In Flesh and Stone

by Hal Bodner

  By the time Aquarius at last shuddered and the flow ebbed to a few clinging drops releasing their hold on the end of his dick and plummeting to the ground, Alex felt like he’d finished a sexual marathon that had lasted for days. He and Tony turned to each other as one, and their lips met. The taste of his lover’s tongue, the scent of his warm breath was, after what they had just gone through and perhaps not surprisingly, very mundane. Nevertheless, Alex would not have traded it for a hundred more experiences like the one they’d just had.

  Lovingly, playfully, their tongues intertwined and when they finally broke the clinch and drew back, their expressions were satisfied and yet still held the promise of more to come. Tony grinned and his eyes flicked down to take in Alex’s body. Alex threw back his head and laughed. Like Tony, he knew he was covered with thick, blue sticky splotches. They looked like they’d just rolled around naked while squirting each other with tubes of Alex’s oil paints.

  He reached out and took Tony’s hand and they helped each other to their feet. He turned, intending to thank Aquarius for the bounty, and frowned. Like the Archer before him, the Water-Bearer had disappeared. Not even the sparkling fountain remained in memorial to his presence.

  Alex didn’t let it bother him for long. Still laughing, he pulled Tony into a close embrace and, with little sidesteps, managed to maneuver the two of them to the water’s edge. Mischievously, he hooked one foot behind Tony’s ankle and they both tumbled into the little lake. It was deeper than Alex had thought, perhaps two or three feet, and both of them ducked underwater. When they came up for air, Tony sputtering and trying his best to present the picture of outrage and failing miserably, their bodies were smeary and the surface of water around them held a sheen of spreading blue.

  Alex cupped his hands and brought the cool, crisp water to Tony’s chest, gently bathing away the vestiges of Aquarius’s sperm. Tony’s nipples hardened at the cold, and though he felt neither of them could possibly even think about any more sex, Alex buried his face in his lover’s chest and nipped playfully at the taut buds. When he was finished with Tony’s front, he moved behind him and gently washed away the colorful leavings that remained, pausing to ease imagined tension from his lover’s shoulders and neck with firm fingers, running the backs of his hands down the length of Tony’s sides and back, allowing his fingers to linger and tickle at the swell of his buttocks where it half emerged from the water.

  Once Tony was clean, it was Alex’s turn, and the favor was more than repaid. Tingling and sated, they climbed from the lake and lay on the sand by the shore, arms and legs intertwined, with Alex’s head on Tony’s shoulder. It was peaceful, and safe and, above all, comforting.

  Alex felt his eyes start to close as he drifted off into a light doze. He and Tony were back together at last. He wanted never to leave this lakeside oasis. He wanted never to move from this spot, to grow old in the embrace of Tony’s arms. Everything was simple. Everything was perfect. Everything was as it should be.

  But of course, it could not last. So imperceptibly that Alex did not at first notice, Tony’s body grew less substantial. When he realized what was happening, Alex rolled over, his eyes widening when he saw his lover’s ghostly figure fading; his arm where it was braced on the ground had passed clean through the disembodied chest. With a cry of dismay, he leapt to his feet, then, not knowing what else to do, he flung himself full length atop Tony’s body. But his mouth, so eager to kiss those beloved lips, was filled instead with sand that had grown clammy. His chest was abraded by tiny imperfections in the dirt. His clutching fingers were filled with small pebbles and shards of broken shell.

  Fists clenched around the bits of lakeside rubble, he threw back his head and wailed his protest to the sky, so recently crystalline blue and now gray and overcast. The only drops of moisture slipping onto his bare chest were his tears. He sobbed and sobbed, feeling like his eyes were rimmed with salt but the sting was worse than physical -- it had penetrated to his very soul.

  “It is not yet time.” A rumbling bass interrupted his grief, filled with a rough kindness and sympathy for his sorrow. “Soon, but not yet.”

