Burly Tales

by Steve Berman

  Drake grimaced. “I guess that means we probably can’t ….”

  Ben wanted to close the distance between them. He leaned just a bit closer. Maybe, if they were quick ....

  A louder crash this time, and both men winced. No, if Tyson kept this up, she would probably destroy Drake’s apartment and accidentally injure herself.

  Ben sighed and pulled away.

  “I guess not,” he said, then took a deep breath. “That is, if you value your stuff.”

  “Hard call.” Drake glanced down Ben’s body. “Really hard call.”

  They both shared a look full of frustrated longing. Then they squared their shoulders, and got ready to open the door.

  BEN DABBED TENDERLY AT HIS still-swollen lip and almost felt guilty as he left the pet boarding house. Both for Tyson, who was only being her usual self, and for the boarders, who would soon learn exactly what that meant. But Drake’s smile, waiting for him outside and gilded by the rising sun, was enough to banish anything but keen anticipation for the time when they were back at Drake’s place. Well, there was also the fresh worry that this was all somehow too good to be true and couldn’t last.

  They summoned a rainbow bridge and walked in companionable silence. They could hear noise first—the screech that seemed ripped from the throat of a siren who’d just stubbed her toe. A dull bass throb built as they approached. It almost sounded louder than Ben remembered. But at least he’d have his house back. At least, could daily life return to normal?

  Ben squinted as they reached the cloudy shore of his home. From inside the house, there were strange bright lights. Was the door open a crack? Hadn’t he closed that? And what the hell were all those little squares littering the clouds leading to the house?

  Drake, apparently full of the same questions, strode forward and picked one of the things up. They were tiny, but as Drake returned, Ben could tell they were paper of some kind. Blank on one side, and with inked designs or words on the other.

  “Uh oh,” Drake said.

  “What is it?” Ben asked, stepping forward and immediately stepping back as a tiny figure emerged from the cracked door. Human. Staggering. Collapsing to its knees on the stone stoop. Vomiting. Eww.

  Drake retreated as well, handing the bit of paper out for Ben to see.

  Rave in the Clouds! Jack’s throwing a party, and this time it’s HUGE!

  There was a graphic of a human on top of a mountain of food. Not technically accurate, as it was largely meats and cheeses, but the implication was clear. The humans were having a party. They were in Ben’s house, eating his food and befouling his home. He didn’t know if he was going to be sick as well.

  The whole cloud island still rocked with noise, and Ben’s gaze fixed on the windows, the strange colored lights pulsing from within. How many could there be? A dozen? Certainly the humans couldn’t have organized something so large so quickly. But the bits of paper littered about gave him a sinking feeling, like his feet were dropping through the fluffy surface of the clouds.

  Drake moved a short distance away, eyes on the ground. He seemed to be following a stream of the dropped papers from the door. He followed it to end the trail, and knelt, rumbling, “Well, here’s where the problem started.”

  Ben joined him and saw that there was a small hole in the cloud. This hole was lined with green. Peering through, he saw an enormous vine stretching all the way from the base of his clouds to the surface below.

  “Magic beans.” Drake shook his head. “I’ve seen this before. Should have guessed, what with your setup.”

  “Can’t we just, you know, pull it up or something?”

  “Wouldn’t do much good at this point,” Drake said. “You’d just strand however many are inside. At least we’ll be able to cut off their route of re-entry when we get them to leave, though.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  Ben mused about just abandoning it all and going to live in the arctic where humans didn’t typically have parties. That idea almost seemed more manageable than dealing with whatever was happening inside his house.

  “Lethal measures still out?” Drake asked.

  Ben nodded.

  “Then I have a few options. We could try an offensive odor, like heavy garlic or something similar. But that would probably linger well after the humans fled. We could produce smoke enough to make them believe the castle was on fire. That normally convinces them to leave, though it might also lead to some tramplings. Similarly, we could try to flood them out. Your place is stone and would be relatively easy to clean up or dry out afterward, but there’d probably still be some damage.”

