THE BLANK WALL
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM
It was a good night to be a soldier of the Guard of the Empire of Oparia. His Supreme Ruler Aberin had been kind enough to declare his birthday to be a holiday throughout the Empire, and Merreck had been lucky enough to have not drawn the duty. He had been able to enjoy the celebrations as a private citizen might, and after, he met with some of his friends who had been less fortunate and kindly stand them all to a round of drinks, and then another. They'd been fellow Guardsmen together for several years, and he knew them better than he knew his brothers; Gwyll, Foult, Tilvin and Broud, they'd fought and won battles and lost battles and tended each other's wounds, he'd looked about and realized that, deep in his cups, there wasn't a one of these men who wouldn't die for him, or he for them....
And that was where it all ended.
His next sensation was that of darkness. A darkness that had held him for a long time, and he was feeble, painridden, his head, oh, Goddess, his head! He moaned, and then there was a flurry of sound, water moving about, splashing, and then a wet rag was placed over his forehead. "Don't try to move." came the soft voice.
"Uhhh?" he asked instead.
"Can you talk?"
"Uhhh, yeahhh!" He managed with some difficulty, his throat hurt. Not like it was sore, like it was...rusty. "I guessss sssso."
"I've been worried about you. You've been out for more than two weeks." The rag was moved, dipped in the water again, placed on his head again. "You remember much about the battle?"
"What battle?" Merreck stirred, found his body aching.
"The doctor said some memory loss may occur. It should be temporary." the voice sounded more assured. "You had me very scared. I was thinking you weren't coming out of it."
"I'm not sure I have." Merreck admitted. "What battle was it we were fighting? Who were we fighting? Oparia is at peace, isn't it?"
"Oparia?" Merreck had the voice placed now, it was Gwyll. "You're joking, aren't you?"
"No, no, it was the Emperor's birthday and I had taken you all out for drinks after your shifts...."
"Four years." Gwyll's voice was wondering. "You've lost four years."
"Four years?"
"Yes, that party was over four years ago. God, Merreck!" Gwyll sounded nearly hysterical. "You've forgotten everything that happened after that party? Zerstorin struck Oparia only three weeks later. His hordes, five million or more strong, invaded Oparia across a border five hundred miles long. Zerstorin's magical storms struck every city in Oparia."
"Dear Goddess!" Merreck attempted to sit upright and felt the world whirling. "What? Where?"
"Oparia, my dear Merreck, is no more." Gwyll sat down on the bed beside Merreck, and Merreck saw the years had worn hard on Gwyll. Gwyll had always been a slender man and was still, his blond hair and soft lines of his face had made him seem even younger than he was. But now, there were lines that aged his face until now he seemed a few years Merreck's senior.
"Nothing?"
"Zerstorin drove what was left of our men out of Oparia, seized everything, killed everyone who didn't follow our troops. It's now a wasteland, all of it."
"So...so where are we?"
"Pelingrin." Gwyll said. "We serve the King of Pelingrin."
"And we were fighting Zerstorin? I was fighting to take back Oparia?"
"No. No, we were fighting Chendrel."
"Chendrel?" Merreck was scandalized. He and his comrades had lost Oparia and now they were fighting on behalf of one tiny-kingdom king against another? "What about the others?"
"What others?"
"Foult. Broud. Tilvin."
Gwyll paused a moment, and Merreck knew what he was going to say.
"Dead." Gwyll said so softly Merreck was barely able to hear him. "Broud died in the first attack. Foult fell defending the last surviving members of the Emperor's family fleeing Oparia. Tilvin...died of his wounds after that. Everyone else who lived just sort of...dispersed. There comes a time when you have to just walk away, you know?"
"So we just walked away." Merreck lay back on the bed again. He'd lost more than four years! He'd lost his entire life! Nothing was as it had been before! It was like looking at a blank wall.
"You just lie there, try to rest. You've been sick. I'll go fetch you some soup."
Merreck spent the next several days lying in that bed, while Gwyll had tended to his every need. The bedpan was embarrassing, but Gwyll assured him it was less unpleasant than the diapers he had put on (and taken off) Merreck for so many months. An empty wine jug made a good piss-pot for him, and he could handle that for himself. After that, he moved to a comfortable chair Gwyll had brought in and began to learn his new comrades who now began to visit. It was embarrassing to listen to them, talking of things he had done but of which he had no memory. He learned he had saved ten men trapped in a gully ambush by a feat of derring-do he still had trouble believing in, were these men playing a joke on him or had he actually fought off three men at once while one of his hands had held onto a rope that kept him from falling into a jagged-bottom crevasse? That was hard for him to believe, even if it did explain some scars he bore on his left side, where normally his shield kept free from harm.
He was still wrapping his brain around that when one of the men said, "Yeah, and Gwyll came riding to the rescue about then and his sword was moving so fast, it was like a circle! He raged in and kept you from falling into that crevasse when the rope finally broke...."
"Broke?"
