hoards..?" He sounded more puzzled than alarmed. He didn't
rise to my bait this time.
"Uh-huh. Naturally. They'll be taking you, two, three at a
time. Fifteen guys a night. I should be able to make just enough money
off of you to keep me in beer." I scanned the grey trees below us,
checking the withering weeds that still stood up from the ground, for
signs that anything as large as a man had stepped on them going
through. "I'll have to sell your clothes to rent me a room. All you'll
get to wear is a little strip of rag and chain around your neck. I'll
put a tag on the chain. 'I belong to Eamon.' It'll say, 'Rent me.'
I'll send you out on the street advertising." I kidded him.
"Right." There was a sour look on his face when I looked back.
He'd figured out that I was fantasizing and he didn't find it funny.
"Don't you like the idea? Can't you just picture it? This
great big drunk guy comes rolling up, -shoulders as wide as that." I
sketched a four foot width in the air. "Drop that rag, slave, and
grab your ankles. It's just outside of the tavern and the women grab
their kids and hustle them inside, quick. Our customer pulls out his
dick, eleven inches long and thicker than my gunstock. Then he bangs
you so hard, it lays you flat out. He flips me my dollar.Well, that's
a start," I concluded. "Just need to find four more customers and I
can have my first beer of the evening."
"That would require a bit more cooperation than you're likely
to get from me, I'm afraid."
"You mean you want me to keep you to myself? Exclusive?" I
asked sweetly. "Want to be my little boyfriend?"
He didn't say anything to that and for the next couple of
minutes I was preoccupied where we came out of the woods. There were a
pair of pigs down in a slough and someone had put fodder out for them
and I was trying to spot if there was a farm there that they belonged
to.
It was windy and the leaves rattled through the naked
branches. I would rather have been going more slowly, but if there was
a baby being born, it wasn't a good time to lag. Trouble was, we were
still close enough to Arval's fort and I didn't know if his raiders
would be out again after they got back. I made us walk thorough the
trees when it would have been faster crossing the meadows, and I
forced the pace.
"Are you going to get me to suck you off?" Mark came abreast
me. "Is that what you want?"
"I might."
His eyes wandered up and down nervously, from my crotch to my
face.
"You could do the other thing if you wanted to." He said
uncertainly.
"I said we could talk about it when we get there."
"I know. But I just want to know what you're going to do."
"You ever cocksuck before, Mark?"
"No." His answer was short and definite.
"You even take a sniff of a prick, real close up, rub your
nose on it?"
"No." Also a definite response.
"How about tasting cum? You ever taste your own cum at least?"
"Yes." A much milder answer.
"What did you think of the taste?"
"Salty."
"Gross?"
He drew his lips in together worriedly and didn't answer.
"Maybe I better do the other thing." I said. I used his words.
"Ever had a cock in your ass?"
He shook his head silently.
"Don't you think it might be uncomfortable for you?" I asked.
"Yes, but even if it hurts. Even if... I mean, it's not going
to damage me a lot. You can do that. I'll take the consequences."
"Bona fide virgin ass? I'm honoured." I shook my head
ruefully. "Trust me, I'll be real careful with it. Okay?"
"You will?"
"Absolutely." I sighed.
"I can never tell if you're fooling around or not." he said.
"I mean, I know you are, mostly. But I never let another man do
anything like that to me before. I just want to find out what I've
gotten myself into."
"It's so easy to get you going." I said. "You're the one keeps
bringing the subject up. Another fuck? You're no big deal to me, Mark.
I've fucked lots of guys and hope I get to fuck lots more. Sure, I'm
really looking forward to shoving it into your ass end, but it's just
a fuck, Mark. It's not like a declaration that you're really a queer
asshole open to all comers forever afterwards. It's just shove it in
and twenty minutes later, it's over, including wiping up the drips."
"I am making a big deal about it." He agreed with me, but that
didn't put a stop to his nervousness.
"That's natural. It's something you never did before."
We didn't talk about screwing any more. We walked on until
Mark started to look a little ragged with tiredness. Then I called a
halt and while we sat on stones in a coppice out of the wind, we ate
some of the dry pancake bread that I had had in my pack.
"How'd you get to be a mercenary, Eamon?"
"I killed a guy."
"How long ago?"
"About three years ago. Three years ago last spring."
"How'd it happen?" Mark's grey eyes were sober, worried
almost.
"He came trying to rob the farm where I was staying. There
were a bunch of them, you know, three guys. I was working there, so I
figured I had to try to protect the place, and when he came running
out of the shed, the farm wife tried to stop him, tried to take the
chicken out of his arms. He knocked her down."
My voice got absent as I spoke, remembering. It was a bad
memory, but not as bad as some. "When I went for him, he pulled a
knife out. I turned it into his belly. I guess I scared him more than
the farm wife did or he wouldn't have tried to use it on me. I still
remember the way his belly felt. Just when my fist hit it, it was hard
as a board..."
"Guarding reflex." said Mark softly.
"He didn't bleed so much. He fell down the edge of the yard
and he laid there. And of course we had to try to round the chickens
up, do what we could to clean up the mess the men made. We thought
he'd take off. But he didn't."
I looked at Mark. "We shouldn't have left him in the yard. We
didn't know what to do with him, so he lay there awhile. He was this
great big, dirty guy. He drooled. I don't know why he drooled." I
looked down at my boots and scuffed the dead leaves.
I looked up again, smiling awkwardly because I was ashamed."We
took him into the barn a few hours later, and I took the knife out of
his belly. Then he did bleed. I wish he had bled to death. He didn't
bleed so much. It was into his guts, so there was nothing we could do.
You know what happened?"
"You had no antibiotics and no way to seal the wound and still
allow for drainage." Mark said.
"He got sicker and sicker. Crying in pain. And it was nearly
three days before he died. Shit." I shook my head. "I hope I die clean
and sudden. Not like that. I'd hate to die like that."
I gave another sigh. "The whole point of that story was that
they sent word around in the summer and asked me did I want to come
out and join a militia they were trained in Haubeck, because they
figured I was a man, old enough to train, after I'd killed the fellow
in defending the farm. That was how I began, as a mercenary in
Haubeck."
"I see." he said. He didn't sound judgemental, either that I
had killed the guy, nor that I had been squeamish, when I'd watched
him the long days dying. He just kept looking at me, as if I
interested him. We had finished eating and Mark had gotten a little
pinker while I told my story. He looked like he had gotten his breath
back enough to go on.
I stood up. "Come on." I said. "We'd better go see if we can
get you to Stanton Creek in time to help out with your baby."
We were two days late.
The woman who opened the door of the farmhouse was plain. She
was about thirty years old and she hadn't put up her hair. It fell in
scraggles on either side of her face. She was pot bellied, not
pregnant. "Mark!"
"I'm so sorry I didn't get here sooner." His eyes went
straight to her stomach. "How did it go?"
"I got through it.." was all she said.
"Where is John? When will he come back?"
The woman's husband was out logging. That was the first thing
Mark asked her about.
"I sent word to him, Missy went down to Stanton Village for
me. So he's going to know we're both alright."
"He still won't be back for another five days? You're going to
be alone? You're sure?"
The cuckold husband was conspicuous by his absence.
"Missy wasn't here to help you either?"
The woman shook her head. But by now she was taking note of my
presence in her house. She looking meaningfully at me. "Who is that?"
she asked
"Oh!" Mark turned around like he was surprised I had followed
him into the house. "His name is Eamon. He's a mercenary."
"You've got a mercenary with you now?"
"I missed the birth because I got waylaid by Arval's Riders."
