Miles and the Magic Flute

by Heidi Cullinan

  The flute was gone.

  Behind him the beast huffed, then roared, and with a cry of his own, Miles ran forward to the sleigh and into the Emperor’s waiting arms.

  THE EMPEROR CAUGHT Miles with a graceful strength which, combined with the summer-fresh scent of him, made Miles shudder, but not with fear. It had been a long, long time since a man had held him in his arms, and the fact that the Emperor was pretty much extracted from his libido’s idea of a perfect man only heightened Miles’s awareness and filled him with a primal sort of need. His hands, which were caught between their chests, turned so his fingers could dig into the soft material of the Emperor’s vest.

  “I am flattered,” the man said in a patient, amused voice, “but I am not, I must tell you, an emperor.”

  Miles drew back and looked up at the man in surprise. “How—I didn’t say anything—!”

  The man looked amused. “But this can’t be happening, as you say. If I’m not real, then it’s nothing, is it, to peek inside your mind. I can hear everything you’re thinking, Miles. Everything.” His smile darkened, and he ran a finger down Miles’s cheek, sliding it over to catch the edge of his bottom lip. “Though I admit I like the idea of being your emperor. If I were, I could make you do whatever I wanted.”

  The finger at Miles’s lip tugged insistently at the flesh, and Miles parted his lips. This can’t be happening, he thought again, and the man smiled, reading the thought.

  “Yes. It’s just a dream. Give yourself to the dream, Miles.”

  Miles wanted to. If this was a dream, it was the most vivid, wonderful dream he’d ever had. Whoever this man was, he was gorgeous. He was charming, too, which Miles had never been able to resist. This man wanted Miles. He was handsome, clean, wicked, and tugging at Miles’s bottom lip. Oh, God, but Miles wanted to lie down right there and present his body as an offering.

  The man’s eyes darkened. “How readily we progress.” His finger fell away from Miles’s mouth, but then the man’s whole hand rested over the center of Miles’s chest. He gazed upon Miles with a thoughtful expression. “Would you truly offer yourself to me so quickly?”

  It’s just a dream, Miles told himself. But something in the man’s face made him pause. What was going on here, anyway? What was all this? Who was this guy, subconscious or no? How had Miles ended up in the forest when he’d been heading toward town?

  As if his hesitation were a doorway, Miles felt the air shift around him, and in the distance he heard the clicking hooves begin again. He tensed, and to his surprise, so did his companion.

  Except his companion was angry, not afraid. He glared, his upper lip curling into a sneer. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said, his voice soft and dangerous. Then he drew Miles up against his side. “Come, Miles. It’s time we were away.”

  “Away where?” Miles followed the man’s gaze off into the forest, but he didn’t see anything. Yet he could feel the beast coming toward them, and he pressed harder up against the man’s side.

  “So many questions.” The man leaned forward slightly to catch the silver ribbons that served as reins. He clicked his tongue, and after the horses tossed their heads, they began to walk forward, dragging the sleigh behind them.

  Miles frowned down at the ground. “This is never going to work. There isn’t any snow—”

  He cut himself off as the horses began to move faster, and as if it were the sort of thing that happened every day, the sleigh lifted effortlessly off the ground.

  They were traveling, Miles realized with a strangely sick feeling in his stomach, several inches above the undergrowth of the forest. The horses still advanced with some acknowledgment to gravity, but even that, he realized, was subject to some question. Their hooves hit the ground, but when the ground dipped too low or became too rocky, they rode on the same invisible highway as the sleigh. It was impossible. It couldn’t happen. But it was.

  “Poor Miles.” The man stroked Miles’s hair. “Just lie back and let me take care of you. Soon we’ll be somewhere very pleasant, and all of this will just be a bad memory.”

  The horses were moving even faster now, so fast that Miles thought he was going to be sick. But when he settled into the man’s shoulder, his stomach calmed down.

  “You may call me Terris,” the man said gently, but even at his gentlest, there was no erasing the wickedness beneath his silky undertone.

  Terris. The name was familiar, and Miles’s brain raced to remember why. Then he recalled the website and the darkness that had come when he clicked on it. Miles drew back to the edge of the sleigh, cold with terror.

