I perched on a chair that must have been occupied by Nani until I’d arrived. It was still warm. I found myself sitting next to Ntino’s fifteen-year-old sister, Kiana, who adored me and whom I in turn, loved deeply. I put my arm around her and she snuggled into me. She was still kitten-like in demeanour and clearly didn’t follow the rules. She was a kid after my own heart.
Aware of Ntino’s mounting hostility, I took my arm from her, wound the beads through my fingers and joined in the chanting. For fifteen minutes it continued, then Leng banged the gong for a swift recitation of the sutra prayer.
Despite the speed and monotony of tone, there was always a joyful feeling in this otherwise Spartan home when sutra was being said. I am not a religious man, but for Ntino, I had embraced Buddhism. I was aware of Leono’s family sitting to my left. This was a marriage between their eighteen-year-old son and Ntino’s seventeen-year-old sister that both families wanted very much.
Leng banged the gong three times again and, on the third and final Nam myoho renge kyo, everybody turned and faced the couple sitting on the sofa. Boy, were the foldout chairs brought out especially for the occasion uncomfortable.
“Aleka and Leono, you make your families very proud on this day.” Leng smiled for the first time since I’d known him and he had quite nice teeth, now that I got a close look at them.
“Thank you, Father.” My, Aleka was being very formal. She proceeded to thank her parents for the wonderful life full of riches and blessings they had given her.
Riches and blessings? None of their furniture matched and she and her sister still shared a small bedroom, despite the fact that there was a huge bedroom sitting empty right across the hall. It was Ntino’s old bedroom, kept as a hopeful shrine, just in case he came to his senses and reclaimed it.
Aleka once told me her mother cleaned and vacuumed that room, changing the sheets every week, hoping her son would return home.
Return? We saw them frequently despite the constant tensions between us.
There was a pause and Ntino’s father began his words of encouragement to his soon to be lawfully wedded daughter.
“Aleka, Leono, to live is to suffer. To cease to suffer, one must cease to desire…”
Was this supposed to be a marital pep talk? Was he telling his daughter not to bonk her husband? Or was he warning his future son-in-law not to even think about bonking his cherished daughter? Or was he telling them, yes, you’re getting married, but life is hard and then you die?
I traded glances with Ntino, who was trying hard not to laugh. His father really was a clueless man.
Even Nani eventually had enough of this maudlin monologue and clapped her hands together.
“Now we have the baci ceremony!”
Leng was still mid-sentence, but everybody flew into instant activity and he had no room to argue. There wasn’t much room for anything after we pushed back the chairs. A triangle was made on the floor of ti leaves and flowers and the happy couple stepped into it. A visiting monk, who was staying at a local bed and breakfast until the wedding the following day, chanted a prayer and tied white string around the couple, then left small strings tied on their wrists.
“With the baci ceremony, we symbolically invite this couple’s wandering spirits to return and enhance their future lives together.” The old monk beamed. I wish he’d been allowed to give the pep talk—at least he spoke of a future and not a bunch of depressing forebodings.
“The strings must be left on your arms until they fall off,” the old man instructed them.
Everybody was given a piece of string tied around their wrists, then a whole chicken was placed into the triangle, a symbol of good fortune, and Leono and Aleka stepped out of the ring. I was glad I’d left my dog, Ginger, at home or she would have embarrassed me running off with that chicken.
Everybody drifted towards the dining room and kitchen for the pre-wedding feast.
“You embarrassed me,” Ntino hissed.
“No, I didn’t. How did I embarrass you?”
“You’re always late!” He was winding himself into a real tirade now.
“Don’t you know any other songs?” I asked and immediately regretted it. Ntino’s eyes turned hard. Boy, was he ever Nani’s progeny.
“I can’t believe you could be so rude.”
“Ntino…” I lowered my voice. “I love you. I’m here. I am getting ready for a world championship in two days, you know.”
“Don’t you ever think about anyone except yourself?”
I opened my mouth to protest, but Kiana was pressing a plate of food into my hands. It was crammed with generous portions of the feast Nani had been preparing for two days. There was laap, the staple of all Laotian festive occasions. Laap was ground-up chicken tossed with lime juice, garlic, khao khua—roasted, powdered rice—green onions, three kinds of mint and chili peppers. I knew from experience it would be peppery hot or ‘broke da mouth’ as we say on the islands. There was also fresh-caught red snapper drizzled with pan daek—chunks of freshwater fish, rice husks and rice dust. There was a scoop of carrots cooked in coconut milk and topped with ground peanuts.
My mouth watered at the sight of khao pun, flour noodles topped with a sweet-spicy sauce. It was known as Lao Spaghetti and I lived for that stuff. There was also a big mound of sticky rice. I took my plate to the backyard, sitting on the cool stone steps with Kiana.
“Get out of the way,” Ntino snapped from behind me.
