Sword Dance

by A. J. Demas

  Varazda opened his eyes and put up a hand to touch Damiskos’s face. He ran his fingers through the short curls of Damiskos’s hair and down the back of his neck. Damiskos turned his face into Varazda’s palm with its delicate tracery of henna flowers, and something about the gesture must have amused Varazda, because he laughed softly as he drew his thumb over Damiskos’s lips and lightly along the stubble on his jaw.

  “What do you like?” Varazda asked.

  “Oh, well … ” He slid his hands down to Varazda’s waist. “All the usual stuff.”

  “That covers a lot of territory.”

  “It does, yes. Can I undress you?”

  Varazda looked down at his clothes. “Mm. Can you?”

  “Yeah, I can.”

  He reached up to the buttons that held Varazda’s coat closed at the shoulder, flicked them out of their button-loops with his thumb. Varazda shrugged out of his coat. Damiskos reached around to unwind Varazda’s sash, then moved his hands to the ties fastening Varazda’s trousers.

  “You’ve done this before.”

  “Not like you’re thinking. I’ve worn Zashian clothes before.”

  “Really?” Damiskos thought Varazda was talking because he was nervous, trying to be arch and not quite succeeding.

  “When I was on leave in Rataxa. Grew my beard too, for a while, but I wasn’t convinced it suited me.”

  “No.” He traced the line of Damiskos’s jaw again. “I like you with the stubble.”

  He leaned in and kissed Damiskos, just as the ties came undone. The loose fabric slipped down, and Damiskos ran his hands over firm, smooth thighs. Varazda was bracing himself on the wall again, his face hidden against Damiskos’s neck. Damiskos explored slowly, still with that feeling of ease and familiarity, although nothing about this was truly familiar. He’d never needed to take quite so much care with anyone he’d taken to bed—and maybe he didn’t precisely need to now, but it felt good to do it.

  He kept one hand on Varazda’s thigh and moved the other one up under the hem of the long, Zashian-style shirt. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to find, but it seemed important not to betray surprise. His thumb brushed against wiry curls of hair, which he hadn’t expected, but he rubbed into it as if he had. Varazda made a slight, appreciative noise. Damiskos curled his hand around Varazda’s half-awake little cock. That was met with a different noise, a wary intake of breath.

  He looked into Varazda’s face—what he could see of it from this angle—and loosened his grip.

  “Still a yes,” Varazda murmured. “Just a—a—yes, very much a yes.”

  Damiskos moved his hand coaxingly. He was careful not to let his fingers explore too far, not wanting to touch the place where there would presumably be a scar. Slowly, gratifyingly, he felt Varazda’s body respond. His prick plumped in Damiskos’s hand and grew properly stiff as they kissed again, slowly. He moved his hips, muscles trembling. Damiskos abandoned caution and stroked faster and harder. Varazda moaned in earnest. Damiskos wanted to give him something more; this was very basic, schoolboy stuff, and he knew he was capable of better.

  He took Varazda’s trim waist between his hands, palms stroking up over the curve of his hips. He paused.

  Varazda’s eyes popped open. “Still saying yes.” He sounded a little breathless.

  “You don’t even know what I was about to do.”

  “I have a general idea. And I’m saying yes. To whatever it is.”

  “You’ll have to tell me its proper name afterward.”

  Damiskos scooted him back a little, preparatory to laying him down. This time there was no awkward tangling and bumping. Varazda swung his leg back over Damiskos and slid down sinuously onto the bed, shedding his trousers fully somewhere in the process. When Damiskos moved over him, in the moment before his bad leg gave out and tipped him forward, he found himself effortlessly caught, Varazda’s hand against his shoulder, bracing him with a strength like steel.

  Damiskos looked into Varazda’s eyes, and the smile that momentarily lit Varazda’s face—soft, intimate, just a little wry—had nothing to do with sex. Except that it made Damiskos want him with the heat of a building on fire.

  Varazda’s shirt had ridden up, exposing his small, neat erection, flushed against his pale skin. His legs were magnificent: long and lean and white. Damiskos stroked down his right calf and ran his fingers under an anklet of red glass beads. He spread Varazda’s thighs wider and slid down, moving onto his side to take the weight off his right knee.