  Through the blur of tears, Alex saw the thick-fingered hand extended to help him up from where he lay. The skin was coarse, the knuckles thick and ridged; even the fingernails were blunted and roughened. Not caring whether this new visitation would subject him to even fouler tortures than Scorpio, would raise him to bliss like Sagittarius had done, or would demand the kind of worship he had given to Leo, the artist reached up and clasped the offered palm, desperate for something, anything, to distract him from his pain.

  CHAPTER 10

  Given the two most recent Zodiac Men Alex had met, this one looked fairly human though his brow was abnormally thick and heavy over deep-set eyes, his ears were oddly shaped and seemed to move independently of his head, and his impossibly pug nose was pierced with a golden ring. He was an older man, not as old as Charles but perhaps nearing fifty, and his hair was attractively grayed in all the right places. Broad shoulders and deep chest fostered the impression of a squat body that was well-muscled but not gym-toned. Rather, this man had the frame of someone who had spent years laboring, pulling and hauling things, digging perhaps -- the body of a construction worker or lumberjack.

  The small pointed horns peeping through the iron-gray hair on the sides of his head were unobtrusive and, frankly, Alex might have overlooked them had he not recognized the man and known they would be there.

  Had Alex run into him alone, in some dark city alley, he would have been cautious. Despite not being in the least feminine, he was always easily pegged as being gay. He was simply too well kept, too perfectly dressed in spite of the ubiquitous driblet of paint he always overlooked no matter how thoroughly he bathed, too cosmopolitan to be anything but a successful and too-obviously wealthy urban homosexual. He would have had fleeting thoughts about the possibility of being bashed, or at least roughed up, by the sort of person he saw standing before him. In a gay section of town, he could see his new visitor striding down the street in an old white T-shirt faded to a dingy cream and a worn leather jacket – not one purchased for show, but one which he threw over his shoulders every day without thought – and blue jeans with the knees worn through from squatting on the ground and not by virtue of some designer name’s affectation.

  But this man was different. In spite of his looks, the raw roughness that emanated from him and the clear impression that if angered his rage would be devastating, his eyes betrayed the harsh and unyielding image he presented. Orbs of deep, rich burgundy rimmed with chocolate brown pulsed with speckles of an earthen red in their depths. Though they were emphatically not human, there was much of humanity within them – a strong and supportive confidence penetrated past the kindly gaze they cast upon Alex, and it solaced him.

  Unable to stop him – for the man’s strength was prodigious and not to be denied – Alex felt himself drawn into the man’s chest, the wiry gray hairs there not unpleasant where they pressed against his cheek, and enfolded in his muscled arms. He felt a rough stroking on the back of his neck, the coarsened palms patted at his hair. Weak as a puppy, Alex collapsed and, with the fortitude of a massive granite wall, Taurus didn’t even bother to brace himself against the artist’s full weight when Alex burst into uncontrollable sobs once again.

  “Soon,” he repeated when it appeared Alex had cried himself out and had started to sniffle.

  Alex placed both palms on the Bull’s chest and pushed himself back slightly. Desperate for something to take his mind off his angst, he grabbed at what he had known to work for so long in his times of troubles before he and Tony had met. He seized upon the one thing he knew could divert him from thinking, from having to feel, the one thing other than making art which might grant him an emotional catharsis.

  “Take me!” he pleaded. “Now! Fuck me. Fuck me hard. Fuck me so I feel nothing but your dick up my ass. Pound me until I scream!”

  Taurus’s arms were unwaver
ing. He held Alex firmly at a distance of several inches from his body and said nothing, looking at him without discernable expression.

  “Please, please,” Alex begged, whimpering, but Taurus stood mute, waiting expectantly for some additional signal.

  “I need...I need something,” Alex went on. “Something to take away the pain. To distract me from what I’m feeling...here.” He brought a clenched fist to his chest and pounded on his breastbone.

  Understanding dawned in the older man’s eyes, with perhaps a hint of disappointment. When he spoke, his voice was still kindly, but also expressed a certain sadness.

  “You need Tony.”

  “Yes! Yes!” Alex cried out. He shrugged off the Bull’s hands and whirled around, his open arms taking in the pastoral glen, the placid water of the lake. “But where is he? Do you see him?” He fell to his knees and challenged the sky. “Bring him back to me!” he screamed.

  Moments passed.

  “No?” he finally said wryly, bitterly, in a voice scarce above a whisper. He met Taurus’s gaze once again, this time with determination. “Then I’ll take what I can get.”

  “Soon,” Taurus reassured him. “But as I said, not yet. For now, though...”

  He knelt and his face was on the same level as Alex’s, even though when upright, the artist had been the taller man. Taurus gathered him into his arms and pulled him into his chest once more. Alex sighed, signaling the beginning of some kind of release of emotion, when he felt the coarse chest hairs tickle his eyelids again. His hands roved over the skin of Taurus’s shoulders and back as he returned the hug, not expecting to feel the smooth suppleness of the other Zodiac Man and taking what comfort he could from the dry, leathery quality of the older man’s flesh.

  Taurus drew Alex’s face to his and his tongue, when he kissed him, was thick; the surface seemed impregnated with minuscule grains of sand. His breath wasn’t sweet like that of the others. It was far from unpleasant, but held disturbing notes of something that had been around for a while, like cut vegetation or turned earth, not rotting exactly – there was nothing putrid or fetid in the taste and smell of the Bull. Rather, it was as if the scent was of something that had simply...endured. It was the smell of age, of experience, of confident acceptance of the way things worked in the world at large, and the strength to take in stride whatever came along.

  Alex winced when Taurus bore him to the ground backwards. His position on his knees made it awkward for him to swing his legs out from under him in time to avoid having them snapped off. But Taurus took his time in the motion and with only a little bit of shifting, Alex was able to lie comfortably prone on his back, facing the powerfully built man who supported his own weight on elbows and knees above him.

  He closed his eyes and felt the Bull’s hands running over his torso, the palms so coarse they stopped just short of being abrasive. The sensation was not entirely comfortable but Alex relished it nonetheless. He gasped when Taurus’s hand closed around his dick. It was like the organ was wrapped in something akin to sandpaper though the Bull’s hands were substantially softer and not at all irritating. When the older man began stroking him, the feeling was vastly different than any Alex had ever experienced before. This was no gentle gliding of oiled fingertips on the tube of his cock. There was no rough pulling or tugging on his dick. It was a steady thrum of movement, measured and unvarying, up and down, absent of any pretense at technique or attempt to tantalize – a measured and inevitable and practically mechanical movement designed to do nothing but achieve its goal.

  Nevertheless, Alex moaned. He’d thought it was impossible for his body to tolerate any more sexual stimulation after what he and Tony had just experienced together, but he was wrong. It might take him a while to reach climax, but he knew he would get there in time. In fact, given the predictability, the constant unaltered pace of Taurus’s ministrations to his dick, he fancied he might even be able to calculate exactly when.

  As his dick got harder and harder, he absently noticed that the rest of his body still seemed numb. There was no tingling in his chest, no flutter in his stomach, his nipples ached for no touch. His entire being was focused on what was happening to his penis. Silently, he concentrated on his balls, urging them to manufacture more sperm quickly so he could ejaculate and try, try so very desperately, to subsume his sorrow in the throes of an orgasm. He was just reaching the point where ejaculation was imminent when the Bull stopped and, without warning, seized him roughly by his shoulders and flipped him over.

  Alex’s protest was drowned by a mouthful of gritty sand. He had just gotten himself fully immersed in the steady rhythm of the hand job and the interruption broke his mood. He began to lever himself up with his arms but the wind was knocked out of him when Taurus’s strong hand in the center of his back pushed him facedown again.

  So consumed by his grief had he been that he had not noticed much about the Bull’s penis when he’d first appeared, other than that it seemed large – just like the dicks of the others. But now, with the stalwart head probing at the crack of his ass, he was surprised at his oversight. From the feel of it, the thing must be enormous. Even now, before any real entry had been attempted, Alex’s cheeks were spread wide, wider than he’d ever remembered them spread before, separated by the bulk of the head of Taurus’s mighty staff.

