The Circus Came to Corwen, Part Three, Remembering the Sea

Read Part I of The Circus Came to Corwen

Read Part II of The Circus Came to Corwen

Content: MM pairing, Queer, Erotica, Oral Sex, Sex as Magic Power.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1883, EVENING

Roe’s hand closed on mine. The callouses on his fingers rasped against my knuckles. We stood together in the dusk while red and white tent tops unfolded around us like flowers. We stood closer than polite society would deem proper. And still, surrounded by people, he held my hand. My shoulders tightened as I braced myself for insult or worse.

“No one here gives a fig, Thomas,” he said, squeezing my hand.

“I didn’t…”

The tenderness of his smile, no more than upward tilt in the corners of his mouth, stopped my excuse. The tears that had been threatening to fall when I saw him watching the sunset spilled over.

“I don’t understand what is happening.”

“You will,” Roe said. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

I shook my head, laughing through my tears, shocked by the free reign I’d given my emotions, “Lead on.”

We walked to the field’s edge, where a line of silver maples stood at attention like a battalion’s rearguard. By the time we passed into the forest beyond Belton’s field, the sun had sunk beneath the horizon, and the first stars were peeking out from the firmament.

It was cold beneath the trees like the shadows had sapped all the heat from the day. I shivered, and Roe lifted my hand to rub warmth into it between his own. My cheeks flushed. The familiar gesture was one our brief acquaintance didn’t warrant. Yet I reveled in it, my head swimming with excitement.

The voices of the workers and the ring of their hammers smacking the tops of tent spikes faded as we walked. Soon the only sounds were the rustle of creatures stirring the leaf litter and branches creaking overhead.

“Where are we going?” I asked, my voice was loud.  I felt the trees press in around us, like the forest itself wanted to muffle the interruption of its night song.

“We’re almost there.”

A few minutes later, we reached a small clearing with a single white birch standing at the center. Its ghostlike trunk shone in the gloom.

Roe released my hand and circled the tree, trailing his fingers over the bark. It flaked and crinkled beneath his hand like paper. He came to a stop standing before me, leaning on the tree for support, one leg bent, his foot propped on the trunk.

It was a pose meant to convey ease, one a younger man might put on to look like a street tough. On Roe, it was effortless. He seemed as much a part of the land as the trees and the ferns.

His eyes glowed in the dark. I moved toward him without a thought. It was like he had wound twine around my heart and pulled me forward.

“I don’t. I. I want.” I stuttered, tongue-tied by want and lust.

Ro slid his hand over my cheek, his palm coming to rest at the nape of my neck. The crash of waves and the cry of seabirds returned. I shook my head like I might dislodge the sounds.

“Let it come,” he said. “Look into my eyes and let the memories come. “

My breath came fast. I sucked great gulps of air like a drowning man breaching the water’s surface. Darkness stained everything around us, and the world fell away. Everything but Roe was gone, and we were plummeting through a starless night.

Visions began to form around us. 

No. Not visions. Memories.

I saw us, as we were, but in a land of black rock. Mountains rose behind us, and before us was a churning sea. The sky was awash in splashes of violent green and obsidian. It undulated like a living thing. Forked tendrils of lightning split the darkness and left the earth scorched and smoking wherever it touched.

Roe’s voice echoed above the din, “This is where we began. We ruled here. We were kings.”

Our former selves walked into the ocean, our bodies melting like wax. We began to change as if an unseen hand was remaking us. Even as we moved, our legs split into the tentacles, writhing like serpents. Our upper bodies were like that of great stallions.

Diving into the surf, we rode the currents together.

It was glorious.

We were glorious.

And all at once, I was back in my skin. Panting, my head on Roe’s shoulder while he held me upright.

“That was us,” I said. Not a question. I knew what I had seen was real, felt it like I felt the breath in my lungs. “Yes.”

“But how?”

“You were lost,” he whispered, pain threaded through every word. “An Elder One was jealous. He banished your soul here. You’ve been born and re-born to this world a thousand times while I searched for you.”

“And now?”

“Now, my love, I’ve come to take you home.”

His lips brushed against mine, and I answered, crashing into him. The hunger he had woken in me licked against my skin like flames. Our hands tore at each other’s clothes, rending wool and cotton until we sunk to the forest floor naked.

“Forever,” Roe sang into my ear.

I licked at the salt-tang of the ocean from his neck, relishing the taste of him. Drunk on the heady scent of brine and musk, I mouthed at all the skin I could reach. Memories of our coupling returned. And not just as men, I saw the bodies we wore beneath the waves, bucking together in sea caves never seen by mortals.

I laughed, free, uncaring of who might come upon us fucking in the darkness.

Pine needles and leaves tickled my skin and the back of my knees. I spread my legs and Roe while he mouthed at the pale skin of my thighs. He buried his nose in the thatch of hair at the root of my cock.

His breath was muggy and warm against the slick skin of my shaft. I wept, a great sob tearing from my throat when he took me in his mouth.

Through the branches of the trees, I watched as the stars looked down on us from where they perched among the black.

A surge of fire burned at the base of my spine. Roe’s fingers raked down my thighs, leaving pale tracks of pink in their wake. He sat up, his hands on my knees, and bared his teeth, his face a mask of furious hunger.

“I want you,” he rasped, hovering over me like a shadow.

Sitting up, I buried my hands in his hair and closed my fists. I pulled him close, pressing my mouth to his ear,

“Then fuck me,” I demanded, my cock thrusting against his. The stuttering drag of skin flavoring the sweetness of his touch with a trace of delicious pain. “Fuck me.”