The Warlord and the Bard

by Eric Alan Westfall

  While my mind is still processing the arrogance of the assumption of incapability, as opposed to capability combined with refusal, he braces himself with his left hand on the bed, shifts so that his left knee is on the bed, his right foot on the floor, leans in, and bunches the sides of my jacket in his fists, while pulling my head toward his. His aim is unerring, as he tilts his head and his lips land on mine. His kiss is gentle, lips closed, no tongue, but our lips part just a little anyway.

  Still holding onto my jacket, he pulls his head back just far enough to look me in the eyes. He twinkles at me. “Not bad for a beginner, your crappinz-ship, what with only two kisses before. But there’s so much more to a kiss than that. For our next and third lesson....”

  He fingers loosen their hold on my jacket. I could easily get away...if I wanted to.

  “That is, if you’re willing to go on with your lessons?”

  I hold very still. “Do you think I have a lot to learn?”

  Another tiny twinkle. “Perhaps not a lot, but some, certainly.”

  “And this is a perfect place to learn?”

  “Since we’re, ah, stuck here for a while?”

  I give him my best, proud-of-the-student-who-has-finally-caught-on look. When he does nothing but watch, it is my turn for an eyebrow-arched, “Well?”

  He moves in so very slowly this time. I keep my mouth closed, but I detect a twitch at the edge of his mouth, just before his lips touch mine. I open as he does, and this time, I show him that I have always been someone who learns quickly. I demonstrate that talent and kiss him back. Thoroughly, and very, very well.

  But what starts out as a battle for dominance quickly becomes a joyful festival of giving and receiving, no taking at all. It is a wet, wild, exhilarating several minutes—hours?—and when we finally, mutually, stop, we are both gasping. His face is beautifully flushed, his lips indeed slightly swollen. Just not as much as they will be.

  Jerril

  I am either the finest teacher in the Kingdom and Empire, or he is unnaturally talented.

  Neither of us is unaffected. His pale white skin is not as bright as mine undoubtedly is, but there is a definite pink, almost-a-blush, just beneath the surface. His lips are fuller than mine to start with, and now they are slightly swollen. I wonder how swollen they will be when I am finished fucking his mouth and spewing down his throat.

  I wonder, too, if that pinkness spreads over his entire body. Whether it darkens, will darken, when he is on his back or belly and I am fucking him through the mattress, as a start.

  I smile at him yet again. For a man with such a terrifying reputation, a man who only a little while ago had me flat against a wall, ready to strangle me, he is remarkably worth smiling at. “My ideas about getting us back don’t seem to be working.”

  “No. They don’t.”

  “Perhaps...if you start three kisses.” Ridiculous. My voice trembles as it has not done since the first time I sang for others not my family. When I was four!

  “No.”

  Bastard. Well, then....

  His voice interrupts before I can voice my mattress idea. “I think it might work if I fucked you through the mattress here.”

  The damned whichever-title-he-is-right-now has the nerve to slap his hand down to be sure I understand just which—only—mattress in the room he’s talking about.

  “Then fuck you against the wall.” The royal prick gestures toward the spot where I’d been choked.

  “After that....” He pretensively pauses as if he has to think about it. “After that, you can bend and bare, though there won’t be anything to bare, really, since you’ll already be naked and well-fucked, over one of the chairs. I’ll let you pick.”

  Smug. So very smug.

  “A good idea.” I nod, and his self-satisfied smile gets broader. I don’t think that’s going to last much longer. “Mattress. Bed. Chair. An excellent idea, actually. For my cock and your ass.”

  All that Royal and Imperial training he must have had, and used all his life, to never involuntarily display emotion—perhaps, even, never to display emotion at all—appears to have vanished since our arrival. His mouth drops open.

  “You. Fucking me.” His tone suggests that I just proposed opening one of the Gates on Aldoran with a metal prybar.

  “That’s what I usually do.”

  “You? Fucking me?”

