Tuesday Teaser: Miles & The Magic Flute
I'm putting this up I think as much as a plea/acknowledgement to the Gods of Story as I am anything else. I have 11k now of M&TMF, with plans to get another 3-5K yet today. Still really don't know what's going on here.
What I do know is that the scene below is HUGE and probably the key to everything. It's one of those that just wrote itself, that might need fleshing out later but gave up so many gems and hints that it's going to take me days to find them all. I mentioned this in the previous entry, but what I'm LOVING about this story is that I can't tell who the bad guy is. I mean, there's the hint that Terris is the false good guy, but I'm not yet sure. There's something going on here. Must write to find out.
The scene below is the second scene of the second chapter, which is also the fifth scene in total. Miles has come back to his southern Minnesota hometown because he's been laid off from his big job in Atlanta, and it's becoming clear they aren't calling him back. His pride is hurt, and he's sullen and angry, and in the opening scene he sat down in the forest and declared this wasn't fair, that he hated his life and that he'd do anything to change it. Weird shit has been happening since.
In the teaser at the end of the first chapter, Miles ends up in the woods again, and this beast which has been haunting him as this weird shadow he thinks he's hallucinating shows up. Freaking out, Miles blows this weird flute which keeps showing up in his hand even when he doesn't bring it along. For some reason this calls up a beautiful man on a silver sleigh who calls Miles to come away with him. Miles mistakes him for The Emperor at first, because he looks like the image from a Tarot reading he was given in the scene prior. The beast looks like The Devil card.
I suppose I should say for the sake of the thing that this bit isn't R rated, but it's a bit above PG-13, too. Some language, sexual reference, and a bit of fondling at the end. But you ought to be used to that by now, from me.
***
The emperor caught Miles with a graceful strength that, combined with the summer-fresh scent of him, made Miles shudder, but not with fear. It had been a long, long time since a man had held him in his arms, and the fact that the emperor was pretty much extracted from his libido’s idea of Perfect Male only heightened his awareness and filled him with a primal sort of need. His hands, which were caught between their chests, turned of their own will so Miles’s fingers could dig into the soft material of the emperor’s vest.
“I am flattered,” the emperor said in a patient, amused voice, “but I am not, I must tell you, an emperor.”
Miles drew back and looked up at the man in surprise. “How-I didn’t say anything-!”
The man looked amused. “But this can’t be happening, as you say. If I’m not real, then it’s nothing, is it, to peek inside your mind. I can hear everything you’re thinking, Miles. Everything.” His smile darkened, and he ran a finger down Miles’s cheek, sliding it over to catch the edge of his bottom lip. “Though I admit I like the idea of being your emperor. If I were, I could make you do whatever I want.”
The finger at Miles’s lip tugged insistently at the flesh, and Miles parted his lips. This can’t be happening, he thought again, and the man smiled, reading the thought.
Yes. It’s just a dream. Give yourself to the dream, Miles.
Miles wanted to. If this was a dream, it was the most vivid, wonderful dream he’d ever had. Whoever this man was, he was gorgeous. He was wickedly charming, too, which Miles had never been able to resist. This man wanted Miles. He was handsome, clean, wicked, and tugging at Miles’s bottom lip. Oh, god, but Miles wanted to lie down right here, and offer up his body as an offering.
The man’s eyes darkened. “How readily we progress.” His finger fell away from Miles’s mouth, but then the man’s whole hand rested over the center of Miles’s chest. He gazed upon Miles with a thoughtful expression. “Would you, really, offer yourself to me so quickly?”
It’s just a dream, Miles told himself. But something in the man’s face made him pause. And as if his hesitation were a doorway, he felt the air shift around him, and in the distance he heard the clicking hooves begin again. He tensed, and too his surprise, so did his companion.
Except his companion was angry, not afraid. He glared off into the forest, his upper lip curling into a sneer. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said, his voice soft and dangerous. Then he drew Miles up against his side. “Come, Miles. It’s time we were away.”
“Away where?” Miles followed the man’s gaze off into the forest, but he didn’t see anything. Yet he could feel the beast coming towards them, and he pressed harder up against the man’s side.
