The Stargazer and the Toolmaker

CHAPTER  4

Rodne need not have worried about tiring of R'dek's  presence at all, as it turned out.  Night after night the two of them talked until their eyes were heavy with fatigue and as often as not they found it difficult to stop even after they'd crawled under the furs on Rodne's bed to sleep.  R'dek's words and experiences sparked ideas in Rodne as nothing and no one else ever had, and the toolmaker seemed to find himself similarly inspired.  Rodne happily indulged himself in this new-found intellectual exchange and indulged R'dek in turn.  He found it positively intoxicating.

Intoxicating as well was the stuff in the leather flask that R'dek brought out after their first few nights together.  Rodne thought he'd heeded the man's advice to take a small sip at first, but it burned all the way down and made his eyes water as he whooped and coughed in reaction to the sensations.

"They call it 'lightning water' in the town where I learned to make it," R'dek explained with a smile, swallowing down an enormous gulp, "because it burns like lighting going down, and after you have drunk enough you will feel as though you have been struck by lightning."

"What, are you trying to poison and me?" Rodne asked when he'd recovered his voice, looking dubiously at the flask that R'dek handed back to him.  R'dek only grinned as Rodne hazarded another sip, feeling the burn become a warmth that spread from his belly into the rest of his body.  It was a pleasant, relaxing warmth, and after another few sips Rodne began to recognize the sensations.

Some years ago, at a Midwinters feast, neighboring villagers had contributed some quantities of a fairly vile fermented grain porridge which Rodne had been talked into trying.  Six or seven the bowls of the stuff later, Rodne had found himself telling the stories he'd made up for himself to keep the various constellations sorted in his head, to the whole village.  He'd diligently kept clear of the porridge since then, but he'd set and inescapable precedent that year, and had been stuck with the task of telling those stories every Midwinters from then on.

It was rapidly becoming clear to Rodne that every sip of R'dek's 'lightning water' was nearly as potent as a whole bowl of the fermented porridge, and it was a good deal more pleasant going down.  Part of him was sure that no good could come of this, but another part was warm and happy and enjoying himself immensely.  He was not, after all, away from home, amidst a crowd of untrustworthy acquaintances and strangers, but safe in his own comfortable cave with the one person who he had come to trust more than anyone he'd ever known in his life.

Thinking this, Rodne felt himself relax and held out his hand for another pass at the flask of lightning water.  R'dek grinned merrily as Rodne hazarded a larger gulp and whooped loudly as he felt the fire in it seem to ignite in his chest.  R'dek's eyes sparkled with glee as he patted Rodne forcefully on the back.

"Is good, ne?" he laughed.

"In a way that I never really associated with the word 'good' before, I suppose," said Rodne, his voice harsh with the aftermath of the liquor's fire.

R'dek only laughed again and took the flask back from Rodne for another swallow.  He did this without removing his hand from Rodne's shoulder and Rodne could not help thinking that this was, perhaps, another species of 'good' as well.

Spitt came to join them now, disturbed from her nap on Rodne's bed by all the yelping and coughing.  She ignored them at first, seeming intent on washing herself by the fire, but when R'dek reached out with his free hand to spider  his fingers across the floor behind her she froze, her demeanor shifting instantly into 'hunter' mode.

"If you want to retain the use of that hand," said Rodne, reaching for a long, thin willow branch he kept for this very purpose, "I recommend you use this instead."

R'dek took his advice, and the proffered twig, and soon had Spitt doing some remarkably entertaining acrobatics.  Lightheaded with the effects of a R'dek's liquor, Rodne found himself laughing along with a R'dek at the cat's antics, leaning comfortably into the man's side as the hand resting over his shoulders shifted to close around them.  It warmed him, as the fire warmed him, and the liquor warmed him, and the closeness of a R'dek's body warmed him, and it was all very good.

It was at about this point that Spitt evidently decided that it was time to strike at the actual controller of the fiendish stick, and without warning lunged towards R'dek's face.  Yelping with surprise, between gales of laughter, Rodne and R'dek both fell back onto the ox hide laying before the fire, and Spitt landed on  R'dek's chest, looking quite pleased with herself.  Between the cat's initial refusal to relinquish her prey, and the two men's helpless laughter, it took a moment or two for them to struggle upright again, but when they did Rodne did not fail to notice that R'dek's hand had shifted again.

The warm, clever fingers now resting on his thigh elicited in Rodne yet another sort of the warmth, one that Rodne had not felt in a long time.  He had not felt it very often either, and his few, unhappy experiences with such behaviors led him immediately to wonder what R'dek meant by it.  It was these experiences that provided the probable answer too, and finding it Rodne felt much of his previous comfort and contentedness evaporate.

"You don't have to do that," Rodne said, before things went any further.

"What?" R'dek looked rather more confused than relieved, which was what Rodne had certainly expected to find on the man's face.

"That... that isn't... I mean I don't expect that kind of favor from you just because I'm letting you stay here," Rodne finally managed, not sure how else to put it.

R'dek blinked, withdrawing his hand from Rodne's a leg almost reluctantly, it seemed.  "Forgive me," he said, "if I am seeming obtuse, but I wish only to be clear.  Some men... they simply do not like to take pleasure of this sort with other men.  Is this how it is with you?"

