In Flesh and Stone

by Hal Bodner

  When he tumbled into bed, knowing his sleep would be sweet, he had already chastised himself to curtail his overactive imagination in the future. Maybe Nadine was right and he should just bite the bullet – not that it would be any sacrifice to do so! – and look to Corey to take care of his needs while he waited for Tony’s recovery. Alex’s eyelids grew heavy; his breath evened out and soon he was blissfully unconscious. Tomorrow morning, he would look back on this as nothing but a delicious, if exhausting, exercise of his subconscious.

  Deep in slumber, he was unable to witness the pale milky green jelly smeared on the condo floor, slowly evaporating. By the time he awoke, like the merman, it would be gone.

  * * * *

  “It’s an unusual coping technique, I’ll give you that. But hardly unexpected. You’re a young man, and if you’re not willing to take care of things, your body will do it for you. We both know you’ve never been a monk. Though I’d suggest if you’re going to act out sexually, you might wanna try something more tantric.”

  For the fiftieth time since the session started, Alex wished Cheryl was a more traditional therapist and had put a couch in her office. He couldn’t deny how much she’d helped him deal with Tony’s situation during these past few months, but he always found it difficult to meet her eyes when he was confessing something intimate. He wasn’t sure if it was some kind of natural reluctance inherent in the relationships between therapists and patients or if it was because he was uncomfortable talking about the details of his sex life – even if it was just fantasy – with a woman.

  “In fact, if my memory hasn’t failed me, before Tony, you could have given a major porn star a run for his money.”

  Alex blushed. The wanton activities of his younger days weren’t so far in the past that he couldn’t clearly remember them – and sometimes look back on them with a mild longing regret.

  “Several porn stars.” He couldn’t resist the urge to try to shock her. “Three of ’em at a time at one of the White Parties.”

  Cheryl knew exactly what he was trying to do and refused to give him satisfaction by expressing even mild disapproval. She just continued in that same measured and dry tone that Alex mentally referred to as her Non-Judgmental Voice.

  “My point exactly. Monogamy never felt natural to you, right?”

  “Until Tony.”

  To Alex’s surprise, Cheryl rolled her eyes. “You are not going to try to tell me you were faithful. Lying, even to yourself, does not sit well with the Universe. What about Corey?”

  “Corey doesn’t count.”

  “And the three-way?”

  Alex felt his lower jaw set stubbornly. “That was only twice. It didn’t work the first time and after the second try, we knew it wasn’t going to work. Dammit, Cheryl. My husband is in a coma, maybe even dying, and all you want to do is remind me of what a whore I was? What kind of therapy...?”

  “I’m trying to remind you that whatever your feelings for Tony, he’s not able to give you the release you need. I’m trying to tell you the guilt you’re feeling is completely natural. You need to take that guilt and personify it. Think of it as something physical. Wrap it up in a mental box and take some time meditating on it. Commune with it. Seek to understand it and remove its power over you. Come on, Alex. Look at this logically. It’s not like you’ve set up shop in a bathroom stall at the bathhouse. You had a couple of fantasies...” She held up her hand to quiet him when he began to object and tell her, yet again, how real they’d seemed. “Wet dreams. That’s all they were, Alex. Wet dreams. Might do you some good to spend a couple of hours focusing on your erotic chakras.”

  “I never had a wet dream that real before,” he muttered.

  “You’ve never been under this kind of stress before either. Time’s almost up but, here’s something to think about for next week. I’ll make you a bet, okay?”

  “What kind of bet?” Alex didn’t bother hiding his suspicion. Somehow, Cheryl always seemed to be right about things and it annoyed the shit out of him.

  “I think you’ll have at least one more of these incidents. What’s more, now that you know part of what you’re feeling is guilt – even though you refuse to admit it – I’ll bet your subconscious will tap into that guilt. I think you may even start to punish yourself.”

  Alex laughed bitterly. “If you think I’m going to start dreaming about whips and chains, you’d better think again. That’s never been my style.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be quite that obvious.” God, how he wanted to wipe that smug, all-knowing smile off her face. “But mark my words, punishing yourself is next.”

