This is an original story and it possesses sexually explicit homo-erotic content. Should there be any similarity to other works of fiction or real life it is completely coincidental. If it is unlawful for you to view this then close your browser or navigate away from the story immediately. If you are somehow offended by the content after reading this disclaimer, well DUH!
Chapter 2
Three weeks ago, the world I thought I knew became a much larger and terrifying place. The cloaked figures were my frat brothers. I survived hell week, and then the most sexually intense initiation imaginable. My being gay used to worry me. I feared that if they found out I would either be removed from the fraternity, or at the very least denied admittance. Thankfully my fears were unfounded, and sex with my new brothers was not only encouraged, but required.
Jaden passed into the ether the evening of my initiation. His partner, Calob, was killed during a recent attack, and he chose to leave this world and be with his lover. My new brothers were Elementals. History labeled them Druids, witches, and other creatures of legend. Their ability to wield the forces of nature had earned them many names over the centuries, and now I was one of them.
We drove to Panama City Beach, FL, for spring break. What would have been a great vacation became a learning session instead of the escape I had originally planned from the grind of classes, homework, and studying. I was taught that Elementals are comprised of several different facets; Earth, Fire, Water, Storm, Spirit and Balance. By birth, bloodline, and necessity, I was Balance. Each had its own abilities, and my brothers were adept, if not cruel, in their use as they attempted to teach me.
Derek and his partner Troy were Earth Elementals. They were initiated so long ago it boggled my mind. With my new abilities I discovered I was able to sense their ages and the age of nearly any creature, human or otherwise, that I encountered. I couldn't guess their exact time on this earth, but could gauge it like someone might decide if the milk in their refrigerator had entered the chunky stage. It was their scent more than anything. I don't mean to say that they smelled of bad cheese. The aroma of rich damp earth and fresh cut grass on a sultry mid-summer day drifted about them like an expensive cologne. Somewhere in my mind that equated them to being close to 1500 years old.
"If you don't start concentrating I'm going to let you drown." Derek ran his fingers through his chocolate shoulder length hair.
He seemed to be doing that a lot lately, and I knew I was the cause. I just couldn't keep my thoughts together and it was driving him to madness. Elementals, once initiated, don't change in appearance, and it seemed to me, that they lost whatever patience they may have had as well.
"You're going to pull out all that beautiful hair, and you know how I love the feel of it against my skin." Troy's voice went from a soothing amber tone to something wretched and primal.
Even though it was late evening, the ambient light from the city let me see enough that I knew I was in trouble. Troy's body seemed to shift and writhe within the shadows and I heard the subtle pad of feet meet the earth. He had transformed into something I was going to regret.
By this time I was already up to my neck in the pool of quick sand Derek had conjured. My arms were buried and I was struggling like a butterfly trying to escape its cocoon. As Troy approached, it was his eyes that sent terror burrowing through my chest and into my heart. He had changed to a massive wolf and in one powerful stride now stood only inches from my face. Like his natural hair color, the fur covering his body was jet black and his jagged fangs dripped with saliva.
"Let me motivate him..." Troy's wild canine eyes glistened in the night as he glanced down at me. "Perhaps I should give you a good scar for upsetting my lover." The growled inhuman words were choked out and tainted with an almost metallic blood- soaked stench.
"SHIT SHIT SHIT! Rise goddamnit!" I screamed the commands in my mind, but my body didn't respond.
I couldn't be sure, but what I heard next sounded like a laugh drowning deep within his throat. Troy's wolf form turned. He lifted his leg and I was doused in a rancid warm shower of piss.
As my heart threatened to explode within my chest, and my face burned with embarrassment, my body began to lift out of the dense swamp-like soup. Still emerged to the waist, my arms were now free and able to fend off last of the awful torrent.
The only thing I could hear was a howl of laughter mixed with the ocean waves crashing against the beach. Derek lay on the sand gripping his stomach laughing hysterically.
"It's not funny you fucking dick!" I spat out the words and piss as I flailed around and struggled to grab anything that might help free me.
A husky chuckle, that sounded more like someone clearing his throat, erupted from Troy's wolf-form as he lowered his leg and trotted proudly back toward Derek.
A sudden cold chill centered in the middle of my back and made me shiver. Something else was here, and it was as ancient as my tormentors. The foreign odor that choked the air reminded me of fire-scorched stone that had been eaten and reborn in the bowels of a volcano. Troy's hair bristled and a low growl grew somewhere deep within him. It was cut short as a massive shape exploded out of the sand from beneath and sent him flying through the air.