  All the options sounded terrible, but Ben held back from saying so. He didn’t want a smelly home, nor did he want to risk actually setting it on fire. Slowly he moved closer to the castle, to the large front window. If he was going to make the call, he needed to know exactly what he was dealing with. He needed to see, even though his stomach rebelled at the idea. He made it to the window, swallowed, and went on his tip-toes to peer in—

  Hundreds of humans cavorted in a pounding mass across the floor. They were dancing, grinding, tearing apart his bread, smearing butter on each other, raiding his pantry, pulling food into piles to frolic in. Ben couldn’t hold it back any longer and retched onto the clouds, losing his breakfast and the last of his indecision.

  Drake laid a comforting hand on his back, patting him softly.

  “We flood them,” Ben said when he was well enough. In his mind he saw a wave washing the humans away, carrying them out of the house, and then a great waterfall sweeping them back down to Earth.

  UNFORTUNATELY, FLOODING A CASTLE IN the sky was a bit more difficult to execute than it was to imagine. They rigged a siphon from the well through the window in the washroom, which the humans hadn’t managed to open. Taking a deep breath, Ben jumped and pulled himself up as Drake pushed from behind. It was almost a shame to move away from the firm hands on his ass, but Ben managed to clear the window sill and drop himself into the washroom. He turned and pulled Drake in with him. The noise was even louder inside the house, cut with the sound of so many stomping feet just beyond the door, though maybe that was Ben’s imagination fixating on the waves of humans so near and so numerous.

  Drake pulled his end of the siphon and knelt in front of the door. Wrapping his mouth around it, he sucked, his body heaving with the effort.

  Ben couldn’t restrain a smirk, and he felt himself warm at the sight.

  Drake noticed and shook his head. “You want a turn?” he asked.

  Ben stuck out the tip of his tongue and then pulled it quickly back into his mouth. “Not exactly what I’m interested in getting in my mouth. And besides, you’re doing such a good job.”

  Drake narrowed his eyes but got back to work, alternately sucking and breathing.

  Ben watched as the water inched farther and farther down the long tube, until finally it reached the end. Water streamed forth, and Drake coughed. He sputtered as it ran down his chin and through his beard. He quickly shoved it into the space under the door.

  Ben’s heart leaped. That would show those humans! Let them run! What would be a tiny puddle to him would be a raging river to them. A lake that they could drown in. A danger that would spread until it took them all.

  “And now, to see how it worked,” Ben said.

  He barely cracked the door open, hoping the humans had pressing concerns with the sudden, gushing water. He smiled, thinking of their panicked retreat. Through the gap in the door, just enough for him to see through, though, he did not see the frightened and running shapes of humans trying to get away. It was the joyous shouting and cavorting of humans running toward the water. They bounded into it, only to be swept back. Humans rode the lead edge of the wave, which unfortunately spread out not too far from the washroom door.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Ben said. “They’re enjoying it.”

  Drake nudged his way forward, and Ben was only too happy to stop looking at the tiny joy
ous faces as they played in the water, a fountain to them.

  “Ah, well,” Drake said. “Fuck.”

  Ben wanted to bash his head against a wall. “Do any of them look scared?”

  Drake squinted. “A few of them are backing away from the water, but it might be that they don’t want to get their clothes wet. Or they haven’t had enough of that big cask of ale you had in the pantry.”

  Ben closed his eyes, trying not to cry. Nothing about this was working the way it should. He wanted to give up, maybe even run away.

  “We’re going to have to try and scare them out,” Drake said.

  Ben furrowed his brow. “Fucking how? If the threat of an imminent flood just makes them think they’re at the beach, what more can we do? Maybe we should just let them have their party and hope they wear themselves out af—”

  “We could threaten to eat them,” Drake said, and it took a minute to realize that he was being serious.

  “I’m a vegetarian!”

  “But they don’t know that! To them you’re an enormous, terrifying giant. So am I. If we go out there and snarl at them, maybe threaten to eat a few of their limbs, there’s no way they’re sticking around.”

