Excerpted from Legacy of Boy by Marilyn Jaye Lewis Under the stars, under the soothing canopy of the tall pines, Boy lay on the ground outside of the royal tent. In his bed that night, the mute slept soundly. All around the encampment, guards were on point. Alone in the darkness, Boy grieved. At last, he was facing the full truth of it. Sparkle Shooter could not have survived. The Warrior Beasts had made it too far south. Being a king, Shooter would have been ravaged, without question, and ravaged thoroughly. He was now roaming the Upper Kingdom, or perhaps ruling in the palace, as a Warrior Beast in service to Hecton. For all intents and purposes, the Shooter Boy had known and so deeply loved, was gone. Boy’s heart gave way under the finality of it and he wept quietly. Not only for his own loss, but for how Shooter had probably suffered at the end. The indignity of it. The foul stench of the Beasts and the assault, the rape that without doubt had defiled him and passed on the incurable curse. If it weren’t for Boy’s duty to his people back home and to whoever was left in the Upper Kingdom, Boy would surrender to complete and utter dispair. The images of Shooter’s demise filled his imagination like a black and ugly rain. And what was worse yet was that Boy must still make it to the Upper Kingdom, track down Shooter and slice him from sternum to pelvis with his father’s weighty sword. To have been first to die would have been a blessing. Boy understood that now. * * * In the twinkling twilight, a twilight mesmerizing with its keenness as can only happen in dreams, Shooter appeared to Boy in the flush of manhood. Boy’s heart erupted in gladness at the sight of Shooter, uncursed, standing before him. Arms open to welcome Boy close to his still beating, still human heart. Not understanding that he was dreaming, Boy exclaimed, “Shooter! You are not lost! In fact, you look better than ever.” Shooter’s brilliant white hair shimmered in the twilight. His azure blue eyes twinkled as brilliantly as if they, too, were twin stars. He was in the prime of good health. Still, he knew the truth, he knew he was lost. “To everyone on the earth, I am no more. But here, beyond the wild river, I exist again.” Boy looked around himself in disbelief. “What do you mean, beyond the wild river? I am not lost. How can I be here with you if we are beyond the wild river and I am not dead?” “You visit me in dreams, Boy. It is perfectly allowable for us to meet in dreams.” “But I don’t feel like I’m dreaming.” “And yet you are. In fact, you have visited me here every night since I was lost to Hecton. It is only just now that your heart has accepted that loss and so you are aware of being here with me. In fact, when you awaken and for every night after this, you will have perfect recall that we now meet in dreams. Boy, it is the only way that I can lead you to the Beast I’ve become and help you release me from the curse.” To Boy, it seemed unthinkable, it seemed utterly fantastical. And yet what else could explain this feeling? This feeling that he was not dreaming, but was in fact wide awake in an unknown but oddly familiar landscape and that Shooter was vitally himself again and even thriving? That’s it, I’m dreaming, he told himself. I’m here with Shooter and I’m dreaming. “And you will remember it,” Shooter added. “I’ll remember it,” Boy repeated aloud. He fell into Shooter’s arms and held him. It couldn’t be a dream. It felt too real. Shooter’s arms were really around him and Shooter’s heart was beating close to his own heart. They kissed. At first, tentatively. Then, with all the passion they had ever known as lovers. Miraculously, they were suddenly each without clothes as they tumbled together to the ground and made love on the banks of the wild river. It was lovemaking that felt as real to Boy as anything ever could. The velvety wetness of Shooter’s mouth lowering around Boy’s aching shaft made him swell with a palpable excitement unknown before in any dream. In turn, Shooter’s thick member filling Boy’s mouth, as it searched for the soft place at the back of Boy’s throat, felt exquisitely solid. He moaned on that fleshy intrusion as it filled his mouth, making him pump his own shaft into Shooter’s mouth with increasing vigor. It was no phantom mouth that sucked him. No phantom tongue caressing the sensitive head of his cock. It was real. Wasn’t it? And weren’t those crystal blue eyes real? Those eyes that looked up at Boy with such longing and sweet ecstasy when he pushed his cock into Shooter’s hole; a hole that opened around Boy’s probing tool and accepted it with unabashed desire? It was real. It was all real. The sweat, the groaning, the acute pleasure that built to unbearable intensity. And then the peak sensation, the burst into orgasmic delight, the surge of hot semen shooting out of him--it was no wet dream. It happened. It delighted and depleted him. And it happened for Shooter, as well. The world beyond the wild river was real. They lay together on the riverbank, breathing unevenly and slowly coming back to normal. Or to what could only be called normal in this dreamlike place. “Is this what we do every night?” Boy asked. Shooter smiled sweetly. “This is what we do, as if we had never parted from each other.” “How is it possible?” “Look there,” Shooter explained, pointing to the far distance. “Those are the Sacred Fields. I haven’t entered them yet. I’ve stayed here on the riverbank, close to the realm that used to be home for both of us, but is now only home to you. Once I enter those fields, though, I cannot come back here to this river until I live the cycle of life all over again.” Boy studied the fields in the distance. They looked like any fields he might see in the Lower Kingdom. Ordinary fields, yet to hear Shooter tell it, they were extraordinary fields indeed. “Don’t ever go into those fields,” Boy begged him quietly. “I’m not ready to live without you, Shooter. I’m not ready.” © 2006 Marilyn Jaye Lewis |