"Sure." the man went on. "And he caught hold of you and swung you onto his horse and you rode on to help in the rest of the battle by...." And more stories were told of this new world Merreck had just entered, and which was new, bewildering, and filled with dangers foreign to a man who had lived his entire life in a sovereign empire's capital. Merreck had to shake off a sense of persistent fear as if he were trapped in enemy territory unfamiliar and weird.
And as they talked, Merreck realized just then how often Gwyll had been a part of the stories they'd told, he'd been so caught up in his own role, he hadn't thought it through. Gwyll, who had been merely one of several fellow warriors back in Oparia, had become his best friend. Of course! Two warriors, outcasts in a new kingdom, would find their solace in each other's company. What would be more natural than that?
And the tender ministrations he had received during his recuperation, and the endless tending he'd received before that. Yes, he owed Gwyll so very much.
He wasn't up to much beyond thinking for another week after that moment of revelation. His immediate past remained a blank wall to him, but Gwyll was more than willing to reminisce about Oparia with him, welcoming the chance to flee into the past with him.
Except on one subject. He didn't want to talk about Tilvin at all. They'd been very close back in Oparia, and whatever had happened to Tilvin that had caused his death was still a closed door. Merreck had a burning desire to place everyone he'd known before, he had to fill in that blank wall some way or another, even if it was in the form of notes pasted on from someone else.
None of the others knew anything about Tilvin. He must have died before he and Gwyll had come to Pelingrin. But when? How? Where?
He puzzled about it an afternoon spent otherwise in exercising his legs, rebuilding his strength. Tomorrow, he'd be ready to re-enter the world once again. It let him fit the last bits of the puzzle together again.
Gwyll felt Tilvin's memory was too painful because they had been lovers. Of course, he should have realized it, there'd been any number of hints back in Oparia. Nothing in their culture cast any aspersions against warriors forming liaisons with each other, in fact, it was felt to be a benefit to a happy, healthy unit to have some bonded lovers among them. And now Tilvin was dead, and Gwyll was so solicitous of him... He had been seeking to form a new bond with the only man who would understand him among all these Pelingrin men...a fellow outcast of Oparia and fellow former member of the Imperial Guard.
Gwyll was in love with Merreck! Why hadn't he seen that?
When Gwyll came in after his duty (he'd been off duty for weeks while tending to Merreck, now that Merreck could look after himself, he couldn't stay off any longer), Merreck was waiting for him. Gwyll looked at him, surprised, for Merreck was lying on top of the covers of the bed, stark naked. His body was darker in skin tone than Gwyll's by several shades, and he bore a plentiful harvest of hairs on his chest, stomach, legs, and arms. Even his face, newly shaved, bore a blue-black shadow upon it where the beard he had grown during his invalid period had been. The hairs formed a shading that accented his muscles' curves, until he looked more like a statue carved to catch the light, more than a man. Gwyll looked at him, agog, wet his lips, then cleared his throat and said, "Well, are you feeling better today?"
"Better than I have in a long time." Merreck said and rose. "I feel up to doing a lot of things I haven't done in a long time, in fact."
Gwyll was walking closer as if he didn't realize he was doing it. Entranced by Merreck's naked body. Seeing him unconscious and sick hadn't satiated him, but Merreck understood that. When you tend a wounded man, you don't see the man, you see the wound. Now he was whole, and Gwyll could see him, see him clearly.
Merreck reached down and stroked his manhood, bringing it to fullness and said, "I was wondering if you could help me with some of those things, in fact."
"Are you sure about this?"
"Surer than I've been about anything."
"What about your memory, do you remember...?"
"Still a blank wall. But a blank wall means I can fill it in to suit myself." Merreck reached up and caught hold of Gwyll's hand in his own. "So I'm going to fill it with you."
Gwyll quit resisting, he bent over and his lips met Merreck's and the hand being held by Merreck squirmed free and caught hold of Merreck's cock. The fingers stroked along his length with a familiarity and adeptness that felt like his hand belonged there. Perhaps he was benefitting from the past liaison with Tilvin, but those fingers were wringing his body with a pleasure he hadn't felt in so long, it may well have been those four missing years since he'd last felt it! He'd been alone in those days, as well, save for the social closeness of his fellow warriors, and the occasional ease of the body he'd gotten from paying one of the many whores in Oparia. He'd never crossed the sexual border before, not that he had ever been opposed (witness his current resolution) but it had simply not happened. And if he'd known the pleasure another man's experienced hand could wring from his dong, he'd have crossed that line long, long before and often!
He groaned and Gwyll pressed him back onto the bed, stood over him and tore at his own clothing with a franticness that stirred him more than a slow seductive removal would have given him. Only a man in the throes of long-withheld passion would practically rip his clothing apart to get himself ready for love!
When Gwyll's nude body laid itself over him, Merreck felt it again, the sense that this was right, it felt so very familiar and normal for him, and when their cocks touched, he wanted them to fuse together, become the single cock that would please both of them for the rest of their life.
