Harvest of Change

by Darragha Foster

  “I will not see the child I produce.”

  “Chances not, son. Mating with the harvest takes a lot out of a man. You may come through it just fine. You may come out blind. Or feeble-minded. Or without your testicles.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “Yes, I am, son. Point is, our people do not fornicate without the blessings of the harvest. Seed is sacred and should be spilled in the name of the harvest alone.”

  “You sound so certain of things, Father.”

  “It is our way. Traditional ways are the strength of our world, and it is we who hold the vault of heaven in check as the storms of change blow against it. I would not see our world topple for one kiss and fondle with a doxy from the north. No, you must remain pure for your wedding night. I guarantee you, it is worth the wait.”

  “Thank you, Father. I think I shall go the stable and ride until my clothes are dry so as not to alarm Mother.”

  “A good plan, that. I’ll see you later.” His father smiled, revealing the gap in his teeth. He pointed at it and chuckled. “There’s always a clue left behind when you break with tradition, son. You should pray about what you did today that set you so desperately in need of a bath.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Judah jogged to the stables at the far end of his family compound. By traditionalist standards, they were a wealthy clan. Because he was the Chosen One, neighbors often gifted them goats or sacks of flour and sometimes, beautiful foals. His twelve-year-old mare had been such a gift; Hravart—Varti—a red thoroughbred with a silky mane and bright eyes.

  He reached out for her. She always met him at the gate. “You are the only woman I shall ever love, Hravart. My red beauty. You will be the only thing I truly miss when I am fed to the flames of the harvest.”

  Hravart nosed his hand and nickered.

  “Yes, let’s go for a ride.”

  Too impatient to retrieve the saddle pad and bit, Hay climbed atop his horse and used the lead rope to maneuver her bareback across the field. The wind slapped his face and sent his cotton shirtsleeves out like sails on a ship. He felt the water wick away as the late afternoon sun dried his clothing.

  He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and urged Hravart to a full cantor. She responded by giving him a little kick-out, and then like a bolt of red lightning, she took off. He urged her to jump a succession of irrigation ditches and took her through hard paces as he lost himself to her steady gait. The countryside became a blur. All that mattered was the ride. Beyond doubt, the wisdom of the ancients was truer than ever: The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse's ears.

  He pulled the reins to slow Hravart. Until today, this was the only freedom I knew. Being astride my horse freed me of my onus and commitments. Today, I tasted freedom. I would welcome winter’s long embrace but to taste his lips again.

  He reared back, facing home. The barn and silo beckoned to him. The three-story farmhouse, with the picket fence surrounding it to keep the cows out of the yard and mother’s roses, comforted him. The lush green forest flanking the back forty enticed him. In the distance it looked like the wall of a great fortress—tall, dark, and strong. Beyond that fortress was the sacred ground, now permeated with the physical bonding of man to man.

  He rubbed the unique and prophetic birthmark on the back his neck. How can I fail to complete the tasks to which I was born? How can I forsake my family? They believe so purely in the harvest. I cannot run off and leave them to suffer. The community will crumble, and they will be shunned by other traditionalists. The hard rains will come and the frost will follow, and it will not be considered the natural workings of things—I will be blamed. And they will starve and die whilst I roam free. No, I cannot run away from my lot. I must accept my fate and become consort of the goddess. When I bed her, I shall think of him, and when I enter her, I shall think it is him. And when I fade away, used up and worn out, I shall be the flicker of light in the sky that watches over him.

  Chapter 4

  Beck Nazari rolled his neck and flexed his arms and legs before continuing his search for medicinal plants. He adjusted his cock and balls, still vibrating with the after-effects of sexual union. He came upon a sapling struggling to grow in the shadow of a great tree. “All things must be given a chance for growth.” He waved two fingers toward the canopy of branches and leaves filtering light from reaching the forest floor and the decrepit little tree. The branches and leaves folded back, choosing a different direction in which to grow. Sunlight touched down from the heavens, and the sapling quivered, and as Buck directed it with one finger, it sprouted green.

