The Black Orchid

by Sawyer Caine

  I faced my wronged lover and observed him sitting calmly on the side of his cot eyeing me, a villainous traitor to our love, with a bemused expression.

  “Frederick! I thought you slept. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t, Alfred. I’m sure you didn’t mean for me to hear that little benediction, either. Don’t you realize that he already has a hold on you and you on him? Didn’t I warn you that this would happen? He’s a child, Alfred, and now the situation is complicated. What will you do when he comes for you again? For he most certainly will. Have you the strength to turn him away? I think not.”

  “Well, would you have?” I asked angrily as I sat up and reached for my cigarettes. “Would you be able to tell him no if it was you he desired? I tell you I cannot and neither could you, Frederick.”

  He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, setting it wild. His curls drifted back to partially obscure his eyes. He looked tired and worn, and I felt wretched for perceiving myself to be the cause of his distress.

  “No, my love. I doubt if I would be able to resist his innocent charm either, but you must get hold of this unchecked passion. If Paulo or Nekana were to learn of your liaisons with him, I guarantee you there would be repercussions. Do you know what she told me? I asked her why he seemed so naïve, and it’s something I wish they’d told us sooner. Come sit with me, love, and I’ll let you in on the know.”

  I carefully stepped over the tiger skin rug, unable to suppress the memory of Nekai kneeling on it and reaching for the shadow shapes spinning around the tent. I shook my head as if to expel the vision and joined my love on his cot. I offered him a cigarette and he took it gladly, exhaling the menthol-scented smoke and relaxing into his narrative.

  “When you and Nekai were playing down at the falls, I made so bold as to inquire of his childish manners to Nekana, thinking him perhaps simple-minded. She informed me that he, being their father’s only living son and the youngest at that, had always been kept carefully sheltered. He must be innocent and pure when he undergoes their coming of age ceremony. He will someday take his father’s place as the shaman of their people. Their law requires such purity of heart and mind in order to be blessed by their Gods. I found it all rather superstitious nonsense as does she, but most of the villagers still hold to their old ways. Their father certainly does.”

  “So then you are telling me that I’ve ruined him?” I cried, aghast.

  “Did you lay with him?” Frederick asked, refusing to meet my eyes.

  “No, I… I pleasured him again, but I didn’t take him in the conventional sense. I used my mouth on him and that was all. I did nothing further,” I sighed as I relinquished my guilty admission.

  “Then I would strongly admonish you to do no more than you already have. In time he will seek you out again. You’ve shown him how erotic the touch of another can be, but he has been shielded from any kind of sensual pleasure. Now he will be wild with want of it. You will have to find a way to resist his desires if you can, though you are the fault of it. I didn’t know it was this grave, the consequences. If I had, I never would have encouraged you to seek him out. I feel as though I, too, am at fault,” he said, glancing up at me with those stark, green eyes.

  My heart quickened, and I reached out to brush my fingertips along his unshaven jaw. “My love, what a mess I’ve put us both in. Know that I do still love you and always have. You have my heart, Frederick,” I vowed.

  “I never doubted your love for me. I know the reason why you seek his embraces. He reminds you of yourself in the past, doesn’t he?”

  Frederick could always see through my defenses. He knew my deepest thoughts and my greatest fears. It was his complete understanding and acceptance of me, even with all my many faults, that made me love him with such abandon.

  “Will you not talk with me of this?” he asked. “Bare your soul to me, my love.”

  I sighed and took a slow drag from my cigarette. “It’s late, Frederick…” I attempted to stall.

  “Putting this conversation off will not suffice with me, Alfred. I want your words. Give them to me.”

  I faced him and saw only his open trust, his forgiveness. I hated myself for my betrayal of it, but I knew he’d already put it behind him.

