The Black Orchid

by Sawyer Caine

  I don’t know how late it was as I could not see the hands on my watch, but I had drifted off into uneasy sleep. I woke with a start when I felt a hand close down over my mouth. The blood ran cold in my body as I imagined what sort of death I was about to experience at the hands of these wild people, but it was not to be.

  My eyes adjusted to the darkness enough to make out Nekai kneeling beside me. How he had managed to get into the tent without waking the others, I would never know. I sat up slowly as he moved his hand away from my mouth. He took my wrist and tugged on it, pulling me after him and I followed as quietly as I could.

  We moved like ghosts through the darkness of the village, the only light coming from the dying central fire pit. Not another living soul was in sight when we left the remnants of civilization behind and started down a well-beaten path. I knew exactly where he was taking me. I knew the place well. It had haunted my dreams all these years. We were going back to the falls.

  His grip was tight and painful, and he jerked hard on my arm from time to time as we drew closer. I had to wonder once more if he meant to harm me. If he did, I would welcome the violence. Death at his hands would be the perfect demise. The darkness was so complete that when the falls came into view, I was unable to see it. Nekai knew the way and led us along the water’s edge. He was taking me to the cave. I followed as best I could along the narrow, little path.

  When we got to within a few feet of it, he stopped and reached inside a pouch on his hip to remove a flint. He leaned down and picked up a torch that lay just inside the mouth of the cave. I watched as he lit it, the light illuminating his face. It struck me how much that face had changed from a boy’s to a man’s. It didn’t matter to me. He remained for me, still, both exotic and beautiful.

  He took my wrist again and yanked it hard, forcing me to follow him then shoving me with both hands onto the sandy floor of the cave. The small secret place was not so secret anymore. A woven reed mat screen was on one side of the cave mouth. Nekai covered the opening of the cave with it, shielding us from the outside world. The torch rested in a niche that had been carved out of the stone for it. A basket, sitting against the wall of the cave, contained blankets and other goods. Nekai took one of the blankets, shook it out and spread it on the cave floor.

  He took me by the arms and thrust me down onto the blanket on my back. I leaned up on my elbows, looking at him, trying to keep my fear and also my desire in check. The wrathful Nekai was breathtaking. I could see the rage in his eyes. He was standing in front of me in nothing but his loincloth, the ornaments of his leadership stripped away. He was just Nekai, my Nekai.

  I reached up for him without thinking. It was instinctual. He dropped on me with all his weight, knocking the breath from my lungs and leaving me gasping in pain. His mouth slammed down on mine, hard and forceful, breaking the skin with the roughness of the kiss. I could not have cared at that moment. Yes, Nekai, rape me, kill me, I deserve it! My feverish mind reveled in the pain and the justice of his rage.

  He knelt up, his knees on either side of my thighs, as he pinned me down and untied his loincloth, casting it aside. God, but he was huge. He was as big as I remembered him to be and bigger still with age. I sucked in an involuntary breath as I watched his hand move slowly down over his body, his dark eyes locked onto mine. He stroked himself slowly. I watched as the blush crept up over his chest and neck, onto his beautiful face, his eyes fluttering closed. He wanted me to watch him. It was exquisite torture and oh, so much worse than death.

  I longed to touch him, to run my hands over that perfect body before me, but I was afraid to do it. The fear was like a metallic taste in my mouth, and I hated my cowardice. He looked down at me again, running his tongue over his lips seductively. “You want me, Alfred? You forget what to do with me?” His breath was heavy, short panting gasps coming between his teasing words. I could smell his arousal, and it was a drug goading me to do what I desired to do. His hand moved so slowly, prolonging his pleasure and my torture as I watched the beads of clear fluid being forced from the tip of his leaking cock with each stroke.

  My God, how I wanted him! My own cock was so hard, straining upward against my breeches, desperately in the need for some stimulation. I imagined that I looked positively wanton to him as I lay beneath him. He tilted his head to the side and regarded me.

  “You no like me anymore? Not little boy enough for you?” he asked.