  “I do so love encouraging young things to grow,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder, feeling the life force of a thousand beings calling to him. “Very well, my friends. What do you need? A good rain? Yes? It’s coming soon enough.”

  As if on command, each leaf on each tree, shrub and bush, bowed toward Beck, little stems dipping gracefully on long branches and short tendrils. “You honor me. In return, I honor you. Blessed be the seeds of the harvest.” As if an actor taking a bow after the performance of a lifetime, Beck Nazari bent in single fluid movement, his right arm floating across his solar plexus. “Be fruitful and rejoice in the sowing and reaping of the circle of life, to which we must all bow.”

  A fern stretched out to touch his leg. Beck laughed. “Little fern, you are the backbone of the forest. For you to seek the blessings of the goddess seems redundant. You are a blessing. The blessing.”

  The fern rotated its tendrils to display their speckled underside. There, a family of snails had made a home. And a ground spider. Beck watched as two sod bugs and three small worms moved about the fern’s earth-point. “Ah, so the blessing is for you and those whom you protect. Of course I shall ask the goddess for a blessing for you. She’s pressing against my skull even as we speak. I am but her humble vessel.”

  Chapter 5

  Judah knew something was up the moment he stepped into the house. The holiday table had been pulled out and festooned as if it were being ridden in a parade. Twenty platters had been set, and from the kitchen he could smell both lamb and chicken. The window ledges each held a cooling pie. The scent was unimaginably delicious. And ominous.

  “What are we celebrating, Mother?” he asked.

  His mother waltzed out of the kitchen. “Rejoice, my son. Your wedding day has arrived. We received word from the home of goddess the contingent of workers for her fields is to pass this way tomorrow, and they will escort you to the farm. There, you shall put up her hay and see her early corn to crib and become one with her. Her Harvest King.” His mother bowed her head and placed her palms together. “Blessed is the hard work that bringeth seed to the fields, hay to the loft, and corn to the crib.”

  Judah mechanically recited the response. “Hard work brings our salvation.” As the traditional, meaningless phrase crossed his lips, all the blood rushed from his head. The moment struck him like a door knob to the gut. “So soon? It’s too soon. The season is not yet passed.”

  “The goddess deems the time is right so who are we to beg more time with our precious son? Tomorrow, dawn shall see you away with the workers, and by sundown you shall be a bridegroom.”

  He felt the walls of the house collapsing around him. The pressure of the announcement crushed his heart; imploded his soul. “I’m not ready.”

  His mother shot him a harsh look. “She is ready, and that is all that matters. Now, go wash up for supper. I’ve made all your favorites, and the elders will be here soon.”

  Judah stumbled backward. The closed front door felt like a stranger with a knife pricking his back. His cage had suddenly become very, very uncomfortable. He reached around, feeling the beckoning distance to freedom of the doorknob. One turn of that knob and he would be free of his vile heritage. Indecision tore at his gut. It churned and swirled, and bile ebbed and flowed up his esophagus. “I’m going to be ill,” he choked.

  He opened the door and vomite
d into the bushes. Tears welled. Fists clenched. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his mother placing a cake decorated with the scythe symbol—his birthmark—on the table. I hate the harvest.

  He walked briskly to the washroom to clean up.

  There was no amount of soap and hot water to wash away his rage.

  He splashed his face with almost too-hot water, hoping to wake himself from the nightmare. He watched himself in the mirror. This can’t be real.

  He reached inside a pocket for his pen knife. Without hesitation he thumbed it open and cut his chest, creating thin line of red. He didn’t react to the slice, though the pain was very real. He smeared the trickle of blood. The blood is real.

  This is my life.

  Thereby, Buck is real, too.

