I decided I wanted Kalum, the whole infuriating, powerful bulk of him, while we were collecting our third bounty.
Our assignment had been to put down a howle, a hideous, oversized bipedal bat creature that had been haunting a village out in the western Indalese wilds called Undarth. So far it had only taken livestock, but the villagers reported it was a brazen creature and they feared it would only be a matter of time before it found an opportunity to take a traveler or one of the village children. Kalum had been indifferent when I’d shown him the bill. We’d both encountered howles before, but I’d never been so far into the Indal and I told Kalum I relished the opportunity to see the wild places where the edges of the Empire began to tatter. Kalum had agreed with a shrug.
After landing at the transport drop closest to the village, we spent three days picking our way along a frontier road that had narrowed to little more than a dirt path. When night fell on the third day Kalum had suggested we set up camp, but I had advised against sleeping in the forest when we were so near our destination. If the thing came at us while one of us slept and the other stood watch, struggling against exhaustion, we could be in trouble. So we pushed on, watching and listening for the howle until we arrived at the village of Undarth in the small hours of the morning. We settled into the only inn the village offered and I fell into bed gratefully, looking forward to a good night’s sleep after days on the road. We would begin tracking the creature, I suggested, when we were fresh and well-rested.
Instead, we were awoken at dawn when the village flew into an uproar. After listening through the receding haze of sleep to the shrill cries of several mothers, we understand that a child had watched the howle, our quarry, chase an ewe into the forest.
Had I been on my own, I would have proceeded differently. I would have wanted to wake fully, speak with the villagers to better understand the creature’s habits, and prepare for the hunt by meditating on the proper castings. Kalum had other ideas. After hearing the cries of the villagers and learning how close the creature was, Kalum had leapt from bed with a cry for me to follow. Wearing barely enough to cover his nakedness–and led by the prodigious member that had risen to greet the morning–he stepped into his boots, hoisted his hammer, and flew from the room. Bewildered, I listened to him plunge down the stairs of the inn. When I heard the front door slam, I rushed to the window just in time to see his bare, blond, broad-shouldered frame tear through the village and disappear into the misty forest.
Fuming, wearing no more than Kalum, I followed. I would have stopped to dress, but I was afraid that any howle brazen enough to steal livestock during the day may be too much even for Kalum to handle alone.
Gritting my teeth against the damp cold of the morning, I followed Kalum’s boot prints into the mists of the forest. They ran parallel to the clawed prints of the howle, which were stamped over the fleeing prints of the ewe. I had half expected to hear Kalum’s stomping continue on into the mists, but for long minutes I heard nothing from between the trees ahead. Fearing he had already been overtaken, I hurried on, almost running, until a series of hoots and long, piercing shrieks sent shivers in a wave across my exposed skin. It was close.
After breaking into a run, I found them both in a nearby gulch. The howle stood facing Kalum with its claws sunk possessively into the back of its weakly struggling meal. Despite its unusual size, I expected it to bolt as Kalum approached, but it must have been young or desperate, and it stood its ground. Snarling at Kalum, it opened its wide mouth to display rows of needle-like teeth, and shrieked a warning.
I watched in disbelief as Kalum began to close in on the thing, his hammer at the ready. The creature could have leapt at him at any moment, tearing ribbons from his naked, densely muscled form, but Kalum advanced steadily, backing the creature toward the wall of the gulch.
Mind racing, I groped for the words to form a casting that wouldn’t harm them both. Just as the creature began coiling for a leap at Kalum, I called the wind down to bite at its backside. When it turned for just a moment to confront the invisible threat menacing it from behind, Kalum surged forward and caved its chest in with single blow from his hammer. It crashed to the ground, bringing the poor, mutilated ewe with it.
Turning to me as I approached, grinning a boyish grin behind a week’s worth of blond beard, Kalum used both hands to triumphantly pump his hammer over his head.