  I gave up the fight and tried to sit up, grasping at his biceps for leverage. I wrapped my mouth around one of his erect nipples and bit hard, sucking at the sensitive skin and forcing a moan from him. I tried to push him back, but he was immovable. He shoved me hard to the ground, then stood up over me.

  “You like to tease. You give a little, then you go away and leave me. You leave me wanting. Not tonight. Tonight you give me what I want!”

  “What do you want, Nekai?” I cried in a hell of desire.

  “You!” he answered, his voice low and menacing.

  I unfastened the buttons on my shirt as he kept those dark eyes on me. He continued to stroke himself slowly, and I had to fight the urge to continue watching that spectacle. I pushed my suspenders down and stripped off the shirt, tossing it aside, then I pulled off my boots and stockings. When I stood up in front of him to shed my breeches, he shoved me down again and tore them off of me himself.

  I lay naked beneath him and I felt as vulnerable as I’d felt so many years ago in the dark alleyways of London. When last we’d been together in this cave, he had been a boy and I’d led. It was not that way anymore. He pushed my arms aside and dropped onto me again, grinding his hardness against me with such force I feared it would tear the skin, but he didn’t seem to be in pain. In fact, he growled against my ear as if the action itself was enough for him.

  “Want you!” he panted breathlessly.

  “I’m yours,” I whispered back and he captured my mouth in a biting, painful kiss again. God, his violence went directly to my groin. It was the hard loving that I’d been missing for so many years. It was the darkness that I craved in the heat of passion, something that my Frederick had never been strong enough to give me.

  He drove his knee between my thighs and forced my legs apart. I knew that I would have some ugly bruises if I survived. When his mouth left mine, he nipped and bit all along my jaw and down my neck. It sent the heat through my body, that pain, and I tried to rock up against him, but he would not allow it, his hands hard on my hips to keep me still. He licked around each of my nipples, bringing them to attention as his teeth scraped over the skin. I tried again to push up against him, but it only made him angry. He raised his head to look into my eyes.

  “Not your will! Mine!” he hissed through his teeth. I complied, remaining still beneath him, resigned to take what he would have me take.

  He rolled off me and lay beside me, reaching for my shoulder and dragging me up and over him. He held his erect cock in his hand and pushed my head down toward it. I knew what he wanted, but I needed to hear him say it. I held back, looking up at him as if I did not understand what he wanted me to do. His face was a mask of anger and frustration.

  “Your mouth!” he demanded.

  I could not refuse him. He would have my mouth. I licked my lips and lowered my head, taking the swollen, leaking head of his perfectly cut cock into my mouth and teasing it with my tongue. I pushed into the slit and licked around the head, flicking against it in hard motions. He pushed his hips up against my mouth, forcing himself deeper into me. I knew I could take it all in, but I wanted to make it good for him. Perhaps I could unman him enough to take away his anger. I wrapped my hand around the base and stroked in time to the movements of my mouth.

  He gasped in a kind of sobbing moan that went straight to my cock, making it throb and fill. God, the sounds he made. Oh, how I remembered them and the things those sounds did to me. I needed to hear it, his pleasure. I increased the suction and the force of my hand, and he responded with a litany of sensual moans, pants
, and hissed breaths. It was enough for me. I could come just from those sounds, but he wanted more.

  “Enough!” he cried, pushing me off of him.

  I drew back from the ferocious, predatory look on his face, and he grabbed me and threw me down on my face on the blanket, the sand grinding against my body and getting in my mouth.

  “Mine to have! Mine to take! Mine to hurt now!”

  I could hear his words, and I knew what he had planned. If he had had no understanding of it before, he obviously knew what he needed to do now. I felt my thighs being forced apart again and the weight of his body as he draped it over mine. When the pain came, I was prepared for it, but it was overpowering just the same. If not for his hand over my mouth to muffle the scream, the entire village would have been awakened when I let go with a roar of agony.

  So big, he was so big that I felt as if I was a virgin boy again, being torn apart by this invasion. I tried to fight him, tried to throw him off, but it was useless. He was too strong. It was rape, and rape at its finest. None of my dark dreams of him did justice to what he was doing to me at that moment.

