Wolves

by W. A. Hoffman

  I sometimes found myself musing that the rushing water of the falls was the sound of time passing us by; but whenever I thought such a thing, I quickly kissed my matelot or swam in the pool until the ugly notion departed.

  One morning, while swimming—and not because of an ugly notion—I emerged from the pool to find my matelot watching me in resplendent and tumescent glory with a grin that told me all I needed to know about my fate as soon as he got his hands upon me. The sight drove the breath from my lungs; and to my amazement, it drove life into my member. I looked down at my growing organ with wonder and surprise.

  And it immediately fled my scrutiny like a mouse.

  I sat down with hot tears of frustration in my eyes. Gaston came to me in a rush of concern, his own member falling, which only rubbed salt in my fresh wound.

  “Damn it, it rose,” I said. It was the first I had spoken of it since we came to the Haiti.

  “I saw,” he whispered and kissed me lightly. “That was promising. It will return, my love.”

  “As long as I pay it no mind,” I grumbled.

  “Then we will have to keep you distracted,” he teased and leaned down to nip my thigh. “And I will have to sit about naked and aroused to draw it out.”

  I chuckled at that. “Oui, please do.” I thought of how he had appeared. “It is always a pleasure to see you gaze upon me in that fashion. Despite all I know in my head, my heart cannot think of a thing that makes me feel as loved as you being risen to greet me—of your own volition—or rather, seemingly of your cock’s volition....”

  He frowned, and I shook my head as I realized I was falling from my Horse, or perhaps mounting Him. I was thinking.

  “I am sorry, I will stop thinking now,” I said and began to pull away. “That is the root of the problem as it is, anyway.”

  He held me fast. “I would know what you meant. And if thinking is the root, then perhaps it is time we dig it out.”

  I sighed, and felt acutely the dimming of the sun as it slipped behind the gathering clouds. Perhaps it was time to confront this wolf—and perhaps others.

  I smiled thinly and studied his face. “You rise without thought at the sight of women, as is your cock’s wont; but I feel you must think about rising for me: that your Horse must coax your cock into the act.”

  He thought for a time before shaking his head. “Non, that was once true, but it is no longer. You are so in my heart now that it often rises without my needing to think that it should. It is rather like learning a language. There is a time when one must think about what each word means, and then finally, one simply knows what each word means when they are heard: it is no longer necessary to translate them. I see you, and my cock rises, and then I think of the pleasure to come. Before, I would see you, and think of the pleasure, and then my cock would rise.”

  “Truly?” I asked with wonder. “I have been laboring under a false assumption then.”

  “Not for all the years we have been together, non; but for…” He sighed with a frown. “I do not know when I began to rise without the translation. It seemed so correct I put little thought into the change.”

  I was truly pleased. That had not been a wolf at all, but the shadow of a little fox.

  “Does it happen with other men?” I asked, still seeking a larger threat.

  He grinned. “Non, only for you.”

  That engendered guilt; and then I remembered why, and I could see an entire pack of wolves lurking in the trees. “Mine knows no such discretion.”

  He peered at me curiously. “Oui, and I sometimes feel jealousy at that; though you have never given me cause. As I am sure you feel jealousy knowing I rise for women. We have…” He stopped and appeared stricken.

  I was surely stricken.

  “Will, I am sorry. I forgot why… we are here…” he breathed, and embraced me.

  I saw the phantom wolves issuing from that terrifying cave in my heart. It was their den. Less fancifully, I recalled arguing with that bastard, Collins. The memory was as ephemeral as a dream though, and I could not recall it with certainty: only its taint.

  “You should rise at women, and I at men,” I said.

  “Oui,” Gaston said and pulled away enough to study my face again. “And I should rise with you.”

  And apparently he did rise with me—of his cock’s own volition: a thing I had not known.

  “I do not hold you at fault for the women,” I said carefully. “I would be angry if it were other men.”

  “You should be,” he said. “It would mean they meant much to me.”