  I keep the sigh inside. I could so easily be offended by the assumption, because it has, for the most part, been the initial assumption about who would do what and to whom, with the men I sex. The bigger man, after all, is the fucker. Always. The smaller man...is not. There is more to bigness, though, than height and weight and muscle mass.

  “You never get fucked.” A statement instead of a question, given his face and his voice.

  “Never.”

  “Just like you never kiss.”

  “That...ah...that was different.”

  I decide not to challenge him on that. Not yet. “Why not?”

  I think I know, but I wonder what he’ll say.

  He lies, whether consciously or not, when he says, “I’m bigger. And better.” And accompanies it with a “What else could it possibly be?” look.

  “Better? Seriously?”

  He offers me a shrug, head tilt, and slightly spread hands to say, “Of course.”

  Which thoroughly annoys me, since I am damned fine fuck in either position. I start to semi-snarl at him with “I can....” And then I stop, and grin. He’s puzzled and annoyed when I grin some more.

  “I’ve just had a thought. A competition song.”

  Annoyance wins out over puzzlement. “You’re going to write a song. To win some fucking prize. Now?”

  “No, not a prize. The song itself is a competition. A duet. Think of it as...a musical duel. Unfortunately, I will not be able to claim ownership.”

  “You compose it. You own it. Even I know that.”

  “Ah, but it wouldn’t do to embarrass you and your family by being known as the composer of such a bawdy song.”

  “Bawdy.”

  I nod.

  “Just...how bawdy.”

  My grin is wicked. I have a very fine wicked grin. I don’t have the melody quite right just yet, but I start the song off anyway: “Anyone you can fuck, I can fuck better. I can fuck anyone better than you.”

  My turn again for a lifted eyebrow. He lifts one back, patently puzzled. And then the moons come over the mountains and illuminate everything.

  “Oh. No, you can’t.”

  I am grateful for his Goddess-awful attempt to sing. With all he is, it would be humiliating if he could sing too.

  “Yes, I can.” Yes, those are the right notes.

  We battle a bit until I finish with a triumphant double affirmation that “I can!”

  He looks at me, shrugs. “What’s so bawdy about that, to make you worried about the High Houses and Families, or my family? It’s a pretty damned short song.”

  “Short song?”

  “Yes. The first time you brag about fucking; the next time you brag about your skill as a cocksucker. Not much else, is there?”

  So I tell him.

  And enjoy the rising tide of discomfort that works into full-blown embarrassment, or more likely, arousal. Or both. I am very explicit in my explanations of all the ways in which we can brag about “better.” All the ways he clearly has never experienced.

  No one will ever believe I made His Royal and Imperial Highness, Crown Prince and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blush—or flush—that particular shade of red. Not that I would ever tell anyone, but I can still enjoy imagining their amazement and disbelief.

  The red isn’t bright enough to match the color of my hair. At least not on my head. It’s closer to, but still a little bit lighter, than the darker, flame-colored fur around my cock and on my balls. It is a good look on him. I will...Goddess willing...be successful in repeating this experience. I am also going to do my damnedest to ensure, too, that no one will ever
see that flush of arousal but me.

  I also realize he isn’t going to just strip, fall backwards on the bed, and lift his legs. Not with that day still hovering.

  It’s too bad She isn’t listening or looking right now. I have a plan.

  Sort of.

  “So the bigger man is the one who fucks.”

  He blinks at the apparent change of subject. “Of course.”

  “Bigger, how?”

  A shrug. “Everything.”

  “Everything?”

  He nods.

  “So of two men, the man who is taller, fucks.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the heavier man.”

  Smug makes its reappearance with a nod.

  “The stronger man.”

  Smug smiles at me. After all, he is, in all those ways, bigger than me. Just not in every way. And even if I am wrong, I still win.

  “The bigger cock.”

  There is just a hint of uncertainty now, as he says, “Of course.”

  “So if the man is taller, heavier, stronger, but his cock isn’t...bigger...then the, ah, shorter, lighter, not-quite-as-strong man with the larger cock is the one doing the fucking.”

  “Ah....”

