The beast shook his head. “No. If you grant me that, I’ll keep you here forever.”
“I don’t know how to leave,” Miles pointed out.
The beast nodded to the flute. “It will take you anywhere you want to go.”
Miles looked down at the flute, then back at the beast. “Anywhere?”
The beast held out his hands. “I accept your bargain. Please, sir—ask me anything.”
“My name is Miles,” Miles said quietly.
The beast made an awkward bow. “It is my pleasure to meet you, Miles. Now please ask me what you will, and I will answer honestly, I swear on my honor.”
Whoever you were, you were a man with honor, Miles thought. He tilted his head to the side and considered the beast a moment.
“Will you be offended if I call you Harry?”
The beast smiled. “Not at all. Harry I am, from this point on.”
Miles nodded. “Okay. Harry, can the flute help me escape the Lord of Dreams?”
“Yes,” Harry said, “if he who plays it knows how to use it.”
“Do you know how to use it?”
Harry shook his head.
Miles looked down at the flute, flicking his thumb over the mouthpiece as he considered. “I wish I knew how I came by it.”
“It comes to everyone who is called by the Lord of Dreams,” Harry said. “But no one has yet figured out how to use it to escape.”
“Can you call it too?” Miles asked. Harry shook his head. Miles frowned down at the flute. “What’s the difference between me and you, then?”
“He’s still seducing you,” Harry said. “He has already cast me out. But He has His imprint on me still, you see. That’s what happens. Once you look at Him, you cannot leave Him, even if you refuse Him. Part of you will want Him.”
“So I just have to keep from looking at him?”
Harry shook his head. “You can’t.”
“Even with the flute?” Miles turned it over in his hand. “I imagine someone’s already tried playing it at him?”
“Oh yes, often.”
“And?”
“Generally He rips them in pieces and throws them to the beasts. But every now and again, He’s more creative. Once He made a challenger who played the flute at Him part of a show, keeping him alive while each of the beasts raped him. That went on for a long, long time before He grew bored.”
Miles tried not to think about that. “There’s a funny tone in your voice when you talk about him. You sort of hesitate, even just to say ‘he.’ Like he’s God.”
“To me, He is.” Harry shrugged, but sadly. “He imprisoned my desires. I hate Him, but I love Him. He is, as He is to all men, everything we want, everything we crave.”
“But that was Terris,” Miles insisted, and the silver went out of Harry’s eyes.
“No,” he said gruffly. “I still cannot speak of him.”
“But why not?” Miles demanded, frustrated at this impotence.
“No,” Harry said again, and nothing more.
Miles considered this. “But you have said—and he said—that he and this Lord are not one and the same. Can you at least confirm that?”
Harry nodded reluctantly.
He looked exquisitely uncomfortable and spoke no more. But Miles read his face, and what he saw there said that whatever was between Harry and Terris was bigger, even, than this Lord of Dreams. Who was, as far as Miles could tell, God to them both. By definition, nothing could be bigger than God. Which meant this was a paradox.
Miles couldn’t decide if that was good or bad.
He rubbed his thumb absently against the flute. “Will He appear to seduce me?”
Harry nodded. “Eventually.”
“So Terris is like foreplay?”
Harry said nothing. Miles rubbed his thumb harder against the flute and gnawed on his bottom lip as he tried to process all these pieces in his head. Everything about Terris was off-limits with Harry. That wasn’t going to be helpful. He tried to think of how to rephrase.
“Why haven’t I been lured in yet?”
Harry shrugged, looking a little easier. “Impossible to say. It could be His will.”
“And it could be mine,” Miles said.
Harry nodded, then said no more.
“How did you succumb to him?”
Harry paused. His eyes strayed to Miles’s cock again, and Miles took this to mean Harry’s answer would cost him great pain, and that he was reminding himself of what that pain would buy. Miles tried not to feel guilty.
“As He does to all men who come to Him, he presented Himself to me as perfection, as all I could ever want in a man. He made exquisite love to me and offered me the ultimate, eternal pleasure, if only I would give myself—and my will—to Him. I wanted Him as I have wanted nothing else.” His face grew dark. “But… the other came. He… complicated things. And after him, I could not yield my will to the Lord, not for my pleasure nor for his and not even to end my suffering. And so He ordered my pride to consume me for all eternity, keeping me near to Him but refusing to allow me into His Paradise.”
This speech was delivered matter-of-factly, with a hint of resignation and humility to it, too. But there was something else in there, something unsaid. Something important.
Miles tried to find the way to press on it. “Is your punishment similar to that of many others, then?”
Harry paused. The tension in his expression told Miles all he needed to know. This was a very special sort of pain.
“Never mind,” he said, relieving him. “But I have a different question—why have I only seen you and not any of the other beasts?” Another thought struck him. “Wait—why do I see you at all? Why are you here, now? Where are we? How is this happening?”
It was too many questions, he knew, but there was a thrill of something pulsing inside him now, the sense of an answer nearly found, or at least a big pile of mess which, if sorted out, might truly give him some of the answers he was seeking. He waited, breathless, watching Harry’s every expression, determined to glean whatever information he could. And what he learned was that these questions, either in whole or in part, were a great stress to Harry. He looked almost sick, so much so that Miles gave in and held up a hand.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he reminded him gently.