  “Relax,” the low voice whispered in his ear. “This was what you wanted.”

  Alex shook his head back and forth in an emphatic no, but he knew it was far too late to change his mind. He would just have to submit to that thick, impossibly thick, cock forcing its way past his sphincter, plunging up the length of his asshole and ripping into the depths of him. Knowing he had only scant seconds to prepare for the penetration, he brought his forearm to his mouth and bit down on it, trying to steel himself against the expected pain.

  He screamed into his arm as the tender flesh of his rosebud was shoved aside by the head of the Bull’s dick. He clenched his muscles as best he could, but when the pain grew to where he felt as if he would be ripped in two if he didn’t give in, he forced his ass to relax. After that, the pain was still there, but more manageable, and Alex prayed Taurus would get on with the act. Hopefully, when the older man’s dick began slamming against his prostate, the pleasure he would derive from it would be enough to dull the fire in his poor, poor butt hole.

  But Taurus refused to be rushed. First the head went in and, an instant later, it pulled out. Then the motion was repeated, only this time, the Bull’s dick went in a tiny bit further. Each time, Alex had a brief second to relish the removal of the wide club from his butt and involuntarily he would tighten the muscles in his ass to no avail. His puny attempts to stop the fucking were effortlessly overcome and he could do nothing but bite harder into his own arm when Taurus forced the ramrod into his hole anew. Two, three, four strokes followed. By this time, Alex figured he was taking a good seven or eight inches and he regretted not having looked more closely at his ravisher’s genitalia earlier. He didn’t know how much more he could handle, but however long the Bull’s dick was, Alex knew he would be unable to withstand very much more without shrieking.

  Each movement was slow, constant; there was no variety to the rhythm. By the eighth or ninth stroke, Alex’s ass muscles were overtaxed and he could clench them no more. He lay there, his hole gaping, while the Bull grunted and continued pumping.

  Finally, the broad head tickled his prostate and, with the next thrust, made fuller contact. Now, instead of biting, Alex used his mouth to gasp. The pleasure born deep within his ass and reaching up into the pit of his stomach was exactly what he had needed. He bucked his hips, seeking to meet the Bull’s pumping halfway and to help him drive deeper. He needn’t have made the effort. With no assistance from the artist, Taurus pushed harder, his dick going in further until Alex feared his prostate would be skewered and Taurus would just keep going until the tip of his dick tore through everything it its way to emerge, bloody and dripping, from his stomach.

&n
bsp; Not knowing what else he could do to stop the delicious torment, and not being able to stand much more, Alex focused his attention on the sensations of his own body, consciously forcing himself to come nearer, ever nearer to climax – willing it to happen. Finally, he felt the familiar gathering in his balls, the surge, the rush of sperm down his urethra and, with a moan containing much more relief than pleasure, he shot. The trickle was feeble. The surging of his dick lasted only a few seconds – the spasms were brief. Nevertheless, Taurus seemed to know he had cum, and slowly reduced his inexorable pace and shortly thereafter pulled out.

  Alex lay wondering if when he stood, he would have blood trickling down the backs of his thighs. He took a few moments to compose himself, to catch his breath, and to examine how he felt. The pain, the emotional pain, was still there. But it was muted, manageable. When he finally rolled over onto his back, intending to thank the older man for his kindness, no matter how rough it had been, he saw only the sky, the rocky walls surrounding the glade and the serene surface of the lake.

  His grin was wry. He had expected as much.

  Then, as he watched, the rocks and stones, the sandy and gritty beach, everything he could see began to waver and dim. At a languid pace it faded to darkness, and soon, even the quiet slosh of the water lapping at the shoreline grew still.

  * * * *

  “Holy crap! Did you see that?” Corey’s expression held one part startled shock and two parts admiration.