  “Your words, your crappinz-ship. Between two particular men, not men in general, it’s the man who is bigger in everything who does the fucking. If not, he’s...fucked.”

  He glares at me. And stares at me. Trying to figure out if I’m bluffing. But I’m an extremely talented jiron player, and no one has ever figured out just what cards I hold until I lay the last one down. If I had a middle name, it would BluffMaster.

  There is, of course, an obvious way out for him. Actually, two ways. Tell me he doesn’t want sex after all, which would be an enormous lie since it is obvious that despite all the talking we are doing, he is mostly hard, as am I, and he wants me, if not quite as much as I want him, then nearly so. Or go back on his word.

  “Fine!” he snaps. “Prove it.”

  Even here, where no one but the two of us will ever know if he doesn’t, he honors his word.

  I stand up, step slightly away and face him. I am not quite as talented at quickly getting out of my clothes as I am at being a bard, particularly since I don’t get to practice as much, but here and now I display an impressive degree of talent. Popped buttons notwithstanding. Naked, I’m also displaying an impressive cock.

  It’s leaking. Drooling, actually.

  DarkFire

  Damn.

  Quadruple damn, since three just aren’t enough. How is there enough blood in the rest of his body for him to remain upright?

  “A gift from the Goddess, I guess.”

  I look up from his cock and balls, where any sensible man who loves men would be staring and drooling. I didn’t drool just now. I think. “What?”

  “You asked. I answered.”

  I said that aloud? Well, quadruple damn again. This time I keep the thought to myself. The thought if I weren’t so tall, so broad across the shoulders; if I didn’t weigh as much as I did, though not a bit of it was fat, I would display like that, too. It’s simply the contrast between his size and his cock’s size that makes his cock so...damned...impressive.

  I am equally impressive. No...more so. I will simply undress quickly, efficiently, and demonstrate that truth to him.

  Except....

  Except...he’s watching me. I cannot recall a man ever watching me undress. Which is a lie I tell myself, because there was that one time. I wait for that internal memory crystal to find its way to me, to try to bring back every instant of that day, so that I can force it down and away, and get on with creating the memory crystal of the here and now. But...nothing happens. The memory isn’t there.

  I undoubtedly look like a fool, standing here with my jacket on the floor, the last buttons of my shirt unbuttoned and the tails pulled out of my waistband, my hands up, holding the sides near my neck, ready to pull it off my shoulders and down my back. Standing here, staring at nothing at all. Other than my own cavern of memory crystals...behind a wall of clear crystal? glass? Something which cuts them off, so the crystals are silent. I no longer hear their pleas to be picked up and used. I am free of the burden of ever and ever remembering. I doubt it will last. I could not be that lucky, so I am sure that wall will shatter if, no, when we get back. If I believed in a Goddess, if there was a Goddess to believe in, I might be tempted to thank Her for this respite. For this temporary freedom from the weight of all that time.

  I shake my head, my hair moving and rippling like a unicorn stallion’s mane when he shakes his own head, and lifts his voice in a challenge. I have been challenged by Jerril. Shorter Jerril. Not-as-heavy Jerril. Much-less-strong Jerril.

  Enormous-cocked Jerril.

  Who watches me, while he strokes himself, and twists his nipples so that they are hard, I am sure they are hard, though I wish I could see them beneath that fur. He dips the tip of his right forefinger in his slit, collects his oil, and then sucks it off.

  I pull the shirt off my shoulders, hold my arms down and back, and the finest Eraki silk that Imperial gold can buy slithers slowly down my arms until it drops, so very, very slowly, to the floor. I put my hand to my waistband, start to unfasten it.

  “There should be music,” he says.

  I stay my hands’ efforts. He sees my unasked question in the way I stand, the way I breathe, the way my cock twitches beneath my pants.

  “There will be music, my...DarkFire. Music to accompany getting you naked. Music that will make a man hard just from hearing it, picturing in his own mind his own man getting naked, just for him and no one else. I hear the music in my mind right now, my...DarkFire.”