Gwyll rubbed them together and that was better than fucking, for he could kiss Gwyll and stroke his body at the same time. But Gwyll moved on him, his lips sliding onto his cheek, onto his neck, down onto his shoulder, over to his breast, down, down, the lips and tongue roved like a wet rogue over his left nipple, then rode the lips like an impertinent child who threw wet darts as he went, down the hills of Merreck's six-pack of abs, paused at the oasis of his navel and then trekked the path of pubic hairs toward the tower waiting for it there.
Merreck moaned as that tongue danced its way up his shaft, as the lips caught his glans, as the mouth descended up on his column of manhood, and as it did, passion flowed in its wake. Merreck felt as if he were being swallowed entire by that warmth, the moist soft velvet of the lips caught hold of his cockskin and pulled upwards again, and more delight swarmed his senses.
"Oh, oh, Goddess!" he moaned again. "Please, more, more!"
Gwyll gave him more, but as he did, he also began to move around upon the bed and Merreck watched as Gwyll's prick aimed itself at him as would a fleshy lance, and he braced himself for the impact.
His lips parted as the shaft touched them, Gwyll's dong slid into Merreck's mouth and Merreck found his lips and tongue all knew what to do, they wrapped around them and caught the prong as it hit the back of his throat, and Gwyll stopped and Merreck began to move, to try to give Gwyll the same joy he was giving Merreck. He milked at that pud ardently and was rewarded by Gwyll's sounds of pleasure in return.
Gwyll broke off his sucking of Merreck and rose from the bed, and Merreck wondered, until Gwyll said, "Now, fuck me, Merreck, fuck me nice and hard. But let me do the work here at first."
Merreck let Gwyll crawl onto his body again, this time in a straddle of Merreck's midriff, and then he sat backwards, his hand guiding Merreck's wetted cock into his anus. Gwyll threw his head back and moaned as Merreck's prod slid into him. Merreck put both hands behind his head and grinned up at Gwyll as the blond-haired warrior moved up and down on him. Gwyll looked down at him with passion-fogged eyes and saw that smile, smiled in return.
Merreck enjoyed watching Gwyll service him like this, but then he realized that Gwyll had been doing little else for so long. Time to give a little back to this wonderful comrade. He reached up and pulled Gwyll down onto him and then rolled them over and now he was on top and he began to thrust his prong into Gwyll's body, wringing from him ragged gasps of joy as he rammed in and out of those tender buttocks.
"Oh, Goddess, I'm getting close!" Gwyll groaned after a few minutes of this. Merreck only growled and humped his friend harder, and Gwyll reached up, his fingers sunk into Merreck's flesh like claws, and he clung like the panther does its prey. Merreck's growls became a roar as as Gwyll spasmed in his pleasure, Merreck drove his dick in deep and sprayed his liquid love into his partner's bowels while white geysers of jizz peppered Merreck's stomach liberally.
"Oh, Goddess, more, more, Goddess, more!" Gwyll groaned as he was shaken about by his passion and by Merreck's continued thrusting.
"Yes, yes, all of me, it is all of me!" Merreck moaned. "As you gave to me in my illness, I give now to you, all of me, it is all of me!" And his ejaculation ceased and he fell onto Gwyll's worn-out, sweat-soaked body and their male sweat combined into a common puddle of spent masculine delight.
When his senses returned to him, Merreck rolled off of Gwyll and these two warriors panted side by side in the bed. Such a nice, large bed, Merreck wondered for the first time at how roomy it was.
"Another time like that, and I will not be able to return to duty tomorrow after all." he told his comrade, to win from him a smile and slight laugh. "I am fair worn out and ready to sleep."
"Sleep calls to me as well." Gwyll agreed.
Merreck considered the cot that Gwyll had been using and couldn't bear the thought of banishing his friend to it. "Stay here with me this night." he said. "There is room enough for two."
"I would like that, if you are ready." Gwyll moved only to pull the covers over both of them.
"We must find some way to tell the men under our command." Merreck thought of the duties he must reassume. "It would not do for them to engage in speculation. If you are to be my lover, and I want you to be my lover, then we must tell them."
"That will not be necessary." Gwyll demurred.
Merreck was surprised. "You know as well as I that a liaison in secret damages any unit. There is no shame for us in our union, it is the warrior's way to...." Gwyll's finger on his lips silenced him.
"Are you still innocence of knowledge of the past four years?"
"I know naught save what others have told me." Merreck agreed. "It is still a blank wall for me otherwise."
Gwyll smiled. "Then let me paint a section for you. We don't have to tell them because they already know. Merreck, you and I became lovers nearly three years ago. When you lay naked before me, I thought you had recalled at least that."
"I am innocent." Merreck repeated. "But at least I know I am rebuilding my life the right way. Just because a wall is blank doesn't mean that the building of which it is a part has changed. And we can color it any way we want to, or redo it the way it was before, whichever is better."
"Then let me help you in that." Gwyll said.
"Always." Merreck agreed and kissed his lover slowly and well. It was still a new world for him to face. But he wasn't afraid of it any longer.
THE END
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E-mail the Author at Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM