by Aaron, Blair
As Ava stepped through the place she found herself capable of the most magical stirring in her heart. The home, even though this was the first time she had seen it, seemed altogether familiar, warm, and comforting. Bastian, for the first time, looked her in the eyes.
"I can see your sadness and loneliness," Bastian said.
Ava could not meet his gaze.
"You used to cry yourself asleep at night, because you felt no one was there for you. Your parents have given you up for dead. Your supposed friends are moving on with their lives, having children, marrying the love of their lives, going on picnics, with sandwiches and apples. But you--you're all alone."
"How can you know this much?"
"Because I love you Ava. I'm your soul mate. I can see past your exterior, into your soul, and I know you're hurting. But what I want you to know is that I'm hurting too. I'm sad too. And that means you're not alone."
Ava, for the first time in her life, looked inward. She could see her emotional organs rearranging, and her entire life suddenly came into focus. She had seen Julian at face value and taken that as all there was to him. The fullness of a personality--its ugliness and prickliness--almost never shows itself on the first impression.
Ava took a second look at Bastian. His appearance was changing. His pock marked skin was slowly clearing up. His drooping eyes started coming back to life. His feeble posture righted itself. He was transforming. Bastian beamed.
"It's working!"
"What's working?"
"The curse cast on me by my brother is lifting. Julian said the only way it could be broken was if I could find someone to love me."
By now, like a photography coming into focus, Bastian's body was that of a completely different person. What remained was a man with dirty blond hair, brown eyes, and a large strong head. His skin was dark tanned but clean. His hands were long but beautiful. His calves bulged from his legs, and his feet were shaped like that of a French model. Youthful was his appearance, the direct opposite of his prior state of affairs. His lips were full and rosy. He placed a single kiss on Ava's lips. A warm tingling sensation radiated from her mouth out to the rest of her body, not just her nether regions this time. Her soul took a few steps into deeper waters, and she felt more whole and complete than she could remember. All the sadness and separateness melted away, and she was home.
She stared at him, dazed and mesmerized, and he went over and got down on one knee, and laid his head on her knees, completely still. Ava was numb and shocked, and looked down at his beautiful hair on the back of his head, feeling his face pressing her thighs. In all her burning anxiety, she needed to feel the softness of his face on her hears and the tenderness of his lips.
And he looked up at her, locking her gaze with his doe-like eyes. Her heart called out to him. From her soul flowed the protective, everlasting yearning over him, and she answered him with permanent loyalty. He was without a doubt a very nervous lover, trembling as if he'd never made love before, completely focused on her, but at the same time, painfully aware of his surroundings--the warmth of the fire by their bed, the soft rocking of its frame, the howling of the wolves in the forest, the soft and purring wind, and even all the stars in the sky, twinkling softly with harmonious permission. She could meet him only partway at this point. Once he knew that he lay quiet and calm, very calm. She placed her hand softly on his head. Peace.
CHAPTER VII
The bedroom was quiet, save the soft, crisp crackle of the fireplace. A moose peered into the window of Bastian's cabin, where he lay on his bed with his one eternal love. Ava looked up at him.
"Are you a warlock?"
"What would you think if I said yes?"
"Do you have any powers?"
"I used to, before my brother placed a hex on me."
"How did it happen in the first place, if you were both equal in power?"
"I'm not sneaky like him. And power corrodes your soul."
"I mean, why didn't you fight him?"
Bastian stopped. "I guess I was ashamed of my kind. I thought maybe I could ignore it and pretend I was normal, and then everything would be okay. Now it's obvious that that's not true. Maybe I should just be more cautious about how I use my powers."
Ava thought for a second. "Would you be able to take him if he showed up right now?"
"Maybe..."
There was a moment of silence before a loud knock shook the front door of Bastian's cabin. Ava stole a glance at her lover, whose eyes were glowing with the golden spirit of a lion. She looked down at her thigh, where she found a dark blue mark in the shape of a bite. The mark burned ice-cold, and Bastian got up from the bed…
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EXCERPT
The door opened slightly and Stetson was standing there, large and hulking and mountainous. Stetson stepped into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. He was wearing a blue work shirt, long-sleeve with a sweat-soaked bandana around his neck. He took his black hat off and laid it on the night stand.
He stopped for a second.
“I'm sorry. Don't tell my brother what I did please. Nobody knows about me,” Carter said.
“Carter I don't trust people. I lost my lady to another guy. She was the only lady I ever knew. I been burned too many times. Don't you dare burn me too.”
“What have I done?” Carter said, panicked.
“Nothing yet.”
“I'm sorry I did that. I just couldn't help it.” Carter tried to go on but Stetson stopped him. He grabbed Carter's hand and placed it on his package, large and bulging through his jeans. His hand was practically on fire, and Carter himself was near the point of having a heart attack at this point.