He told her grimly. "They had me locked up in a storeroom at their
fort for six days."
"Oh Mark!" The woman threw me a pleased look. "I'm glad you've
got a mercenary. You need one now. You have to do so much travelling."
Mark was more interested in the baby than in explaining who I
was. He was probably avoiding telling her what our bargain was. He
crossed to the bassinet that stood near the wood stove. The baby was
fucking tiny. He picked it up in his big hands confidently.
"Eating well?" He asked. "Any milk come in?"
The woman nodded. "She's a girl." She walked with a funny
rolling walk to stand proudly beside the man. Mark looked at her, then
at me, then her again. "How are you, Mary Ellen?"
Oh, brother...His voice was so warm it made me itch. I didn't
want to hear him cooing at the woman.
"Oh, I'm okay." she said unenthusiastically.
"I'd like to get a better look at her, but first, I want to go
in the bedroom with you." Mark said to Mary Ellen.
I couldn't believe it. What a horny fucking bastard Mark was!
That woman was two days after giving birth and he wanted in to her
cunt. Just the thought turned my stomach. It would be all stretched
and... "I'm going to take a short walk." I mumbled.
I walked around the woman's farmyard with my hands in my
pockets. She had a little, reasonably well kept place. The biggest
building was the byre. It had a loft and a work area and five stalls
for the cattle. It was bigger and sturdier than the house, which was
just a room and a half cabin.
I wish I had a place like this. I thought. I could have had,
if Arval had paid me my two cows. I walked around it a couple of dozen
times.
By the time I tapped on the house door again it was over and
all clothes had been replaced. Mark was sitting opposite her. They
nodded at me absentmindedly and went on talking.
"Now, I want you to make really sure that you eat well." He
told her. "Remember, you're eating for Jennifer still, not just
yourself. After the vegetables run out, you can boil pine needles
for the vitamin C. You know how to do this?"
He went on and on like this, telling her to keep the baby on
her milk and how to take care of herself and to take care of the baby.
You'd think nobody in the world had ever had a baby before, this one
was so special. "You have to take care of yourself so that you can
take care of her. Don't wear yourself out..." yada yada yada
I can't believe it, I thought. I'm jealous.
Later Mark walked outside with me. "She asked us to stay
overnight. I told her we'd sleep in the byre."
"We?" I questioned. "You're sleeping in the byre with me?"
"Yeah." It was like he was surprised to be asked. "She could
maybe fit one of us in the house, but I figured you wouldn't want to
be sent out to the barn alone." I looked at him trying to figure it
out. "You said it was too cold out in the woods. And you said I could
wait until we got here before you demanded payment. Well, it'll be
warm in the byre."
"She going to loan us a lantern?"
"I'll ask."
I was in a better frame of mind after that. Puzzled, but
better. Mark wasn't entirely taking me for an idiot, and making use of
me as an unpaid bodyguard. Dinner in the woman's cabin was a confusing
affair. She laid down, I cooked it and Mark put on a pair of work
gloves and dragged a big stack of cord wood for her fire up against
the house and some inside, so she wouldn't have to go out for it. He
was quite the sissy, wearing work gloves. He wasn't trying to toughen
his hands up, like would have been sensible, but protecting them so
they would stay soft instead.
The woman was worn out, I guess. She didn't mind Mark going
out to the barn. She got herself up to get him some spare blankets and
we went out across the darkened yard.
I surprised Mark by making two beds in the straw. After
glancing at me, he laid himself down with a groan. "I hate that,
coming too late to help with the birth. She wasn't even in labour
yet when I set out."
"She got by okay without you." I shrugged. "Even her husband
didn't worry that nobody was there."
"All the more reason I should have been here."
"Like it was your fault?"
"No." He smiled wryly. He rolled over on his side and faced
me. "Eamon?"
"What."
"You said we'd talk about your payback when we got here."
"What do you want to do?" I asked him.
"I don't want to do anything. But I won't refuse to pay up.
You got me out of a real bad situation. I'll let you do whatever you
want to me."
"That so?" I asked.
Mark was damn good looking once he had cleaned up. He had a
firm jaw, and gorgeous eyes. He was tall and wide shouldered. He
wasn't all muscle the way some guys I knew were, but he was strong,and
he had a lot of grit beside. There was experience in his face. Maybe
he wasn't a fighter and he was a dick when it came to women, but to me
he was as sexy as hell, lying sprawled on his side like that. He
nodded at my question.
"You sore?" I asked.
"Sore?"
"You know, stiff, aching. You're moving like you're sore."
"Yeah, I got a few aching muscles." He agreed.
"Take your shirt off." I told him.
He sat up and slowly started taking it off. He had a smoothly
muscled torso beneath. There was no extra fat on him. His nipples were
a darker hue of pale brown. On his chest there were just a couple of
grey hairs sprinkled in the brown. "Just my shirt?" He asked.
"Just your shirt." I repeated.
He put the garment aside.
"Now lie down on your face."
He started to move to do so. "Don't you want me to take my
pants off? Open them up, anyway?" He paused almost lying on his
stomach.
"You could undo the top button if you want." I said. "But I'll
do anything else, if I need it."
He undid the button and then laid down on the brown blanket. I
came over and straddled him. I sat on his ass with my knees down. I
felt the muscular cheeks contract and spread. I reached down and put
my hands on his bare shoulders.
Mark sighed.
I began kneading, rubbing and digging into the muscles on his
back and neck, working at them in a massage.
"Your hands are rough, Eamon." He said unsteadily. But he laid
quite still, relaxing, accepting the contact. I'm not sure if he could
feel my hard on or not. I kept it tilted away from him.
That's what I did, just sat on his ass and massaged his
shoulders and back. His skin was maybe softer than a younger guy's
skin would have been, but it covered the same muscular curves and
planes. I dug my thumbs and fingertips in deep working from his waist
up and then down again.
"The way I see it," I said, "If I took a knife and held it to
some guy's throat and I said, 'Let me fuck you, or if you don't, I'm
going to kill you.' Then that would be rape, right?" My voice was
slow and aimless.
"Right."
"So if I give a guy a choice, let me fuck you, or else you're
dead, then I'm trying to rape him?"
"Yeah."
"That was the choice you had." I said. "Let me fuck you or let
Arval's kids beat you to death. If I fuck you, that's what it would
be, rape."
"I don't quite see it like that." Mark looked up over his
shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of my face. He sounded puzzled.
"Well, that's the way I see it. If it's not rape, then it's
extortion." I told him. "That's why I'm not going to fuck you."
For a second he laid still. Then it sunk in and he jerked
up."You're not going to fuck me?!" He struggled. I got off. "After all
that and you're not going to fuck me!! I don't believe this! You came
all this way with me? For nothing?"
He sat bare chested and stared at me, mouth agape. His eyes
stayed on me. I shrugged.
"You're jerking me around." he said. "You're kidding me. You
kept telling me before that you'd like to make me take it up the ass.
You weren't joking about that! Were you?"
"No, I wasn't."
There was a long pause.
"You really aren't going to make me pay up?"
I laughed. "You sound disappointed."
There was another long pause after that. I went and lay down
on my blankets. It was maybe two whole minutes, maybe three before he
said, very softly. "Yes, I am."
"Well then," I said. "If you want to pay me you can sing that
song for me."
"Goodnight Irene?"
I nodded. When he Mark started to sing it, I lay back. His
voice wavered at first and I knew he was self conscious. His voice was
deeper when he sang. He sang low and sorrowful.
Some folks live in the country
And some folks live in town
Wherever I go, one thing I know
I like to have a woman around.
