Scared Stiff

by Laura Baumbach, William Maltese, Josh Lanyon

  "Val kicked the door open, and I thought he was going to start killing, Grandfather, his rage was so great. But he didn't. The men were in a cage, and they ... threatened to hurt Akecheta. Val's heart became as still and icy as a mountain lion's. Grandfather, I could almost feel his bloody jaws tearing into their evil throats!"

  Robert cleared his throat and glanced over at him, but Cody wouldn't meet his eyes.

  "Anyway, the men made a terrible mistake to hurt his family, to threaten to hurt them again. Val knew they would never be safe. There was only one way this story was going to end, and that was with the blood of his enemies spilled on the ground!"

  "And wild onions growing out of their bones,” Robert added. He had to hide a smile at how natural a storyteller Cody was, his voice falling into the same rhythms, at how much the old man was enjoying the story, and the telling, his eyes huge.

  It must have been a hundred and ten inside the sweat. Robert was drenched and lightheaded, and he could see the sweat rolling down Cody's spine. When Cody described Akecheta burying the hatchet in Billy's skull, the Sun Dancer reared back with a Blackfoot oath, fumbled for his bags of powder. He said a prayer over the tomahawk, sprinkled powder on his hands. Then he passed the bag to Cody.

  "Your hands,” he said, concentrating hard on the tomahawk, and Cody and Robert put the yellow powder on their hands and rubbed the palms together. Black Moon Rising traced an invisible line near the edge of the blade and smiled a warrior's smile. “The blood of an enemy. This is a good weapon. So what happened then? How did you get the weapon?"

  Robert picked up the tale. “When the three evil men were killed, we saw their spirits leave their bodies, like shapeshifters, twisted animals, all teeth and claws. Then they seemed to settle on the form of snakes. The ghost snakes wrapped around Val and Akecheta ... tasting them. They didn't seem to know. They couldn't feel them. And then the spirits went into the ground."

  Cody reached for the tomahawk, traced the heavy wooden handle. “So Robert's Val, he found some metal out in the wild onions, marked the places with little flags. We saw the flags and we ... we dug into..."

  Black Moon Rising stared. “You dug into the field. The burial field where you had seen the evil spirits? You dug with a shovel?"

  Cody was studying the roof. “Ah. Well. Actually, Grandfather, yes."

  The Sun Dancer blew out through his nose. “Both of you have gone to university, am I right?” He shook his head. “Grandson. Is your head made of wood?"

  Robert intervened. “We dug into a rattlesnake nest."

  "Of course you did!"

  "He got bit. He had a seizure, and I watched the ghost snakes ... climb into his mouth. That's what I'm afraid of. That the ghosts are still in him somewhere."

  "This Blackfoot has gotten rid of his ghosts."

  "He has?"

  "I have?"

  "The boy is born of water. Some people are healed with fire, some with earth. For some, the air will heal. And this Blackfoot is water. He knew what to do, even if he didn't realize he knew it. He has gone to water, made his choices, cleansed himself. And you, friend of my grandson. You asked your ghost lover to save him. And you knew what that would cost. You made your choice, too.” He raised his hands as if in praise. “And now the circle is nearly complete! What a story I will have to tell when I go back to our people! To see the children again, the descendants of the children, walking in this good place. What a blessed life. Come, we need to get this man outside, Cody. He isn't used to the heat. And it's time for some stew! Keep the sweat lodge, grandson. Maybe you will learn the songs someday."

  Robert had to agree that he wasn't used to the heat, because he was very close to passing out. He could feel each heartbeat against his skin, as if his blood were expanding in his veins. Cody knocked down the shield and the air rushed in like snow. The sky tilted, and Cody picked him up, carried him down to the river, and they knelt there together in the icy water. Cody splashed water on Robert's face, his chest. “Can you feel it, Robert? It's my river."

  When Robert's head had stopped spinning, he looked up the bank, at the cabin and their friends. Cody was spread-eagled in the river, laughing like a fool, his hair drifting on the surface of the water. Beth was shaking her head on the river bank, towels over her shoulders, hands on her hips, and Lillian was waving for them to come in. “You guys are running a little short of dry clothes! Well, I'm not surprised. You can't keep Cody out of the water."

