Second Exit
by London Lampy
Chapter 19
Llando's skin is smooth and warm and I can't seem to stop stroking my hand along the length of his side as we lie facing one another on the floor of his sleeping hut. He says something to me in a whispered voice that I don't understand a single word of, then presses his lips to mine once again. He shifts his body until we can't get any closer, until his torso is against mine and he has one arm wrapped around my back, his fingers in my hair and his tail around my legs.
As we kiss I touch his tail and it's both strange and familiar at the same time. It feels exactly like mine but it isn't and when he lifts it slightly I know just what he's asking for so I ease my fingers under the base and rub him gently at the point where it joins his body. Llando makes a low sound of appreciation then returns the favour, doing to me what I'm doing to him.
"That feels so good, doesn't it?" I murmur into his ear.
I love being able to finally do that to someone else, knowing how much pleasure being touched there gives me. He pulls back from our kiss and looks at me.
"Llando...Exit good," he says.
"Yeah," I agree.
As good as this feels I want more and I hope he's happy to take things further. As if he's read my mind he moves his hand from my tail to between my legs, rubbing my erection through the fabric of my shorts the pulling at the bottom of them, trying to remove them. When they don't budge he gives up and pushes his hand inside from the bottom instead and I wriggle against his palm.
"So you really do want this," I say, trying to work out how to remove his leather thing.
"Want," he agrees as my fingers get tangled up in the thongs on the side.
When he realises what I'm attempting to do he removes his hand from my shorts, bats my hand away and does it himself while I unbutton my shorts and remove them. Once he's naked he rolls onto his back watching me and stroking himself. I stare at him, he looks so much like me I wonder if it's vain to find him this attractive? His eyes are half closed and he's clearly enjoying his own touch, I can see a bead of moisture forming on the tip of his cock and I reach over and catch it with my fingertip, rubbing the slick liquid around the velvety skin there. He makes an appreciative noise in response.
"Has anyone ever given you a blow job?" I ask.
"Hu?" he mumbles as I replace his hand with mine to stroke him slowly, watching the muscles in his stomach tighten with pleasure.
"Like this." Moving down his body I lick the very end of his shaft, then briefly take it in my mouth to explain myself.
"Oh!" he exclaims loudly. I glance up at his face, his eyes are now open wide and he has a sort of surprised expression on his face. I guess the answer to my question is no.
"Did you like that?" How could anyone not like that?
"Sa."
"Want me to do it again?"
"Sa."
If this is the first time anyone has ever given him head I want to make it as good for him as I possibly can. I start by licking him from root to tip then back again, paying special attention to the extra sensitive place behind the head, cupping his tight balls in my palm as I go. He's talking quietly to me, words I don't understand, but they feel like encouragements, and sometimes he says my name. If he likes that he's going to like this even more. I slide him inside my mouth, taking in as much as I can, which is most of him. I suck gently, not moving yet, simply swirling my tongue around his hard flesh which makes him gasp and buck his hips. He's too close, I want to make this last longer, I want to make it memorable for him, so I move my mouth away and sit up. Llando makes a disappointed groan.
"I'll do it again in a minute, I don't want this to be over too fast." In reply he gives me a confused look so I kiss him again to reassure him that he's not going to be left frustrated.
I kiss his mouth, touch his tongue with mine briefly then kiss along his jaw. Like me, and all other echobacks I suppose, he doesn't need to shave and I find the smoothness of the skin here to be both strange and wonderful. I kiss his neck, nipping him gently with my teeth but resisting the temptation to leave a mark. Moving down his body I lick his nipples, which makes him gasp and loosely wrap his tail around me. I move my mouth down, across his warm, flat stomach, then I tease him, moving sideways to his hip and leg.
"Exit..." he groans, putting his hand on my head and trying to steer me back toward his cock.
"Alright," I laugh. "I'm not being very fair, am I?"
I take him in my mouth again, and this time begin to suck in earnest. He mutters something in his own language, whispering breathless words as he gets closer to coming. I hold his balls, they're very tight and I feel his fingers gripping my shoulder as I speed up.
"Uh...sa!" he groans loudly, thrusting into my mouth and ejaculating almost down my throat. I swallow as he comes, sucking the last drops out of him then letting him slowly slide out of me. Giving his cock a single, soft kiss I then move back up his body until I'm lying beside him.
"Good?" I ask.
"Sa" he sighs smiling at me, his eyes half closed. He kisses me then pulls me into an embrace, his arms and tail tight around me. We stay like that for a few minutes, until I suspect that he might be falling asleep.
"Um...Llando," I wriggle against him, letting him know that I'm far from done. "Are you leaving me to deal with this by myself?"
"Mmm?" he questions.
I unwrap him from me, roll onto my back and point to my erection, then to him. "You don't have to blow me, I'm assuming you've never done that before, but a hand job would be nice."
He seems to get what I'm saying as he props himself up on his elbow and touches me with his free hand.