Kiana and I moved beneath the plumeria tree, watching a pair of luminous dragonflies lazily circling the air, drunk with the pungent scent of all that good food, coupled with the heady ginger and guava growing in the garden. I stared out beyond the garden to the dramatic emerald backdrop of the Na Pali Mountain range. A huge bank of clouds hovered. We’d get a heavy rainfall tonight. The waterfalls feeding all the wells in the foothills provided a soothing soundscape in the midst of lowing cattle from the ranch opposite us and all the family drama right here.
Ntino was sitting beside Aleka and Leono on the back steps. They listened as he talked, deftly shovelling food into his mouth with his fingers. He was the only man I knew who could make that singular act look graceful. Aleka and Leono glanced at one another. Even now the couple was not allowed a moment of solitude.
Kiana put her head on my shoulder. “Gaby, is he always mad at you?”
“No, not always.”
“Looks like it to me. He’s always yelling at you.”
“Maybe I deserve it.” I didn’t think so, but things always had a way of getting back to Ntino and I was in enough trouble as it was. We all ate with our fingers, which was the Laotian way and frankly, the way of me. I approved of anything that saved time and got good food into my belly as fast as possible.
“When are you going to teach me to surf?” Kiana was being extra snuggly now.
This had been an ongoing battle between me and Kiana’s parents. I wanted to teach her, the sooner the better. They were afraid she’d get eaten by sharks.
“Let me talk to them. I promise you, after the wedding, I’ll bring it up to them.”
She smiled, knowing I was a man of my word. I had given her a couple of lessons, finding her to be a natural. Then her family found out and an innocent, island pastime suddenly took on sinister overtones. There was a strong…suggestion that I was after their daughter’s maidenhood. No, I wasn’t. But I sure coveted their son’s cock. I was too busy babysitting it to think of anything else, except surfing. Ntino called it the other man, but it had been good to me. I had not only carved out a lucrative career as a professional surfer, following the big waves all over the world, but I was also in line now for some big money. Ntino could have everything he wanted. Including the babies he kept saying that he wanted to adopt from Laos.
Just not yet. One more year. In one more year, I would have the endorsements people were starting to talk about and my own line of surfboards would be out.
I picked up our plates and ferried them back to the kitchen
, sidestepping Ntino.
Nani eyed my empty plate and gave me a withering look. “You always eat and run.”
“I wasn’t going to run.” I was stung now. I’d really had enough of this. I made a point of picking up one of the tall glasses of hot lemongrass tea waiting on a metal tray. It was an old one from the fifties, a tourist kind of souvenir tray with hula dancers and a map of the islands.
The tea itself was really boiling hot water with a slice of lemon and a stick of lemongrass. It always amazed me that Nani was stingy with small things like lemongrass.
She watched me take the tea, but within seconds, other people were leaving, Leono and Aleka hightailing it to the beach. Nani snatched the glass from me like it was all my fault.
“Thank you, Nani. It was a wonderful meal.” I held my hands in wai, hands together, fingertips pointing upward, as if in prayer. I remembered to keep my hands away from my chest, held up high, but not higher than my nose, to show gratitude and respect.
She made a dismissive sound with her tongue against the roof of her mouth and switched on the small black and white TV in her kitchen. Britain’s Princess Diana was making a speech about the need to ban landmines forever. Nani watched with the deliberate intent of ignoring me. I could take a hint. After saying goodbye to the rest of the family, I made my escape. It felt good to be out in the fresh air, away from where I was judged and mocked, tested and taunted. The sun was starting to set and I debated taking Ginger for a walk on the beach.
“Hey, Gaby, thank you for embarrassing me.”
I stopped and turned. Ntino was striding behind me, trying to catch up, ready to wage war.
“You are so selfish! My sister is getting married. I asked you to do one thing and you couldn’t even do it.”
It had been on the tip of my tongue to apologise, but I was angry now, angry with all of them.
Our battle raged until we got to the house, two blocks away, right on the oceanfront on the half-moon curve of Hanalei Bay. As always, the moment we were inside the door, I was all over him. I never knew how to respond to his emotional outbursts other than to make love to him. There was nothing we couldn’t sort out in bed, he and I.
He resisted at first, he always took a moment to calm down from one of his flare-ups, but then his mouth met mine and we exchanged a long, heated kiss. I heard Ginger whining. She knew already that her daddies were settling in for a long, solid night of fucking and that a sunset walk probably wasn’t in her immediate future.
I kept my mouth on Ntino, loving the feel of his slim, toned body. He pressed into me, but I knew he was still angry. Lord, I loved to fuck him when he was mad. It made things even more passionate between us, if that was even possible. I kicked the front door shut and took him down to the floor, trying to get between his legs. He twisted and turned underneath me as if fighting me, even as his hands held my head to his. Our cocks connected. Mine was rock hard, his was not.