Now it was Rodne who was confused.  "No..." he said, because that was the true answer to R'dek's question, "but I... look, I've been on the other end of the whole 'sex for a place to stay' thing, and it wasn't the worst deal I've ever made; it just..."  It just made him feel empty and used, even when the sex was sort of good, but he couldn't bring himself to confess this to R'dek.  "That isn't why I asked you to stay here, is all.  I meant it when I said that I liked... spending time with you.  That's enough.  Really."

"I know that, Rodne," said R'dek, no longer looking confused, but smiling instead, kindly and perhaps just a little bit sadly.  "This I offer because I wish to.  Is that so strange to you?"

The answer to this question was ' yes', but Rodne didn't think he was quite ready to confess that to R'dek, either.  His two experiences with sex that had involved other actual people had both been driven by motivations that had nothing to do with Rodne's desires or desirability and this left him with no basis at all for understanding the current situation.

At a little over fourteen summers, Rodne hadn't exactly cared about the motivations of Leeta, the hare-lipped girl in the village with the dogs, but his eventual realization of how badly she wanted a baby from him had him fleeing the village in the dead of night.  The goatheard, Kip's artless offer of letting him stay in his camp and eat his food all summer in exchange for Rodne letting him 'put his dick in him', had at least been straight-forward and honest, but Rodne knew that the offer had only been made because he had happened by at the right moment.  Kip would have made any other passing, half-starved youth, of any gender, the same offer.

Rodne could not imagine R'dek having any hidden motives, and if he'd just wanted a fuck with whatever warm willing body was available, he'd have had plenty of opportunities with any number of the lads in the bachelor's hut, or Caresn for that matter.  No, there was no ulterior motive in those guiless blue eyes, and though there was lust there, it was complicated by other things.  It was longing, Rodne realized at last, for he recognized the look.  R'dek longed for him just as Rodne longed to know the secrets of the stars, and understanding this at last, Rodne realized that there was no reason to refuse him, and every reason to grant him what he desired.

"It is... I guess," Rodne said at last, answering R'dek's question.  "But I think it's, um... okay."

R'dek's grin was sudden and almost blinding, but also fairly brief.  "I am glad to hear it," he said softly, and then he tilted his head and leaned in to kiss him.

Poor Leeta's hare-lipped kisses had been self-conscious and cursory, and Kip had never kissed him at all, so Rodne was entirely unprepared for the depth and intensity of Ra'dek's.  He surprised himself with the quiet moan that escaped him and even more at the hunger that woke in him, eager to answer.  Suddenly he was devouring R'dek's mouth like a starving man and R'dek was responding with equal desperation, pushing him back against the oxhide on the floor.

They continued in this manner until Rodne realized that he was needing to breathe and apparently R'dek was too, for he was panting just as heavily as Rodne when they finally parted.

"This is new for you also?" R'dek asked, still a little breathless.

"Um..." said Rodne, "mostly, yeah."

"You do it quite well, you know," R'dek said, hungrily.  "I would very much like to do it some more?"

"Gods, yes," said Rodne, and then they were on each other again, their hands grasping at each other's bodies as possessively as their mouths devoured.  Rodne reveled in the sensations of a R'dek's wiry body pressed into his, but gradually he became aware of how cold the floor was under the ox hide upon which they lay, and how soft it wasn't.

"Okay," he said, when it was time to breathe again, "we need to take this somewhere more comfortable, yes?"

"Yes," R'dek agreed adamantly.  "Also, we want to make warmer fire to make removal of clothing less uncomfortable?"

"Yes, yes, brilliant thinking, as usual," Rodne approved.  "I'll go get more wood."

He made two trips to the front of the cave where the wood was stacked, and by the time he returned with the second armload R'dek had the fire blazing enthusiastically, and was already slipping off his tunic.

The parts inside Rodne's loin cloth were already growing a bit uncomfortable in their confines, but the site of a R'dek's long, abundantly furred torso revealed in the golden light of the fire had them all about demanding release.  He adjusted himself, schooling them to patience for one of last brief errand, as he darted to his pantry.  Here he kept a pot of goose fat which he had discovered to be quite useful when amusing himself from time to time, and he thought it might come in handy now.

R'dek was entirely naked and comfortably stretched out on the furs piled on Rodne's bed when he returned, and he could not set the pot of goose fat down fast enough.  His own tunic and loin cloth were in a pile at the bottom of his bed in less time than it takes to say, and no more than a heartbeat later he was stretched out along side R'dek, kissing him once again and thrilling at the sensation of his own naked flesh pressed against the other man's.

One of the things that Rodne had learned during his summer with the goat herd was that, in spite of the inequity of the arrangement, Rodne rather liked having another man's cock in his ass.  He enjoyed it so much that by the end of the summer Kip had been inspired to give it a try himself, and decided that he liked it as well.  Rodne had absolutely no objection to fucking him, but other than the certain amount of handling necessary to get the various parts in the various places they were wanted, there'd been almost no touching.  By the end of that summer, Rodne was hungry -- starved even -- to touch, and to be touched.