  David was on the back porch, looking up and down the river bank. “Where have those kids gone? Anybody seen Redmond and Sharona?” Black Moon Rising was bringing the shield and the weapon in from the sweat. What had he said about Val and Akecheta when the children had arrived? A tribe, a family of their own. Robert had come here alone.

  * * * *

  Cody fussed over Black Moon Rising for the rest of the afternoon, loading his pickup truck with food, slipping an envelope of cash into the glove compartment for gas, showing him how to work the radio. The Sun Dancer sat on the edge of the porch, listening to the music from a Native station out of Dutch Harbor and trying to sing along. Robert pulled Cody aside.

  "Listen. You can go with him if you want, back to Montana. I'll be here when you get back."

  "What? No way, Robert. I'm not going anywhere without you."

  "I think you've missed your grandfather and it's a miracle to suddenly find this old man. Someone who can show you the way.” Robert could see the yearning in his face. “He's staying with David's family tonight. Let's think on it."

  "Yeah, okay. I'm tired, to tell you the truth."

  "Me, too, baby."

  The cabin was spotless again, because Lillian and Beth could not stop working. The old man had studied the picture on the mantle of Val and Robert, raised his hands as if in joy and said another prayer. “That's a good picture frame,” he said. “Blackfoot silversmith?"

  But while Cody was describing his grandfather's silverwork, the Sun Dancer reached a finger for the glass, touched gently over the picture of Val.

  David hauled Redmond and Sharona out of the woods, and Redmond had an impressive new hickey on his neck. David bundled him into his truck, and Black Moon Rising climbed into his to follow him back to his house. He promised Cody he would come back for breakfast.

  The cabin was quiet, then, with the sounds of the river coming through the open back door. Robert closed it, peeled out of his damp clothes, and climbed into bed. He couldn't remember ever feeling so exhausted. “Cody, come rub that sore spot for me, okay?"

  "Sure.” Cody climbed into bed with him, his long fingers massaging the scar. “What are you doing in bed? It's six thirty."

  Robert pulled him close and kissed him, tasted cold river water and dark chocolate on his mouth. “I'm tired. I don't care if it's six thirty. If I fall asleep, you just go ahead and do whatever."

  "Whatever what?” Cody's big hands were moving across his chest, down his belly, then Robert could feel the warm breath blowing across the back of his neck. Cody curled around him, wrapped him up in his arms. “If you're gonna just lay there like a slug, I guess I'll go to sleep, too. I'm beat. Sleep in my arms tonight."

  Robert couldn't answer. His tongue had already fallen asleep, his mouth, his mind, but he could feel Cody's heart beating through his chest, slowing, falling into rhythm with his, and then their hearts were beating together.

  Twelve solid unconscious hours later, and Cody was out exploring the onion field. Robert had a cup of coffee in one hand and the phone in the other. His editor was skeptical. “So you want to do a photo shoot up on Blackfoot land? It's not another bunch of pictures of depressed looking kids living in tar paper shacks, right?"

  "Oh, no. The reservation's right next to Glacier, remember? We should get some scenic mountain shots, and the story's a good one, about the children who came down to Idaho in the year of the last buffalo hunt, going back to the ancestral lands for the first time."

  "Okay, Robert. Sounds good, something different. Will a
week do?"

  "Thanks, Bill. That will be perfect."

  "So how are you?” His voice was very casual. “You okay?"

  "Better all the time.” He looked out the window. Cody had just jumped down into the hole David's bulldozer had made, ducked down and disappeared. “Bill, I've got to go. I'll send you some pictures within a couple of days."

  He hung up and walked outside. What the hell was he doing? Cody's head popped up above the edge of the hole. “Robert, get the shovel, quick."

  He took a sip of coffee, didn't move. “Not in this lifetime, my friend."

  "Robert, look at this! It's a stone axe-head, man! Holy shit! Lithic technology rocks!"