  He pulled all the way out then slammed back into me again and again, making me feel it, making me shudder from the pain and the pleasure of it. Sweat and sand covered us both, the scent of our combined arousals heavy in the air of the small space. His panting breath was hot against the back of my neck, and his teeth against my shoulder hard and biting, marking me and claiming me. I was his to take, to have, to do with as he would.

  “You never leave me again, Alfred! You never go away! You stay with me forever!”

  His hand slipped away from my mouth and I moaned, biting at his fingers when they traced the contours of my lips. He slipped them into my mouth, and I sucked on them hard, biting and nipping like an animal at the saltiness of his skin.

  “Love you, never stopped loving you, wanting you, needing… God, Nekai, missed you, love you my darling one, my lost one…” It was as if I was speaking in tongues. The words came unbidden to me and fell from my lips in a hymn of praise for my forbidden jungle prince who took me with all the grace of a rutting boar.

  “Lies, you tell me lies!” he panted behind me, his fist balling tightly in my hair and pulling my head up and back. He clamped down on my neck with his mouth, sucking at the sensitive skin and marking it with what I knew would be dark bruises for all the world to see. What would the tribe think? Jose? Josepe? Alandro?

  “No, Nekai, I speak the truth. I never stopped loving you and missing you. You can love more than one person. You can do it, and I did. I do. I love you still. How can you hate me? Please… don’t hate me!” I begged like a man in desperation for his very life.

  Nekai eased the force of his violent thrusts, releasing my hair. He moved so suddenly that I wasn’t even aware of it, pulling out and off of me as he gripped my hips to turn me onto my back. He hovered over me for a moment, then reached for my knees, pulling them up and pushing them apart so he could take me again whilst looking down at me as he did so. I reached up for him, struggling to draw in enough breath, the air burning my lungs, my throat, the heat in my body like a furnace of hot desire.

  “Alfred,” he said almost pleadingly. I wrapped my arms and legs around him, willing him down against me, into me again.

  This time it was not so violent, not so full of anger. It was rough and needy but not vengeful. I moved up against him, using the force of my arms and my legs around his waist to draw our bodies together. His sweat dripped into my eyes and on my body, mixing with mine. His soft lips brushed my eyelids, my mouth, the tip of my nose, even the lines around my eyes. I wondered what he thought of me now after all this time.

  “Love me still?” his voice came, the intonation a question, not a statement.

  “Always, forever, always loved you,” I answered, running my hand through his soft, thick hair. So beautiful and still young he was, though a man of thirty-one. So perfect to me again after all this time.

  I could feel his body tensing as his thrusts lost rhythm and became more like the desperate attempts at reaching that pinnacle of pleasure just beyond us both. Close, so close I could feel my orgasm beginning to move through me, my toes curling, and my stomach tensing in expectation for it. When I came, it was breathtaking and I cried out his name. I was lost as it crashed over me, throwing me into the oblivion that I craved and had been so long without.

  He was still moving, chasing his own. But it was not very much longer before he fell against me, breathless and trembling, his lips soft against my neck as he mumbled words I could not understand in their language. He kissed a gentle trail up to my mouth without roughness this time. It was sweet and loving and gentle. Our tongues danced in that long forgotten rhythm we had once shared when time had been our friend and those we loved still walked the earth with us.

  He lay against me, his head on my shoulder and my body supporting his much more substantial weight. “My darling boy,” I whispered as I ran my fingers through his hair. “My sweetheart, my Nekai.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I awakened in Nekai’s hut. He had led me back there after our tryst at the cave, insisting that I sleep with him and his family. Though he wanted me to rest with him in his hammock, I convinced him to let me sleep on a pile of furs on the floor near the central fire. I thought it best if Jose not wake and discover his father and me snuggled up next to one another. The boy disliked me and clearly distrusted me. I had no desire to make the situation any graver.

  Sounds of life around me alerted me to the fact that the hut’s other occupants were awake. I could hear Nekai speaking quietly in their language to Jose. When I turned over to look, I saw the boy staring at me with suspicion. Apparently he did not like the fact that his father had invited me to spend the night in their hut. Nekai put his hands on Jose’s shoulders and spoke rather harshly to the boy, giving him a slight shake to emphasize the point he was trying to make. Then I heard Jose’s answer.