My mind screamed 'DEMON' before the words could cross my lips. The creature was as dark as pitch and the smell of decay swept past me as a massive hand tore through my arm and I felt razor-like claws scraped against bone. White heat surged through me and faded to a dull pressure as I glanced down at the gaping meat of my arm. It looked as though someone had flayed open my flesh like you might gut a fish. Four finely cut slits pooled with blood and flowed like a fountain as I cradled the wound in my hand and stared at the meaty destruction.
A mammoth form of fiery light crashed into the demon and a thunderous roar seemed to shake the earth with the impact. My stomach surged and I threw up the remnants of my dinner onto the sand.
"It serves you right. How could you be so foolish!?" The angry words belonged to Etock.
"The poison is strong." Whispered words slipped past my ears.
I could tell I was in bed as my head swam and a blaze of pain threatened to empty my already depleted stomach once again. The world seemed to be a mix of burning consciousness and blissful sleep as I faded in and out.
"We can't lose him, too. There won't be another for a hundred years."
My arm screamed in protest as I shifted position and opened my eyes to glimpse the hotel room around me. The light from the lamp on the bedside table seemed to sear its way into my brain as several fearful faces stared back. I struggled to focus, but the room faded into darkness.
"Fuck him." Again it was Etock's angry words that woke me.
I felt my legs being lifted and a surge of pain raced through my arm and earned an involuntary groan.
"Do it quickly! We need him ready to leave as soon as possible." Etock barked out the order and then I felt Ashel shove violently into my ass.
It had to have been Ashel. I tried to focus on the person between my legs, but the world seemed to tilt and my vision blurred. The almost white-blond-headed assailant verified my suspicions. Of all the others, Ashel's cock was the thickest though not exactly the longest and it was always difficult to take its girth. There was no foreplay, and it felt as though he were using sandpaper for lube as he rammed my ass.
My arm seared white-hot anguish and spasms of misery seemed to travel from my wrist to my neck and back again. With each intrusion into my ass, my body shook, sending another violent surge along its course. My eyes were starting to focus and I discovered that my arm was wrapped in bandages. Blood had stained them a rusty hue.
My attention was pulled back to the blond driving deeper and deeper into my already punished asshole. Each plunge of his massive cock seemed to ease the devastating sensations from my arm. I was nearing the crossroads where the pain of sex becomes pleasure when Ashel arched his back and slammed into me one final time as if to split me in two, and our heated grunts and groans filled the room
He rolled out and off of me in a heaving mass of flesh. His breath was strained and there was very little ceremony in his exit from my ass. Somehow during our violent sexual exchange I had cum and I could feel my juices cooling where they pooled on my abdomen.
"That's all I can do. He should be healed enough for travel in a couple of hours." The words were panted out as Ashel used the last of his strength to pull the covers over us.
"Derek, Jaden, get out of my sight." Etock's words were edged in an unfamiliar accent I had never heard from him before, and his midnight-colored eyes dared them to protest.
Etock's shadow seemed to swell behind him and threatened to swallow the light of the room as he watched them fumble with the door handle and hurry out into the hallway. A deep breath of darkness devoured the light and then seemed to fade like a sigh as the door closed behind them. The menace in his gaze shifted to something I hadn't seen in him before. Had I not known better I would have sworn it was concern or maybe even compassion.
Of all of us, Etock, a Spirit Elemental, was the oldest. His eyes lingered on his lover, Ashel, who had already slipped into the oblivious depths of sleep. Etock's features were delicate in proportion, and yet seemed almost carved from a mold older than time. The set of his mouth, nose, and eyes reminded me of the ancient tribes often highlighted in the jungles of South America. High cheek bones gave his face an angular shape and seemed to weaken the line of his jaw making his chin seem almost too small and foreign.
His honey-brown skin seemed to radiate heat from the sun's touch. Though he was naturally tanned, his time on the beach had given him a deeper bronze hue like an old found penny. Even if he had hidden in a cave for decades he had what I called a 'jealous tan'. It was a result of his heritage, and a color only a few aspired to, from hard-earned dollars and hours of tanning sessions. Now the sun had given his flesh an almost impossible rich hue that could only bring envy.