  He had to prop himself on one elbow, which left him with only one free hand. He slid it under one cheek of Varazda’s ass and felt it tense.

  “Still a yes?”

  “I think so.”

  He licked from the base to the tip of Varazda’s cock, circled with his tongue, and took the whole thing easily into his mouth.

  He’d never gone down on anyone who wasn’t a lover of long standing, whose preferences and peculiarities he had known beforehand. For him it was too much of an abandonment of dignity for a casual encounter, and the enjoyment of it was all in appreciating the pleasure you were giving the other fellow, which hardly mattered if you didn’t care about him. He knew he was going to enjoy this with Varazda, even before he felt the muscles jump in Varazda’s thighs and heard the soft, sobbing gasp that was the first sound Varazda made.

  Varazda made a lot of sounds, more than Damiskos had expected, little half-swallowed exclamations in Zashian, in the dialect of the Deshan Coast, nothing Damiskos could understand. His prick was velvety soft and tasted good. Damiskos sucked him gently, slow but not teasing. Varazda’s body moved under him, pressing up into his mouth, matching his rhythm, graceful as always.

  Damiskos was painfully hard, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t remember ever having enjoyed giving head this much. He felt Varazda’s fingers in his hair, tugging slightly. It felt possessive; he liked it.

  Varazda was saying something in Zashian, and Damiskos realized it was intended for him. The Deshan accent was too thick for him to understand. He would tease Varazda about that afterward.

  Then he realized what Varazda was probably trying to tell him, and so he wasn’t completely surprised a moment later when Varazda came in his mouth.

  When he pushed up onto his hands, he saw that Varazda had actually covered his mouth to mute his final, abandoned shout. It had still been more than audible.

  Damiskos licked his lips. “Didn’t know the Pseuchaian for ‘I’m about to come,’ did you?”

  Varazda shook his head. He drew his hand away from his lips. His cheeks were flushed, and he looked slightly dazed, almost drunk. It made him astonishingly beautiful.

  “Your Deshan accent is really cute, too, but I can’t understand a word you say.”

  Varazda responded with something that probably meant, “May a dog shit in your ancestors’ holy place,” because that was the sort of thing Deshan warlords said to one another.

  Teasing had been the right move, Damiskos thought. They were only friends, after all—had only known each other for a few days. Varazda probably did not want this to get out of hand. He might have revealed more of himself than he meant to, and Damiskos didn’t want him to regret it.

  Varazda had collected himself sufficiently to sit up. He pulled down his shirt and tucked his legs under him. Damiskos sat back on the bed, and Varazda’s hands slipped in under his tunic and touched him through the thin fabric of his loincloth.

  Damiskos made a noise much less beautiful than any of Varazda’s. Varazda pulled the loincloth down and away, and both of his long-fingered hands explored Damiskos’s achingly hard cock, cupped his balls, moved between his thighs.

  Still a yes, unmistakably. He wasn’t performing; this wasn’t anything out of The Three Gardens. He handled Damiskos’s cock like it was something he wanted. Damiskos leaned back on his hands, letting his head fall back with a moan.

  Varazda pulled aside the skirt of Damiskos’s tunic and started to move down, in a graceful s
lither. Damiskos pushed himself up to catch Varazda’s shoulders and stopped him.

  “Just use your hands, darling. I want you to kiss me again.”

  What had he just said?

  Varazda looked up, frozen for a moment, a wonderful little smile curving his lips. He came back up in another slither, hooked one arm around Damiskos’s neck, and brought their mouths together in a hot, deep kiss while his other hand deftly worked Damiskos’s cock. He teased with long, light strokes, his fingers supple as the petals of flowers, his grip tightening as he sped up, until finally it was fast and firm, and Damiskos clutched him and came in wave after wave of sensation poised on a knife-edge between pleasure and pain.

  He sagged back, breathless, and found himself gathered in and hugged against Varazda’s chest, his forehead on Varazda’s shoulder. They remained like that, Damiskos breathing in the scent of Varazda’s hair, until an interior voice suggested he should pull himself together before Varazda started thinking him clingy. He felt pretty clingy just then.