  As soon as he was away from the warm shelter of Terris’s arms, he felt the hot breath of the beast against his neck, felt the dank cold of the marble dungeon closing around him—

  He cried out as Terris yanked him back against his body, and this time Miles didn’t fight him. “What’s happening? I don’t understand—if this is a dream, I want to wake up.”

  “You’re straddling two worlds.” Terris’s voice was curt and clipped. “You’ve drawn him in as well as me, but I warn you, Miles, he who chases you and I cannot live together.” He looked behind the sleigh, and he murmured bitterly beneath his breath in a language Miles didn’t know. “You must banish him, darling. Send him away, so we may be in peace.”

  Miles lifted his head from Terris’s shoulder and looked behind the sleigh. He cried out in terror.

  The Devil was chasing them. It was a great horned beast, full of hair and hooves, and it ran straight for Miles, keeping up with the sleigh and gaining. It was naked, and between its legs hung a cock as big as a child’s arm, framed by huge, hairy ball sacs. But it had a human’s face, visible even as it was shrouded by overgrown beard and eyebrows. The body was the most menacing thing Miles had ever seen.

  The face was heartbreaking. Miles was moved despite himself.

  “Send him away,” Terris said, his voice a gentle command. His hand slid up Miles’s thigh. “Send him away, or he’ll catch us, and then I will have to go. And if I leave, someone much worse than either of us will come for you.”

  “There’s another monster?”

  “This place is full of strange creatures, but there are only three of us interested in you right now. Only one of us can have you. Whom do you wish to claim you, Miles?”

  Miles watched the hooves of the beast hammer into the ground, watched that heavy cock sway like a weapon, and he shrank a little closer to Terris. He couldn’t even let himself think about this third person. But it wasn’t just terror staying him—the face of the beast chasing the sleigh kept drawing him back.

  “What happened to him?” Miles asked.

  “He chose to get out of the sleigh.”

  Miles curled his fingers around the intricate silver grillwork on the top of the sleigh seat, letting the metal cut into his skin as he stared back in a strange mixture of terror and pity. That wasn’t the whole story, that much was clear. But it was also clear Terris wasn’t going to explain anything further.

  “That’s because there isn’t time. At this moment, Miles, it comes down to this: do you want to be with me, or with him? Or with the one who made the beast?”

  Miles bit his lip. He realized, to his shock, that the answer was that part of him did want to go with the beast. Something about the hideous creature—who was now less than twenty feet behind them—tugged at Miles’s heart.

  “He’ll consume you, if he catches you,” Terris said matter-of-factly. “Whatever pity you feel for him won’t do you any good once he has you beneath him.”

  The beast reached out with hands full of claws. Its mouth foamed, and as the beast drew closer, the sorrow in its eyes gave way to desperation and a ferocity that quickly doused Miles’s sympathy.

  He tightened his hands against the grillwork and shook his head. “Go. Go—please!”

  Terris rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes. That will work.”

  “What will work?” Miles cried, starting to panic now. The beast was so close that it c
ould leap onto the sleigh, if it wanted. Miles could smell the stink of it, sharper and ranker than ever.

  “Banish him. Tell him you don’t want him.”

  “I don’t want you!” Miles cried, with feeling. But even with the sight of that drooling mouth, those claws, and that horrible cock, Miles couldn’t quite forget those eyes. The edge of empathy remained in his voice, and the beast stayed.

  Terris sighed and turned to Miles. “You’ll have to show him, then. Show him you don’t want him. Show him that you want someone else.”

  “Nā!”

  The cry came from the beast, and it tore at Miles: the voice was rough and wild, but it was undeniably human. This beast was once a man.

  The beast leapt, landing on the back of the sleigh, now just a little more than an arm’s reach from Miles.

  Miles cried out and moved as far forward in the sleigh as he could. He tangled in the horses’ ribbons, knocking the sleigh from side to side as their course became erratic. Miles pitched against the rail, and at the back of the sleigh, the beast struggled to keep from falling off. Only Terris remained unaffected, moving with the motion of the raucous sleigh as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

  “Time to choose,” Terris said, calm as ever.