Some folks marry for good looks
And some folks marry for money
I married a little country girl,
Because she called me "Honey."
Irene, Goodnight Irene,
Irene goodnight
Goodnight Irene, Goodnight Irene,
I'll see you in my dreams.
Whales sleep in the ocean.
And fishes sleep in the sea
When the night starts falling
My bed's the place for me
Birds sleep in the treetops
Hares sleep underground
Horses sleep in meadows
And my wife sleeps around..
When he sang that last line, it made me think of Mark with the
woman in the house who'd just had the baby, but I was thinking of it
as being more about Mark than the woman. His voice died away.
MARK Part 3 of 4 By Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca
DISCLAIMER: If you are offended by gay sex or if you are underage,
please do not read this story.
Your comments, questions, criticism and requests for missing
installments are welcomed by the author at Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca
When he sang that last line, it made me think about the woman
in the house with that baby, only it was more like the song was about
Mark than it was about her. His voice died away.
"Thanks, Mark." I said.
"Anything else you want?"
"That's okay." I said. "That's enough."
"You're a nice guy, Eamon." he said softly.
"Yeah, fuck." I said. I wrinkled my nose dismissingly.
There was a pause. He gave a laugh suddenly. "There I was,
purely terrified and resolutely screwing my courage up to submit to
your depraved appetites and you won't even accept it! Talk about a let
down."
I shrugged.
"I was all set to play the role of helpless sex object, keep
my word and submit my trembling body in payment..." He shook his head,
amazed. "But you did say you want my ass." He finished frowning,
"I'm taking you back to Green Valley tomorrow?" I said.
"Yes."
"Probably we should go to sleep so we can get an early start."
Mark was looking at me steadily, a curious twist to his
expression. "If I offered you freely, if I said that I wanted to..."
he got stuck.
"If you wanted to what?" I rolled over, a little
belligerent."You're used to getting your rocks off regular, and you
want me to do it, see how well a guy can get you off?"
"I don't know..." His smile was painful. "Well, it's true. It
scares me. I've spent a lot of years wondering what it would be like
even. I don't want to say what I would want, because I don't know. But
I do know I want to... at least find out what it's like."
"Fags give better blow jobs than girls." I stated.
"Do they?"
"Yeah. Women never do it tight enough. With another guy, he
knows what it takes to make a prick feel good, because he's got one
himself."
"I wasn't asking you for that."
"You want to give a blow job to me?"
"I think so."
I opened my eyes wide. He lay with his eyes fixed on me, like
as if I fascinated him. His expression wasn't hard or scared any more.
I lay opposite in the light of the lantern, staring back.
"You got any rubbers?" I asked at last.
"Yes." He got up at once and went to the black bag of his. He
dug briefly and had them out. I had expected that he wouldn't have
them, of course. I waited disbelieving it until he held out a couple
of little square packets. Then I levered myself up and took them.
"Alright." I said.
Mark knelt facing me, half on my blanket and I drew his
trousers down. He kept his eyes fixed on me so carefully, it was like
as if he was trying to memorize me. I stripped him bare. His big
handsome cock stood up, and when it was erect, it was tall. His pubic
hair was grizzled. It had more grey than his chest had. He let me pull
his knees up, let me slide the garments away.
When he was naked, I pushed him over on his side. I leaned
over him. I ran my tongue around his shaft, not onto the head, but
below it and then working down onto his balls. The sharp savory smell
of a man came to me. Mark started to breath in gasps straight off.
I lay there, licking his balls and slid my hands under him. I
didn't work my fingertips into his crack, but I kneaded on his bum,
squeezing upward gently. When I looked up at his face, his
mouth was agape. His eyes were big. He looked amazed.
"Like this? A faggot mouth on your cock?" I asked him. My
voice came out rough. "Like the dirty faggot teenager, giving you a
blow job?"
My hand slid up around. I took one of his nipples and pinched,
tweaking the small hard nub gently.
"Yeah, you're gonna fuck my faggot mouth, Mark." His skin was
burningly warm in the coolness of the barn. The roughness of his hair
covered thighs scraped my cheeks. "Feel my faggot tongue licking your
balls? Feel my hungry slobbering faggot mouth greedy for the taste of
you?"
His hands came up suddenly, the first move that he had made,
and he laid them on my head. He didn't grab. His fingers were hooked
and just resting in my hair as if he was still too scared to actually
take the grip he wanted to. His arms were stretched stiffly towards
me.
"Want to feel a faggot making love to your ass?" I demanded. I
took his knees and pushed them back. I rolled him back. He was
quivering. It wasn't fear. He gave a groan. He caught his own knees to
hold them back and let me at him. The tip of his hard prick had a
glistening bead of pre-cum on it.
I wrapped on hand around it. I licked the fingers of my other
hand. I found the wrinkled web of his asshole with wet fingers.
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, you got a beautiful asshole. I want to
touch your asshole. Lemme rub your asshole, Mark. All your women, do
they like to make love to your ass? Do they like to smell it?"
I kissed and suckled and bit at his thighs close beside his
opening. I licked his balls some more and all the while, I rubbed his
prick with one hand and his asshole with three wet fingers. I didn't
try to put my fingers inside. His asshole was responding to me,
opening and contracting, but it was a virgin ass. The opening wasn't
really big enough for a finger. It opened up easily at the push of my
finger but not wide enough.
Mark was groaning. His head rolled. "Uhhhh.. Eamon, are you?
Ohhhh..." He was panting so hard that he was incoherent. I didn't know
what his broken words were asking.
"I want to feel this." I said. Hurriedly I started pulling my
shirt open. I only let go of him with one hand at a time, keeping up
the rubbing without stopping. He was pushing his ass up
towards my fingers. Instinctively, he was pushing to get more
sensation.
When I had my shirt off, I bent forward. I took his shaft and
I rubbed it against my chest. I rubbed it against my nipples and into
the hair. My chest was nowhere near developed enough to
make a split to rub him into, but I dragged his prick across the
surface, and I licked my hand so that I was jerking him off against
me.
"Fuck my faggot mouth, Mark. Let me feel your big fat prick.
Let me feel how much meat you got. You want to give it to me? You
ready to put it into my faggot mouth? Man, I love your meat. Gimme
that cock, Mark. Face fuck me."
I took the rubber up. My motions were swift and jerky. I
slathered his prick with a wet palm. I ripped open the condom packet.
I squeezed the head of his dick.
"Do it! Do it!" he moaned.
I rolled the rubber down his prick and dived on it. I took it
tight and thick in one gulp, right down my throat, all the way. I took
it right to the back of my mouth. His long prick plunged in so
far I could swallow on it. His legs locked around my shoulders. I
bobbed up and down furiously.
Mark's hands pawed at me helplessly. He didn't know what to
do. They tried to push my head down farther, but my lips had bottomed
out into a bush of curly hair. He patted my shoulders, slid over my
ears. He flung his head back. His mouth was wide.
I sucked his prick hard. I dived up and down on it, ramming it
full depth with every stroke into my extended throat. I wriggled my
pants off at the same time. I thumbed his responsive asshole wetly. He
was groaning so hard that his soft choking cries sounded half like he
was crying.
"Ohhh... So good! Fuck, Kid, feels so good. I didn't know!"
His heels slid on the smoothness of my back. "You got it.. God! You
got it all the way!"
His asshole was begging for it. I let my thumb slide in, first
only a centimetre, but then every time, I slid it deeper until his
virgin ass was taking my thumb.