Etock was initiated in his late teens. His body had lost the fat that rounds the curves of youth and was replaced by muscle a hard life builds. He was also the shortest of all of us, but the power he exuded always gave me the impression of looking up at him, even when we stood side by side.
As I studied him, my gaze seemed to crawl along his skin and startle him. What might have been the beginnings of a frown were hidden as he turned and walked to the bed. Moments later we were cloaked in darkness as he switched off the bedside lamp.
I was exhausted and even though my arm felt better it was still a drain on my already worn out body. The comfort of Ashel's warmth beside me threatened to lull me back to sleep until I felt Etock's hot flesh press against mine as he crawled into bed. I was nearly asleep when I felt his fingers trail through my hair and his heated breath against my neck.
Normally I would have considered the intimate contact sexual. My body responded instinctively and I felt my cock begin to swell, but it wasn't sex he was offering. It was comfort, and I didn't know whether to be afraid or glad, but sadness began to swell within my chest and my eyes began to burn with sorrow.
"Rest now, Kristof." Etock whispered the words and I felt the dance of his breath tickle my ear.
Something was wrong. I remembered his words but couldn't seem to wrap my mind around them. "There won't be another for a hundred years." There was anger in Etock's voice when he spoke them, but was there also sadness? I didn't really know him well enough to be certain. It would have to wait.
Surrounded by warmth and flesh, the weights of exhaustion pulled at my eyelids and I drifted off to the familiar horrors of childhood memory.
It was always the same nightmare, though I usually hoped for some other distraction to wake me as my head hit my pillow at night. Almost any other horror would have been welcomed to start my day.
I was six years old when it happened. I was playing in the front yard with my Tonka trucks and my sister's doll was half crammed into the driver seat. Someone had to be driving, after all. The roar of a familiar drew my attention as my father's old green rusted Chevy pulled in front of our house. My parents had split up and he had come to visit.
He stepped out of the truck and slammed the door. He looked angry, reached in through the window, and began honking the horn. I turned at the sound of the screen door shutting and watched as my mother marched past me toward my father.
"What the hell are you... " My mother stopped as my father ran around the front of the truck.
There was a gun in his hand. It looked like one of the toys I had in my bedroom, but I knew his was real. My sister jumped up and ran toward them.
"Daddy!" It was a happy yell.
My father charged toward her and lifted his arm. The gun was only inches from my mother's face. An explosion filled my ears and my mother fell back as a spray of wet dusted my face.
My sister's scream was cut short by another explosion as he fired again and another spray of crimson seemed to race her to the ground as she flew backward.
I was frozen in place as I stared at him. I couldn't move. If evil had a mask, he wore it well. Absolute menace had twisted his expression as he walked to his truck and sat in the front seat.
"Fucking BITCHES!" He yelled over and over again and slammed his fist into the dashboard with every syllable.
I awoke to the sounds of my own screams and sat up in bed. The nightmare didn't come to me as often as it once had, but it was as real as the day it happened. The world around me felt as though it was riding a violent wave and the sounds of cracking plaster filled my ears.
As I looked around both Etock and Ashel were nowhere to be found. The glass in the window that offered a view of the beach had blown out onto the balcony, and dust rolled down like heavy brown clouds from the floors above.
Groans from either side of me made me sigh with relief. Ashel was thrown out of bed and was climbing up from between the confines of the second double bed and the wall as Etock did the same on my right.
Ashel finally stood and stared at me until the pounding from outside our hotel door made him turn and answer. As soon as he turned the handle the other frat brothers burst into our room.
"What in the blue fuck was that!?" Derek blurted out the question, but I knew they all wanted an answer.
"Yes, Kristof, what have you done." This time it was Etock who spoke, but I was afraid to look in his direction. His hidden accent of ages ago threatened to edge his words and I knew he was not at all happy.
"It was just a nightmare. I'm sorry." I could barely speak above a whisper and felt like a child who had been caught stealing, and feared the impending punishment to come.
"Go back to your room and pack. We must return home as soon as possible." Etock gave the command and stepped from around the corner of the bed.
"I'll expect an explanation."
He could expect whatever he wanted. Everything with Etock seemed a command. A request seldom, if ever, passed his lips. He didn't 'want' an explanation, he 'expected' one, and it was really starting to get on my nerves. Well... I wasn't about to explain anything, let alone divulge my past. I knew defiance showed on my face and his expression didn't comfort me as I stared back at him. There was intrigue in his eyes and beyond that a hint of surprise, but as usual, it was muted with anger and disdain. My lack of control and ability was a constant disappointment to all of them, but mostly myself. Almost a month had passed and still I didn't consider them my friends. I wasn't fitting in, and with each failure a growing distance seemed to separate us.
