SECRET OF THE TURTLE MEN, CHAPTER 13
"Three in a Bower"
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
The Tribunal was as good as its word; outside of their chamber, Pavel and his friends were met by a new Guardsmen, who simply said, "Come with me." They followed this Guard out to a smaller courtyard, where a small Turtle Bower was waiting for them. This one resembled greatly one of the carriages of a Ferris wheel, a small bench with a moveable rail in front; the sides and back panel were quite high and their tops would come up to his neck when he sat down in this bower. Above it, there was a T-shaped rail for the Angel to clutch with his long, prehensile toes. As they approached, other Guardsmen came out with two packs loaded with supplies. Whatever controls were within the Tribunal's chamber, it communicated with their support forces quickly. These packs were stowed beneath the bench, where unlike a Ferris wheel, the bower had storage room behind a sliding panel, and the Guardsmen departed, leaving them only with the single Angel whose job was apparently to tow the Turtle Bower.
"How high up are we going to be going here?" he asked the Angel, who ignored him.
"You mustn't address the Masters, unless they address you." Pelen said.
Pavel was getting tired of this unwarranted arrogance. "Well, then, how are we supposed to, uh, go rescue our friends unless we talk to this one?"
"I...I do not know." Pelen admitted. "I had not thought about it. My decision was quick. I expected the Masters to agree to help you."
Pavel put his hands on his hips in exasperation, and his fingertip just touched the pouch of precious stones he carried. "Well, the Arab people know a way to open many doors." Mahmoud had in fact instructed him on how to offer the gifts, with polite circumlocutions and expostulations of their unimportance, but Pavel ignored this advice. He simply opened the pouch and poured its contents into his palm, all of it, so that the jewels glittered in the midday sun and a few dropped to the ground below.
Now he had the Angel's attentions. Pavel smiled. Pelen's reaction to the stones told him that they would be valuable here; the fact they were valuable to Angels as well was to be expected. "Angel, what is your name?"
The Angel looked hard at him, and then the hard look melted. "I am Stonn."
"Stonn, would you like these stones?" he said. "They can be yours, all of them."
"How?" the Angel said, then looked about to see if they were observed.
"You are to carry two of us to a place of our choosing." Pavel moved his handful of jewels about, and three rubies dripped through his fingers, falling like drops of blood to the earth below.
"Yes." the Angel watched these stones, these beautiful gems, being treated so carelessly.
"Can this bower carry three instead?"
"It is not permitted that the Turtles leave this valley." the Angel said.
"That's what the stones are for. You'd have to carry us up high enough to prevent him from being seen. But there are no gates here, you intended to carry us high, yes?"
"Yes, but it will be difficult with three."
"That's what the stones are for." Pavel repeated.
"Pavel, you don't know what you are doing...." Pelen said anxiously.
"I know this much." Pavel said. "We need you to come with us. And these pretty-colored rocks will make it happen."
The Angel worked his throat muscles and then said suddenly. "He will need to lie upon the seat, and you will sit on top of him, to cover him with your bodies."
"We can do that." Pavel said. "At least until we get him out of the city." He put the stones back into the pouch and handed them to the Angel.
While they positioned Pelen in the bower, the Angel dropped to his knees and gathered up the other jewels, cursing as he could not find the third ruby he had seen fallen.
"You can come back for it." Pavel said. He was sitting on Pelen's chest as gently as he could, while Jethro sat with Pelen's legs over his own; the only way they could make them all fit in this small bower and still keep his presence mostly-hidden. "Come on, you have all the rest of them. Let's go."
The Angel ignored him until it came up triumphantly with the third ruby. Then, raising a flurry of dust, he flapped up and rested on the bower's rail, seized it, and with a rather hard jerk, the bower was lifted up into the sky.
Up, up, up they went. Jethro whooped with joy and looked about avidly; save for the brief, fearful journey in the Angels' clutches that had brought him to the valley, this was his first waking experience of flight. Pavel also enjoyed the sight of the buildings as they fell around him on all sides, until at last he saw their wide, flat tops, and on these tops the Angel children cavorted about, their small wings fluttering desperately as they struggled to learn how to fly while their parents watched indulgently.
"I've never seen Angel children before." Pavel said. "Have you, Jethro?"