  “Frederick, you know I’ve told you of my past, my indiscretions with men beneath my station in life. I started it when I was only fifteen. I knew by then that I was a man who longed for the companionship of other men in ways that were not acceptable. My first dalliance was with a stable boy who was about eighteen or so. I gave him some fine whiskey and bribed him to take me in the hayloft of my father’s barn. He didn’t need much encouragement. It was rough and painful, and I hated him for it after it was done. I regretted that it had been so, but that didn’t stop me from seeking it again.

  “I went out into London, in the dark streets of Cheapside and spent my time in seedy taverns frequented by sailors and journeymen. It was no hardship to find a willing partner. Always I asked for it to be rough. I was raped on more than one occasion. I don’t know why I needed it so. I’ve never understood, but it was something in my nature that desired to be so treated.

  “I have changed as the years have passed and now I find that I am the one who desires to dominate and to control. It is his state of innocence, the fact that no other has even known him in that way, it is like the need for hard liquor to me, Frederick. It is a siren song that calls endlessly in the darkness. “Come to me, take me, use me, I’m yours.”

  “Alfred, I know all of this already. I’m only concerned for your state of mind and his as well. Perhaps I should approach Nekana and ask her to keep a stronger watch on him…” Frederick began.

  “No! You mean to make her believe that he is at fault? I am the one to blame for this dreadful state of affairs. I’m the one who sought him out, made the advances. He doesn’t even know what we are about when we are together. He knows it feels good and that to him is all he thinks it is,” I protested.

  “You lie, Alfred. No, I don’t think you mean to lie; rather you delude yourself. He is no fool. I’m sure he knows he’s been denied certain aspects of life. I have no doubt whatsoever that he is not completely ignorant of the concept of physical pleasure. How could he not wonder about it, the sensations and feelings that stir in the body of every young man? Look at him. He has the face of a child, but his body is that of a man much older and tell me, love, is his endowment not more suited to that of a man than a boy?”

  “Yes,” I conceded. “He is rather well-endowed.”

  “Then you know his body has stirred, even before you sought to awaken it with your embraces. I’m sure he has, at the very least, pleasured himself. Even drooling idiots in institutions do as much, having no brain in their heads at all to comprehend such an act, knowing only that it brings pleasure.”

  “Frederick,” I protested vainly.

  “No, listen to me, Alfred. This must stop. You are the one who will have to stop it. He will not do so without some sign from you that you no longer wish it to continue. He will seek that contact again. If it goes on unchecked, he may become twisted in his mind and end up as you and I, aroused only by another man,” Frederick warned.

  “You speak of this attraction between us as though it were a thing most vile to you!” I cried, clearly overreacting.

  “Alfred, you make a point not to understand my admonishments. You know I love you. Let that be enough.”

  I leaned back and rested against his cot and he laid beside me, stretching out and laying his head on my shoulder. I absently ran my fingers through his hair and brushed my lips against his forehead. My heart was in a state of complete bewilderment. I knew it belonged to Frederick, yet my passion longed for Nekai, for his body, for his kisses, his hesitant and blushing touches. God, how I burned for him. Yet it was Frederick I held, and that was right as well. I fought against the tears in my eyes and swallowed the hard lump in the back of my throat.

  “Love, promise me
you will not take him the way you were taken. If have him you must, at least promise me you won’t hurt him, damage him the way you were broken. Promise me that. If you did such to him, it would be irrevocable. He would be changed forever. Don’t do that to him. He isn’t like us, Alfred. His world is here with his people. It always will be. He will never be one of us, and we will never be like him.”

  Frederick rose and looked down at me with unrequited longing in his eyes. “I want you, love. Won’t you take me as you long to take him? Will you ever be satisfied with me, my body, and my embraces or will you be always ever looking for that better experience just beyond the horizon?”

  “There is none better than you in my eyes, love!” I promised as I placed my hand on the back of his neck and drew him down to me. I urged his mouth open with my tongue and tasted the sweetness, the wine scent of his breath. “Frederick,” I moaned into his mouth.

  “My love,” he answered.