  “And, as I find favor with women as well, I feel I cannot reciprocate in that… devotion. Does that sound of reason or…”

  He smiled. “Non, it sounds reasonable. I have never seen you rise at the sight of a woman, though.”

  I snorted at that. “Oui, it is a rare one that will call my cock forth. Men, not so rare: but women, perhaps I have been translating there all along.”

  “You have always said you knew first that you favored men: were women a thing you trained yourself to enjoy?” he asked.

  “Oui, I suppose so. It is difficult to recall. I remember when first I knew I might bed one, my cock was not interested in her so much, but in the prospect of at last being able to plunge into something. She was a dark and wondrous hole. Gods, I cannot even recall that poor girl’s face.”

  He chuckled sympathetically. “So, if I do catch you getting rise from a woman, I have every right to be jealous.”

  “Oui.” I sobered as I thought of the other side of the equation. “But men…”

  “Are as they should be for you,” he said quickly. “Will…” He pulled my chin up, and I met his gaze. “There is no need for guilt on my account. I will only be angry if you act upon it. And you did not, Will.”

  I shook my head in agreement. “Nay, I did not… act upon it. I did not wish it. He was…” I sighed, not knowing if I wanted to brave the cave enough to find the next words; but here was my matelot beside me: surely two stallions could stomp a pack of wolves to death.

  “Thorp was a man I would have… wanted,” I said sadly, “in another time and place. Gods, he was a man I could have been: or perhaps, was, once upon a time. I have never… would never… resort to rapine; but I have found great pleasure in the seduction of those who stood to lose much in finding pleasure at my hands. I was often cruel in that. It is a thing I regret.

  “I would tell myself that transmuting their protests, their ‘please do not’ into ‘please do not stop’ was a triumph over their fickle mores and the rules of society. I felt I was freeing them: but I seldom saw them the morning after to see what I had wrought once they had to face their guilt. I was a monster.”

  I had once delighted in getting a man who swore he loved only one man to respond to me.

  That wolf bit deep, and I cringed from the pain. New tears came.

  “You are no longer that man, my love,” Gaston said gently. “And you triumphed when faced with a shade of him.”

  “Oui,” I admitted. “But at such a cost.”

  “Can you not forgive your Horse and your cock?” he asked carefully.

  “I feel I can,” I said honestly. “I feel they cannot forgive me.”

  But even as I said the words, I envisioned my Horse—and thus realized I had truly assumed the mantle of my Man again. My Horse was standing there patiently, head forward, watching me: not with trust, perhaps, but with a willingness to see what I would do next without running from me.

  “Give them time,” Gaston said softly. “We have as much time as you need.”

  I was going to express my agreement, but with a single warning rumble, the sky opened like a sluice gate as it often did in this season, and rain poured down upon us as we scrambled to our shelter.

  Our somber mood was driven to run before us: through our small abode and out the other side: so that when we tumbled onto our woven mattress, it was with the giddiness of boys. Clammy flesh pressed to clammy flesh, and w
e shivered at the sudden cold as we began to rub one another warm. And then the wolves found me again with a vengeance, as I recalled another run from the rain and the pleasure that followed: Shane and a barn all those years ago.

  Gaston stilled as I did, and regarded me with renewed concern.

  “Shane and that first time in the barn,” I sighed. “It seems all my thoughts are knotted together.”

  He nodded solemn agreement. “That is the way of the mind.” He kissed me lightly. “What would you have of me?” He frowned in thought and smiled anew. “Is there some string I might pull or tease?”

  I followed the thread of storms and recalled our trysting in the face of death on our voyage from Maracaibo; and the night he returned to me at Negril; and his weight upon my back and his furtive humping… I had panicked that night. The thread of straw led to my drunken admission of my fear of it at Ithaca; and to my overcoming that fear and our happy hours with the puppies in the stall we lived in when last in Port Royal; and our Horseplay; and our fight in Porto Bello, when he had struck me and taken what he would in the name of jealousy over Alonso. I had more than panicked that night: I had lost myself to madness and nearly killed him.