"No." Jethro was staring instead up at Stonn valiantly flapping hard to ferry them yet higher. Pavel looked up as well, saw that Stonn's loincloth fluttered in the winds that seemed to always blow through these mountains, and Stonn's cock was plainly visible, a thick hanging salami of flesh that waved gently back and forth in cadence to the beat of his wings.
"I've never seen an Angel from down here, either." Pavel grinned over at Jethro.
"Mph!" Pelen complained.
"Oh, right." Pavel said. "We're high enough, I think. Pelen, you'd better move gently. I'll lean forward and you slide up along the back." Whatever the methods of balancing the bower, they worked very well, this small bower didn't even rock as much as the larger one that had brought him over the mountains with Jezreel and Commander Sachsen. That reminded him of his home valley, and he looked that way, but could see nothing but what might be a small triangle of ocean between two peaks and could as well be a third flat-topped distance-blued hill.
He was still a long way from home!
Pelen was sitting up and Pavel resumed his own seat, found this arrangement barely better. No longer perched uncomfortably on Pelen's chest, he was now squeezed tight between Pelen's thigh and the left side of the bower.
This left the problem of what to do with his arms; there was no simply place to keep them, for even their chests were touching. Pelen ended this brief moment of uncomfortable jockeying for personal space quite simply, he placed his hands on Pavel's and Jethro's thighs without embarrassment, thus breaking the need for personal space asunder.
Jethro was luckier, his slight height advantage appeared to let him rest his right, outer arm on the side panel where Pavel could not without discomfort. "Now you're talking." he said.
Pavel placed his arm around Pelen's shoulder. "At least the mist is leaving us alone at the moment." He said.
Pelen responded by placing his hand on Pavel's groin. "When it does, we shall make shift to pleasure each other."
"Like I said before." Jethro did the same to Pelen. "What I do know of you, I like."
"The same goes for me." Pavel squeezed Pelen's shoulder. "But since we don't have to beat each other off just yet, could you tell us what you know about the Djinni?"
"Better talk quickly." Jethro advised. "There's a patch of the mist right in our path up ahead."
In this brief time in their journey, they had already reached the western edge of Turtle Valley, now the hills were below them and the mountain peaks were just ahead of them, and the peaks were shrouded with mist.
"Well, the Djinni seem to be insectoid in origin." Pelen said. "Though calling them insects would be like calling us apes. They have four long wings and large multi-faceted eyes, and are about half our size but they are incredibly strong."
"Yeah, two of them were enough to lift Jassem the way the two Angels lifted me up. But we've seen them already." Jethro complained. "What about their behavior? You said the Tribunal lied to us about their actions."
"When a Djinni captures a human, it will sting its captive, but this usually does not kill, it merely immobilizes the human."
"Just like some Earth insects." Pavel nodded.
"They then put the human into one of their larval chambers, just like the Tribunal said. But instead of just leaving the human like that to die and the larvae feed on it, they continue to feed the human, a direct transfer from a food sac they have into the human's mouth. The man described it as nauseating to the taste, but also said that it kept him alive."
"So why is the human in with the larva, if not to be a supply of meat for the larva?"
"The larva does feed off the human. But instead of eating the flesh...." Pelen paused for words.
"Given this world, I can guess the rest." Pavel said. "So the larva sucks off the human and eats its spermloads."
"In a continuous feeding." Pelen agreed. "The larva only needs this supply for a few weeks, then it is removed from the chamber and a new one put in its place."
Pavel thought this over. "So how do we rescue our friends?"
"A better question, how did the guy who told you all this escape?" Jethro interjected.
"He was able after some months to throw off most of the effect of the poison sting. By lying still when the Djinni were near, they did not notice and re-sting him. He then took a chance when none of them were nearby and slipped out of the chamber. He said that as long as he lay still, the Djinni didn't seem to notice him. He waited for nightfall when the Djinni rest and then slipped away."
"So that's our answer." Pavel said. "We lie still until nightfall and then creep into their chambers."
"It is not that easy." Pelen said. "The pink mist is strong within their chambers. It helps the humans to feed their larvae. My friend said that it nearly drove him insane, the time while he had to lie still and that he would have escaped quicker but for his need for release time and again."
"He beat off instead of crawling." Jethro said. "And speaking of beating off...." They were entering the mist.
