Here, In This Place: An Origin Tale

CASTLE IN THE HILLS

CONCLUSION

When they had arrived at Visastruta, there was a series of servants who whisked their things off to rooms with efficiency and they were met by Miriamne, mistress of the castle.

“Everyone is sleeping now,” she had said, after kissing her brother and Tanitha. She had not said who everyone consisted of, but it was the middle of the day, and Sunny had thought they probably kept to what Kruinh euphemistically called “The Old Ways”.

Miriamne, always barefoot with hair falling down her back, always in simple but elegant black, said, “Everyone else knows where to go. I will take these two in hand,” literally taking David by one hand and Sunny by the other, “and show them the way.”

Though she had spoken to the two of them, Dan and Kruinh followed. There was one main great building, divided into two wings, and off of the great hall, they went up into floors of low ceilinged stone halls. They were warm now, and Sunny imagined it must be cool in the summer.

“All of you will stay here. Easy to find each other, easy not to be lost.”

Miriamne took them to the third floor which, of course, was the third floor over a high bailey which itself was built over a rise of rock and lower foundations. Here she opened a great oaken door, and Sunny was surprised by a massive room with thick furnishings of dark wood lit by mellow varicolored light, so that he was reminded of church. What was more, Sunny could tell that the first room hinted at several beyond it.

“Those are your apartments,” Miriamne said, “and they link to my brother’s.”

They continued up a small flight of carpeted steps then turned down a corridor and Miriamne pushed open a door just a little taller than David’s head. She handed him a brass key.

“These rooms are yours,” she said, revealing a warm low space of deep blue carpet, bookshelves and brass lamps. “They end in a doorway that connects to Tan’s rooms. Which rooms you sleep in are for you to decide.”

David could not tell if there was a twinkle in her eye.

“I am right above you,” Dan said. “My rooms link to Chris and Laurie’s, and I actually have a little staircase that goes straight down to you guys. It goes into Kruinh’s room.”

“But I’m sure you won’t have cause to be using it,” Kruinh said.

Dan cleared his throat.

“And where do you stay?” David asked.

“In the other wing,” Miriamne said, “with the rest of the immediate family when they are here.”

But now the passage had brought them out again, and they were in the main receiving hall, the one where there was only an old wooden throne which, presumably, should have been Kruinh’s. There, great glass and lead lined doors looked out to the parapet that surrounded these wings, and they all walked toward it to look down on the hills and the green land below. Standing on the encircling parapet, they looked up and saw one great, red roofed tower hanging from the highest walls and looking down on them. It possessed a balcony and now a small shape came out onto it, may have looked down, or may not have, and went back in.

“Who was that?” Sunny asked.

“That?” Miriamnie said while Kruinh said nothing.

“That is Mother.”

The stained glass windows were the first thing Sunny noticed about his rooms. Blues and reds and yellows breathing a mixed low light. Many of them were abstract, but some reminded him of church windows with biblical scenes, saints and angels. And then he noticed that when he examined one closely, it was not quite as it seemed. A scene of naked souls in the fires of purgatory soon revealed itself to be bodies writhing in pleasure, taking each other in various postures of sex. The demons with leering tongues were inserting them into the souls who shivered not in heartache, but in ecstasy. A devil’s pointed tail went up and up and up and between a woman’s thighs, and her mouth was open in what now seemed to be bliss. A barebreasted saint with hair all down her back was being fondled by a haloed boy who bent to suck on her nipples, and where a Christ in resurrection, bare-chested sat in glory, the naked figure before him, who seemed be beseeching him, now on second glance was pleasuring him with his mouth. As the afternoon sun moved through the glass, Sunny could even see the head snaking up and down between Jesus’s thighs, the face of Christ lost in ecstacy. Part of Sunny was shocked and even a little revolted, but another could not stop looking, and he was surprised to find that he had undressed, that as the sun passed through the face of Christ, warming his body and sending a shaft of yellow light across the room, Sunny was slowly, contemplatively, masturbating.