  I pushed at his breeches, loosening the belt and shoving them down his hips and beneath his knees. He shifted to remove them, and I stripped away my own shirt and breeches. When he came back to me, he was naked in all his glory and lay with his body stretched out full length upon mine, his hardness pressed to my own, matching its ardent desire.

  “I think that I want to love you now, Frederick. Consider it your penance for sinning so willingly with him. Will you acquiesce to me?” he asked.

  “But of course I will,” I whispered to him as I accepted his proffered kiss.

  He lifted up so that I could turn and lay upon my belly for him, and he reached beneath his cot and drew forth the small bottle of oil we had hidden. I turned my head to look over my shoulder at him as he poured it into the palm of his hand and stroked himself. What an awe inspiring sight it was to me to watch that arousing spectacle.

  “God, love, do you know how sensual you are? You drive me mad watching you touch yourself in that manner,” I moaned.

  He merely smiled and shifted his hips forward to give me a better view. Riveted to the spot, I watched as he slid his other hand between his spread thighs and circled his opening teasingly. “I’d wager you would love to be inside me right now, wouldn’t you?” he jested, tilting his head down and looking up at me lustfully.

  I sucked in a hard, panting breath as he pushed his finger just inside and tipped his head back, gasping with the pleasure of it, the dual sensations. “Do I make you warm, my love? Are you wanton for me? Would you reach your passion simply by watching and deny it to me?”

  “Never!” I cried. “Frederick, please, have mercy on me! Take me, please, love, I need… I want… God, I need,” I keened as I thrust my hips against the cot desiring any possible friction that I could obtain.

  “Beg me for it,” he urged me, his voice low and husky with passion.

  “Frederick, I beg you, please give me your cock. Take me with it. Make me scream your name and make me want no other,” I gasped, panting and moaning like a man possessed.

  “I’ll give it to you, love,” he whispered against my ear as he stretched out to lay over me.

  I moved my legs apart to give him better access to me and waited for the impalement. When it came, it was the same slow, torturous pace that he always set when he took me. I needed it rougher. I needed to be driven like a nail into the cot and made to suffer. I knew I deserved his wrath, but he refused to give me that release. He rode me with the easy, gentle passion he always possessed, and I was forced to endure that exquisite torture until I could hold back my release no longer.

  “Yes, Alfred, this is love, this is desire, not the rape you want and crave. Why must you need it so? Is this perfect love not good enough for you? Do you feel you must be punished for your unnatural desire? Have you been made to feel you are evil and therefore need the act to be painful in order to feel as though you have done your penance for it? This is how love should be. This is all you need. Give it to me, Alfred. Give me your release. I want it. I want to own it and to own you, your heart, and your soul. So beautiful to me, so beautiful…” His deep sultry voice broke into a protracted moan as he spilled into my willing body. The force of his final thrusts had enough strength to give me that coarseness I craved, pushing me past the point of resistance. I gave my passion to him, and I surrendered myself to his demand. I was his, and he knew it.

  *

  I lay on my cot once more, trying desperately to find some rest. My body had been most thoroughly sated, and yet I had still a restless spirit. What damage had I done to Nekai? Would he confess to his father and sister what had occurred and would that prevent him from taking his rightful place in his tribe? Was Frederick right when he believed the danger could be averted if I simply stopped the rampant behavior? If I’d only known at that moment, if I’d only foreseen the dreadful consequences that lay ahead, I would have acted to prevent it. I would have moved heaven and earth to keep safe those I loved. As fate would have it, I would find myself forced to do just that.

  Chapter Ten

  It wasn’t our fair Nekana who awakened Frederick and me the following morning; it was a rather disgruntled Paulo. He lifted the flap of our tent and cleared his throat, gesturing for us to come out. It was still dark when we struggled into our clothes and packed up. Paulo was loading up the mules, and Nekana was stirring something in a pot over the remnants of the fire. Nekai was nowhere in sight.

  Frederick and I made our way down to the falls to freshen up at the pool, and when we returned to camp, we knelt near the fire and took the clay bowls of soup Nekana handed us. She’d made a stew of the leftover roasted boar. It wasn’t exactly breakfast fare, but it did fill the belly.