“Jol, you fucking stud!” He drove his hammer down on the mossy forest floor to clean it, his dense shoulders rippling, then he clapped me on the shoulder. The blow knocked me sideways a step.
“Perfect timing!” he said.
“Luck,” I said, “you naked idiot.”
Kalum laughed and wandered his gaze over my body, naked as his except for the bit of cloth between our legs.
“Gave the peasants an eye full, didn’t we?” He reached down to grip his bulge, thrusting his hips forward slightly. “Think they’ll pay extra for the show?”
“No,” I said, unable at first to look away from the outline of his generously endowed member pressing against its thin linen shroud. Remarkably, he still hadn’t softened entirely. “You should always get the coin before you give the boys a show.”
Kalum laughed again, hefting his hammer onto his shoulder. “Learn that lesson the hard way, did you?”
Tearing my eyes from the shifting, bouncing mound between his legs, I stepped around Kalum to consider the howle.
“Your sister insists,” I said.
“Oho!” Kalum turned with me and draped an arm over my shoulder. He squeezed, casually crushing me against his side. “Careful, my friend. You’re fortunate I woke in a good mood this morning–and such luck for both of us! We could have been a week tracking this thing through the forest.”
Trying to ignore the line of fire against my side where Kalum’s hot, sweat-soaked skin pressed against me from hip to armpit, I watched him prod one of the howle’s limp claws with a boot. The serendipity of it all made me anxious.
“Too lucky,” I said. “Maybe there are more.”
Kalum grunted. “Unlikely,” he said. He squeezed me again. “No matter, though. We’ll make short work of any others, you and I.”
The villagers agreed which his assessment. On seeing the creature’s carcass, which Kalum had insisted I help him drag back the way we’d come, the village elders declared that we had earned our fee and more. For ridding them of the thing with such alacrity, they offered the hospitality of the entire village.
I hadn’t been able to concentrate on the speech, mindful as I was that as we stood nearly naked at the center of town. Drenched by the mist and our own exertions, our smallclothes had been rendered nearly transparent. I tried not to stare at Kalum as the crowd of villagers examined us with a mixture of disgust, amusement, respect, and lust. Kalum received the attention almost without noticing, standing tall and erect, his hammer over his shoulder as he charmed the elders both with his affability and his perfectly sculpted body. When the villagers finished heaping their praise, I hurried back to the inn, trying to pretend no one could see the half risen hardness that had plagued me the entire trek back through the woods as I labored next to Kalum’s lean, muscled bulk.
Back in our room, I retreated behind a threadbare changing screen, shucked my smallclothes and stepped into the squat metal basin the innkeeper had been set out for bathing. The water was surprisingly warm and I was still sighing with pleasure when through the thin screen I saw Kalum stride into the room. I could see him in silhouette as he moved to the rough wooden table where the innkeeper had set out a small but hearty breakfast. He kicked off his boots, propped his feet on the table and knit his fingers behind his head. Seemingly impervious to the chill of the damp morning air, he still wore nothing but the wet, bunched triangle of his smallclothes.
Luxuriating in the warmth of the water lapping around my calves, I tossed my own undergarment to the floor and sank gratefully into the water.
“We can probably set out by noon,” I suggested after another sigh. “I wouldn’t mind a few extra hours’ rest, but it would probably be more prudent to set out soon. The weather in these mountains can be unpredictable and we should ride while the skies are clear.”
Kalum snorted.
“A week’s job done in a single morning and you want to rush back to the guild for another?”
“I do enjoy the weight of gold in my palm,” I said.
“And I’d enjoy a few days’ rest.”
I watched Kalum’s silhouette arch into a stretch.
“I suggest we linger a day or two,” he said through a yawn, “and soak in a bit of hospitality.”
“Meaning beer?”
“Meaning beer,” Kalum said. “And a warm hole or two. Or three.”
The length between my legs, which had finally fallen almost to sleep, twitched.
“You have a taste for peasant women?”
“I have a taste for women,” Kalum said. “And it’s been entirely too long since I’ve had one.”