  END

  William Maltese

  A Rendering of Souls

  Marl Bas threaded his left testicle through the gold cockring and followed it with his right. What with the sudden expansion and elongation of his impressive penis, he was almost unable to follow it through the very same circle. The head of his cock caught in the tight space between cool metal and warm hairless scrotum. The shaft of his burgeoning erection bent painfully between the ring and his hairless lower belly. It was only a quick application of saliva smeared to ring, cockshaft, scrotum, and prick, which saved the day.

  "I always marvel at how you do that without your dick snapping off,” Luuk Riin, King/Lord and Master, said, with admiration for the prestidigitation just performed, for not the first time, for his benefit.

  "Even snapped in half, my dick would provide plenty of filling for that tight ass of yours,” Marl boasted. He turned the gold cockring in a counterclockwise direction to screw it even more firmly against his muscle-firm lower belly.

  Luuk was constantly exposed to superior physiques, including his own, on battlefields, in locker rooms, in pleasure palaces, but he was still impressed each and every time Marl was stark naked for viewing. There was something about the young man's handsome facial features, complete with blond hair, blue eyes, chiseled jaw line, dimpled cheeks, cleft chin ... something about the young man's perfectly mirrored pectorals sharing a common deep cleavage ... something about the young man's sculptured abdominals, hard as palinko stone and punctuated with a belly button neither innie or outtie ... something about the young man's columnar thighs, triangular calves, and large and perfectly formed feet ... that provided Luuk the kind of penis-swelling enjoyment that he'd never experienced with anyone else.

  Luuk's impressive cock was swollen beneath his loin cloth.

  "I presume this—,” Marl's thumb and forefinger slid the gold to emphasize the subject matter presently wrapped tightly around his dick, “—came to me via you; came to you via the treasure chest seized from its courier en route to Den-Den Lou."

  "Put to much better use, encircling your horse dick, if I do say so, myself,” Luuk confirmed, “rather than melted down to finance rebellion."

  "Speaking of the contents of the treasure chest, tell me about the candle."

  "Such nonsensical curiosity I can understand from the ignorant, but I considered you far more enlightened."

  "Said to have been made by Delimar-Gloo in his Maridian Cave Complex. The magician came out of retirement to do the deed, flattered that Den-Den Lou actually hoped magic, in this time of waning magic, might turn the tide."

  Luuk smiled. With or without magic-definitely-in-decline, Den-Den Lou and his band of ragamuffin Callalians were doomed by Luuk's superior forces and intellect. For Den-Den Lou actually to have gone groveling to the fakir at Maridian Cave Complex was genuinely a last-ditch effort by him to save his sorry ass.

  "It's said that Den-Den Lou paid with two malimuk fighters and a dolinian wolf?"

  "I heard that rumor, too.” Luuk's voice was chastising. “Had Den-Den Lou had two malimuk fighters and a dolinian wolf to spare, he would have sold them for gold, not for some phallic wax plaything to be used for wizardry."

  "It is lingam-like, then?"

  "Oh, yes, definitely that!"

  "A dildo candle, then? A candle dildo?"

  "Merely a candle with protruding wick made to look as if ejaculate."

  "Stowed where at this very moment?"

  "In its box, in my vault."

  "To be summoned, whenever I'm absent, to service your ass?"

  Luuk laughed. “But of course!” His confirmation was denial.

  "You do so enjoy something hard rammed deep up your ass, my king, lord and master. My hard dick has been there often enough to know."

  "Your dick my ass can handle. Successfully sitting that candle would be quite another story."

  "Cast in life-like replica of the magician Delimar-Gloo's very own cock, to make it magical, or so the story goes."

  Luuk shook his head that anyone or anything could still be considered magical in the present age of enlightenment. Maybe there might, once upon a time, have been magic; all the obviously exaggerated tales were likely based upon some reality, but Luuk couldn't imagine there really ever having been something as miraculous as ... say ... the collapse of the walls at Jenicum. Even if such a thing had happened, an earthquake was more apt than witchcraft. That Delimar-Gloo was retired (except for the occasional reemergence for the likes of this candle business), was proof-positive that the days of magic were pretty much over and done.