  “You should perhaps not pull my strings,” I said with wry amusement. “At least, not ones related to straw or storms or…”

  He frowned, but cocked his head with curiosity.

  “I am much like a marionette,” I said, “with tangled strings, so that I flop about unpredictably.” I shook my head, not sure of what I was attempting to convey. “I am tangled. You are tangled everywhere: in me: with me. All skeins lead to you, yet…” I sighed.

  “So if I pull a string…” He lifted my arm by holding the tip of my finger. “I might not get the desired result?”

  I nodded and smiled; and raised the arm he was not touching.

  “Can we cut a string?” Gaston asked seriously.

  I considered it. “Can you sever a thread of your thoughts? How would that… Would the chain of memory simply end if that was done? Or would we know that it once connected to a thing we cannot remember? Was that how you felt when you could not recall the night your sister died?”

  He nodded with understanding. “Non. I felt it was behind a snarl of string… Non, like it passed through a hole in a board: as if all things related to that night passed through holes in the board. And I could pull on one, only to find it was somehow tied to the others.” He smiled. “And that would lead to my flopping about unpredictably as you say.”

  I could envision it. “Oui, oui. We cannot cut them. It is just that sometimes we cannot see where they lead. And we are ever pulling on strings in the snarl and causing some unexpected limb to twitch.”

  Gaston’s eyes widened with some new thought. “They tried to pull your strings—that bastard Thorp did—and you flopped about…”

  “In a manner I did not wish,” I finished quickly. “Oui. He…” With great trepidation, I stood in the cave mouth, torch in hand. I could see the eyes of wolves reflecting in the torchlight, but not the animals themselves. “He wanted me to react in a certain manner. And I did…” With shame, I recalled my panic and fear after Thorp blindfolded me: his caressing and pinching: so like what my matelot might do and I might enjoy. A wolf snarled at my feet. I felt ill and nearly convulsed with nausea.

  My matelot held and soothed me. I let his comfort give me courage, and I kicked the wolf away and continued peering into the darkness.

  “He wanted… He pulled on simple strings; and some that were snarled a bit… or a great deal—such as the ones that lead me to pleasure when tormented or helpless. And… I could not allow that limb to move: whether it was the one he was attempting to move or not. So I… I could not cut it.”

  That was a curious revelation; and a happy one. It was reassuring that nothing was severed. A tangled thing was not broken. It need not be mended, only unknotted. And I had always lived with tangled skeins, had I not?

  “I could not cut it,” I repeated. “So I knotted it even more. It is just another knot, and my mind is full of them, and yet I live on. I perform all manner of feats with tangled strings.”

  Gaston smiled. “So we must only find what new strings we must pull to move the knot.”

  I shrugged. “Or simply pass through the knot. Seeing you gazing upon me with lust and arousal pulled a simple string.” I frowned. “It was not one tangled with the rest.”

  With a mischievous grin, he moved from atop me to lie on his belly beside me and wiggled his arse enticingly. With a chuckle, I rolled atop him to sit astride his back. I caressed his scarred hide, tracing familiar whorls and blossoms of hardened white skin; feeling the muscle beneath, and giving him cause to shiver as my fingertips brushed the sensitive stripes of tan, unmarred flesh. My hands ventured up and out his shoulders and upper arms until they found his forearms. I paused there; spread above him, my fingers about his wrists.

  He tensed beneath me, only to relax with a deep sigh. “Do as you will,” he whispered.

  I thought on it. We had never played so: with him being bound or restrained: with him surrendering to me. He yielded to me, true, but never as a matter of our Horseplay. At times he had said my binding him whilst he was in the throes of madness brought him comfort: a feeling that he was loved. But it had never been a matter of lust.

  Was controlling him a thing I wanted? He once explained that he enjoyed controlling me because it empowered his Horse: the beast had so often been powerless in his life that it desired exercising complete control now and again. And my Horse’s wish to be over-powered—to be ridden—was a fine example of how very tangled I was. And that mess was, of course, why I had been forced to fight Thorp so very hard.