The ride home was a quiet one, save for the usual banter between Cain and Jessup, whom we all called Jess. They were fire Elementals and lovers. Cain was older than me of course, by a couple of thousand years, but the more mature of the two if such a thing were possible. They were forever horsing around and acting like the teenage rowdy college guys most everyone believed them to be.
Both were red heads, but Cain's hair possessed the coveted auburn color of an autumn maple leaf that has fallen to the ground and is left to become part of the Earth. His features were Asian in appearance save for his nose. It seemed to escape from his face like a foreign object and was on the verge of corrupting the rest of his features. His hair was shoulder length and thick enough that it seemed almost unreal. It flowed around his face and square jaw like a lazy smoldering flame. His eyes were kind and yet suspicious at the same time. Heavy clandestine eyelids only appeared when he blinked gave him a combination of expressions that never let you know exactly what he was thinking. His small mouth was rounded by thick full lips that promised a delicacy of delight.
Of the two, Cain's body was also the most developed. On the beach I caught myself staring at the cleft between his massive pecks. I watched mesmerized as they seemed to wage war with each other. His abdomen was taut and cut without the slightest hint of fat or dusting of hair and tapered to one of the smallest waists I had ever seen. His body then erupted out again into muscular thighs and calves. It was a swimmer's build intensified, and his flesh held the color of dried bamboo.
In a sense he and Jess were a contrast of each other, but still seemed to fit so naturally together. Jess had what I called the bad hair. An orange the color of a newborn flame and he kept it as wild as his personality. Cut short, it topped his head and stood nearly straight up in a chaos that reminded me of mine when I woke in the morning.
Though fair, his skin still held the honey-brown color of harvested wheat, and like his lover, he was almost completely hairless. His features were Asian, but appeared more Mongolian by descent. His eyes were shaped like half-moons and while his cheeks bones were prominent, they were set lower in his face giving it a rounder, more child-like appearance. Like Cain, his mouth was small, but surrounded by pouting lips that invited entrance or a passionate kiss.
Jess' body was slender with flesh that seemed stretched over muscle, again without a hint of fat. He appeared on the verge of being malnourished save for the powerful flex of strength that proved otherwise. He was far from bulky, almost wraith- like, but beautiful all the same. It seemed they all were in their own way.
Between my brief naps and staring blindly out the window watching the endless Morse Code of painted dashes blaze past on the asphalt, the trip home finally ended. We unloaded the vehicles and were barely inside the door when Etock spoke.
"Come to the library after you have put your things in your room, Kristof." As usual it was a command and not a request and it instantly pissed me off.
After climbing the stairs and entering my room I threw my duffle bag into the corner and slammed the door behind me. The sound of it startled me and suddenly I was aware of just how quiet the house had become. We had traveled all day and well into the evening, and usually there was the murmur of a radio or television that crept through the walls. Tonight there was nothing but the tick of my wind-up alarm clock on the bedside dresser.
The frat house was spacious in design. It reminded me of an old plantation that a person might pay to tour in the historic district of my hometown. Four columns decorated the exterior front stretching from the ground to the roof. I was reminded of just how big the place was as I stood and turned the doorknob. The sound of the latch echoed into the dark corridor like the acoustics you find in an amphitheatre. The subtle click and creak of the hinges seemed to play off every hidden surface as I stepped outside my door and closed it behind me.
I had the urge to tiptoe down the hallway, but knew the aged wooden floorboards would betray my movement. Instead, I bolstered myself enough to walk as though I had not a care in the world and practically stomped down the winding staircase to the foyer. Everyone would know where I was, where I was going, and that I meant to get there without the slightest fear... but I was afraid.
The truth seemed easiest. I'd tell him I had a nightmare, and that it was about the attack. Well it was partially the truth, and true enough that I felt I could get away with a minor sin of omission. I had some questions of my own I 'expected' to be answered as well, and that helped to fuel my steps as I approached and opened the heavy door to the library.
"Please have a seat." Etock sipped on some brown liquor I suspected to be bourbon and motioned to a leather Victorian chair across from him.