  Ben opened his mouth to object further, then paused. Closed his mouth. Fucking hell, it just might work. Here was an entire castle of freeloaders caught red-handed, eating his food and wrecking his home. They’d be devastated by the guilt alone. And if that didn’t convince them to tidy up and leave, the prospect of being ground into flour might.

  “Fine,” he said.

  BEN TOOK A DEEP BREATH. He had to psyche himself up a bit, imagine himself as a rampaging monster capable of biting a human in half. The thought made him wince. Okay, well maybe not that far. He was up to giving them a stern talking-to, though. He looked back at Drake, who stood ready, nodding at him.

  He pulled the door open.

  The humans beyond, playing in the flowing water, paused in their revelry and looked up. He could see their wide eyes as he stopped over them, stomping hard enough to shake the whole castle, though careful not to crush any of them. He made a show of barreling out into the main room, of puffing out his chest, of roaring. Behind him, he could hear Drake do the same. Two terrifying giants and a few hundred humans.

  The room was packed with them, and for a moment they all shared his gaze, transfixed perhaps by his confusion, by his size. He hadn’t stepped on any, but it was a close thing. They all stood poised before panic, before they realized that he might eat them all and ran screaming. Maybe ...

  He took a deep breath, ready to bluff and pretend to be the evil ogre they probably thought him.

  But one of them stepped forward from the mass. And he looked familiar. The original human, the one he’d seen in the closet. That same smile on his face, like he didn’t have a fear in the world. The tiny person took another step toward him, and Ben’s resolve crumbled.

  He stepped back.

  The human ran at him, and Ben started, retreated, looked for a way out. But they were surrounded. The harp inside the box continued to play. As if the little person’s advance broke their spell of fear, the other humans reacted. They pointed and laughed. Anger boiled through him. He reached for the box, but the same damnable human darted to cut him off, and again Ben backed off.

  Behind him, he could practically feel Drake restraining himself from just stepping forward and booting the bastard through the wall. But Ben didn’t want to resort to violence. He felt tears well up in his eyes. It wasn’t fair. He tried his best to be nice, to be peaceful, to protect animals from those who would abuse them. But this human! This fucking human.

  He reached again for the box. Maybe if the noise stopped, the humans would stop.

  They had already recovered from their horror at seeing giants. It was as if they could tell that Ben was afraid of them. Perhaps they knew he couldn’t stand the thought of grabbing them and throwing them from his house or listening to their bones snap if he squeezed them. They danced. They laughed. And they made a wall between him and the box. He balked, stepped back, and nearly bowled into Drake, who caught him and held him at arm’s length.

  “Are you okay?” Drake asked.

  Possibe answers raced through Ben’s mind. Doubts. Fears. Perhaps Ben could see his every missed opportunity, every time that he had stopped himself from pursuing something he wanted, and retreated. He saw the future: Drake waiting, at the end of all this, for Ben to ask him back out to dinner and Ben just failing. He could anticipate the lonely nights when he was too reluctant to go out and try to meet someone. He could imagine himself complaining to Tyson that giants were just too reclusive, too hard to find, when really he wasn’t even trying.

  He saw the humans spread around him, their faces showing they knew he was a coward. Not that being soft was wrong. Not that caring about not hurting them made him less of a giant. But he was afraid of hurting them and of being hurt by them. And he was letting that fear stop him when this was his home. His castle. And they were trespassing, and if he backed down now, they’d only keep coming back. And he’d always be running.

  Ben drew in a deep breath and let it go.

  “I’m fine,” he said, and he turned back to the human. The man. So small. And Ben knew what to do.

  He stepped forward. The man seemed to feel the air shift and hesitated as Ben stepped forward again. Then the man advanced, and it took everything in Ben not to recoil. But he didn’t. Instead, he bent down and reached for the man, whose eyes went large enough that Ben could clearly make out the whites. Ben encircled the man with his hand and plucked him up like he was putting Tyson back in her cage. Not tight enough to hurt, but tight enough to contain.