  He blotted the wound with a clean towel. It wasn’t deep. The edges were clean. He taped a piece of gauze over the six inch gash and pulled himself together. I don’t want mother to send me out to pray for cutting myself. She’ll get the ladies together and hold vigil all freaking night…

  He slapped his forehead in disbelief. Why didn’t I think of this sooner? I have the right to keep vigil. He dashed into the kitchen. “Mother,” he barely paused, “I shall fast and keep vigil this night before I wed. I shall return in the morning to say my goodbyes.”

  “You don’t have to do that…it’s not required…” his mother protested. “Your party!”

  “I am fraught with feelings too deep to discuss. It is my right to hold vigil, and I feel compelled to do so. I shall go deep into the forest and there make my peace with the Creator and ask for the blessings of the harvest to bring boundless joy to the community.” He leaned down and kissed his mother’s cheek. “Goodbye. See you soon.” He tried not to look into her eyes. Her pious, loving eyes.

  “And goes the bridegroom who shall keep winter at bay,” his mother recited, her voice cracking with pain. “May the seeds of promise blossom beneath his feet.”

  * * * *

  Judah took the time to saddle up Hravart. His horse named for the red rose of summer. She protested being led away from her grain and alfalfa.

  He insisted. She tried to shake off her halter and stomped when he cinched the girth. It took all his strength not to slap her across the hind end. “I’ll bring you a few flakes of hay and fill your feed bag. Behave.”

  Hravart whinnied and snorted.

  Judah rode her hard across the fields into the thicket outside the forest. As if being chased by fire, he couldn’t wait. Couldn’t sit still. The faster he rode, the farther his troubles seemed. He knew the forest pathways like the back of his hand. Hidden to others, he knew every turn. Hravart wasn’t as certain. He egged her on, deeper and deeper into the woods. The canopy shrouded the sun. This time of day only gentle streams of half-light meandered through the leaves to the forest floor. “Don’t spook, girl,” he soothed, scratching her poll and crest. “Don’t you buck or try to toss me now, you hear?”

  Hravart danced away from a shadow.

  “Whoa, girl. Hold on. It’s just a shadow. You know what shadows are. Almost there.”

  Hravart nickered and shook her head.

  The clearing near the stream came into view. He dismounted and dropped the flakes of hay. Hravart ignored the hay and wandered into a patch of clover.

  “You’re quite early.”

  Judah turned to find Buck leaning casually against a tree.

  “I had to get away. Something serious has happened. I-I needed to think.”

  Buck smiled. “And have you? Thought?”

  “I have.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I am leaving. The goddess has sent for me.”

  “Well, that will put a damper on our blossoming relationship, won’t it?” Buck replied.

  “Don’t tease. This is serious. For the first time in my life, I feel I know where I belong, and I am about to be stripped from the very life I am just beginning to enjoy.”

  “For the good of the community.” Buck plucked at the crotch of his pants. “The sight of you arouses me.”

  Judah nodded. “Yes.”

  “Yes, you can see my arousal, or yes, you are leaving for the good of the community?” He held out his strong right arm and drew Judah to him.

  Judah accepted Buck’s strong embrace, finding solace against his chest. “I must leave. I see no other option. My family—my community—are true believers.”

  “What if you could show them the sky will not burn and winter will come and go like always if you do not follow the teachings?”

  Judah laughed. “How might I amend the teachings of a thousand years in one night? My path is fixed. Tomorrow I leave with the caravan of field hands to bring in her hay and work her farm. The Farm. And I shall wed and bed the goddess, and if her belly rises, the covenant of the harvest is again, fulfilled.”

  “What happens when bad seed is sown, Judah?” Buck asked.

  “It fails to grow. It rots in the field. It attracts vermin.”

  Buck stroked his flaxen hair as if he stroked the back of a cat. “Will you provide the goddess with honest seed or that sown by lies?”

  Judah sighed. “Lies. It will all be lies. I do not wish to honor the harvest. I do not believe in the teachings.”

  “Take a stand.”