“So many questions,” the man chided, and leaned forward slightly to catch the silver ribbons that served as reins. He clicked his tongue, and after the horses tossed their heads, they began to walk forward, dragging the sleigh behind them.
Miles frowned down at the ground. “This is never going to work. There isn’t any snow-”
He cut himself off as the horses began to move faster, and as if it were the sort of thing that happened every day, lifted the sleigh off the ground.
They were traveling, Miles realized with a strangely sick feeling in his stomach, several inches off the ground. The horses were still advancing with some acknowledgment to gravity, but even that, he realized, was subject to some question. Their hooves hit the ground, but when the ground dipped too low or became too rocky, they rode on the same invisible highway as the sleigh. It was impossible. It couldn’t happen. But it was.
“Poor Miles,” the man said, and stroked his hair. “Just lie back and let me take care of you. Soon we’ll be somewhere very pleasant, and all of this will just be a bad memory.”
The horses were moving even faster now, so fast that Miles thought he was going to be sick. But when he settled into the man’s shoulder, his stomach settled. A little.
I can’t keep thinking of him as the man, he thought.
“You may call me Terris,” the man said, gently, but even at his gentlest, there was no erasing the wickedness beneath his silky undertone.
Terris. The name was familiar, and Miles brain raced to remember why. Then he recalled the website, and the darkness that had come when he clicked on it, and he drew back to the edge of the sleigh, cold with terror.
And as soon as he was away from the warm shelter of Terris’s arms, he felt the hot breath of the beast against his neck, felt the dank cold of the marble dungeon closing around him-
He cried out as Terris yanked him back against his body, and this time Miles didn’t fight him. “What’s happening?” he whispered. “I don’t understand-if this is a dream, I want to wake up!”
“You’re straddling two worlds.” Terris’s voice was curt and clipped. “You’ve drawn him in as well as me, but I warn you, Miles, we cannot live together.” He looked behind the sleigh, and he murmured bitterly beneath his breath in a language Miles didn’t know. “You must banish him, darling. Send him away, so we may be in peace together.”
Miles lifted his head from Terris’s shoulder and looked behind the sleigh. And cried out in terror.
The Devil was chasing them. It was a great horned beast, full of hair and hooves, and it was running straight for Miles, keeping up with the sleigh and gaining on them. It was naked, and between its legs hung a cock as big as a child’s arm, framed by huge, hairy ball-sacs. But it had a human’s face, visible even as it was shrouded by overgrown beard and eyebrows. The body was the most menacing thing Miles had ever seen. The face . . . .
The face was the most heartbreaking.
“Send him away,” Terris said, his voice a gentle command. His hand was sliding up Miles’s thigh. “Send him away, or he’ll catch us, and then I will have to go. Only one of us can have you. Whom do you wish to claim you, Miles?”
Miles watched the hooves of the beast hammer into the ground, watched that heavy cock sway like a weapon, and he shrank a little closer to Terris. But the face kept drawing him back. “What happened to him?” Miles whispered.
“He chose to get out of the sleigh,” Terris whispered back.
Miles curled his fingers around the intricate sliver grillwork on the top of the sleigh seat, letting the metal cut into his skin as he stared back in a strange mixture of terror and pity. There was more to this story, that much was clear. But it was also clear Terris wasn’t going to explain it to him.
“That’s because there isn’t time,” Terris said, his voice tight. “At this moment, Miles, it comes down to this: do you want to be with me, or with him?”
What do you mean, with? Miles bit his lip. Why was he even wondering what that meant? Why was he even considering going off with a monster? He didn’t want to, no. And yet something about the hideous creature-who was now less than twenty feet behind them-that tugged at Miles’s heart.
“He’ll rape you, if he catches you,” Terris said, matter-of-factly. “Whatever pity you feel for him won’t do you any good once he has your body beneath him. And might I point out that’s the size of his cock when it isn’t erect.”