"Uhhh..! Eamon!" He groaned. His head rolled back until we
were meeting eyes, across his chest and belly. His face was puckered
up with pleasure. His hands came back down and his fingers caught and
caressed the sides of my face. When I slid up to the top of his prick,
he grabbed me and he pulled. His prick popped out of my mouth and I
crawled forward.
He didn't seem to be recoiling so I caught his mouth with
mine. There was a momentary flinch as he pulled away, but then his
open mouth was meeting mine and our tongues met. He sucked hard as he
kissed, pulling the kiss tighter. My hands groped over him. I squeezed
his pectorals, farther down, slid over his balls and cupped them.
I broke the kiss. "You want to cum, Mark? You want me to make
you cum? Look at that." Kneeling between his thighs, I rubbed my own
prick furiously. The two organs jutted up side by side, one in a
rubber, one not. I used one hand on each of them. I rubbed the heads
together. He was gripping my hips tightly.
"Ready for an ass fuck, Mark? Want to give it to the faggot?
Think you could slam it into my guts? Come on, Mark, give it to me."
I turned myself around, lifting one leg over so that I was
back to him, astraddle his thigh. I got up, reaching under to tilt his
prick towards me. I backed down. I felt his hardness butt up
into the cheeks of my ass, I felt it press my crack wide and set thick
and moist against my asshole.
"Fuck me, Mark. Fuck my faggot asshole." I sat down on him,
letting my weight force my hole open. His long prick pressed upward
rigid. A grunt broke out of him as I slid deep down. I felt my ass
contracting rhythmically. I let my weight go down until I was sitting
on his hips.
"You're fucking a guy's ass, Mark. You really got it inside a
man's ass. How does it feel to fuck a faggot?"
A long shuddering groan was my answer. When I started to raise
and lower myself, he gasped, "Tight!"
"Too tight? No, you like it. Yeah." I squeezed with my ass
muscles deliberately. I reached down, below my own balls and found
his. I cupped them and rolled them in my fingers, all the while
squatting up and down to provide the motion. I saw beads of precum
well up from my own cock.
Another moan came out of Mark.
"Fuck me!" I urged him.
When I went forward, down to my knees he came with me. His
belly was hot and moist with sweat against my back. He locked his arms
around me and dragged himself up like this. I crouched with my knees
in the straw and my head down. He was breathing like a bull. He drew
back slowly and then battered forward in one hard stroke.
"Give it to me, Mark. Let me have it! Fuck me like a faggot!"
"Oh, Kid..." He groaned.
I was reaching under, playing with his balls, scrabbling at
his thighs. I was rolled up almost in a ball. Stroke after stroke,he
pounded into me. The man was clinging to my hips so tightly that his
fingers were biting in and hurting. My asshole felt hugely full with
his thick, thrusting shaft. My precum dripped on my wrist.
He started to cum. A low animal moan rose from him as he
ground forward. He pushed so hard that the straw slipped under my
knees. I felt his body twitch; the small twitch in his pumping cock
and big shudders that were carried to me through his belly. I felt the
gust of his breath as he exhaled. He stayed frozen, sobbing for breath
as he shot his load.
I let go of his balls and grabbed my own prick. I was yanking
on myself, when he put his hands on my back and slowly started to pull
away.
"Don't." I gasped. "Gimme a minute."
He stayed still. His warm hands still rested just below my
ribs. I thrummed on my cock. His weight and his smell were still close
and hot against me. I masturbated myself. With Mark's cock still
jammed up into my ass, I was only a few strokes from cumming. Deep
breaths shivered through my warm body. I felt my balls contract and
set my teeth. A moment later the white cum spilled up onto my
knuckles. I sagged, open mouthed.
"You done?" His quiet voice came hoarse behind me.
"Yes."
He drew out slowly. I relaxed to let his prick slide out. It
had gotten dry because of the rubber. It pulled painfully. I turned
around grinning crookedly.
He was holding his prick protectively, two handed. He looked
amazed. He backed away from me. An uncertain smile flickered onto his
mouth. I thought he was embarrassed when he bent his head and began to
work the rubber off his prick.
He sat on his blanket and only glanced up for a second when
hesaid. "I thought you wanted to do that to me, do that the other way
around?"
"Did you want me to?"
"I.." He glanced up quickly again. "I guess I thought you'd
show me how to bring you off. I'm just surprised. God, it was good!
But you did it yourself."
I shrugged. "I know the way to do it myself." I said. "Or were
you trying to pay me off? Is that it?" I frowned. "You said you wanted
to find out what it was like. We're you really trying to pay me off
still?"
"I think I still owe you something." said Mark.
"I said you could forget it." I licked my fingers of the white
cum on the knuckles to clean up. His awkwardness was annoying me. Of
course, I thought, what did I expect? Screwing around with a straight
guy? That'd he'd get all cosy afterwards?
I shrugged again and turned around for the blankets.
"Goodnight, Mark." I said. "I think I'm going to sleep now."
"Goodnight Eamon." he said quietly behind me. "And thanks for
the good time."
The next morning was a lot colder and we didn't get off to an
early start. Mary Ellen's cows wanted milking, so Mark wanted to do
that before we left. I was glad to see that he really wanted to do it
for her, rather than so that he could have some of the milk.
While Mark did her milking, I did some other work for her,
moved a bunch more of the wood and broke some of it up, and brought up
a couple of pails of water and shovelled out the stalls. That took us
until after seven. It was nearly eight and light out before we got
under way. Mark's farewell of the woman was restrained.
"Take care, and don't hesitate to send word if you need me."
he said. They didn't kiss or anything like that. They didn't touch. He
held the baby for a moment and put her back in the bassinet, smiled
down, nodded at Mary Ellen and then we were off.
As we travelled I thought about the way he treated the woman
and the baby. Oh, he was warm enough, but he was distant somehow too.
I wondered if that was my being around. I'd pictured him having a
bunch of women and maybe a wife as well in Green Valley, but was Mary
Ellen his only mistress, his girl friend? Did she matter to him? I
wanted to ask him, but I couldn't ask that, because I had the
uncomfortable awareness that it was jealousy behind my question. If
I didn't want to make some claim on Mark, I wouldn't have given a damn
how many women he had.
After we had been walking an hour it started to warm up. Mark
was doing really well that day. He showed no tiredness at all.
"Eamon," he asked. "Where are you planning on going after
we get to Green Valley?"
"I really don't know." I said. "I haven't made up my mind."
"No idea where you're wintering yet? You have to winter
somewhere."
"I'll find a place." I said. "It isn't December yet."
"You looking for work?"
I glanced at Mark.
"Remember what Mary Ellen said? That she thought you were a
mercenary I had hired on to protect me?" Mark spoke with a trace of
hesitance. "It's not a bad idea she had. I could use you." I
considered. So Mark was offering me work. I could use work. He could
use me. But with the mixed feelings I had about him, I wasn't so sure
I wanted to be used by Mark.
"Would the men of Green Valley want you hiring me on, given
that I've worked with Arval's raiders?" I avoided the first issue.
"I think they would." Mark tackled that uncertainty
eagerly."It would be kind of like hiring you away from them, a good
thing. They'd much rather have you working with us, than maybe
going back with them. And since you bailed me out, I figure that'll
show them you can be trusted. And you come with useful knowledge of
Arval's fort too, so I think they'd find you valuable."
"What kind of pay and conditions here were you thinking
about?"
"I can't really support you..." he said slowly. "I'm not that
rich. I haven't had to go hungry too often yet, but I don't see any
way that I could hire you on my own and pay you wages like you
seem to merit. Not full time mercenaries wages. I only make some
trips. Every few days maybe. It really depends. So I couldn't afford
to pay you for more than the trips you make."