  He straightened up, wincing when he saw what a mess he had made of Varazda’s shirt. Varazda had been looking at him with a kind of soft, thoughtful expression, but his smile brightened.

  “I should clean up, shouldn’t I?” He disengaged from Damiskos and got up from the bed in a beautiful unfolding of white limbs. “Such a messy business.”

  In more ways than one, Damiskos thought. He was glad Varazda was taking this brisk, friendly line now, because of course it was the right line to take, and he would do his best to keep in step.

  He could think of literally nothing to say.

  Varazda was pouring water into a basin and tidying himself up. He retrieved a pair of pyjama pants from the chair beside the bed, stepped into them, tied them, and only then pulled off his shirt, which he dumped in a heap on the same chair.

  “You’re a slob,” Damiskos observed, looking at the shirt instead of at Varazda’s bare chest and lovely, muscular arms.

  Varazda gave an exaggerated sigh, picked up the shirt, and draped it over the back of the chair.

  “You’re not wrong,” he said. He dipped another of his patterned handkerchiefs in the basin, wrung it out, and brought it over to offer it to Damiskos.

  He sat on the bed beside Damiskos and watched Damiskos wipe himself off, with an interest that was surprisingly flattering. If Damiskos hadn’t been as wrung out as the handkerchief himself, he thought he would have got hard again, just from the touch of his own hand through the cloth and the weight of Varazda’s gaze on him.

  Finished, he pulled down his tunic, and Varazda took the cloth back and hung it up, very daintily, on the rim of the basin, smoothing it out and straightening it several times. Damiskos snorted and rolled his eyes.

  “I’ll take first watch,” said Varazda cheerfully. “I’m feeling quite full of energy.” He bounced slightly on his feet to prove it. “I’ll go down now and round up that mattress for you. No, don’t get up.”

  He retrieved his shoes from under his bed, tossed on his pyjama shirt without buttoning it, and bounced out of the room, hair flying and hips swaying.

  CHAPTER XII

  DAMISKOS WOKE IN the dark, jerked awake by a flurry of noise: the crash of the door hitting the bed on the opposite side of the room as it swung open; running feet outside. He pushed himself up, blinking blearily around the room. He’d been sleeping in an awkward position, face-down on top of the rumpled coverlet, with his tunic on and still belted.

  Moonlight from the open door showed the other bed in the room still made—halfheartedly—and empty. He caught a whiff of smoke as if a lamp had recently been extinguished. He rolled out of bed and went to the door.

  Varazda was coming up the stairs to the gallery, barefoot and pyjama-clad, with Damiskos’s short sword in his hand.

  “Didn’t catch him,” he whispered when he reached the top of the stairs. “Not that I know what I’d have done if I had.” He handed the sword ruefully back to Damiskos. “It wasn’t Gelon, though. It was one of the others. Which is worrying, because it means it’s not just Gelon having it in for me personally. They all think I’m a threat. My cover, as we say in the business, appears to be blown.”

  “That’s bad.”

  Varazda nodded. “I scared him off, whoever he was, which means either they’ll leave us alone for the rest of the night—or they’ll send more than one next time.”

  “I’ll take the watch now.”

  “Good.” Varazda yawned elegantly. “I was going to wake you shortly anyway.”

  They were back in the room by this time, but the door was still open, and Damiskos saw what he’d missed when he’d been jolted awake.

  “Terza’s head, did I fall asleep in your bed?”

  “Mm-hm. When I struggled back upstairs with the extra mattress, you were passed out there with the lamp still burning. I didn’t disturb you.”

  “Gods. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, it’s fine. The other bed is just as comfortable. I left the light burning too—I’m not sure I’d have been able to keep awake in the dark. I just blew it out when I heard noises from outside, so they’d think I was asleep. I can light it for you again if you want.”

  “No, I’m going to sit outside on the gallery. They know we know what they’re up to now—we don’t need to worry about the element of surprise.”

  “Can I have my bed back, then?”

  “Please.”

  He collapsed gracefully onto it, pulling the covers around himself, and pressed his face into the pillow, drawing a deep breath.

  “Mmmm. Smells like soldier.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Damiskos stiffly.