Harry shut his eyes a moment. His bulky shoulders dropped, and he looked ashamed. “I want—I want to see you. I must pay for that.”
“No.” Miles held out his hand. “I’ll give you that regardless.”
Harry opened his eyes. “You don’t have to do that. I don’t deserve that.”
Miles felt a pang, an ache that pierced him like an arrow. “You deserve a lot more than that. Because whatever you did or didn’t do in your life, you don’t deserve this.”
“How do you know?” Harry whispered. “I might have been a monster.”
“You aren’t now,” Miles said. “I don’t care what your outside looks like. You’re a good man. And that man is still in there, after all this time.”
Miles realized as he spoke the words that they were true. After only God knew how many years of suffering, of madness, of pain. When all that was stripped away, Harry was kind and gentle and good, beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with his outside. This realization shamed Miles in a way that no lecture from Patty or Katie ever could. “I don’t deserve the help you’re giving me. You’re so much better than I am. You deserve to get out of here. I should have to stay down here in this pit and learn to grow up.”
Harry looked pained. “No. Do not say such things. No one deserves this. No one.”
“I’m going to save you,” Miles vowed in a whisper. “I’m not going to rest until I do. No matter what it costs me. No matter how hard it is.”
Harry reached for him, his expression soft, then stopped as he recalled the barrier of the circle. He lowered his hand, but he stepped as close as he could to the edge.
“You will save me, Miles,” he said q
uietly, “by saving yourself.”
Miles’s emotions threatened to overwhelm him, and he stood rigid for almost a full minute as he tried to tamp them back down. When his will did not suffice, he began to rub his thumb against the flute again and found his despair begin to bleed away.
“Is there anything else you can tell me to help me?” he asked Harry when he was able to speak again.
Harry’s face clouded. He neither nodded nor shook his head, his face wooden once more.
There was something huge here, Miles knew, something he wasn’t comprehending. He rubbed the side of his head with his free hand, then sighed. “I can’t think anymore. It’s all jumbled in my mind.”
“Perhaps reflect on it in private,” Harry suggested.
Miles nodded, but he felt grim. Would he see Harry again—the man, not the beast? Would he have to run from him in the forest?
Would he see Terris? Or would his next round be with this Lord of Dreams?
Miles lifted the flute and studied it for a moment, as if perhaps it might have the answers he sought. Then placed the flute carefully on the floor.
“Thank you for your help. I’ll do my best to use it wisely.” He held out his hands to his sides, displaying his body. “Now I’m yours. What will you have me do?”
Harry’s eyes darkened again. His eyes drifted over Miles hungrily. “It’s enough to look at you,” he said, but there was longing in his voice.
“Harry, I’ve given you license to have anything that you want. I’d give you more if I were able. You can only look, though, so you’re going to have to tell me: what is it you want to see?”
Harry looked him in the eye. “Anything? Anything at all?”
“Anything,” Miles said.
Harry hesitated. Then his eyes burned silver, and when he spoke, his voice was rich with lust. “Turn around, Miles.”
He worried that Harry would turn into a beast if Miles aroused him too much, but he pushed that fear aside. He owed this much to Harry. For helping him, and for simply enduring what he had been through. For being the man, even as a beast, that Miles had never managed to be.
Taking a deep breath and gathering his courage, Miles turned around, showing his backside to Harry, and waited for what was next.
Chapter Six
Your lips, your breast
your slender chest
your every glance, your very breath—
I want you, lover, for my death.
FOR SEVERAL SECONDS, Miles simply stood there, feeling awkward, slightly nervous, and very aroused. He wondered if this would be it, if Harry would just want to look at him. He remembered the story Harry had told earlier, about the man he’d wanted and how he hadn’t even touched him. He wondered if his performance might overload Harry, something as raw as this after all this time, and if Harry wouldn’t be able to say anything at all. Miles decided if Harry didn’t take control, he’d turn around and try to masturbate himself for him. He owed him that much.
“Bend over and grab your ankles, so that you are open to me.”
The command, abrupt and slightly rough, surprised Miles. He could hear the beast in that order, mixing in with Harry the man.
Miles flexed his hands a few times, let out as much of his tension as he could on a breath, and slid his hands down his thighs, over his knees, then bent all the way forward and grabbed his ankles. Then he waited.
He could feel his hole open—not much, really, but enough that he knew Harry had a pretty X-rated view. For a long time, Harry said nothing, but Miles could hear him breathing, almost huffing as he stared at Miles’s upturned ass and open thighs. When it went on a little longer, Miles dared to peek between his legs, and started as he saw Harry standing very close to the edge of the circle, legs apart, one clawed hand reaching down to stroke his long, rapidly hardening cock.
Miles averted his eyes and shut them a moment, but only saw the monster cock lingering there in his head, and then opened his eyes again, staring intently at the silver ring around the circle.
“Reach up and spread yourself more open.” Harry’s voice was so gruff now that it was almost a growl. “Show me your channel, Miles.”