Shut away for all the many years since, that sense of being starved for touch woke in him now, at last, and found R'dek laid out before him like a feast.

"Gods..." he groaned worshipfully against R'dek's throat, caressing his way down his lean, muscled body, feeling dense hair and warm skin beneath his fingers.  R'dek moaned and arched his back, pressing himself up against Rodne's hands as they moved over the soft roundness of R'dek's belly and paused to finger the course hair at the base of his cock.

R'dek's fully erect flesh twitched at the nearness of Rodne's touch, but still he paused, suddenly not sure if he should ask permission.  Permission was there, however, in R'dek's wide, imploring gaze when Rodne turned to find it and, savoring the moment, he let his fingers trail up the length of R'dek's graceful, rigidly erect cock.

"Yesss..." R'dek groaned, thrusting again, and Rodne closed his eyes to lose himself in the feel of R'dek's heated flesh in his hand.  Cautiously he closed his hand around the hardness, feeling the foreskin roll back as R'dek thrust his hips upward once more, fucking his hand.

Eyes still closed, listening to R'dek's harsh and panting breaths, Rodne was surprised to feel R'dek's hands on his, lifting it gently away from his cock and up to his lips.  He opened his eyes now to watch with delight as R'dek drew each one of his fingers, one after the other, into his mouth, sucking on them gently as he pulled them free.  Now it was Rodne who panted with arousal as R'dek's lithe fingers reached down to curl around Rodne's own achingly hard cock, toying with the moisture seeping from its tip.

"Has anyone ever put their mouth on your cock, Rodne?" he asked, murmuring at the base of his throat, so that Rodne could feel his lips moving against the sensitive skin there.

"Wha...?" Rodne replied intelligently, a little overwhelmed by the very idea.

“Have you never felt lips close around your sex,” R'dek purred, his fingers circling Rodne's shaft.  “Or felt what it is like to have it sucked, or teased with a warm, wet tongue?”

“N... no...” Rodne stammered, close to coming from R'dek's words alone.  “N-no one... I mean... who... who would...?”

“Ah, my good friend,” sighed R'dek, rolling to lie closer to Rodne still, facing him and pressing their two bodies and cocks together.  “I would, and I will, but not tonight, or our pleasure would be too brief.”  He reached across to dip his fingers in the pot of goose fat, scooping out a small dollop.

“This is perfect,” he commented with a smile, smearing a bit between thumb and forefinger.  “What is it?”

“Goose fat,” Rodne answered.  “I ah... sometimes use it on myself...”

“I think it will be very pleasant to use it on us both together, yes?” murmured R'dek against his chest.

“Um, sure... oh Gods!” said Rodne as R'dek's lips moved over one of his nipples.  Who knew such a thing would feel so good?  R'dek, apparently, for he hummed delightedly and then pinched the small nub of flesh gently between his lips and tongued it.

Rodne gasped helplessly and thrust his hips into R'dek's, their two hard cocks sliding against one another.  R'dek moaned softly around Rodne's nipple and then reached down with the hand smeared with goose fat, wrapping his slender, slippery fingers around both their cocks.

“Oh fuck!” Rodne shouted, for he had never in his life felt anything like this.  He and R'dek both thrust together as R'dek slowly pumped his hand up and down their cocks, now both slick with goose fat.  One of Rodne's hands clutched hard at R'dek's shoulder, the other curled firmly over his hip and now R'dek was lifting his head to find Rodne's lips again.  Rodne groaned as they met, thrusting his tongue into R'dek's mouth as he thrust his cock into R'dek's hand.

Regardless of R'dek's intention to prolong their pleasure, Rodne knew that he wasn't going to last much longer.  For all that he took himself in hand, alone in his bed, on a fairly regular basis, there was no comparing those brief, furtive releases, with what he felt building in him now.  He cried out loudly into R'dek's mouth as the man continued to kiss him relentlessly, and then Rodne felt R'dek's free hand at the back of his head, fingers spread wide and pressing hard into his skull, assuring that there could be no escape.

It was these sensations that pushed Rodne into release at last.  His near shrieks of ecstasy muffled by R'dek's mouth, Rodne felt his whole body spasm with the force of his climax.  R'dek continue to thrust against him, even as the all-encompassing pleasure of his release coursed through him, and a handful of powerfully thudding heartbeats later, R'dek broke as well, his spending mixing with Rodne's and the goose fat slicking both their cocks.

Only then did he released Rodne from the kiss, so that they both lay panting and gasping in a sated heap on the bed.  It was sometime before Rodne found the strength or volition to stir, and when he did it was to reach up and touch R'dek's cheek tenderly, brushing a long lock of hair away from his eyes.

“Okay,” he said with a self-conscious smile.  “I'm glad you talked me into that.”

R'dek laughed a little breathlessly, tracing his fingers over Rodne's lips.  “I'm glad you are glad,” he said.  “It will be quite pleasant to pass much of the coming winter in this way, yes?”

Now Rodne laughed.  “You know, I usually hate those long winter storms when I can't go out and look at the night sky for days on end,” he said, “but by the gods, I think I'm actually looking forward to them now.”