A fire was lit making the room a bit too warm for my comfort and I felt betrayed by my body as sweat begin to seep from my pores. The last thing I wanted was to appear guilty or nervous. I only hoped that since that was the only source of light, that my body's betrayal might go unnoticed in the dance of amber light.
"I'll stand, thank you." I walked toward him and leaned against the chair he had 'instructed' me to use.
My nerves were starting to get the best of me as I struggled to remain completely still. The fire began to surge and hiss bursting out of the fireplace like stuttered exhales.
"Calm yourself, Kristoff. We can't have a repeat of this morning, and it would be a shame to burn down such a historic building. It's been our home for a very, very long time. Please... have a seat." Etock smiled and gestured again to the chair across from him.
Were my eyes not attached, his use of the word 'please' probably would have sent them bursting from my skull and flying.
"I'm sorry we did not prepare you better for what happened at the beach. It is my fault we were caught by surprise, and I take full responsibility." His apology was heartfelt, and the weight of his words pulled me into the chair. It was the most emotion I had ever sensed or seen from the man.
"What happened this morning?" Etock sat his drink on the coffee table beside him, careful to rest the fluted snifter on a coaster to avoid damaging the delicate finish of the antique.
"It was a nightmare." So far I hadn't lied and the words were easy enough to speak.
"What about?" Etock leaned forward as if being closer might make it easier to hear whatever I had to say.
"What do you think?!" I felt as though the truth were about to escape me. Like some force was pushing me to speak my secret.
Instead, a question entered my mind like a trapped animal desperate to escape. "You said there won't be another for a hundred years. Another what?"
The expression of shock on Etock's face was immediate and he diverted his eyes to focus somewhere deep within the fireplace. He was holding something back.
"Another what?" My voice sounded cold, even to me, as though the sound of it were that of a viper waiting to strike, but I wasn't sure why.
I was angry and in my chest was the familiar sense of emptiness from the night before when he crawled into the bed beside me. It was a strange mix of sorrow and something else I couldn't place.
"Another Balance Elemental." His voice was almost strangled as if bound by anguish as he looked back at me.
Tears began to well in his eyes but he blinked them away and took a deep breath to settle himself. "The other was killed two days after his initiation."
"I don't understand." I wasn't getting it. There was something more to what he was not telling me, or I was just simply too ignorant to grasp the situation.
"He was to be your lover." Etock's voice was without emotion as though he were dictating a simple fact.
"Are you saying I can't love someone because he died? That he's the only other person in the world I could love? What if he was a dick!?" Anger was taking hold and half of me wanted to jump across the small area that separated us and beat the shit out of him.
"No. You can still love, take a lover, and be loved. The next Balance Elemental, however, will not be of age for another century." Etock picked at the small brass buttons that framed the arm of the chair. It seemed he was looking for any distraction to avoid what was to come.
"Then what the hell is the problem? What are you hiding from me?" I felt a rage taking hold as I gripped the arms of my chair and fought the urge to stand.
"You will never age." He spoke as though that was the answer to everything.
That was the crux of it though. Finally, what he was telling me settled into my mind. If I loved, or took a lover, I would also be forced to watch them deteriorate, grow old, and die.
"How did the other Balance die?" It was a cruel question, but I wanted to know. More so, I wanted someone to blame.
"Enough! What is done, cannot be undone." Etock had met the end of his patience and I wasn't going to get my answer.
"Damn you." I wanted to hurt him.
"You must gain control. We cannot allow this to happen again." Etock changed the topic as though the subject of my life was now closed and that enraged me all the more.
The conversation was over. I stood and walked to the door leaving him in the shadows.
"Fuck you, Etock. I'll take care of that myself." Those were the final words of our chat that night. I would finally end the nightmares, though not the ones I led him to believe I was having.
My father was paroled a year ago and I knew where he was. He lived in the same town I had grown up in, and now stayed in a cramped apartment above Ken's Hardware Store on Main Street. I would end my nightmares once and for all. Tomorrow, I would kill my father.
Many thanks to my wonderful editor, Chris. Many thanks also to those who were kind enough to drop me a note and express their interest in the story. I hope you like where this is going and also hope that future chapters don't disappoint. It is the feedback that motivates me and keeps me on track, so here's hoping you'll all take a moment to write a quick note and let me know what you think. Any and all suggestions or criticisms are always welcome.
Hope to hear from you soon.
sticky.fingers@ymail.com