The beast reached out its hands, hands which Miles saw were half-finger, half-claw. Its mouth was foaming, and as the beast drew closer, the sorrow in its eyes was giving way to a desperation and a ferocity that quickly doused his empathy. Miles tightened his hands against the grillwork and shook his head.
“Go,” he whispered. “Go-please!”
Terris rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes. That will work.”
“What will work?” Miles cried, starting to panic now. The beast was so close that it could leap onto the sleigh, if it wanted. Miles could smell the stink of it, sharper and ranker than ever.
“Banish him,” Terris said. “Tell him you don’t want him.”
“I don’t want you!” Miles cried, with feeling. But even with the sight of that drooling mouth, those claws, and that horrible cock, Miles couldn’t quite forget those eyes. The edge of empathy remained in his voice, and the beast stayed.
Terris sighed and turned to Miles. “You’ll have to show him, then. Show him you don’t want him. Show him that you want someone else.”
“No!”
The cry came from the beast, and it tore at Miles: the voice was rough and wild, but it was undeniably human. This beast was once a man, he realized, the fact instantly certain inside his head, twisting as horror and empathy all at once. His emotions seemed to give the beast some power, for it leapt, landing on the back of the sleigh, now just a little more than an arm’s reach from Miles.
“Oh god!” Miles cried, and moved as far forward in the sleigh as he could. He tangled in the horses’ ribbons, and the beasts reared, knocking the sleigh from side to side as their course became erratic. Miles pitched against the rail, and at the back of the sleigh the beast struggled to keep from falling off. Only Terris remained unaffected, moving with the motion of the raucous sleigh as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
Terris leaned forward to Miles. “Time to chose,” he said, calm as ever. “You may only have one of us. Which would you like?”
“No!” the beast roared again. Still fighting to stay on the sleigh, he dared to extend one arm towards Miles. His eyes were small and sad, and wild. “No, please-don’t leave me! Don’t leave me alone again!”
Miles ached at the yearning in the beast’s voice, and without thinking he began to reach forward.
“Ask him what he plans to do with you,” Terris said, calmly, keeping his gaze on the horizon. “Go on. Ask.”
“What will you do with me?” Miles whispered.
The beast was huffing now, its hairy nostrils flaring. “Keep you,” it said gruffly. “Keep you. Love you.”
But there was a funny edge to the word love, which Miles caught even before Terris snorted a derisive laugh. “Love him. Fuck him, don’t you mean? Push him into the ground, rip at his clothes, and rut inside him like an animal. Isn’t that so, Beast?”
Miles held his breath, watching the beast’s face, waiting for it to declare what Terris said to be a lie. But it only huffed and whined, pawing at the back of the seat now as it tried to get to Miles. “Love him,” it said gruffly. It looked at Miles, and all the sorrow was gone, replaced with thick, black lust. “Love you. Love you. Love you.” It said the words over and over, and Miles watched in horror as it thrust its hips against the side of the sleigh, its grotesque cock expanding with every plunge.
Miles turned quickly to Terris. “And you? What will you do to me?”
Terris smiled, a slow and sultry gesture that, despite the terror of the beast, made Miles feel hot and liquid inside.
“I,” Terris said, quietly, “will do whatever you like.” He leaned forward. “Whatever you like, darling.”
Miles reached for Terris. “You,” he said, his voice only wavering a little. “I want you.”
The beast cried out in rage, and reached for Miles again.
“You!” he shouted, and caught Terris’s hand. “I want you, Terris. I want you. Not him.”
The beast made a strange mewling sound, and Miles knew if he looked at it, he would see the sorrow, and he would be lost.
Pushing aside the empathy the sound had aroused, he shut his eyes.
The sleigh jerked, but this time Miles moved with it as easily as Terris. He heard an anguished cry, and then the sleigh shot forward. He opened his eyes in time to see the beast rolling away into the woods. He yelped in pain and screamed in misery, and the sound went like a lightning stike into Miles’s soul.
Terris caught Miles’s face and turned it towards his own. “You’ve chosen me,” he said, patiently. “Now tell me what you want.”
“What is this?” Miles whispered. “Who is he? Who are you? What’s happening to me?”