"Then you don't have enough work for me." I said flatly.
"I don't. But at Green Valley maybe we do. If you'd be willing
to hire on there, or take some agricultural work.."
"Nobody hires on after the harvest." I said. I said it a
little more sharply than I meant. His half offer was puzzling me. If
he didn't want to hire me, what was he driving at? He wanted to get
me hired out to Green Valley and get me tied up like a loose end?
Maybe he didn't know what he meant either. He didn't say
anything more.
We took a back road to get to Green Valley. We joined this
road about noon, after cutting across country and taking small paths.
Mark noticed after awhile that I was ignoring him, my gaze going in
careful circles, from my feet and then around on the surrounding
hills.
"Eamon, what's the matter?"
"A lot of people came this way." I said. "Recently."
"How do you know?"
I pointed. "Tracks. These were laid down after the ground
froze. See? They only scuffed the surface."
"Mounted?"
"No. The ground's not that frozen. If there were new
hoofprints they would have cracked the dirt where it was frozen."
After we walked on for about another minute, Mark spoke
again."What day is it?"
"What day is it? I don't know."
"It's Wednesday. I think, it's Wednesday. Does that sound
right to you? On Wednesday there's a little market in Green Valley. It
could be that, you know. We get quite a lot of people come in
Wednesday and maybe Saturday."
"You mean just farmers? With trade stuff?" I relaxed a little.
I didn't give up on my wariness entirely, but I figured he was most
likely right. A dozen farmers with baskets of beets, turnips and field
corn to swap would have made about that much of a mark on the road.
One of the footprints I had seen had been right small, like a farmer
had brought his son or daughter with him, so I hopefully concluded
that, as usual, I was looking for trouble when it wasn't there.
I stopped in the road, about half a mile short of Green
Valley. "How long would it take you to get home from here?"
"About fifteen minutes." Mark was startled.
"Then, if you don't mind, I'm going to leave you to go in on
your own. I don't much want to meet the men from Green Valley. I never
fought them, but it they know I was with Arval for awhile.." I
shrugged.
"No!" said Mark. "I want you to come on back with me. Look,
Eamon, letting me sing you a song is no kind of a repayment for what
you did. You saved me from a hell of a bad time. I want to at least do
something more."
"What could you do?" I said. "You told me you couldn't afford
to pay me. I don't think there's anything you could do for me."
"But I want to..."
We were talking there when the sound of rifle fire came
carrying from over the hill ahead, sharp in the frosty air.
"Shit!" I stepped out of the centre of the road and caught
Mark's arm. We both stood still listening, tensed like bird dogs with
up flung heads.
The rifle fire was repeated, three short series of shots, two
to four each time. I knew that sound. I'd heard it so often. Mark
didn't need me to tell him that it was men exchanging fire. There was
some kind of a skirmish going on at Green Valley. I didn't think that
the tracks on the road had been made by farmers going to market now.
"Okay." I said. "I will see you all the way back to your gate.
But now, come on this way!" I started straight back away from the
town, on the road.
"No! We got to go see." Mark jerked an urgent hand towards the
shots. "I've got to see what's going on!"
"Like hell you do! If we go that way, we could get shot at.
You want to walk into a frigging battle? Mark, you're not even armed."
He had gone a little pale with his excitement. "I'm going to
go see, with or without you. Please come with me and protect me."
I couldn't believe it. Mark was so fucking stupid! Sure, the
people in Green Valley were his people, but there are some things it
doesn't pay to be curious about. Watching guys get shot at was one of
them. When there is gunfire going on, the important thing to do is to
get where it can't hit you.
Mark went to tug his bag from my shoulder.
"No!" I said angrily. "This way, then." I jumped the ditch. He
trailed after me. I wasn't about to let him go alone and I wasn't
about to let him go running straight into the middle of it. I took him
sideways, across the fields, circling around closer to Green Valley.
He knew the fields around here, probably, and I didn't, so it
would have made more sense for him to lead. But I didn't trust his
sense not to lead us by the quickest and most open route, which would
get us killed. So I took him around, darting from hedge to hedge,
loping instead of running. There was a hill in front of us, which was
good, because it was cover. I made us stay behind it. We heard shots
again and again.
I took him to a vantage on the hill top which turned out
pretty good. There were the towers of Green Valley, linked by a wire
fence. We were looking down from above on everything between us and
them, on several groups of men, crouching low, with their backs to us,
squatting behind fences and walls and pressed flat in the hollows in
the ground that provided cover. I saw two men lyingin the open, and
either they were dead or trying to look like it.
"Son-of-a-bitch!" I murmured. "It's Arval."
I couldn't figure out what was going on. They were trying to
get into Green Valley and since there was no one even as close as the
wire fence and plenty of return fire from the two nearest towers, they
weren't having any luck. But the gunfire was being exchanged in more
than one direction and I had to figure that one out.
"What's going on?" Mark demanded.
"Those are Arval's guys...and those guys. Look, there's Joe. I
wonder how hungover he is right now? Those two... I bet those two
guys, down in the trees with the horse behind them, those are guys
from Green Valley. See? They're firing at Arval."
"What about the men down in the field? Can you see? How bad
are they hit?"
I shook my head. "Don't worry. Anyway, from their position
they've got to be Arval's guys, who were trying to make a rush in
closer."
"God! I wish I had binoculars! I want to see if they're dead
or not!"
"Believe me," I said. "If you had ever seen a man shot to
death close to, you wouldn't have wanted to."
Mark turned his head sharply, made as if to say something and
then said. "How can you get me closer?"
"Closer! Are you out of your fucking mind?!"
The gunfire had grown more sporadic. It had slowed down to
almost nothing again. I didn't like that. Arval's men were moving, but
not forward, sideways.
"Mark." I said, "If they retreat, they'll be most likely
coming this way. I want to get out of here."
He didn't answer. "Why aren't they firing...?"
"Come on, Mark."
"They're reloading." He was worried about the two Green Valley
guys with the horse.
"They're out of ammunition, I think." I shook my head.
"Christ!"
"Yeah..." I could see why Mark was mesmerised. I found it hard
to tear myself away. We could see it so clearly. Arval's guys were
squirming in, using the hedge and the ditch to get nearer. A rifle
boomed and we could even see the two guys jerk where the bullet had
hit the dirt between them. "Arval's guys want that horse, I bet."
"They're going to kill the men." Mark exclaimed.
"Looks like it."
"Oh Jesus, Eamon..!" He swung his face around desperately. His
voice was pleading.
"You want me to do something about it?"
He nodded mutely.
I swung my rifle down and cocked it. With the sight everything
jumped closer. The first thing I had in my sight was the green back of
a raider amid the yellow grass. I moved the rifle a fraction higher,
to grass just above his shoulder. The shot blasted out painfully loud.
The rifle stock butted my shoulder. I swung the rifle over.
The next man I caught in my sight was Arval. I saw his red
beard, his open shouting mouth as his head jerked around. For an
instant the cross hairs quartered his face. I kept it there, even as
he started to scramble up. I squeezed the trigger lightly. The rifle
he was raising dropped. His face shattered, a true vivid red, much
brighter than his beard.
Sick stomached, I swung the rifle farther. Arval's men had no
cover. They were hugging the ground frozen. Only the green-shirted man
I had fired at first was moving. He was up, running scrambling madly
away. I could have hit any of them, as I had hit Arval. I placed the
shots, two, three more above the cringing shoulders before the yelling
men bolted.
While they were running, I rolled over behind the crest of the
hill. Mark had slithered down. He had his black bag now and was
hugging up against it.