  “Yes, papa.”

  So, Jose could speak English as well. I wasn’t really surprised. Paulo had hidden his ability to speak English from me, and Nekai had kept it to himself until we were alone. It seemed that speaking anything other than Warao in the village was looked upon in a bad light. I supposed I could understand why these people would hate Englishmen.

  Jose turned away from Nekai and took up one of the water crocks, slipping past my makeshift bed. He lifted the mat and disappeared through the door. Nekai walked over to me and stood over my prostrate form, nudging my shoulder with his foot.

  “Get up lazy!” he laughed playfully.

  I roused myself, stretching out my tired and aching muscles. When I stood up beside him, I was again reminded of the drastic difference in our sizes. When I’d left Nekai all those years ago, I had been several inches taller than him. Now he towered over me and definitely out-muscled me. If I said that he did not intimidate me somewhat, I would be lying. He reached out for me and drew me close to him, wrapping me in his strong arms.

  “You sleep well?” he asked, his voice a deep rumble near my ear. I shivered and clung tightly to him.

  “Umm, yes, very well, though I’m quite sore this morning thanks to you. You really are a rough brute, Nekai!” I scolded.

  “Sorry, Alfred. You make me so angry when you leave me. I want to make you hurt too. Won’t do it again, not like that,” he apologized as he stroked his big hands up and down my back.

  And I wanted him again, just like that, just that quickly. I knew it was impractical with Jose about to return with the water at any minute. I decided to distract myself with unasked questions instead.

  “Nekai, what happened to Nekana?”

  “Nothing happen to Nekana. She here with her family. She have a baby only two day ago. She can no get up yet. I will take you to her, and you can say hello.”

  “Good, I was worried about her. Does she… is she angry with me?” I asked.

  “No, she not angry with you, Alfred. Only me.”

&nb
sp; “Are you still angry with me?” I asked.

  “Only some, but not so bad like yesterday. I will not be so mad at you anymore.”

  “Nekai, is Jose your only child?”

  His face became sober, and he took my hand, pulling me out the back door of the hut and across the hard packed soil toward a little area enclosed in a type of fence. I could see wooden crosses and crude tombstones within the fence. Nekai pointed to a very tall and ornate looking one. His eyes filled with tears, and he brushed them away with the back of his hand.

  “Jose’s mother is there. She die after he is born. She not strong enough to have him. Jose, he was a big baby. She was too weak, got fever and died.”

  “Nekai, I’m so sorry,” I whispered, caressing his hand with my thumb. “What was her name?”

  “Rozene,” he answered. “My father, he chose her for me. She make me a good wife, but she die and leave me with baby Jose. He never get to see his mama.”

  I wanted to comfort him, but I wasn’t sure how much comfort he wanted from me. I wasn’t sure how appropriate it would be for me to show him affection when others could see. I put my hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

  “I’m glad that you got to know her and have her with you for a little while, Nekai,” I answered.

  He was silent for a moment, then he turned and took my arm, pulling me back toward the hut. He did not go inside, however. I followed after him in a hurried pace as he pulled me to what was clearly the second largest hut in the village. He did not pause at the door but lifted the mat and ducked his head to go inside.

  “Nekana, Alfred Heathwood,” Nekai called into the dim interior.

  “Alfred?” the voice was weak, but it was definitely hers.

  I stepped inside behind Nekai and knelt down beside the central fire pit. Nekana was propped up on a bed of furs on the floor beside the fire. She nursed a tiny baby at her breast. Her hair had grown much longer and was tied back from her face. She looked older, more careworn than when last I’d seen her. She was between Nekai and me in age. I could see that the strain of being a mother had aged her somewhat but still, she was beautiful. Several children of varying age were inside the hut, the girls working at domestic chores and the boys staring at me, the stranger who had come in with their uncle. A tall, dark-skinned man sat beside Nekana, and I could only assume it must be her husband.