"I think we're about to land." Pavel agreed. "Room for more than a jerk."
Stonn placed them down on the shaded side of a large hill, and Pavel was quick to jump out of the too-tightly-squeezed bower seat and extended his hand to help Pelen disembark. Pelen took it with a smile, and Pavel found a smile on his own face.
"Now I guess I should ask if you have had a lover since our last time together."
"No, nor any need, as I was inside the Tribunal chamber and its counteracting mist." Pelen admitted.
"Then you should take Jethro." Pavel said, a tinge of disappointment on his face. This would leave him with....
The Angel was still there, and Jethro had stepped up to the taller winged man, admiration in his face. Jethro spoke, but the wind carried his voice away and Pavel couldn't understand it, but he didn't need to; the Angel smiled, and Jethro placed his hand on the Angel's long, slender cock which resembled an asparagus spear in its shape.
Pelen's hand touched Pavel's shoulder. "I have placed myself outside of my valley." he said softly to Pavel. "The rules need not apply until such time as we re-enter it."
Jethro had dropped to his knees and the silver-uniformed Connobaran soldier was lustily sucking on Stonn's slim prong, Stonn's fingers ran through Jethro's blond hair and stroked his head as if polishing a precious jewel like the ones he now carried at his waist.
Pelen had stepped behind Pavel, and both hands now ran over Pavel's body, stroking his breasts, leaving ovals of warm movement along his ribcage and his stomach, and then they converged and clasped his crotch in a firm grip, and Pelen ground against Pavel's butt.
"Well, if you're sure." Pavel said, smiling so that Pelen could not see.
"I am sure." Pelen said firmly. "Now if you will turn about, so that I may kiss you."
Pavel turned and that extraordinary hair of Pelen's was like a fire that burned from the source of his eyes. Yet for all that fire, Pelen's arms were gentle around him as they took him in, and Pavel's lips met Pelen's kiss which was the delicate landing of a butterfly upon a flower petal.
It was so easy, to make love to Pelen. Jethro had shown him something of the difference, and this was Pelen's way, with none of Jezreel's abruptness, none of Mahmoud's domination. Pelen metered out his fire, so that it flowed slowly into Pavel, awakening his body slowly, arousing him a little at a time.
It was so easy, to let his clothes fall from his body as Pelen's hands guided them away. Pelen's own garments were as easy to his fingers, the buttons slipped out of their catches at the slightest urging of Pavel's fingers. Then that massive chest of Pelen's was his to explore, and he pulled away from Pelen's delicate kisses to roam over that wide territory with his tongue, delivering its news of the savory, salty, musky flavor that was Pelen, as Pelen's hands stroked his back, his neck, his head, as Pavel's knees found the earth below without his conscious decision to kneel.
Kneeling, he was left with Pelen's taut stomach to savor, and this smaller terrain was bifurcated with the delicate lacing of his hair that reached from the valley between his breasts to the slight tucker of his navel, and beyond that to its second forest at his groin.
Pavel dug into Pelen's navel with his tongue, probing as if there was a treasure within, and Pelen groaned, and shifted, and Pavel felt Pelen's cock rubbing imperiously against his upper chest. Now to unleash this hungry beast by unfastening the trousers and sliding them off the lean hips, and now the form which had been a rib of hard flesh had become a snake which crept free upon Pavel's throat and poked insistently at his chin.
Pavel guided this slithering man-reptile upwards and it found the cavern of his mouth, and crept eagerly inside. Pavel made the way moist and as Pelen's prong scooted into him, he lavished it with his saliva and when it withdrew again, it was a damp barracuda that Pavel held onto and let it depart reluctantly. When only the head was within his mouth, Pavel manufactured more wetness, and now as the hard cock slid into him, he coated it, turned it into a slimy shaft of lubricated maleness.
A sharp cry caught his attention, and Pavel relinquished his spit-slicked conquest long enough to see Jethro, his trousers forgotten on the ground, being taken into Stonn's arms and lifted into the air! They rose, and Pavel saw Jethro gladly climbing this tall attendant, until he could wrap his legs around Stonn's thighs and hoist himself upwards, and Pavel grinned.
"I thought Jethro was all worn out by the Guardsmen." He opined, and turned back.
Pelen had gone from standing to prone. "Lie down, and I shall give you delight such as you have given me." he begged.