"I think I killed Arval." I said tersely. "Move. -That hill."
Mark did as I told him. We ran crouching. I kept him in front
of me. There were two more, widely spaced shots from the tower, but
because we were behind the hill, we could not see what they were
firing at. Fifteen yards over, there was a fence with long brittle
grass and weeds to create soft cover. We plunged behind this.
"Are they okay? The two men? Did you scare the raiders back?"
"Yeah, I scared them off. They'll be retreating. Fire from
behind, they had to retreat." My shoulder was pushed up against Mark's
chest as we crowded below the fence together. His long fingers were
gripping the sleeve of my coat as he crouched behind me. "Let's keep
moving." I said tensely. "They'll have to come around, and then
they'll be behind us, if we don't watch out."
"Okay." Mark was breathing hard. "You say what to do."
"Up, up here."
We were visible for another moment while we got to a clump of
trees, but the raiders weren't in sight yet. There were between
fifteen to twenty of them. They wouldn't all come this way. If they
were smart they would fan out. It would be one rifle against fifteen.
MARK Part 4 of 4 By Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca
DISCLAIMER: This story is an original work of gay erotic fiction. If
you are underage or if you are offended by material of this nature,
please do not read this story. Your comments, criticism, questions,
flames, objections, flattery and requests for missing installments are
all welcomed by the author at Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca
When we got to the next bit of cover, we could see down into
the pasture in front of the Green Valley fence again. The horse was
galloping riderless in the open across the grass. A knot of men were
swarming up the slope to where Mark and I had first crouched. I
couldn't see where the rest of Arval's raiders were, nor the two men
who had been with the horse.
"We're fucked. They're coming through here." I said. There had
been a gully on the other side. I had hoped they would go into the
gully. They would have been more protected there. But there were at
least six of them working their way up the ridge towards us, some
humping on their bellies in the grass, a couple running low and
stirring the weeds and scrub to my right. They were going to meet,
just about around where Mark and I were trying to hide.
Mark didn't look panicked. His gaze was steady, although his
eyes were wide. I jerked my head to the left. "Get over there, get
down and don't move. No matter what."
He stared a half second longer before he broke away. I didn't
stop to watch him get into place. I knew he'd make it safe. He'd stay
safe there, too, as long as I kept the raiders from coming up this
rise.
I didn't pick a target. I sighted into a bunch of weeds that
had been swaying unnaturally and fired. I was rewarded with a scream.
I hadn't hit him. I was also rewarded with a crisp staccato. Bullets
flew on both sides of me. I fired again, this time at the flash, not
waiting to focus the cross hairs. Something in the grass lurched and
stopped moving. More shots cracked.
"C'mon, you bastards. Go right.." I breathed. I aimed for a
rock.
The first time I'd started firing, I'd aimed high. I didn't
want to butcher a bunch of men in the open. Now I was shooting to
kill. I couldn't see my targets. They couldn't see me. We were
stalemated. I had them pinned, but they had me pinned too. I moved the
sights swiftly, swinging them back and forth. I was almost too close
to use it. "Go right, you fuckers. You can go right. I won't shoot you
if you go right." I breathed. My heart was pounding against the stiff
ground under me.
They fired again before I did. I cringed deeper. Bullets
ripped the earth about three feet to my right. Face crushed into the
grass, I tried to spot where the flashes were coming from, to
pick exactly which bit of cover they were shooting from. I made a
guess. I fired once. Their shooting stopped.
I threw a glance behind me. I wanted to see if Mark was safely
down where I'd told him. I didn't see him. Good. My gaze was back,
scanning the hill below me, almost instantly. They were firing uphill.
That was harder than downhill. I waited for one of them to move.
The image of Arval, the brilliance of the blood that had
flashed in my sight in the instant after I had shot him, came into my
head, along with the sudden clutch of nausea in my belly. I'd
killed Arval. I sucked a deep breath, fighting the nausea down. Shoot
to kill. That's right. Scare these guys, I thought. C'mon, break
cover, you bastards!
More shots. I didn't move. These were hitting the hill below
me, not particularly close. Someone was trying to draw my fire. I
grinned wolfishly. All the better. He was probably behind that shock
of dead goldenrod. Soft cover. And he was wasting his ammunition.
Suddenly, another shot. Too close. I rolled over and all hell
broke loose. I saw Mark. He was in the pasture, thirty yards down,
right in the open, running madly towards the Green Valley fence. They
saw him too. A man jerked up, the blue steel barrel of his rifle dark
in the air as he swung it to bring it around behind. My shot popped
either under his arm or in his chest.
The shots were crackling like fat spitting in a pan. Shots up
the hill. Shots down. A man in the grass tumbled onto his side as my
rifle swung over him. Mark was still running. He was skimming over the
grass, farther and farther away, his bag hugged tight under his arm. I
had to rear up. Dirt, kicked up by a shot, spattered my face in cold
small clods. I couldn't stop firing. I couldn't let the men swing
around and start firing into the field.
Thank you so fucking much, Mark. Yeah, you owe me one, you
bastard. You want to repay me. You fucking take off, get me into this
and then take off. The thoughts and fury that rose up in me were
unfair. It wasn't as if he could have helped me by staying put. He
wasn't armed. And by making his break for Green Valley like that, he
had distracted the raiders. They had to move to get their rifles
trained on him.
I fired at a man in pale tan clothes, who seemed to be running
backwards in a crouch. He went down one way, his rifle went the other.
There were two more rifles popping shots off towards me. Mark had made
it away. I hugged the ground again, my head pressed into a rock. My
rifle caught on the ground as I tried to drag it about. I had to move.
They knew for sure exactly where I was firing from. I started to
crawl.
Pain exploded. The shot and the sensation were simultaneous.
The sudden burst of agony in my arm flung me down. The sound of the
shot was quiet compared to the pain. It was a huge flame coloured
swell that expanded through me and left me gasping and twitching and
stunned with cold. I felt heat seeping swiftly and wetly on my legs.
It wasn't blood. I had pissed myself. I tried to move, to roll over.
It didn't work and only my fingers trembled.
There was nothing but cold and pain. Every second I got colder
and colder. I knew the cold was shock. With an effort I rolled my head
over. I saw a mangled dark mess where my upper arm had been. A little
way above the elbow, white bone was staining pink with the streaming
blood. There were footsteps running near me. The pain was more
important than the steps. Tears squeezed through my eyelids. I knew it
didn't matter who came. My arm was shattered.
The footsteps hesitated, a hoarse voice croaked without the
meaning impinging. Vast cold was locked around amy trembling body. If
the blood stopped running, I would live awhile. Then, unless someone
who knew what they were doing helped me, probably by burning the
wound clean, it would rot slowly and the rot would kill me.
I never knew what it was to be so cold. The footsteps had
gone. Grass prickles were stuck into my nose and cheek. I think that I
crawled. The roaring pain had me stuck to the ground like a half
crushed insect. Slowly, leaving thick smears of fluid behind me, I
crawled feeble inches. Then the cold made my trembling body too weak
to even move. I lay shivering on the ground with my eyes sealed up. I
didn't leak any more tears.
I was too dizzy to really understand where I was at first. I
was somewhere warm, and weird sickly waves of dizziness were wandering
through me, making it impossible to tell what I was feeling and what I
imagined. I looked to see where I was and saw ceiling instead of sky.
White boards and unfinished cross beams. Warmth. I felt a dim
need to puke, so deep down that it didn't bother me. I felt a woozy
need to either giggle or cry. I did neither. I dragged my head about
on the soft pillow until I could see the room I was in.