“What do you mean man?” Carter was shaking. Stetson locked eyes with Carter and kept them locked while he unbuttoned his teal-colored dress shirt. He breathed through his nose in soft, consistent intervals. Stets
on's torso was massive even when he sat on Carter's twin bed, his chest folded over onto his stomach, leaving a small roll of the smallest amount of fat as he bent over to pull Carter's shirt off. Then he got up and locked the bedroom door. Things were about to get serious.
“I thought you were straight.” Stetson ignored him as he sat back on the bed. He looked away from Carter for a second, and it was clear to Carter that Stetson was having second thoughts. Carter's fantasy had become reality and it was all about to fall apart. Even though this was practically the scariest moment of Carter's life, next to the incident with the Nash-Gibson gang, he could see that his own nervousness was getting the best of him and if he didn't act now, it would be too late. It was time to man up and take charge of the situation, or he'd miss the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have sex with a straight guy who'd never been with a man.
“Look,” Carter said, putting his hand on Stetson's massive shoulder. “I like you. It's okay. You don't have to be afraid. This is our business, nobody else's.”
It occurred to Carter that maybe Stetson suffered from a loneliness he couldn't escape with women. Ultimately no one truly knows why they do the things they do, and Carter wasn't willing to dig too deeply for fear it would ruin the moment. Whatever it was that made Stetson accept his advances, Carter wasn't complaining. He wanted more.
He put his face close to Stetson, and he could smell in one strong breath the wildness of the forest in which Stetson hunted, the muskiness of the rain he's worked shirtless in during summers in the mountains to build a house for his ailing father, and the free air that blew across Stetson when he rode horseback to fuck his girlfriend for the first time on a camping trip. Carter placed his lips on Stetson's neck and he could feel the thumping of his heart in his chest, a strong, hardy beat you would find only from the best stock. Carter felt the chaotic energy coiled up inside Stetson's body, ready to explode at any moment. It was the most erotic moment of his life.
He rubbed his face against Stetson's, who let him, giving Carter no indication he wanted him to stop. He tasted his lips and then chin and then his suprasternal notch. The deep and strong collarbone lay a few millimeters underneath the soft, smooth skin.
Suddenly Stetson exploded with a fiery passion Carter surely didn't expect. He grabbed Carter by the chest and lay him down on the bed, groping his hands over his waist, while making out with Carter. He put his tongue in Carter's mouth, sliding it down into his throat, filling him up for a moment. Carter enjoyed the fullness. But he wanted Stetson inside him.
After a few seconds of making out, it seemed to Carter like Stetson didn't know what to do next. Carter wanted Stetson inside of him badly but didn't know how to approach the idea of anal sex. For the second time, he stifled his fear about how this guy would react to him and just took off his pants and got on all fours, presenting him to the guy for the taking. Carter faced away from Stetson for a few seconds and wouldn't dare turn around for fear of how the cowboy would react. He prayed to get the reaction he expected. Then he heard the sound a belt unbuckling and pants slipping onto the floor. The bed shook a little as Stetson got on the bed, and Carter's heartbeat sped up even more. Suddenly he could feel the thickness of Stetson's cock around the rim of his ass, tickling him ever so slightly. He heard Stetson spit and suddenly, too suddenly, he felt an immense pressure and pain as Stetson entered him. He never had a chance to see the size of Stetson's member before they began having intercourse, but if the physical sensation was any indication, it was massive.
The sex was painful, no lie, but after a while things got immensely better. He could feel the hardness of Stetson's muscles on his back as the cowboy kept pumping away. Carter felt for the first time in over a year that same pleasing wholeness and contentedness he felt with Maddox. But how could keep this going with Stetson?
Carter wanted to see him, look him in the eye, as they made love.
“Hang on,” Carter said under his breath.
Stetson stopped and pulled out of him. Carter flipped himself around and saw for the first time the man naked in his fully glory. His thighs were thick as tree trunks with hair in all the places. His waist was small but not overly so, and surprisingly, his knees were without a doubt the most beautiful part of his body, next to his hands. Stetson seemed a little embarrassed by Carter's eyes roaming over his body.
He leaned forward and lay on top of Carter, kissing his cheek and ear area. Carter wrapped his legs around him as Stetson re-entered him. He was pumping away. He grunted in Carter's ear as he orgasmed. The sounds of his deep voice in the heat of passion were more than enough for Carter to come not a few seconds after.
Stetson lay on top of Carter for a silent second before the sound the bedroom door opened. They both looked up to find to see Jaylon standing there in disbelief.
“Dear God a'mighty in heaven,” Jaylon said.