  I leaned upon his wrists a bit more, and caressed the scars there with the tips of my thumbs. He disliked being bound, and he had been chained again in those weeks of our separation; yet he would surrender to me. I did not feel desire to make him writhe as he had often done with me. His surrender filled me with… love—that he would trust me so—but no lust.

  Non, the stirrings of lust occurred when I thought of lying thus beneath him. After all we had been through, that was still what my Horse desired. He watched me with wary eyes from the mouth of the cave. The wolves snarled within: well beyond the reach of the torch I carried: the light of our love.

  I was a Gordian knot.

  I shifted my weight from Gaston’s wrists, and leaned down to place an arc of gentle kisses from his temple to his chin. He opened his eyes as I moved to lie beside him, and regarded me with curiosity tinged with relief.

  I smiled. “That is not a thing I desire. I would have you ride me, though.”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “Do as you will. Make me run. I must give my Horse His head on that matter. I must… accept that tangled part of my soul again.”

  He regarded me with concern and wonder, and caressed my cheek with a fingertip.

  “Unless you do not wish it,” I said softly.

  He snorted disparagingly, and his Horse drifted into his eyes. “The knowledge that someone else attempted to ride you in that manner fills me with greater anger than knowing you were used at all,” he growled. And then his Horse was gone and I could see him struggling in a morass of guilt.

  “Non, non,” I assured him. “I understand. It was the greater violation. It was not merely an act of violence upon my person, but violence attempted upon my soul.”

  I recalled my thoughts from the morning after Thorp’s first desecration of my person: about being raped by a wolf being far worse than being raped by a sheep. I told Gaston of it.

  His guilt abated, and as I finished, he regarded me with teeth upon his lips and dark and roiling thoughts behind his eyes. I felt he had not heard a thing I said when he spoke.

  “You are mine,” he growled. “And your Horse best never run for any other man.”

  All that was rational and sane of my person—in the eyes of other men who lived chained in chairs watching sha
dows upon the wall—gasped and recoiled with dismay and surprise. My Horse trembled with anticipation. I cringed further still as the knots about my heart tightened as a hundred different strings were pulled. My Horse stood bridled and saddled, awaiting the quirt. And my cock stirred: defiantly.

  You would have done this for that bastard if I had allowed it! I railed silently at my soul.

  I am a Horse, my beast replied. I know only the wind in my mane and the road beneath my hooves. You are the one who chooses the road. You are the one who keeps us from running off a cliff.

  Yes! I cried. I am. And… I had.

  My Horse could do naught but run when bridled and saddled: when those strings drew taut. And my cock could do naught but rise when handled with deliberate kindness or the organ in my nether passage was rubbed just so. And I could do naught but stop them in the name of principle. We had all behaved according to our nature. We had all behaved according to truth.

  I no longer heard the wolves in the cave.

  Oblivious to the now-receding turmoil in my heart, or perhaps in response to it, Gaston was tying my hands to the roots of a tree that sprawled under the rock overhang of our home. I felt I had been struggling: as he had felt the need to pin me with his weight across my shoulders.

  I surrendered. There had been no shame: I had averted that disaster. There was no shame now: I was merely dancing to the knot work woven into my soul. I was loved. I was safe. I could hand him the reins and let him ride my Horse.

  He sat astride me and whispered in my ear. “We will exorcise those demons. What did they do? Tell me everything.”

  My cock was indeed stirring; and I wished for it to be trapped between us, but he was sitting too far up on my belly. “Kiss me first,” I whispered.

  His grin was feral, and he plundered my mouth mercilessly as I squirmed beneath him hoping to rub my growing member against him somehow.

  “Start talking; or I’ll stop,” he threatened with a smile.

  I laughed helplessly. “I love you.”

  “I know.” He shifted and sat where I wished, pinning my now-turgid member between us.