"Yeah, like that," I say, pushing into his palm. He leans in to kiss me, his tongue darting out and touching my lips until I open my mouth and let him in. He strokes me as we kiss, moving his body until he's half lying on me and I'm able to reach over and rub the base of his tail again.
"Sa," he murmurs, licking my ear, then sucking the lobe.
"Mmm...yes, sa," I say. I don't know if he's ever done this to anyone other than himself, but he's good. He uses just the right amount of pressure, speeding up then slowing down, bringing me to a series of small peaks.
"Gods...Llando." I'm trying to hold back, wanting this pleasure to last, but then he reaches underneath me and strokes the start of my tail and I'm gone. My orgasm seems to start in my tail and spread out from there, for a split second I regret that I don't have anything in my ass before I'm not capable of thought any more and I come wetly into his hand.
"Good?" he asks me as he wipes his hand on what looks very much like a fine linen napkin that's beside the sleeping mat.
"Very good," I reply.
"Llando good...Tula na?"
"For me," I say. "I'm sure plenty of other people would like Tula."
"Mmm...like Exit." He lies back down, throwing his arm and tail around me and putting his head on my shoulder. I stroke his back listening to his breathing even out as he dozes off.
Of all the things I thought might happen to me out here in the forest an encounter like this with another echoback never crossed my mind, but I'm very glad it happened. I hope Llando feels the same, and I really hope that he wants to do it again. I wonder how far he's willing to go?
Now I'm starting to feel sleepy, and as I close my eyes I decide that there can't possibly be any harm in having a quick nap.
"How can you have fucking lost him!" Vio is not happy. "What have you been doing all this time?"
"Sampson was listening to a story..." I start.
"You already told me that, and by my reckoning it was about two hours ago, where did he go after that?"
"I don't know." I look at the floor of our hut.
"Why don't you know? You should have stayed with him!"
"Yeah...I'm sorry, but I'm sure he's fine. Not much could have happened to him."
"Not much?" she snaps. "He could have fallen out of the village, or called someone a monkey, or..." she runs out of ideas. "I don't fucking know, but he's a walking liability. What in the god's names possessed you to leave him alone for so long?"
"Um..." My feet really need a wash.
"Well?"
"Llando," I say very, very quietly, looking up at her and wincing, waiting for the explosion.
"Tell me you didn't," she growls.
"Er...I can't."
"Fuck!" she shouts. "You fucking libido brained idiot boy! You left Sampson alone just so you could go and get your end away?"
"No...not exactly. You see I thought Llando was pissed off at me, then he wasn't...then he took me to his hut and..."
"I don't want to know the fucking details," Vio yells. "Just get yourself back up to the the village and find our boss!"
If I was Sampson, where would I be?
He's not in the big house, he's not in the bathing pool and everyone I've asked has looked at me blankly and shrugged their shoulders, although I don't think most of them knew what I was asking. I'm starting to get an unpleasant sensation of dread in the pit of my stomach that something bad has actually happened to him. At the edge of the village I spot Ev, sitting cross legged in front of a hut, cleaning his gun. I don't really want to talk to him, but at least I know he can understand me.
"Hello," I say sitting down a few feet away from him. He looks at me and grunts, then goes back to the gun. "I don't suppose you've seen Sampson around? I've kind of lost him."
"Sampson?" he hawks then spits noisily off the edge of the platform. I'm not sure if it's a comment on my boss or he's just got phlegm. "There," he points upwards, to a lone hut built high in a tree behind us.
"Thank you," I reply, getting up and looking at the hut.
Its taller than most of the other huts around here and looks quite different. Its walls have been daubed with red and white symbols, lines and circles, much like the tattoos most of the men sport. Strips of faded cloth, bleached what I hope are animal bones and broken mirror pieces have been strung up under the thatch and are all moving in the slight breeze, the mirrors winking as they catch the sun. As I approach the hut I notice that a thin trickle of smoke is coming out from a hole in the roof, which is odd because all of the cooking here takes place on the ground for safety.
There's something altogether unsettling about the place, and when I make it up to the curtained doorway I stop to stand outside and listen, not wanting to go in if I don't have to. Unfortunately I hear voices coming from inside and one of them is clearly Sampson's, you can't mistake him for anyone else. As there's no actual door to knock on, just an expensive if faded looking drape like the one on Llando's hut, I improvise.
"Knock knock," I announce loudly, feeling rather stupid.
"Exit?" a questioning voice that sounds very much like Barney's comes from inside.
"Yes, I'm looking for Mr Sampson, is he in there?"
"I bloody well am," Sampson himself replies.
"Come on in," Barney says.
I pull the curtain aside and enter, the inside is dim and smoky. Some sort of iron stove with a saucepan balanced on the top of it is sitting in the centre of the room and the glowing fire inside it, along with a single shaft of light coming through a hole high up in the roof are all that is lighting the place.