“He is the bad dream. I am the good dream.” Terris stroked Miles’s cheek, his eyes lingering on Miles’s lips with a look of lust. “What would you like to dream with me, Miles?”
Miles could still hear the beast’s cries in the distance, but he could feel Terris’s hands moving against his skin, across his cheek, down to his neck, and against the fabric of his jeans, moving up his thigh. He had lost his gloves and scarf somehow, and his coat was open, making it easy for Terris to slide his hand beneath Miles’s shirt and explore the tender flesh of his stomach. Behind them Miles heard the thrashing of the monster in the underbrush, but he also heard the soft jingling of the horses’ harness, and the even softer sound of his own breath coming faster and faster as Terris touched him. I want to kiss him, he thought, the urge primal and deep, born of a lust for the beauty that was the man before him, of a longing for the sort of cool cunning that apparently came so easily to him. I want to kiss Terris. I want Terris to kiss me.
A soft, wicked smile played against Terris’s lips. “With pleasure,” he said, and leaned forward to press those lips against Miles’s own.
In the distance the beast cried out again, but he was very far away now, and Terris was so close, and so warm. And wet, he thought, as he opened his mouth at the urging of Terris’s silky tongue, sighing as he let the other man inside. Terris smelled of the spice of summer, and he tasted like rain, sweet and wonderful release. Miles sighed and opened wider to him, and when Terris slid his hand between Miles’s thighs, he opened for him there, too.
“That’s the way,” Terris whispered, trailing his kisses now down the curve of Miles’s throat. Between Miles’s legs he was unzipping, then reaching inside Miles’s underwear to take him firmly in hand. “Let go to me, Miles. Forget everything else and ride away with me in a beautiful, sensual dream.”
Miles did. He shut his ears to the beast’s cries, which had grown plaintive again, and he surrendered to the magic of Terris’s mouth and hands as the horses pushed off the ground and into the sky, their silver ribbon reins flapping uselessly in the air beside them.
What I do know is that the scene below is HUGE and probably the key to everything. It's one of those that just wrote itself, that might need fleshing out later but gave up so many gems and hints that it's going to take me days to find them all. I mentioned this in the previous entry, but what I'm LOVING about this story is that I can't tell who the bad guy is. I mean, there's the hint that Terris is the false good guy, but I'm not yet sure. There's something going on here. Must write to find out.
The scene below is the second scene of the second chapter, which is also the fifth scene in total. Miles has come back to his southern Minnesota hometown because he's been laid off from his big job in Atlanta, and it's becoming clear they aren't calling him back. His pride is hurt, and he's sullen and angry, and in the opening scene he sat down in the forest and declared this wasn't fair, that he hated his life and that he'd do anything to change it. Weird shit has been happening since.
In the teaser at the end of the first chapter, Miles ends up in the woods again, and this beast which has been haunting him as this weird shadow he thinks he's hallucinating shows up. Freaking out, Miles blows this weird flute which keeps showing up in his hand even when he doesn't bring it along. For some reason this calls up a beautiful man on a silver sleigh who calls Miles to come away with him. Miles mistakes him for The Emperor at first, because he looks like the image from a Tarot reading he was given in the scene prior. The beast looks like The Devil card.
I suppose I should say for the sake of the thing that this bit isn't R rated, but it's a bit above PG-13, too. Some language, sexual reference, and a bit of fondling at the end. But you ought to be used to that by now, from me.
***
The emperor caught Miles with a graceful strength that, combined with the summer-fresh scent of him, made Miles shudder, but not with fear. It had been a long, long time since a man had held him in his arms, and the fact that the emperor was pretty much extracted from his libido’s idea of Perfect Male only heightened his awareness and filled him with a primal sort of need. His hands, which were caught between their chests, turned of their own will so Miles’s fingers could dig into the soft material of the emperor’s vest.
“I am flattered,” the emperor said in a patient, amused voice, “but I am not, I must tell you, an emperor.”
Miles drew back and looked up at the man in surprise. “How-I didn’t say anything-!”