  * * * *

  Alex had decided to call the newest painting Reunion Delayed, knowing it was a lousy title and that Nadine would probably change it. He finished applying the last few strokes of varnish and stood back to make sure the coat was even. Satisfied, he stepped away and allowed his gaze to drift upwards. Taking in the lush details of the statues one by one, lingering with fond memory and a little embarrassment on both Virgo and Pisces, he noticed that tonight the skylight was firmly propped open to allow the varnish fumes to escape. No matter what Cheryl had said, and no matter how delightful the illusion had been, Alex had resolved there would be no more sexual interludes with pieces of marble come to life.

  Corey had called several times but Alex let the machine pick it up. The first time he didn’t answer because he was up on a ladder, wrestling with a chisel to free the skylight from where it had been painted shut. From the playful tone in Corey’s voice when he left the message, Alex knew exactly why his friend was calling and Alex simply didn’t feel up to it. Besides, he’d been up until the wee hours the night before and he needed to get some sleep. Nadine had arranged a morning showing with Charles Wannamaker of the piece Alex had given her, and she expected him to be there. The older man had never been able to disguise his attraction to the blond artist and, Nadine felt, Alex’s presence always loosened Wannamaker’s wallet to the tune of an extra ten or fifteen grand.

  Exhausted and a little high from the fumes in spite of the open skylight, Alex tumbled into bed and was fast asleep in minutes. The dreams, when they came, were nebulous things, full of white marble arms and legs intertwined with brief flashes of muscled torsos and tantalizing glimpses of erect stone cocks. Never able to get a clear view – and desperately wanting to – Alex tossed and turned in his sleep, restlessly striving to see, to touch, and always being denied. When he woke himself up a scant two hours later, he lay on his back in the darkened bedroom, bathed in sweat, frustrated and suffused with a strange sense of longing, his aching dick as hard as the proverbial rock.

  He thought about the thirteen beautiful and unobtainable men standing over him. In a way, he supposed, they were keeping guard, watching him; he found a sense of comfort in the thought. For a long time he lay there, wondering if he would experience another visitation, but as the long moments dragged on, he was disappointed. Looking up, he could see flickers of heat lightening through the open skylight. He knew he should get out of bed and close it in case it rained, but he was too damned tired to move. Besides, the tingle in his dick was getting worse, distracting him and demanding attention.

  Figuring he might as well take care of the problem himself, he brought his hand to his mouth and spit into his palm to provide lubrication. He rolled down the waistband of his boxers but, before he could grab his own cock, the darkness was split by a flash of lightening and the dull rumble of thunder. With a gasp of surprise, followed immediately by a sense of grateful anticipation, Alex felt his hand grabbed and forcibly moved away.

  “Don’t you people knock?” he mumbled, more to himself than to make his protest heard.

  He sighed, his body already tingling at the sensations he imagined he was about to experience. His back arched, his hands reached up, eager to explore the naked body above him, intensely curious to know which of the statues it was. Alex was ready.

  “Ouch!”

  His wrists were seized
roughly and his arms quickly pinioned above his head. He started to struggle but the weight descending on his chest almost knocked the wind out of him. His nostrils filled with a pungent smell like wet wool and he fought unsuccessfully against his captor’s grip, his body thrashing and twisting to get out from underneath. Whichever of the Zodiac Men it was, he was immensely strong. Panic set in and Alex had just opened his mouth to cry for help when another lightning flash gave him a good look at his assailant.

  He gasped at the animal beauty of his attacker. Fascinated by the lightning somehow reflected by and captured in the creature’s eyes, Alex saw the light slowly spread throughout its body.

  First, the rough-hewn handsome features of the face were illuminated. Thick, craggy brows framed a broad nose sloping down to wide, puggish nostrils. Alex thought he was imagining the cloudy vapor trickling from the man’s nose as he breathed, until he caught a whiff of it – like wet cloth left to dry in an open field of hay – and knew the steam was not just his mind playing tricks.