  “Where’s Nekai?” I asked her, attempting to be as nonchalant about my question as possible. I felt Frederick’s eyes on me as I lifted the bowl and drained the remainder of my soup.

  “He’s gone ahead to scout out the trail. It gets very hard to find from now on out. He says there is a bridge ahead, and he’s worried that it may not be safe for the mules to cross. He’s not even sure it will hold our weight. If it doesn’t, then we may have to go miles out of our way to find a safe place to cross the river.”

  I glanced over at Frederick, who had a worried look on his handsome face. My love had a very strong dislike for bridges of any kind, and I had no doubt that the one we were facing today would further feed his insecurities. I would find that I was most correct in that assumption.

  “Nekana!”

  Frederick and I both jerked our heads up in unison as Nekai called out suddenly from the edge of the camp. She went quickly to him, their dark heads pressed together as they spoke in their lilting language. I wished desperately that I’d learned some of it.

  When she returned, her face was grave. “Nekai is concerned about the safety of the bridge, but he wishes to try it just the same. He feels that if we try to take it one a time, Paulo leading the first mule and then him after that with the second, that we might be able to cross safely. He wants you, Frederick, and me across first.”

  When I turned to Frederick, I observed that his face had taken on a noticeably paler shade. I reached out and took his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll be fine, Frederick. Don’t fret. Nekai knows what he’s doing. He wouldn’t lead us astray.”

  Frederick didn’t look particularly reassured, but he did at least attempt to relax. Nekana tossed a crock of water on the fire and stirred the ashes to be certain it was completely out, then she packed up the last of her belongings. We set out on the path behind Nekai, just as we’d done the day before.

  After traveling along the difficult path for nearly an hour, the sound of the falls finally faded into the distance. I found myself somewhat sad to hear only the sounds of the jungle around us. The falls had such a special meaning for me. I’d meant to ask Nekana what it was called in their language, but I’d been far too distracted that morning.

  Following behind a sweaty, provocative-looking native boy made rational thought rather difficult for me. Though I stayed
back to prevent being struck with his machete as he swung it back and forth, I was close enough to smell his sweat and be treated to a view of his perfect body and rippling musculature as he moved quickly through the undergrowth. Nekana walked beside me and Frederick came behind us, stopping to sketch a plant he’d never seen or a flower he liked the look of.

  Nekai paused and called to Paulo to take over for him as he stopped to rest for a moment. Nekana gave him her canteen. He drank, then fell back to walk next to Frederick and me. He glanced at the sketch book in Frederick’s hand, then reached out and snatched it away from my very surprised love, who turned his concerned eyes on me.

  “He just wants to look at it,” I assured Frederick.

  Nekai stopped walking and stood still, flipping through the drawings. He stopped at a picture of an orchid and held it out to Frederick, his eyebrows lifted as if to inquire or ask a question. Frederick smiled and tapped the picture, then gestured around at the jungle. Nekana was watching our interactions and came to assist. Frederick asked her to tell Nekai that he was looking for the elusive Sobralia Orchid, and that he hoped he would be able to find one before we left the Amazon. She easily translated this to our young guide, and he nodded his understanding.

  He walked with Frederick and me for a few miles as Paulo forged ahead, then when he could no longer find the trail, Nekai resumed the leadership of our group. We did not stop for a noon meal but forged ahead. Nekai wanted to get across the river before dark, and I heartily agreed that we should do just that.

  Before the sun had moved much further across the sky, I heard the unmistakable sound of the river ahead. Frederick was visibly shaken and clearly fearful of the river crossing, but I could do nothing to calm his fears when I myself was rather unnerved. We came out of the jungle into a clearing of sorts. We were very high up and directly in front of us, crossing the wide Orinoco River, was a large, suspension bridge. It looked dreadfully frightening with the heavy mists rising from the river below, surrounding it as it shifted slightly in the breeze.