Pavel was glad to comply, he lay down upon the barren earth, ignoring the dirt for the pleasure of taking Pelen's pud back into his mouth, and Pelen now engulfed Pavel, he was wrapped up in the hungry, warm lips which throbbed rather than suckled upon him; Pavel was hard-put to match this lusty nursing of his prong, but he forced his body into a rapturous concordance of movement, for Pavel there was now only this body next to his own, everything else had faded into insignificance.
So easy to let Pelen suck his cock, so good to lie here in this mutual embrace of pleasure. He could imagine no fate better than this, to lie here upon this hillside, shaded but warm in the afternoon air, and to please his young friend and be pleased in return. Pavel felt Pelen's lips not as a palpable presence, but more like a state of mind, his cock was warm and wet and breakers of passion crashed along its length in regular cadence; this was its proper sphere, as the eyes saw and the fingers touched, so did his cock supply this joy to his brain. So, too, was this cock in his mouth a part of his own body, his mouth was meant to plunge it into his throat again and again, only to release it for another dive, and each stroke was meant to make this cock warmer and harder, until now it was a burning rod of steel within his mouth, and his own cock was no longer feeling in discrete waves, now it was a solid onrush of pleasure.
Pelen was groaning his warning of oncoming ecstasy, Pavel felt his own body respond in electrical tingles in his arms and legs, there was nothing left to do but to let this sensation take him over, to nurse the burning hot pole in his mouth while Pelen's groans rose and echoed in his ears, while his own throat brought forth similar moans without his volition, his entire body was now a tingling rush of rippling desires, and now Pelen's grunts reached a choked-off crescendo and he felt the hard shaft melt in his mouth, spewing forth liquid metal that splattered his tonsils and gushed over his tongue while the hard-thrusting source sprayed even more into him.
And in this rush of salty jism in his mouth, Pavel's own body ignited from the shocks that were striking his every nerve, his cock became like a liquid gusher that burst out of him, though still it was all a part of him, yet it also unleashed its fiery fury into Pelen's clutching, groaning mouth, and as Pavel drank in Pelen's salty jism, his own poured out of him into Pelen, so that it was like he had somehow become two bodies instead of one, and was both giving and receiving of the same bursts of ejaculated joy.
Pavel nursed Pelen's prick even when all sensation ceased, when his only motions were slushy and languid from slaked passion, and in this surfeit of release, he was left feeling drained and yet, somehow triumphantly complete and whole.
Again it was cries of passion that diverted him from his self-contained joy, he looked up and saw Jethro and Stonn as a mere shadow high in the sky, devoid of details, and yet communicative in the way their limbs contorted with joy, high above them, Jethro was finding his own ecstasy and Stonn's willowy pud was gushing with Angel's euphoria into Jethro's well-toned butt.
Pavel turned his attentions back to Pelen, only arising when the flap of wings sounded louder above him. Stonn lowered Jethro gently to the ground, and yet even back upon terra firma, Jethro was loathe to turn loose of his winged lover, he still clung tight until Stonn's deflated prong slipped out of his ass with a drip of bluish jism pouring forth with it.
Then, reluctantly, Jethro stepped down from Stonn's embrace and looked about for his trousers. Finding them, he took them up and stepped into them as Stonn removed the packs from the storage area, dropped them on the ground, and then took the bower into his clutches and rose again without even a farewell.
"Whoo, that'll be something to tell my fathers about when I get back home." Jethro said.
"Let us all hope that day will be soon in coming." Pelen said. "The valley of the Djinni is before us, and we should make haste to get closer before daylight. Let us now watch the skies with care, for danger lurks from there more the closer we tread to the Djinni's domain."
"Very true." Jethro said, taking up one of the packs. "We'd better get tramping. Pelen, Pavel and I will tote these packs. You keep a close watch on the sky. You're more used to spotting flying creatures up there than we are."
Pavel had to agree with this, and he nodded to Pelen's questioning look. Pelen led them in a direction where some low bushes would help conceal their presence. Pavel held back as his two comrades strode forth into the unknown. It was not fear, but contemplation that delayed him.
Standing thus back here, he could see Jethro and Pelen with one set of eyes.
And realized that he saw them with one set of emotions as well.
Was he in love with both of them?
THE END OF CHAPTER 13