My member jumped again as I imagined Kalum, his powerful back covered in sweat, applying himself between a woman’s legs.
I pushed the image from my mind and scrubbed at my face with the cloth that had been provided by the innkeeper. I needed release myself, I decided, if such fleeting thoughts could bring me to attention.
“I might be convinced to linger,” I said. “Do a bit of exploring.”
“I thought so,” Kalum said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “You may be more in need of attention than me, wizard. Both hands full all morning and you still managed to point our way back to the village.”
“It was early,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “Such things happen in the morning. As you know.”
Kalum, of course, could relate. He’d just battled a howle with his member half hard. But I couldn’t deny the little surge of pleasure I felt at knowing Kalum had marked my arousal as we struggled back to the village with the howle between us. I’d spent more time admiring Kalum’s sweating body than finding a path through the trees and I relished the thought that he had been watching me as well.
I’d never been with a man, but I had known since youth that occasionally men would draw my eye and invade my thoughts. Men who, more often than not, looked very much like Kalum.
Kalum laughed. “Are you embarrassed? Don’t be such a schoolboy.”
Something wet and cold slapped me on the top of the head then slid down my face to drop into the basin. Kalum’s smallclothes. He’d sent them sailing over the screen. Using the back of my hand I flipped the offending garment onto the floor beside the tub, grudgingly admiring his aim.
“Eugh,” I said. “Fucking barbarian.”
“Priss,” Kalum said. I could hear the smile lingering in his voice. “How long has it been since you sank your staff into a hole?”
I glanced at Kalum through the screen again. He was reclining at the table once more, but now he had only his left arm raised, forearm resting on the crown of his head. His other arm lay in his lap. It took me only a moment to realize that he had a hand wrapped around his member, which was now standing fully erect and unencumbered in his lap.
My own rose in salute, emerging from the water like a thing summoned.
“Uh,” I said, unable to look away, captivated both by his lack of shame and the member itself.
“Three weeks for me,” Kalum said. He sighed and slid his fist up and down his shaft in a casual stroke.
My heart turned over on my chest as I reached down to grip my own shaft, now achingly hard. As Kalum stoked again and an electric thrill made a circuit between my heart and the end of my member.
As Kalum continued his slow, absent stroking, I considered the desire churning inside me. I responded, I realized, not just to the sight of him, with all the muscles he’d earned swinging that deadly hammer, but to the way he moved through the world. He knew what he wanted, pursued it relentlessly, and apologized for nothing. When he received respect and admiration, he accepted it as his due.
I decided I would have to think on this new understanding of myself with greater care and consider what it meant for our partnership, but just then I chose to listen to the yearning of my body. I wanted release.
“Only three weeks?” I said. “Not so long.”
“For you, maybe,” Kalum snorted. “Some of us need more regular tending.”
“You seem perfectly capable of tending to yourself,” I said, watching as Kalum stroked once more.
I began stroking my own iron-hard shaft, slowly, quietly, so as not to disturb the water and reveal myself. It occurred to me that Kalum might stop when he realized I could see him openly pleasuring himself in the middle of the room, but he only laughed deep in his chest and waggled the head of his member in my direction before continuing.
I suppressed an appreciative grunt.
“Not the same,” he said. “A man needs a hole to sink into. Warm and wet.”
I slid my free hand down to cup my balls as I continued my covert stroking. A hole. Could I be that for him? I imagined settling onto the floor between those thick legs and opening my mouth to receive him. I imagined his heavy shaft sliding over my tongue, filling my mouth. I imagined him grasping the sides of my head, grunting as he pushed his way in, deeper, deeper, until my nose rested against the hair at his base. I let my mouth drift open at the thought.
Yes, I decided. I could do that.
“Who was she?” I said, licking my lips. “Three weeks ago.”
Kalum shrugged. “Oh, who remembers names? Just a hole.”
“Expensive?”