  “Nese!” the beast roared again. Still fighting to stay on the sleigh, he dared to extend one arm toward Miles. His eyes were small and sad, and wild. “Nese, gástlufu! Nese!”

  Miles ached at the yearning in the beast’s voice, and without thinking, he began to reach.

  The beast was huffing now, its hairy nostrils flaring. “Gástlufu!” it said gruffly. “Gástlufu!” But there was a funny edge to whatever it was the beast was saying.

  Terris snorted a derisive laugh.

  Miles held his breath, watching the beast’s face. But it only huffed and whined, pawing at the back of the seat now as it tried to get to Miles. “Gástlufu!” it said gruffly. It looked at Miles, and all the sorrow was gone, replaced with thick, black lust. “Gástlufu! Gástlufu! Gástlufu!” It said the word over and over, and Miles watched in horror as it thrust its hips against the side of the sleigh, its grotesque cock expanding with every plunge.

  Miles turned quickly to Terris. “And you? What will you do to me?”

  Terris smiled, a slow and sultry gesture that, despite the terror of the beast, made Miles feel hot and liquid inside.

  “I will do whatever you like.” He leaned forward. “Whatever you like, darling.”

  Miles reached for Terris. “You,” he said, his voice only wavering a little. “I want you.”

  The beast cried out in rage and reached for Miles again.

  “You!” he shouted, and caught Terris’s hand. “I want you, Terris. I want you. Not him.”

  The beast made a strange mewling sound, and Miles knew if he looked at it, he would see the sorrow, and he would be lost.

  Pushing aside the guilt the sound had aroused, he shut his eyes.

  The sleigh jerked, but this time Miles moved with it as easily as Terris. He heard an anguished cry, and then the sleigh shot forward. He opened his eyes in time to see the beast rolling away into the woods. He yelped in pain and screamed in misery, and the sound went like a lightning strike into Miles’s soul.

  Terris caught Miles’s face and turned it toward his own. “You’ve chosen me,” he said, patiently. “Now tell me what you want.”

  “What is this?” Miles whispered. “Who is he? Who are you? What’s happening to me?”

  “He is the bad dream. I am the good dream.”

  Miles could still hear the beast’s cries in the distance, but he could feel Terris’s hands moving against his skin, across his cheek, down to his neck, and against the fabric of his jeans, moving up his thigh. He had lost his gloves and scarf somehow, and his coat was open, making it easy for Terris to slide his hand beneath Miles’s shirt and explore the tender flesh of his stomach. Behind them Miles heard the thrashing of the monster in the underbrush, but he also heard the soft jingling of the horses’ harness and the even softer sound of his own breath coming faster and faster as Terris touched him. I want to kiss him, he thought, the urge primal and deep, born of a lust for the beauty that was the man before him. I want to kiss Terris. I want Terris to kiss me.

  A soft, wicked smile played against Terris’s lips. “With pleasure.” He leaned forward to press those lips against Miles’s own.

  In the distance the beast cried out again, but he was very far away now, and Terris was so close, and so warm. And wet. Miles opened his mouth at the urging of Terris’s silky tongue, sighing as he let the other man inside. Terris smelled of the spice of summer, like rain, like sweet and wonderful release. Miles sighed and opened wider to him, and when Terris slid his hand between Miles’s thighs, he opened for him there too.

  “That’s the way.” Terris trailed kisses down the curve of Miles’s throat, reached inside Miles’s underwear to take him firmly in hand. “Let go to me, Miles. Forget everything else and ride away with me in a beautiful, sensual dream.”

  Miles did. He shut his ears to the beast’s cries, which had grown plaintive again, and he surrendered to the magic of Terris’s mouth and hands as the horses pushed off the ground and into the sky, their silver ribbon reins flapping uselessly in the air beside them.