Stacked around the walls are dozens of containers, both large and small. Some old glass beer bottles have something dark and strange looking inside them, and a chamber pot seems to be full of shiny dead beetles, each one the size of my palm, their spiky legs pointing to the sky. Sampson, Barney and the old storyteller are all sitting on the floor in a loose circle, and in the middle of them is something very nasty indeed; a dead monkey with it's belly slit open and it's insides pulled out. A pungent smell is coming from the poor creature that the smoke can't quite mask, and the old man has blood covering his hands and is holding what I very much suspect to be the monkey's heart, examining it in the glow if the stove.
"What's going on?" I ask, feeling queasy. The whole scene is very gruesome.
"This chappie here...what did you say his name was?" Sampson looks at Barney.
"Sosa," Barney provides.
"Sosa, that's it, he's been telling my future, reading the entrails. It's all rather splendid," he grins.
"I see." Splendid isn't the word I'd use.
The old man stands up, takes the heart over to the stove and drops it into the saucepan where it begins to sizzle. To this he adds some of the dark liquid from one of the bottles and a handful of dried leaves that he plucks from an ornate jewellery box. The smell from the mixture is horrible, and it bubbles and spits away as Sosa stirs it with soup ladle, muttering something that sounds like a prayer.
"I say, that's a bit noisome," Sampson's covers his nose with his hand.
"Exit, come and sit down," Barney beckons me over to them.
I go reluctantly, not wanting to get any closer to the dead monkey than I have to. As I settle next to Barney I can't help noticing that its eyes are open and it's staring into nothingness with bright amber eyes, it can't have been dead for that long.
Sosa removes the pan and sets it down on a large, flat stone next to the stove. Using the ladle he spoons some of the liquid into a clay cup which he hands to Sampson, then takes his place on the floor again. He looks at me, seeming to notice that I'm there for the first time, and gives me a nod. Barney introduces me in the echoback language, I say hello, but don't put out my hand for him to shake, I don't want to touch his bloody hands. Meanwhile Sampson is blowing on the disgusting mixture in the cup, and it dawns on me that he's going to drink it. Should I try to stop him? If he gets ill from it Vio is going to blame me.
"Is that a good idea Sir?" I point at the cup. "You've only just recovered from your fever."
"Thanks to the medicines of these wonderful people," he replies, lifting the cup to his lips.
"It will strengthen him," Barney adds. It would make me throw up.
Sampson drains the cup in one swallow then pulls a face, wiping black drips from his scraggly beard with the back of his hand.
"Absolutely bloody disgusting," he proclaims. "Must be good stuff."
Sosa doesn't seem to have finished with the contents of the pan and he's back over at the stove. Fishing out what's left of the heart he then drops it into a stone bowl and grinds it up with a smooth pebble, adding a little more of the liquid from the pan as he goes.
"I'm glad you came up here," Barney says as I watch Sosa in fascinated horror. "I was going to bring you up myself, introduce you to Sosa, you'll be spending some time with him soon."
"Why?" I ask. The old man's finished pounding now, the stuff in the bowl has turned into a thick, black paste.
"You want to become a man, don't you? Sosa will be the one to birth you into adulthood." I never exactly agreed to that, Barney is making assumptions again.
Sosa dips his finger into the paste and uses it to paint two black circles around Sampson's eyes. I look at my boss, he's dressed in Barney's solider clothes, his hair is unbrushed, his beard is grown out and he now two sports darkened eyes like the echoback tribesmen. He's hardly recognisable as the same man who boarded the steamer back in Parnell.
"What exactly does it involve?" I ask Barney.
"A journey, a death, and a rebirth. Sosa will lead you, but I'll be there too. Traditionally it should be your father, or failing that another, older male relative, but as in your case that's impossible I'll stand in their stead."
"It should be Tallis," I say, thinking out loud.
"Who?" Barney frowns at me.
"I met him while I was a pirate, he was my teacher." I rather enjoy the puzzled look Barney gives me. He thinks he knows everything about me, but he doesn't.
"A pirate?" he echoes.
"Undercover work," Sampson joins in. "Very exciting if I remember, daring do on the high seas and all that."
If anything Barney looks even more confused by this so before I end up having to tell him the whole story I change the subject. "If I do it, do I have to drink a monkey's heart?" I'm not doing it if I do.
"No, what Mr Sampson has been doing is something quite different."
Sosa comes back to us, gathers the monkey up in his arms, guts and all, takes it over to the corner of his hut and starts to skin it with a small sharp knife, humming to himself as he works. I look away.
"Does it involved any dead monkeys at all?"
"No," Barney laughs. "Rest assured, no monkeys, or any other animals, dead or alive are part of the ceremony."
I'm starting to think I might do it. "How long does it take?"
"A couple of days."
"Days?"
"Two days out of your whole life, not much really, and after you'll be an adult."
"And you promise, no dead monkeys?"
"I promise," he smiles.
"Alright, I'll do it."
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