  Finally daunted, the rest of the humans edged backward as Ben carefully stepped to the side table and his collection of folded paper birds. He picked out a large crane and moved to the window. The man in his grasp struggled but could do little as Ben placed him on the crane’s back and, opening the window, sent him sailing out. There was a moment where Ben felt bad, when the man’s look of shocked fear made Ben almost sorry for doing it. But then Ben remembered who was the invader, who the invaded. And he turned back to the humans still in his home. And Drake, who was wearing the most delectable of tiny smirks.

  It was though some great weight lifted, and the noise finally did sound like music. Who and what were important here? Drake and his mouth, which Ben desperately wanted to kiss. He walked, and the humans edged back even more. He reached Drake and took hold of the front of his shirt, pulled him close. The exterminator’s eyes had time to widen a second before Ben’s lips crashed against his. Ben was tired of waiting, tired of worrying. So there were humans. Whatever. They’d better get the fuck off the bed, because Ben knew where this day was going.

  Drake recovered quickly, returning the kiss, reaching behind Ben’s neck to maintain the contact and prolong the kiss. Their tongues wrestled, their beards mingled. Ben started pushing Drake back, out of the main room, towards the bedroom. For once he didn’t check to make sure the humans were moving out of the way. This was his house, and if they didn’t want to get stepped on, they should move. Clothes were pulled off, removed, all while the two giants kissed, stumbled toward the promised softness of the bed. They splashed through the puddle still growing near the bathroom, and Ben wanted to giggle. To laugh.

  They burst into the bedroom and paused long enough to slip free of their boots.

  Around them, Ben was dimly aware that the humans were moving. But they were just background noise, nothing to the consuming foreground of Drake’s gloriously naked chest, a forest of hair leading all directions, but especially down. Boot-free, Ben hooked a finger in the waist of his jeans and with a practiced flick undid the button.

  Drake smirked.

  “Impressed?” Ben asked.

  “It takes more than that to impress me.”

  Ben knew a challenge when he heard one. He dropped to his knees and pulled on Drake’s jeans hard enough to drag his boxers too
, relishing the slight shock on Drake’s face as his cock bounced free, already half hard. Ben wrapped his hands around Drake’s thighs, squeezing his ass and making sure he couldn’t pull away as he opened his mouth. Drake groaned as Ben took him into his mouth, a sound so deep and loud it dwarfed the noise of the music, of the rave. Ben sucked at the head, then pulled back with a pop. He licked his way down Drake’s shaft, then took him in his mouth again, deeper this time, pushing his limits. He refused to gag as Drake thrust gently forward in response, feeling his cock push against the back of Ben’s throat.

  He rocked, taking Drake again and again. He could taste arousal, and he relished the needful grunts each time he pushed forward.

  Then hands grabbed his shoulders and heaved him up. Suddenly Ben’s mouth was covered by Drake’s. The final bits of Ben’s clothes were pushed free and he was nearly picked up and thrown onto his back on the bed. Drake followed, a charging bear, and Ben knew better than to fight.

  “Lube and condoms ... drawer in the nightstand,” Ben managed, body aching for Drake’s touch. He’d had enough foreplay. Enough anticipation. What he wanted now—

  Drake flipped him on his stomach with one heave, and Ben relished the strength of those arms that could move him so easily. He could feel the bed shift as Drake leaned toward the nightstand, but with the music, it was hard to make sense of what was happening. Music seeped into him and thrummed like his heart hammering in his chest, his body a symphony and Drake, behind him, the conductor. With the really nice wand.

  He felt the cool slick of Drake’s fingers get him ready like the rap of the wand on the stand. Musicians ready. Pay attention to this next bit. To—Ben cried out as Drake pressed into him, as they joined, rose, fell, their movements in time to the music inside them, to the manic need of the day, the situation. They needed something, some relief from the stress, some release from the worry and the anxiety. They drew each other in, moving in harmony, the chorus building, rising, the tension replaced by something else. Something warm and immediate, something that started where they met and worked its way up into Ben’s stomach. A rushing climax that held, that held, that held until they both seemed to dissolve into the bed, into the floor, into the walls of the castle. They escaped it all, slipped free beyond the stone and clouds and came, hard, both of them breathless as they rushed back into their bodies and rocked with the power of their crescendo.