  MILES DIDN’T KNOW how long he’d been kissing Terris, but when he finally came up for air and dared a look around, he saw that the sleigh was skimming across a silver lake and heading toward a white, gleaming castle settled on a distant emerald shore. It was startlingly beautiful, so much so that it momentarily distracted him from Terris, which was a serious statement in and of itself. When he realized that he’d stopped the kiss, he turned back guiltily, but Terris didn’t seem to mind, and regarded it with satisfaction.

  “Do you like it?” Terris’s fingers were still twining in Miles’s hair, but idly now. His other hand still moved up and down Miles’s exposed cock, a tender rather than an erotic touch. His delicate fingers skimmed over Miles’s balls and teased them with an expert’s mastery. “Do you like the dream I’ve made for you, Miles?”

  “You did this?” Miles sucked in a breath as Terris’s finger slid behind his balls. “You—you made this?”

  “Oh yes. But this is nothing, darling. So much more waits for you.” His finger slid farther back, teasing but not touching Miles’s entrance.

  Miles gripped the seat and tried to keep his eyes from rolling back inside his head. “What—” He jerked as Terris came close again, but he didn’t move away. “What is this? You said I’m dreaming? But how? I left the house, I was awake—”

  “There are many ways to dream, Miles,” he said, his voice chiding. But then he sighed and withdrew his hand. “It wouldn’t be helpful for you to be too upset, so we’ll slow things down a bit, shall we?” He patted Miles’s thigh. “Do yourself up, and we’ll go explore the castle. All this will keep for later.”

  Miles shifted on the seat as he did up his jeans, feeling foolish but not knowing quite why. He kept reaching for reason and logic, but the more he tried, the more lost he became. And all it did, in the end, was drag his attention back to the beast.

  “Don’t think about him.” Terris lounged in his seat, the silver ribbon-reins held casually in his right hand. “When you think of him, it draws him back.”

  “Who is he? Why was he after me? Why are you here? Why am I here? Where is here?”

  “Philosophy!” Terris lolled his head to his shoulder and gave Miles a weary look. “Darling, it’s a dream. How many of your dreams are logical?”

  “It feels more real than any dream I’ve ever had.”

  “Even as real as the one you had in Atlanta?” Terris asked, as he reached down between them and picked up a small box from the floor.

  “Which dream in Atlanta? I lived there ten years.” Miles watched as Terris put the box into his own lap. The box was made of silver and tied with a glittering white ribbon. It made Miles think of The Lion, the Witch, and the Ward
robe, and as soon as he put that together with the sleigh and the castle, he realized that Terris really did make a pretty good White Witch.

  Terris laughed. “Except Edward didn’t get a hand job, did he?” He held the box out to Miles. “Here, darling. This is for you.”

  Miles took the box carefully, trying to be wary, but he couldn’t help feeling eager. It was a beautiful present, the most elegant and classy kind of present that he’d always wanted but had never received. Which was a stupid thing to think.

  “Why is it stupid to want something nice?” Terris nudged his hand toward the ribbon. “Go on. Open it, and enjoy yourself.”

  Miles put his fingers to the ribbon, but he didn’t pull. He looked up at Terris instead. “What did you mean, the dream in Atlanta? Which dream?”

  “Your whole life was a dream while you were there. Just as it is now.” When Miles sputtered, Terris laughed again and touched his cheek. “You’re so charming when you’re obstinate. Go on then, darling. Tell me about some other dream from that time that I could mean.”

  Miles tried, not sure what he was looking for but determined to somehow prove Terris wrong, because that was absolutely ridiculous, to imply he’d dreamed that he’d worked in Atlanta. He tried to think of one dream, even a boring one, to offer up, but honestly, he couldn’t come up with anything. Nothing he remembered, anyway. It was odd to think he hadn’t dreamed in ten years, but apparently he hadn’t.

  But he had lived there. He had! He’d paid rent, for crying out loud! Besides, if he were going to dream he lived somewhere, it wouldn’t be in Atlanta.

  “You don’t need to be asleep to dream.” Terris kissed Miles’s cheek. “Don’t worry yourself about that. There’s nothing to be gained. Open your present so I can see you smile.”

  Miles looked down at the beautiful silver box. He almost hated to take it apart. “What’s in it?”

  “If you open it, you’ll find out,” Terris suggested.