  One dark eye looked up at him from the pillow. “I don’t know if you’ve worked this out, First Spear,” came Varazda’s muffled voice, “but I fancy soldiers.”

  Varazda took the last watch of the night, and he was out on the gallery, leaning on the railing, when Damiskos woke with the first light of morning. He yawned hugely as Damiskos came out to stand beside him.

  There had been no more nocturnal visitors, and now the slave quarters were busy with early risers going about their tasks in the thin dawn light.

  “Can you go back to bed?” Damiskos asked. “You look as if you need it.”

  Varazda rubbed his eyes. “Yes, I think I might. I’m not good for much else.”

  “A two-man watch is hard,” said Damiskos, giving in to a yawn himself. “At least we don’t have to march anywhere this morning.”

  “Ugh.”

  They remained standing there for a moment, leaning on the railing side by side.

  “Last night—the earlier part—was very enjoyable,” Damiskos said finally.

  “I’m afraid my contribution was rudimentary,” said Varazda, making a wry face. “I’m … I have been accustomed to being given orders, and I may not have done very well without them.”

  “No! No, it was … ” It was you, Damiskos wanted to say. That was what mattered. “It was great. The whole thing.”

  Varazda nodded. “It was. If we get a chance to do it again, I’d like that.”

  Damiskos didn’t reply at first, afraid that anything he said would sound too eager. There was an awkward pause. Varazda yawned again and turned toward his bedroom door. Damiskos finally thought of something to say.

  “If I had a copy of The Three Gardens, I’d study it for you.” That didn’t have the lightness that he had been striving for.

  Varazda looked back. “It’s only a few pages from the Honeysuckle Garden that truly appeal to me, First Spear. And, I must say, you’ve got Training the Vine down quite well already.”

  Damiskos toiled down the stairs from the gallery, greeting the few women whose names he knew as he passed them, and returning the rather knowing smiles of several others. It was a little odd to think that he now legitimately had something to be embarrassed about. They might well have heard him and Varazda last night; goodness knows, Varazda especially had been making enough noise. But even the knowinges
t looks of the slaves were friendly.

  It was still too early for any of the guests or their host to be up. Damiskos returned to his room, put his sword, along with his hunting bow, away carefully at the back of an upper shelf in his closet, took a clean tunic, and went to the bath. He still smelled of sex and Varazda’s perfume.

  Clean and dressed, he made his way through the quiet house to the garden, assured Rhea when she asked that he didn’t need anything, and then as an afterthought asked her to tell the mistress, when she was awake, that he had gone down for a walk on the beach.

  He took his time climbing down the track to the beach, thinking that he should have swallowed his pride and asked Rhea if there was such a thing as a walking-stick in the house. Reaching level ground, he strolled at an easy pace. The sunrise was at his back, casting long shadows out over the white sand. He passed the fish-sauce factory and rounded the spit of land into the sheltered cove with the beach houses.

  He was looking for something that he hoped very much not to find, but as soon as the sheltered beach came into view, he knew that he had. The body lay at the fullest point of the beach’s gentle curve, half in and half out of the surf, a dark, wet heap.

  Damiskos made his way over to it, grasped the sodden tunic, and turned the body over to be sure it was Aristokles. It was. He had been in the water some time; the corpse was bloated and ugly, but it was quite recognizable.

  Nobody could claim that he had died by drowning. The front of his tunic was torn in several places, the blood washed away by the water but the stab wounds still visible beneath. A frayed rope trailed from one of his ankles; evidently the weight used to sink him had come loose, letting his body bob to the surface.

  Damiskos stood looking grimly down at the corpse for several minutes before he roused himself to action.

  He had to get the body out of the surf and find Nione and Varazda. He bent and grabbed the wet clothing again, and heaved the corpse up so he could grasp it under the armpits and drag it along the beach. It was awkward work; Aristokles had been a big man, Damiskos’s height, and with wet clothes he was very heavy. Damiskos’s knee was protesting by the time he reached the beach hut—the same one where he and Varazda had put on their show for the students on Hapikon Eve—and rolled the body onto the dry stone floor. He collapsed onto one of the benches and rubbed the throbbing joint.