It was a cabin somewhere, a cabin that had a good stove,
because the room was being kept stiflingly hot. There was boy, about
thirteen, looming above the bed I was in. The boy had his sleeves
rolled and was only wearing a shirt with no jacket. There was a woman
and she was holding a bucket. The boy pushed a metal teaspoon towards
my lips. It chinked through my teeth and was full of water.
I started to put it together. I was in Green Valley. I had to
be. There was no where else close enough for me to be, and since I had
been fighting Arval's raiders, it made sense that they would be
willing to bring me here. My arm...
Yes, the pain was there, but held back, somehow buried in the
dizzy stupidity that fogged my brain. I'm drunk. No, I'm not, I
thought. They've given me a painkiller a lot more effective than
booze. Had they cut my arm off?
I turned my head to look. It was there, wrapped neatly, a
mummy arm, no sign of blood, the silhouette the same shape as what it
should have been, lying between two wooden splints carved to match the
shape of my muscles. I flexed my fingers and felt something, as if
they were moving. I peered a little farther and saw my own fingertips,
very white, digging at the air.
"More water, okay?" The boy leaned in and spoke earnestly. He
put his teaspoon in my mouth again. I swallowed and spoke.
"Who did it? Who fixed it?"
"The doctor did it." the woman said.
"I think he wants Dr. Mark." said the boy.
"Dr. Mark?" I said.
He came into the room just a minute later. The woman brought
him back. His thin careful fingers took my hand, checking me. "I bet
it hurts." he said. "It was quite a reconstruction job, but you were
lucky. The muscle wasn't as ripped up as all that. I think you'd
better keep it in the splints for two months at least and more likely
three, to give the bone a chance to knit. I've seen worse."
"You fixed it." I said.
"Yeah." he said. And then his voice dropped. "I'm real sorry
that you got hurt. I think I owe you still another one now. You
wouldn't have gotten mixed up in the fight if it wasn't for me."
My eyes drifted to my arm, still bewildered by the drugs in my
system. "It's going to be alright?"
He nodded reassuringly. "I've got you on antibiotics,
everything. It may not be as strong as it was before, but I'll stake
my reputation, that you'll heal to have a useable arm. Believe me, I
gave you my best work. It was the least I could do. We're going to
take good care of you."
He was talking to me, the same way he talked to Mary Ellen,
warm and steady, meeting my eyes. I blinked stupidly. His eyes were
measuring me, searching my face.
Somehow I couldn't keep my mind or my gaze focused. It floated
away. I stared at his mouth. There was just a little yellow bruise
left on his cheek beside the corner of his wide thin lips. It was no
bigger than my thumbnail. All the swelling had faded away. I had
kissed that mouth and he had flinched and then locked me closer by
sucking. That nose had been pressed up along side of mine. The nausea
in me was a strange thing. The sensation was like blood hissing. That
was the pain that I couldn't feel. And there was warmth and comfort,
lazy and languid through my whole body. I felt like I could float up
and around the room, drifting as gently as a leaf on water. I kept
staring at his mouth and watching his words without hearing them.
Nurse Peter had his narrow shoulder in my armpit and was
trying to help me through the door. I'd told him that I didn't need
any help, just walking that short distance from the infirmary to
Mark's house, but he had insisted on helping me, since it was my first
walk outdoors in two weeks. I had felt the cold in the slush filled
yard. I'd gotten my first good look at Green Valley, from the inside
of their fence. Mark had part of one of the original houses for his
home. He had the upstairs. He was standing on the staircase inside and
smiling as Peter helped me carefully up the three steps and in the
door.
"I think we can manage here." Mark said.
"Thank you, Peter." I liked the boy. He had spent almost the
entire time I had been in the infirmary, sitting quietly in the room,
so as to be at hand if I needed anything. He sat poring over some old
medical textbooks, when he hadn't been looking after me. He was Mark's
apprentice. He gave me a shy smile and slipped away.
Mark took my arm, and I wasn't sorry to have him steady me on
the stairs. The loss of blood, which could not be replaced, had left
me with a tendency to be light headed. He let go of me at the top and
I got a look at his home.
I could see two rooms, scrupulously neat. There were books,
regimented on a dresser between bookends, two beds with striped covers
pulled to geometric exactness. It was a room that suited the man who
had put the dozens of tiny precise stitches in my arm. He had done a
good job. I was certain of that. I could use the fingers of that hand
already.
As I sank down sitting on one of the beds, Mark spoke a little
rapidly. "Well, here you are. Don't let us rush you into a decision,
but try it out. I think you'll be comfortable here, at least enough to
stick it out as my room mate until you don't need the splints. They
won't be off until the spring. You can move on then if you still want
to. Either way, it'll be warm enough here to spend the winter. So what
do you think?"
I grinned. "I think you're trying to rush me into a decision."
He stopped dead. "You do?"
"Why are you putting me up here, in your own rooms?"
"Well, you still need somebody at hand to look after you, and
then afterwards, if you agree to take the work, you'll be my
mercenary, like I explained. It only makes sense to have you
here." He went back to talking too fast.
"I didn't know if you'd have two beds up here."
"I had that one brought up for you last night." he said
stiffly.
"So you didn't mean us to share?" I tweaked him gently.
He stopped dead again. His mouth opened. He paused. "I don't
think it would look right, if we shared."
"Yeah, someone might think that you were lusting after my
faggot ass." I was still grinning.
Mark smiled slowly. "They might."
"And they'd be wrong of course." I said, "Because frankly, the
thought of being stuck at close quarters with a young faggot guy who
finds you a turn on, that terrifies the life out of you."
I turned around and looked out of the window behind the bed.
The yard was full of sun, brilliant on the puddling snow. There was a
girl in a hooded jacket slowly herding a dozen brown and white cows
along the road. I felt Mark get on the bed behind me. He took the
curtain and twitched it closed and hid the girl and the cows from my
sight. I turned around.
"Do you deliver a lot of babies?" I asked.
"Most of them, around these parts. There's a lot of women like
to have me in attendance in case anything goes wrong. I do a lot of
animals too. The farmers feel the same way. They call me in if there's
a bad presentation or things have gotten held up."
"But you didn't deliver Mary Ellen's baby." I stated.
"No, I wasn't in time."
He had no idea why I was asking him those questions. It had
never occurred to him that I could have been jealous, any more than it
had occurred to me that he could have been rushing to the birth of a
baby that wasn't his own child.
His arms were almost around me, but what he said was. "Don't
think you have to get into anything with me, if you're not feeling up
to it. I really don't intend to pressure you."
"Darn." I said. "I was hoping you'd rape me."
His thin-lipped, expressive mouth stretched into a smile. "I
could probably manage it, with your arm out of commission like that."
"How about if I promise not to struggle hard enough to get in
your way?" I suggested meekly.
He laughed and lowered his mouth to mine. He kissed me. I
tilted up to meet him, savouring the warm firmness of his mouth, his
moving lips.
He drew away with a sigh, only a few moments later. "You have
no idea how strange that feels to me. I was brought up to think that
not much worse could happen to a guy, than another guy treating him
like a girl."
I had nothing to say to that. He came from another generation,
another age. I just shrugged wryly.
He bent forward again. We went back to kissing. This time his
hands moved slowly and carefully, opening the top buttons of my shirt
and sliding over my collar. He undid it to the waist, pausing to meet
my eyes. He undid the buttons on my fly.
"Eamon." He said, and his voice was hoarse. "You know, I'm
sorry I didn't stay in cover during the fight, the way you told me to.