  Judah pulled away and took a step back. “It is not your family who shall reel with disappointment or tear their foreheads in grief. If I fail to follow the course set out for me from birth, the consequences will be dire.”

  “And?”

  “Doing what is right shall kill me.”

  “Are you certain you know what is right and what is not?”

  “I am torn, sir. I was certain of my decisions until I saw you. Now, I am again, wrecked by indecisiveness.”

  “You have the ability to honor your parents, your birthright, and lay in my arms at will.”

  “You tease me.”

  “I never tease when it comes to freeing the people of the harvest from mandatory prayers and rituals. All should be voluntary. When one does not pray due to fear that the vault of heaven will shatter but for the love of the magical science of the universe…life becomes worth living for life, itself, not adherence to antiquated rituals.” He paused. “Hay, the sky will not fall if you fail to seed the goddess. The earth shall not cease to spin if her hay is brought in by another and her crops tended by other hands. The harvest comes from hard work as seasons change, not through prayer. All else is superstition.”

  “My family would be lost without the prayers and the rhythm of their lives because of them. They are so ingrained in the superstition of the harvest that their cage is one of comfort, not despair.” Hay stripped off his shirt. “Teach me what I must do, Beck Nazari. Teach me how to lead my family out of the confines of meaninglessness and ritual and into one of joy and freedom to believe as they will without fear. But firstly, teach me what I need to know now to further explore the physical pleasure between two men. My mind is clouded by lust, and I swear if I do not feel your mouth against mine this very moment, my ardor shall cause the vault of heaven to collapse in upon itself.”

  Buck chuckled. “Well, we wouldn’t want that to happen now, would we?” He commanded the situation, and swept Judah into his arms.

  *

  Buck had broken young stallions before. He knew just how much rope to give, how to lunge, how to remove fear, and how to instill confidence. He felt Judah’s hand stroke the length of his shaft through his breeches. He gently encouraged Judah’s head down by pressing against his shoulders. Judah dropped to his knees and ran his teeth along the Buck’s thick bulge. “Yes, my golden Hay,” Buck encouraged as Judah withdrew his hardness and stroked the shaft against his mouth. He placed his hands atop Hay’s head. “Man to man,” he sighed.

  “One of the three love matches created long ago.” Judah rubbed Buck’s wet shaft across his chin.

  Buck relished the delightful sensations of tongue to shaft, “It is as sacred a bond as root and tree or
fish and stream.”

  Hay’s horse nickered as she hoofed the ground.

  Buck continued. “It is as sacred as the bond between horse and rider. I would make this bond with you. Man to man.” He moaned as Hay deep-throated his cock. “I pledge to learn all about you, care for you, and nurture you. Protect you.”

  Buck moaned as Judah slid his mouth along his shaft. He mumbled encouragement until he felt the swell of orgasm, but balked as Hay backed away.

  “You would leave me in such a state after I pledge myself to you?” he cried.

  Buck startled as Hay chuckled, deep and throaty. It was a sound most foreign to such innocence.

  In a voice still low and almost menacing, Hay replied, “I want to watch your face as you come. I want to watch you come as I stroke myself off. You are so beautiful, Buck. I want to look into your eyes at the moment of climax.”

  Buck smiled and licked his palm. “My eyes are fixed on your cock, Judah Hayaam. I am going to pull my member until I spill, and then I am going to drain you of seed.”

  Judah grabbed his own cock. Their hands moved in unison and their penises were against the other’s belly. “I see your soul, Beck. Your fire,” Hay said.

  “Watch the fire in my eyes. The fire I have for you.” Buck groaned and quickened his hand as he climaxed over Hay’s stomach.

  “I want to call your fire mine.” He furiously stroked his hand, even as Buck dropped to his knees and sucked the swollen shaft into his mouth.

  “Suck me off…yes…” Judah encouraged.

  Buck pulled away and laughed. “Your vocabulary has certainly changed along with your mindset.” He again took Hay’s engorged member deep into the recesses of his mouth.