Miles was breathing harder, and he was aroused, but at that last part, he had to smile. “Channel?” he repeated, as he slid his hands back up toward the backs of his thighs.
Harry grunted. “That isn’t what you call it?”
Miles frowned. “Harry, you must be from my world, if you speak English.”
“The enchantment translates it for us, I suspect.”
“Why would your enchantment—your punishment—help you understand me?”
“Not my enchantment. Yours.”
“No,” Miles said, very confused now. “That makes no sense. Why would this Lord guy make it easier for you to understand me, when you’re helping me—”
“Show me your channel, Miles!”
It was a rough command, but there was panic in there too. I’ve gotten close again, Miles realized. Too close.
He reached up and placed his hands on either side of his cheeks. “It’s an ass,” he said. “Asshole. You say, ‘Show me your asshole, Miles.’”
“That is vulgar,” Harry said.
Miles laughed. “Well, yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder at Harry. “But if you’d rather, we can call it my pucker. Or my ‘rosebud,’ but I hate that one. ‘Opening’ works, I guess. Or ‘anus’.”
“Miles?”
“Hmm?” Miles said, startled out of his muse.
Harry leveled a hot gaze at him. “Show me your asshole, Miles.”
Miles grinned and spread his cheeks.
His knees went a little weak at the look that Harry gave him. Miles knew he wasn’t ugly, but he didn’t have the kind of looks men went stupid over. He could usually get somebody to take home or to go home with if he cruised, but nobody had ever worshipped him. Not like Harry did now. Anybody watching the two of them would have thought Miles was some sort of Madonna that Harry had waited his whole life to kneel down before. His jaw was slack, his eyes unfocused and yearning, his whole upper body quaking as he stroked himself furiously.
All this just from Miles pulling his ass open.
“So beautiful,” Harry whispered. “Would that I could touch it. I would kiss your opening, Miles. I would bury my face inside your musk, and I would thrust inside you until I made you moan.”
He wasn’t far from that now, Miles conceded. He shut his eyes and took a breath, steadying himself. Then he let go with one hand, drew his fingers to his mouth and sucked two of them hard, getting them very, very wet before reaching back around, opening himself again, and this time pressing the tip of one of his fingers up against his asshole.
“Oh yes,” Harry called out hoarsely. “Oh yes. Oh yes. Push it inside, Miles. Oh yes.”
Miles did, sucking in a breath as he impaled himself. He felt dizzy, both with arousal and with the heady thrill that came with knowing how much he affected Harry. He found he kept forgetting that the other man was almost a monster, especially now that he wasn’t looking at him. In his mind’s eye, he saw a tall man with a beard, looking slightly medieval and very big, very buff—not Miles’s type at all, not anything like Terris, but none of that mattered right now. Right now was this weird, tense moment, filled with questions that led to more questions and paradoxes and contradictions, and right now he was giving Harry pleasure. This moment was all for Harry.
Miles pushed his finger deeper and smiled as Harry groaned.
He fucked himself slowly, trying to think of everything that had ever turned him on in the masturbatory videos he’d taken to watching online since coming home. He remembered the one of the young man who had boldly climbed onto his bed, bent over onto his knees, and proceeded to slow-fuck himself, taking every viewer who logged on to a jaw-aching climax with nothing more than two of his own fingers. Miles played the video over in his mind a few moments, remembering.
Then he sank to his knees, opened his knees wide, braced
his head against the floor, reached behind and did his best to recreate it.
Harry approved. He made several lusty barks, urging Miles to push deeper, harder, and Miles did, but remembering the magic of that hot young slut, he kept it maddeningly slow. When he began to excite himself to the point that he lacked control, he regained some ground by crying out, and when he found how much Harry liked the sounds he made, he made more of them, letting himself go until he was practically an animal too.
When it became too much, he slid one hand back around and began to tug urgently at himself.
“No!” Harry barked, and Miles stopped and lifted his head.
“What did I do?” he asked.
“Turn over,” Harry growled. “Onto your back, and spread your legs. Let me see you. Let me watch you pleasure yourself.”
Miles rolled over. By accident he brushed against the edge of the circle and felt a sharp hum against his skin, as if he’d run into electricity. He slid away, back to where Harry could get a good look at him, then lay on his back, drew his legs up against his chest, and smiled as he watched Harry become undone all over again.
He spit into his palm, then began to work himself again, using one hand to play with his balls and occasionally sneak down to work inside as he tugged at himself, insistently now, not slow in the slightest, just rough, raw masturbating and—he gasped as he opened his leg and gave himself room and thrust inside—fucking.
“Harry,” Miles gasped, shutting his eyes and imagining the burly, hairy, handsome man Harry was becoming in his mind pushing his legs back and taking him. “Harry!”
“I’m here,” Harry rasped. He was grunting rhythmically, and when Miles dared a look, he saw that Harry was working himself just as hard, aiming that gigantic cock at the circle, stroking it furiously as he kneaded his balls and kept his eyes on Miles. Miles met his stare, let himself merge the idealized Harry with the real man-monster that stood before him, and then, with barely any warning, rolled his eyes back and exploded with a cry that bounced off the stone walls and rang in his ears.
Miles and the Magic Flute Page 9