  He pauses. “I’ve said that nine times now. Or is it more? I’ve lost count. Will excess repetition fuck the prophecy? Well, fuck the prophecy! Through each of the Nine Hells. Repeatedly.”

  But for all the assurance of his voice, he does that Goddess-glance thing, as if he expects a bolt of Her non-existent lightning to incinerate him on the spot. When it doesn’t, he puts his entire focus back on me. It is remarkable to have someone’s entire focus be on you—not in the way a warrior focuses when he’s trying to kill you and only you in that particular moment, before moving on to others if he succeeds—the kind of focus for no reason other than that he cares.

  “Get naked, oh mighty crappinz,” and he twinkles at me, “and I’ll make a memory crystal of that music, before you get naked again. No. Once we get back I will be too eager for your mouth and your cock and your ass, and every other inch of you, to spend time creating and recording music. But I’ll make the time before the next time. Would you like to hear the music I hear right now, knowing only you and I will have the code to set it free?”

  Only an idiot would refuse an offer to have music made just for him. I am many, many, things, not all of them pleasant or even remotely so. An idiot is not one of those things. I answer him by opening my waistband, letting the popping buttons fly where they may.

  “Get naked, my...DarkFire. Get naked, so I can see all of you.”

  I never do as I am told.

  I do as I am told.

  I need no stroking of my own cock to know I am as hard as I will ever be. As hard as I have ever been. And while the hardness may be enough for any number of fucks, the length and girth are not in this comparison battle. He is bigger indeed.

  I am fucked. In so very many ways. But perhaps, if that wall holds all the memories at bay, perhaps not totally fucked.

  Jerril

  There is, of course, a temptation to gloat over winning the Big Cock War, but I won’t embarrass him by doing so.

  Goddess, but he is beautiful.

  He stands there, letting me stare. He is so very tall; smooth, alabaster skin; large, flat nipples, a rich, dark purple. A network of scars on his sides, at his navel, below. He has chosen for whatever reason not to have them healed, just as he chose not to heal the ragged dueling scar on his face. His hair ripples down t
o the top of his abdomen, certainly longer in back.

  Thick, curling black hair pushes out beneath his arms, matching the hair around his cock and balls, but otherwise he is smooth, smooth, smooth everywhere I can see on his torso. I wonder if his ass is entirely smooth as well, or if his hole is lightly dusted or thickly covered with hair.

  He stands there, as hard as I am, waiting to honor his debt. So very tense. Thought not as tense as I thought he might be if this happened. I step close, caress his cock with my right hand, stroking back and forth on it, curling my fingertips on his knob, pushing the foreskin back. With my left hand I reach up...and damned up...to pull his head down to mine.

  I will have to learn how to do this well, if there is a future for us beyond this room. If there is, I will be damned if I am going to have a box made to step up on just to kiss him properly. But all that depends on whether I somehow manage to make it “all right.”

  How am I doing, Goddess?

  No! Wait! Don’t answer that.

  # Very well. I won’t. # Her Voice smirks, and then Her presence is gone as rapidly as it arrived.

  I kiss him, ravaging his mouth with my tongue, and after the slightest hesitation, he responds with the same fervor. I slowly end the kiss, leaving us both with heaving chests. I let him go, get on the bed, crawl over to the thick pillows at the head, so very accidentally wiggling my ass at him. I have acute hearing, so I hear the kind of gulp a man gives when he doesn’t want anyone to know he is gulping.

  Still on all fours, I stretch my right hand out and dip it in the bowl of oil Someone so conveniently provided.

  I cannot resist doing it again. Intentionally, this time. # Hint much, dear Goddess? #

  # Only as much as is reasonably required. #

  # Given the flawlessness of Your memory, I am sure you recall You aren’t going to peek. #

  # It isn’t peeking when You are invited. #

  # Ah. I did, didn’t I? #

  # For someone who says he does not want an audience, you seem to be having difficulty with the concept of privacy. #

  I mentally shrug. # I just wanted to be able to tell someone...or Someone...how very beautiful he is. Inside as well, despite all he has been through. Suffered. #