It surprised me. Usually the second we touched one another, Ntino had a raging hard-on. I ground myself against him and his breath quickened. I pulled his shirt up and over his head, a couple of buttons popping off against the floor. I took hold of his left hand, licking and kissing the palm as his fingers flexed in pleasure. I stole a glance at his face as I sucked his fingertips, one by one. There was a look of disbelief as well as furious lust. I bent forward to lick his face and neck.
He moaned as I moved down to his torso. As my tongue traced his ribs, I held his hands up over his head and heard his deep, contented sigh. My knee kept rubbing, dry humping his crotch, and I felt him harden.
I reached up with another kiss for his mouth, one hand going to his swollen cock. I couldn’t help myself. I needed to touch that sweet, thick, uncut piece of manhood. He had the juiciest one I’d ever seen, his balls heavy in my hands. I ran the cock head against my face and he was squirming for entry into my mouth, but I had to make him wait.
I tightened my grip on his cock, running it down my throat and to my chest. The second the head touched my nipple, we both groaned. I took his pants all the way down past his feet. His fingers made quick work of my zippered fly, and as he inched my jeans past my ass, I knew in seconds I was going to be inside him, my man panting for a hard pounding, his legs wrapped around my waist.
No, I wanted this to last.
I kept rubbing his cock over my arms and face, licking my way down his thighs. His legs opened up. His body implored, fuck me. But I kept at it, licking him, teasing him, tasting him. Oh, yeah.
His cock was in my mouth now and Ntino’s gorgeous ass came off the floor. He flailed around as I sucked him thirstily. His cock adored me, his cock loved me and I kept a hold on him as he started to come.
As soon as he was finished, his body still tensing, his pulse racing, I put my mouth straight down onto his ass. His feet rested on my shoulders. I wouldn’t call myself brawny, but he would. I weighed a good seventy pounds more than he did.
His fingers grappled for me and, as I prepared his ass to take me, he touched my cock with his fingertips.
“I want it, I want it, I want it.”
His wish was my command. I plunged into him, loving how tight he always was, how good it always felt to fuck him. I kept my mouth on his, sensed his emotions wavering… I knew he felt such guilt loving another man, even as he adored what it did for him.
“I love you, Ntino.”
“Gaby, I love you, too.” He sobbed when we came together. It was the perfect wave.
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About the Author
A.J. Llewellyn lives in California, but dreams of living in Hawaii. Frequent trips to all the islands, bags of Kona coffee in the fridge and a healthy collection of Hawaiian records keep this writer refuelled.
A.J. never lacks inspiration for male/male erotic romances and on the rare occasions this happens, pursues other passions such as collecting books on Hawaiiana, surfing and spending time with friends and animal companions.
A.J. Llewellyn believes that love is a song best sung out loud.
Email: [email protected]
A.J. loves to hear from readers. You can find A.J.’s contact information, website and author biography at http://www.pride-publishing.com.
Also by A.J. Llewellyn
The Mediator
The Bouncer
Paper Valentine
Hanalei Moon
Wolf Moon
Beyond the Reef
Shipwreck Bay
Pearl Harbor: Vagabond Heart
Pearl Harbor: Gypsy Heart
Pearl Harbor: Abiding Heart
Pearl Harbor: Avenging Heart
Sins of Summer: Burnt Island
Sins of Autumn: Full
Sins of Winter: If Come
Sins of Spring: The Kaupe
Cloaks and Daggers: Stavros
Emergency Servicing: Roley’s Wood
Haunted By You: Tall With Room
Oberon’s Court: Sex and Candy
Titania’s Court: Orange Crush
With D.J Manly
Blood Slave: Nibiru Vampire Warriors, Chapter One
Blood Slave: Nibiru Vampire Warriors, Chapter Two
Blood Slave: Nibiru Vampire Warriors, Chapter Three
Blood Slave: Nibiru Vampire Warriors, Chapter Four
Blood Slave: Nibiru Vampire Warriors, Chapter Five
Blood Slave: Nibiru Vampire Warriors, Chapter Six
Blood Slave: Nibiru Vampire Warriors, Chapter Seven
Blood Slave: Nibiru Vampire Warriors, Chapter Eight
Blood Slave: Nibiru Vampire Warriors, Chapter Nine
Blood Slave: Nibiru Vampire Warriors, Chapter Ten
Blood Slave: Nibiru Vampire Warriors, Chapter Eleven
Blood Slave: Nibiru Vampire Warriors, Chapter Twelve
Tiki Vampires: Fever
Tiki Vampires: Fever Pitch
Tiki Vampires: Fever Quenched
Stealing My Heart: Stealing Rain
With Serena Yates
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p; Elemental Superpowers: The Cake
Elemental Superpowers: The Blancmange
Elemental Superpowers: The Mudpie
The Pirate Fairy Page 18