You understand why I didn't do it? I will do whatever you say,if you
agree to come on as my mercenary. That's a promise. But right then I
had to go see if there was anyone who needed my help. That's my job."
I reached up, my one good hand and tugged clumsily at his
shirt buttons. "I understand that. That's why you need me, you know.
You put yourself in danger without me."
He met my eyes quickly, with a sudden smile. "Exactly. I need
you to look after me."
He slid off the bed and took my trousers, drawing them down.
His finger tips came forward lightly as he bared my skin and he
touched my belly, my stiff cock and my thighs tentatively, and almost
with amazement.
"God, but you are a hell of a fine looking man, Kid." He
breathed. He slid his hand around my prick, tightened the loose grip
and squeezed. We both inhaled hard with the sensation. His wrist shook
as his hand vibrated in a minute motion. He kept pulling my boots and
trousers off with his other hand. He went briefly to his knees beside
the bed.
Eagerly and clumsily, he tugged the clothes off of me. With my
clothing he was sure of himself, but with my skin he was hesitant. He
stood up again to get my shirt and then worked more slowly to ease it
over the casts. Kissing me, he put his tongue in my mouth. I caught
him and pulled him close.
"Eamon.." He pushed me onto my back. "You like the kissing,
Kid? How's this?" He put his mouth to mine and we fed urgently from
each other's lips. My broken arm lolled stiffly across the blanket.
With my other I dug down on his back, below his belt and pulled him in
closer to me. I couldn't slide my hand far enough with him like that.
I couldn't get my wrist under his belt.
"Jesus!" he moaned.
"Get your pants open, please!" I exclaimed.
Hurriedly, he popped his fly and belt open. My eyes clung to
his fly, and were rewarded with the sight of his tall rosy headed
prick. He flung his clothes on the floor. He held up his big,
ready prick and cupped his balls, showing me what he had.
"I got a hard on for you." He breathed. "How's that, Kid? Just
like you, just like a faggot, I've got a hard on for you."
"Why do you keep calling me kid?" I complained. I tried to
reach for his prick. "My age is bothering you? Give me that thing."
"Oh no, Kid." He shook his head. "I love your age. You know
how much of a turn on it is that a gorgeous young guy like you is hot
for an old guy like me? I love the fact that you're a kid. You want
me? You want this?"
He brought his prick closer. I groaned. I lurched up and
brought my mouth towards his hips. With my mouth round, I could almost
feel the perfect softness of the skin and the incredible firmness of
the shaft. But Mark didn't let me get my mouth on his prick.
"No." he said. "This time, I'm the one doing it. Last time you
did it."
We struggled. I kissed his throat as our bodies twisted. He
laid me down again on my back. His grip was much harder, much surer of
himself. His teeth met lightly, biting on my belly. He travelled down.
His mouth was burningly warm. It engulfed my prick.
"Ohhhh..! Mark!" I breathed. I stroked his warm round
shoulders and his head. The sight of his stretched out throat and his
half closed eyes as he took my cock into his mouth made me moan. He
looked so handsome. He slid his face down as far as he could.
Three, four deep wet bobs and then he gagged. There was a
check in his motions as he controlled it and bobbed again. He couldn't
take me very deep. He could only give head to the head of my prick. He
kept trying. He tightened his lips. I felt the hardness of his teeth
behind them. His tongue moved. He gulped again abruptly.
He came up panting. "I can't take it deep like you did. How do
you take it so deep?"
"Practice." I told him. "You've got to have the angle
right..That's okay. Don't stop!"
He didn't stop. He brought his hands in. One cupped and tugged
and rubbed my balls. The other encircled the bottom of my shaft. Mouth
on the top of my prick, hand extending the tunnel, he sucked and
bobbed eagerly. His face jerked up and down. I was groaning and
writhing, pushing my hips up to him. As he got more practice he took
it deeper. Deep groans started to come out of me.
His hand slid down to my crack and found my asshole. He rubbed
that. I tried to push onto his fingers. "More!" I begged. "Yes, Mark.
Finger fuck my ass."
"Want me to fuck it with my dick, Kid?" He took his mouth off
my prick to offer.
"Yes!"
He moved back and grabbed his pants from the floor. He had a
condom in them, ready. His hands barely left me. While he got it on,
he kept one hand on my prick, jerking at me, keeping me almost
desperate with lust.
"How do we.." I started to roll over. He caught my hips and
stopped me.
"No. Like this. I want to see your face." He knelt between my
knees and lifted them up. I spread my thighs and let him drag me up. I
felt his prick position itself, forcing my cheeks wide, butting
against my asshole. Mark had his grey eyes fixed on my expression. His
strong fingers bit my thighs as he held me ready. With one stroke, he
slammed his long thick prick into my ass.
A deep moan broke out of me. He started to slam it in and out,
fucking me hard. I pushed back and up into him, claiming the length of
him. He was leaning on me using his weight to push down. Every stroke,
his prick reamed deep inside me. His hand caught my prick. One of my
feet jerked, kicking uncontrollably as the strong sensation
transmitted itself to me.
I was getting damp now, sweating with pleasure. Mark
was pounding hard. He drove into me eagerly, stroke after stroke. I
thought I would cum first but I didn't. He had a strange twisted smile
plastered across his face. He looked incredulous and very happy. He
was fucking me so hard that my body was jerking. His smile went as his
mouth opened in that breathless gasp when he brought himself to the
edge of cumming.
Then his face was twisted in a grimace and all his weight was
crushed against my doubled up body. He leaned in as the shudders
racked him. I felt the pulse surge in his cock. His breath became a
wheeze as it slowed down and he struggled for air.
A moment later he was focusing on me and his hand was on my
prick again. He rolled me back a little way to get the room. He
thrummed my organ. He made his hips vibrate as he stayed inside me,
squirming against me, giving me sensation, without thrusting. His
hands on my prick were as practised and sure of themselves as if it
was his own cock he was masturbating. He was so eager to give me
pleasure that he had forgotten to be tentative. He reached down and
pinched my nipple.
My hand caught and scrabbled at his thighs, at the backs of
his hands. He squeezed tighter and tighter. Little moans broke from
me. My ass was full. His hands played on me, squeezing until I felt
like my prick was going to burst. It was going to burst. I felt my
balls contracting. My feet kicked some more as I jerked towards him.
My eyes squeezed shut and my load came up. It jetted in stunning
waves. His hand matched my tempo exactly.
When the shock of cumming had passed for me, he moved slowly
and withdrew himself. He leaned over me as my hips went back to the
bed. He put the side of his hand into my mouth where there was a
string of my sticky cum on the knuckle. I licked his hand, exhausted
with pleasure.
He watched me entranced while I licked his hand clean. I could
feel callouses now with my tongue. His hands had callouses on them.
They were strong hands. They just had the callouses in places that I
hadn't been able to see. The taste of sperm and salt on his skin was
good. I dragged the tip of my tongue between his fingers.
"That was good, the way you like it?" Mark's voice was hoarse.
I nodded. "Oh, yeah." My breath was still evening itself out.
"Maybe next time," said Mark. "-And there will be a next time
won't there? Next time or soon, you are going to have to try fucking
my ass. I never had my ass fucked before. I want you to put your prick
up there. Just like you promised me. How about it, Eamon? Are you
willing to stay and teach me how to take it?"
All I could do was smile and nod.
"Soon." said Mark, smiling. "That's a promise. You're going to
teach me. So get your strength back as quick as you can, Kid, because
I can hardly wait until you're ready to teach me everything you know."
End of story by Ruthless@nbnet.nb.ca