“Not a whore,” Kalum said, bringing his other hand down to cradle his balls, unaware we had assumed the same position. “I don’t have to pay for holes.”
“No,” I said, rolling my eyes despite my lust. “Of course not. So who was she?”
I listened as Kalum described how he met a barmaid, how he’d flattered her outrageously until she’d snuck him into a storeroom so he could ravage her. After a while, he fell into his own story and no longer needed prompting from me to continue. He described how it felt to thrust into her in the dark, how he made her moan his name, how he put his fists in her hair, in her dress, for better leverage as he drove into her.
I could tell when Kalum was close. He grew silent and the pace of his stroking increased. I could hear him spit, once, twice, then the wet sound of his stroking redoubled.
The sound drove me to the edge of climax, but I slowed my pace, intoxicated by Kalum’s brazen pursuit of his own pleasure. I wanting to appreciate every moment. I watched him through the screen, waiting, resisting the overwhelming urge to reach satisfaction before him.
I didn’t have to wait long. With a growl and a series of grunts while his hips twitched upward, he threw his head back and came.
The sight sent me over the edge with him. I held my breath against my moans and twitched helplessly. Jet after jet of searing heat leapt out of my convulsing member to land on my chin, my neck, and my chest. I continued stroking, no longer sure my fist wasn’t splashing out a telltale rhythm in the water, but in that moment of bliss, I didn’t care.
There were a few long moments of silence as we both recovered. When Kalum sighed and sat up in his chair, I looked around for something to clean up with. Wanting to use the washcloth for the rest of my bath, I reached dazedly for the only other thing within reach: Kalum’s smallclothes.
A moment later Kalum got abruptly to his feet and moved toward the screen.
“Don’t be alarmed, Jol,” he said, as he stepped around the screen and into view, “but I’ve made a mess of myself and I need my smallclothes to make myself decent.”
He stopped short as he looked down at me where I sat in my bath, his smallclothes bunched in my hand to sop up the white ropes melting down my chest. I felt my heart fall into my stomach.
His expression was incredulous.
“Are those mine?”
When I just stared at him, wide-eyed, he threw his head back and barked a laugh.
“I never took you for a sniffer!”
I felt my whole body flush.
“Fuck you,” I said
I muttered a simple casting and sent the soiled bundle streaking from my hand to slap hard against his chest.
Kalum took a step back, his expression a mixture of surprise and amusement. He raised both hands as he watched the sticky lump of fabric slide down his chest, tumble against his still engorged member, then fall to the floor between his feet with a wet noise.
“It was just the closest thing,” I said, “after I…finished.”
I looked up at Kalum defiantly, not quite able to look him in the eye and not sure where else to rest my gaze. His member, fading but still impressively hard, dripped a bead of the same milky stuff that had begun rolling in lines down his chest and stomach to gather in the nest of hair between his legs.
“I’ll take your enthusiasm as a tribute to my storytelling,” he said, cocking one eyebrow. “In any case, fair’s fair.”
Stepping around the tub, his wet member swinging pendulously just a few feet from my face, he stooped and retrieved my smallclothes where they lay just out of my reach. As I watched, he stood and used the still damp garment to wipe carefully at the trails of wetness he had shot all over himself. After scrubbing more aggressively between his legs in an attempt to bring up some of the stickiness that soaked the hair above his member, he looked at me again.
“You missed a bit right–” he pointed at my chest, paused, then said, “–there,” gesturing broadly at my torso.
With an expert flick of his wrist, he tossed the garment at my chest. It landed with a thud that made me jump. Kalum smiled.
“Finish your washing up so I can have a rinse.” He paused again, frowning down at the tub thoughtfully. “I think I’ll go ask for more water. You’ve made a mess in there.”
He laughed once more at my expression, then left me alone behind the screen. I waited until he’d pulled on a shirt and trousers and stomped down the stairs to speak with the innkeeper before I fished my smallclothes from the bottom of the tub and used them to wipe my chest clean.