  Alex gasped at the two huge striated spirals of rounded bone emerging from the man’s temples, the horns twisting upon themselves in a glorious and unmistakable exhibition of primal maleness. The glow spread down the corded pylon of muscled neck and across an expanse of shoulders that seemed to go on forever. The massive chest was revealed with tantalizing languor, smooth and cool looking, just like the marble it had been carved from – and equally as hard, impressive evidence of raw, brutal strength. The pectorals rose from the breastbone where they were born in a ripple of muscle, the mounds swelling in a sheath of creamy pale skin as they built to an apex topped with nipples the size of eraser heads, surrounded with wide aureoles of darker flesh. When the upper torso was fully revealed by the creeping light, Alex noticed this body was never meticulously sculpted in a gym for looks only; its development was natural, honed from hard, strenuous work. The much-sought-after washboard stomach was absent, instead replaced with a single slab of striated muscle. In a decade or so, it could expand into the standard body-builder’s paunch, but for now it was hard, so hard Alex thought that to punch it would be to injure his fist.

  As his eyes drank in more, Alex was not surprised he had been so easily overpowered. The man would have been grotesquely over-muscled had his body not been so sleekly in aesthetic harmony with itself. There was a sublime perfection to him that Alex’s artist’s eye was quick to appreciate. He glanced down, and with a gasp saw the man’s dangling balls revealed as the light reached them. They were practically the size of plums and his cock, still only semi-tumescent, and yet easily as thick as a soda can and twice as long, was a veritable caveman’s club of a dick.

  Alex wanted to surge forward and swallow it, to choke himself with the rapture of feeling such a staff probing at the back of his throat, to take each testicle into his mouth in turn – as he doubted he could fit them both at the same time – and suckle them until they were dripping with his saliva, but at his motion, the pressure on his wrists increased to a painful level and he could do nothing but lie there, trapped.

  There was a grunt, and in the back of his mind Alex thought this might be the first of the Zodiac Men who had made any sound whatsoever other than the normal verbal gasps and groans during sex. This sound, however, was different. It was harsh and demanding and, unless Alex’s ears deceived him, held a note of something that made him uncomfortable.

  Alex knew who had come to ravage him.

  Aries smiled when he saw the recognition in the artist’s eyes, and the smile grew broader when he saw the dawning fright. For Alex instinctively knew his experience with the Ram, the personification of the God of War, would be no gentle exploration of lovemaking. No, it was obvious that Aries would take what he wanted, in any way he desired, and any cries of protest or yelps of pain would be ignored.

  Aries leaned forward, and the plumes of mist shooting from his nose thickened as the beast’s lust heightened. His tongue, when it thrust past Alex’s lips, was large and rough, and Alex could not help thinking it was as thickly muscled as the rest of him. It probed roughly, choking Alex not just with its bulk, but by its scent and taste. The wet wool smell was undercut with something sharper, a tang which Alex oddly associated with both the open outdoors and with violence. His mind frantically traveled down the corridors of memory as he fought to breathe, until finally he made the connection. Aries’s body smelled like the front yard of Alex’s boyhood home after the lawn had been newly mown, green and slightly acidic, the dying shafts of grass already perfuming the air with over-rich fermentation as they began their journey of decomposition into mulch.

  Abruptly, the Ram withdrew his tongue. Before Alex could draw breath, he felt both his wrists seized by one of Aries’s hands while the other pushed between his back and the sheets, hauling his body upwards. With no more warning, he found himself reeling as his nostrils were overpowered by the heady cut-grass scent, so invasive that he sneezed and tried to draw back. But his captor shifted his grip and Alex, wrists now pinned behind his back, could not resist the pressure of the other hand on the rear of his head. His face was buried in the creature’s armpit, and not knowing what else to do, he began to lick the flesh and hairs there.