  "It has always been said that Delimar-Gloo, as a young man, bargained with the Devil in exchange for a cock the size of a bull,” Marl said. His fingers languidly stroked the impressive length of his own animal-size prick; by way of reward, he received a dew-like drop of pre-seminal fluid which his fingertips spread, like olive oil, along the entire length of his erection. The sticky moisture made his cock glow.

  "If the candle is representative of what's to be found between Delimar-Gloo's legs, now or at any time in the past, he bargained with the Devil for the cock of an elephant,” Luuk said. “If any human being actually volunteered his dick for that casting, it had to have been none other than the legendary Colossus of Mlin."

  "Have your steward fetch this casting of the cock of the legendary Colossus of Mlin,” Marl said. “I would see it."

  "You would sit on it, more likely,” Luuk said. “As many months as my cock has been servicing your rectum, your anus just may be stretched well enough for you to take it without splitting asshole to backbone."

  "I can't believe you've left it sequestered within its box,” Marl berated. “You had to know that I would be curious."

  "Isn't it my cock with which you should be more concerned? Or, are you so familiar with it now that you're ready to move on to what you assume is bigger and better?"

  "You and I know there's no substitute for your hard dick that could ever be conjured by a mere magician."

  "You think flattery is going to get you what you want?"

  "Maybe not. However, I'll bet my gold-cockringed cock can work some real magic up your tight asshole while your steward is en route to-and-fro the vault rooms."

  "How about you fuck my ass and let me decide, then, whether your efforts, when done, actually merit any reward? If so, we can regroup with a glass of wine before you get all horny at the sight of some waxy replica of the Colossus of Mlin's cock and ruin yourself for the both of us by irresistibly splitting your butt down and over it?"

  "Why not just send your steward for it, right now?"

  "It is just a candle shaped like a giant prick, for gods’ sake, Marl. No doubt, after all the hype, the reality will prove anticlimactic."

  "Then, I'll always have my lead-in fuck of your always-pleasurable-to-fuck butt by way of consolation."

  Luuk rang for Melick Gaval, his steward, and sent him to the vault for the Delimar-Gloo candle.

  "If your fuck of my butt isn't above standard, I can still have the candle sent back before its box is opened,” Luuk warned.

  "As if any fuck by me would ever be anything but above standard,” Marl boasted, and he had every right to boast. He possessed a sexual expertise few could rival. It was a good part of what saw him where he was, with whom he w
as, when he was.

  "On second thought, why don't we save that dick of yours for later, after it's hardened even more as a result of strangulation by its new golden collar?"

  "You'd prefer to fuck my ass.” It wasn't a question.

  "My fucking your ass would have your dick spitting prostate-massage cream in too short a time,” Luuk foretold. “This leaves us with the best alternative of you just going down on my fat dick to make me cream."

  "Oh, I think I can manage that, especially if that bulge beneath your loin cloth is what I think it is."

  "If you think it's my stiff cock, waiting your hot mouth, you're right.” Luuk dropped all concealment, proving his boast wasn't idle."

  "Yes, indeed,” Marl said. He walked closer to his king. He dropped to his knees. He manhandled his king's dick into a position that allowed Marl's tongue to lick one long and leisurely path from his lord/master's balls to the drop of pre-cum that obligingly beaded, like magic, within the pouted lips of Luuk's cockmouth.

  "Ahhhhhh,” Marl complimented, simultaneously sucking up the clear moisture his king's phallic pap was providing. He swallowed inch after inch after inch of the elixir-producing member. His nose burrowed within the curly black pubic hair clustering the thick base of Luuk's stiff-and-getting-stiffer penis.

  Marl was pleased, as he always was at such a moment. He lucked out in being called upon to service a dick that wasn't difficult for him to eat whole. Luuk being who he was, Marl would have certainly provided the required servicing whether the king's dick was an uncomfortable fit or not. Marl had gotten as far as he had in life (and that was a good ways) by being able to manage things pleasant and unpleasant to speed him along his way. As it advantageously turned out, though, Luuk wasn't hung like the Midget of Melista, nor like the Colossus of Mlin. Luuk's cock dimensions were inclined toward the latter but not so much that Marl's experience had ever proved anything but enjoyably successful in mouthing the totality of royal phallus to creamy discharge.