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CHAPTER LIST
TAMING THE STALLION
RIDING THE STALLION
SAVING THE STALLION
GUARDING THE STALLION
REDEEMING THE STALLION
Taming the Stallion
I
Every year when the carnival rolled into the small town of Baggs, Wyoming, Carter Simmons made a pact with his boyfriend that they'd have sex in the fun-house when all the drunk visitors stumbled their way through the maze, which Carter's father helped design.
"Okay let's go back here," Maddox said. He walked in front of Carter through the smoke. Drunk men with their cotton-candy toting girls laughed through the metallic walls as their reflections in the mirrors. Maddox was a thickly built blonde guy who enjoyed wearing his boots over his jeans. Carter's first impression of Maddox, before he fell in love with him, was that he was the straightest guy east of the Mississippi. But when met him on at a bar on Bourbon street, the first thing to jump out to Carter was the fact that Maddox wouldn't take the shots the female waitresses were vigorously foisting on him. They'd take his hand and put glowing test tubes of tequila in their cleavage, summoning Maddox like a succubus from a sexy dream. He didn't budge. When Carter laughed out loud, Maddox heard and the rest is history.
Carter was the bottom, simply because the love of his life would never trade positions. The truth was that Maddox was in all ways pure cowboy, save one. He liked slim, tall boys with big lips who looked just like Carter, instead of busty girls. Maddox treated Carter with the grace and care he would a woman, if he'd been straight. So it was in this way Carter could see that it truly wasn't in his boyfriend's nature to be anything but dominant.
They stepped around the corner from where a couple was laughing. Maddox put his hands on Carter's face in the dark, groping for where to plant his first kiss. He found Carter's lips and began making out with him. His calloused hands were something permanent that Carter endured because Maddox's job required heavy labor in the oil fields of Louisiana. For some reason, though, no matter how dirty Maddox got, after a quick shower it was like his skin rejuvenated itself, white and without a single mark. His odor was slightly sweet, as well.
As they continued to make out, Carter put his hands on Maddox's chest, a thick slab of pec, smooth as a marble sculpture. He continued down his abs where he could begin to feel the soft fuzz of his boyfriend's pubic hair. Maddox's gigantic erection was swelling fast as they continued their foreplay. Soft grunts vibrated through the area, drowned by the din of the carnival, the laughter, the screams of excited riders, the giggles of school children. Maddox drifted his kissing down Carter's neck, sending soft tingles of energy through his body. He took his strong, 21-year old hands and ripped Carter's shirt open. He could feel Maddox continue tasting his chest and then his pelvic area.
; Carter put his hands on Maddox's sides and pulled him closer. He began stroking his boyfriend's cock, now swollen to its full glory, as Maddox took Carter's penis in his mouth and rolled his tongue around Carter's dick. The metallic walls shook as a teen male threw his body up against the wall to see if it would crumble. Unbeknownst to that teen and his friends, Carter and Maddox were making sweet, sweet love on the other side of the wall at that very moment.
Maddox picked Carter up and put him on a metal crate in the dark corner of the fun house. They could smell that sugary scent of airborne mist used to create atmosphere of the maze. A soft hiss hiss of the machines at their feet expelled streams of smoke and the light from the fun-house leaked out from under the crack in the wall.
Maddox stepped out of his jeans, smiling (he never did any talking during sex) and pulled Carter's underwear off aggressively. Maddox's erect cock was thick and long and it hung over under its own weight. Carter put his hands on Maddox's square waist as Maddox entered him. There was always a little pain at first, but this time they'd brought lube so things got very pleasurable as Maddox began pumping away.
Carter and the rest of the Simmons family were the caretakers of their own self-made carnival called the Buffalo Bill Travelling Carnival. The company originated from an early 20th century entrepreneur from Chicago who enjoyed spending his fortune on various exotic investments. Unlike the rest of his ventures, the Buffalo Bill carnival was hugely successful, and, being that there is no greater bore than perfection, the rich Chicagoan sold it off to Carter's grandfather. The company remained financially solvent through the century and into 1978, when Carter's grandfather died and left it to his son, Carter's dad. Life as a "carny," though Carter never particularly enjoyed hearing the term, meant he had to adapt to constantly changing circumstances. Never staying in one place for more than three weeks, Carter habituated himself to the friends he'd make and then lose all over again throughout high school. He made peace with the schooling from different mail slots each month and the strange gaps in education. (For example, he taught himself through home school how to write rudimentary programming languages on the computer, but he couldn't do long division. He could recite his own Shakespearean sonnets, but he never learned proper punctuation.) He also tricked himself into enjoying the musty smell of motels he was forced to cook his dinners in when he came home from helping build the makeshift, collapsible roller coasters and spinning teacups.