  It seemed to be what Aries wanted. He moaned and pushed Alex even deeper. Lips moist with Aries’s sweat, tastes of mingled grass and clover and hay, Alex warmed to his task, avidly nibbling and licking, drawing strands of Aries’s armpit hair into his mouth and sucking each drop of fragrant moisture from them before moving onto the next. In his enthusiasm, he must have bitten down slightly, for Aries grunted with annoyance and yanked his head back, throwing him back onto the bed but never loosening his grasp of Alex’s wrists.

  For a long moment, the Ram looked deeply into Alex’s eyes, his powerful body supported on elbows and knees, stretching along the length of his captive’s body but poised scant inches short of actual physical contact, looming as if to descend and crush Alex with his weight. The artist felt a light thump against his thigh; a moment later, it was repeated, this time more insistently. Aries kept searching his glance, seeming to want something from him. Alex gazed back, not knowing what was expected. He tried to surge forward, to take a nipple into his mouth, but was not permitted to move. He sought the creature’s lips for another kiss but that action, too, was prevented. The thumping continued, increasing in frequency, distracting him.

  Understanding was slow in coming. Aries flicked his eyes downwards, indicating Alex should look, and hoisted his body higher to give the trapped young man a clear view. The Ram’s cock was now fully engorged, as massive as the rest of him and even thicker than Alex had at first thought. It was not only the hugest dick Alex had ever seen, it was the biggest he had ever imagined. A satisfied grunt brought his attention back to Aries’s face, and what he saw there filled him with equal parts of delight and fear. A grin split Aries’s face, revealing broad, blunt, even teeth, in an expression which Alex interpreted as selfish and more than slightly cruel.

  The dick thumped against his leg again and Aries’s smile broadened. With horror, Alex suddenly knew exactly what Aries intended to do with it.

  Before he could object, before he could scream no, he knew the brutal strength of the creature once more. His body was lifted off the bed and, wrists still trapped, Alex was flipped in the air and slammed back down onto his stomach so hard that the wind was knocked out of him. He barely managed to yelp at the sting of his boxers being ripped away. Desperately, he clenched the muscles of his ass, knowing it was a futile defense against Aries’s brutal lust. He was right.

  Alex didn’t realize his hands had been freed until strong arms reached around his sides and yanked him onto all fours. His back was pressed against Aries’s chest and he wanted to escape, but the weight atop him forced him to support himself on his hands and knees or risk being crushed. He whimpered when he realized the shaft of the massive dick was lying along the crack of his ass, and his plaintive sounds quickly became yelps of pain when Aries’s hands roved a
cross his chest, eventually finding his nipples and pinching – hard. The pressure was like hot needles driven into his chest. He cried out; it was excruciating, yet in spite of it, he felt his body responding. Breathing hard and deep to ride the waves, he forced himself to focus on the spires of pain shooting from his poor crushed nipples down to settle at the base of his dick, prompting it to grow.

  The agony in his chest was nothing compared to what came an instant later. His feeble attempts to prevent entry were ignored as the Ram thrust into him. There was no teasing, no loosening of his hole with fingers or tongue to prepare him. In a single, irresistible stroke, Aries plunged forward. Alex screamed at the fire in his asshole, his face twisted in a rictus when Aries pulled out almost the full length, then immediately reversed course, penetrating even deeper. The sensation of his ass being filled with lava spread into his bowels. Tears filled his eyes and overflowed as he cried and wailed against the onslaught. His stomach and shoulder muscles clenched, his entire body shuddered until he feared he would be unable to support himself on his hands and knees for another instant. He would collapse and Aries would continue to fuck him, thrusting deeper and deeper with that humongous dick until, Alex imagined, he would be able to feel it pressing at the back of his throat from the inside.

  Alex screamed again when the Ram’s fingers pinched his nipples so hard they felt like they would be crushed to a pulp. But the torture to his chest worked as a kindness. At the shock of pain in front, his butt muscles involuntarily relaxed. The intense fire in his ass receded and was banked and he began to experience a more manageable and warmer sense, a flush of pleasure which consumed him, as if a broad field of summer sun-washed timothy and fern had concentrated its languid and sultry heat in his butt.