When he realized he was doing it he did not stop. Instead he stroked slower, more intensely, savoring the touch of his own hands on his own body, feeling that some manner of blessing or religious rite was happening here before this perverted icon. He turned to the bathroom now, where flickering golden lamps dimly shone on marble floors covered in thick blue rugs before yielding to bare floor and a deep tub already filled with sudsy water. The bathroom was lined with mirrors, and by them he could see his own beautiful body. And he was beautiful. He was amazed by himself for the first time, the strength in his long legs, the muscles in his thighs, the roundness of his buttocks, the thickness of his shaft, the V of muscle leading to the dark cloud of his sex. He lay on the cool marble floor beside the tub, reached for the oils beside it, and worked himself in the semi darkness until fire was wrenched from deep in his balls and he shouted, watching a fountain of semen rise into the air, and spill all over his muscled stomach.

Weak, he slithered into the water and suddenly, from the walls, sonorous music played while he sank into warm water. He did not know how long he’d been in there when he opened his eyes and saw Kruinh in a long black robe, standing over him.

He was still exhausted from the sex he’d had with himself, and the robe fell away from Kruinh’s strong legs and thick thighs, revealing his thick cock under his round firm bowl of a belly. Kruinh climbed into the great lake of a tub beside Sunny and, without preamble, going so hard it hurt, Sunny turned over in the water, placed himself on his knees and lay out his face and arms on the marble. Kruinh moved through the water and took him by the hips. He fucked Sunny in his ass. They seemed to move out of time, that strange thing in Sunny’s mind that always made comments, that always assessed what was going on, until Sunny became sensation and Kruinh, who had known so many sensations, and felt so strong in so many ways, felt the animal weakness of lust, the fire boiling up from his anus into his balls, erupting in his incomprehensible growl, in his ejaculation, in his body slamming back and back into Sunny who lay exhausted, letting out a cross eyed groan, shocked to feel he was not empty yet, feel his own stiff cock spurting into the bathwater.

 

 

“Animals don’t fuck, you know?” Kruinh murmured.

“What?”

They were still in the great, sudsy tub, Sunny drowsy in Kruinh’s arms. He was listening to the sound of Kruinh’s voice, to how it was only superficially American but there was something, or several somethings beneath it.

“Animals,” Kruinh said, “do not fuck.”

What a strange word, fuck. It didn’t sound like what it was, but it sounded like what it felt like. The way he said it, fuck. The accent of it.

“We say,” Kruinh murmured, sinking lower in the water and linking his legs with Sunny’s, running his hands up and down Sunny’s arms, “fuck like animals, feel like animals, animal weakness, animal lust. But animals do not lust. If you’ve ever lived in the wild, if you’ve ever hunted, I suppose if you’ve ever watched public television, then you know animals, most animals, mate. They go on about their lives, and then when the time comes to reproduce, the female puts out a smell, the male follows, he leaps on her, it is done. They go on with their lives. He never thinks about fucking her. She never wonders if he’ll call her. They don’t spend their time looking for affection or even the thrill of orgasm. Sex passes over them.

Sex lives with us. Even that moment when you feel in your cock, in your balls, deep in your ass, when reason and doubt go away to be replaced by lust, desire, need, fucking is a human thing, What if we talked so much about it being animal, but at the end of the day it was from the angels?”

“Do you believe in angels?”

“I do not even know what angels are. But I believe in wonder. You and I,” Kruinh stretched his long arm out beside Sunny’s, “we are part of that wonder.”

 

Kruinh knew when it was time for supper. When it was time to rise, he climbed out of the tub and Sunny admired the hot water pouring down his muscular buttocks, glistening on his strong back. Kruinh held his hand out to Sunny and lifted him up. In the large bedroom outside, light was fading from the windows but now the brass lamps gave a good glow. On Sunny’s large bed were now lain two sets of clothing, nearly identical. Kruinh’s suit was black trousers, black jacket with white shirt, Sunny’s pale grey. No ties but banded collars. Kruinh’s shoes were deep red leather loafers, Sunny’s red suede. Soft cotton jock straps were lain out and Sunny watched Kruinh pull his on, enjoyed his heavy buttocks held by them, the shape of his sex hidden in the white thong. Before Sunny dressed, on impulse he rounded the bed, and went to his knees, pulling down the thong and taking Kruinh in his mouth. He didn’t get tired of sucking him, and Kruinh was not tired of being sucked. The bells were ringing for dinner when Sunny closed his eyes and pressed his hands to Kruinh’s scalp while the Lord of Visastruta knelt between his legs, returning the love. As the bells finished tolling, Kruinh rose regretfully.

“Come, Love,” he said. “We’ve eaten each other. Now it’s time to eat with others.”