The man looked amused. “But this can’t be happening, as you say. If I’m not real, then it’s nothing, is it, to peek inside your mind. I can hear everything you’re thinking, Miles. Everything.” His smile darkened, and he ran a finger down Miles’s cheek, sliding it over to catch the edge of his bottom lip. “Though I admit I like the idea of being your emperor. If I were, I could make you do whatever I want.”
The finger at Miles’s lip tugged insistently at the flesh, and Miles parted his lips. This can’t be happening, he thought again, and the man smiled, reading the thought.
Yes. It’s just a dream. Give yourself to the dream, Miles.
Miles wanted to. If this was a dream, it was the most vivid, wonderful dream he’d ever had. Whoever this man was, he was gorgeous. He was wickedly charming, too, which Miles had never been able to resist. This man wanted Miles. He was handsome, clean, wicked, and tugging at Miles’s bottom lip. Oh, god, but Miles wanted to lie down right here, and offer up his body as an offering.
The man’s eyes darkened. “How readily we progress.” His finger fell away from Miles’s mouth, but then the man’s whole hand rested over the center of Miles’s chest. He gazed upon Miles with a thoughtful expression. “Would you, really, offer yourself to me so quickly?”
It’s just a dream, Miles told himself. But something in the man’s face made him pause. And as if his hesitation were a doorway, he felt the air shift around him, and in the distance he heard the clicking hooves begin again. He tensed, and too his surprise, so did his companion.
Except his companion was angry, not afraid. He glared off into the forest, his upper lip curling into a sneer. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said, his voice soft and dangerous. Then he drew Miles up against his side. “Come, Miles. It’s time we were away.”
“Away where?” Miles followed the man’s gaze off into the forest, but he didn’t see anything. Yet he could feel the beast coming towards them, and he pressed harder up against the man’s side.
“So many questions,” the man chided, and leaned forward slightly to catch the silver ribbons that served as reins. He clicked his tongue, and after the horses tossed their heads, they began to walk forward, dragging the sleigh behind them.
Miles frowned down at the ground. “This is never going to work. There isn’t any snow-”
He cut himself off as the horses began to move faster, and as if it were the sort of thing that happened every day, lifted the sleigh off the ground.
They were traveling, Miles realized with a strangely sick feeling in his stomach, several inches off the ground. The horses were still advancing with some acknowledgment to gravity, but even that, he realized, was subject to some question. Their hooves hit the ground, but when the ground dipped too low or became too rocky, they rode on the same invisible highway as the sleigh. It was impossible. It couldn’t happen. But it was.
“Poor Miles,” the man said, and stroked his hair. “Just lie back and let me take care of you. Soon we’ll be somewhere very pleasant, and all of this will just be a bad memory.”
The horses were moving even faster now, so fast that Miles thought he was going to be sick. But when he settled into the man’s shoulder, his stomach settled. A little.
I can’t keep thinking of him as the man, he thought.
“You may call me Terris,” the man said, gently, but even at his gentlest, there was no erasing the wickedness beneath his silky undertone.
Terris. The name was familiar, and Miles brain raced to remember why. Then he recalled the website, and the darkness that had come when he clicked on it, and he drew back to the edge of the sleigh, cold with terror.
And as soon as he was away from the warm shelter of Terris’s arms, he felt the hot breath of the beast against his neck, felt the dank cold of the marble dungeon closing around him-
He cried out as Terris yanked him back against his body, and this time Miles didn’t fight him. “What’s happening?” he whispered. “I don’t understand-if this is a dream, I want to wake up!”
“You’re straddling two worlds.” Terris’s voice was curt and clipped. “You’ve drawn him in as well as me, but I warn you, Miles, we cannot live together.” He looked behind the sleigh, and he murmured bitterly beneath his breath in a language Miles didn’t know. “You must banish him, darling. Send him away, so we may be in peace together.”
Miles lifted his head from Terris’s shoulder and looked behind the sleigh. And cried out in terror.
The Devil was chasing them. It was a great horned beast, full of hair and hooves, and it was running straight for Miles, keeping up with the sleigh and gaining on them. It was naked, and between its legs hung a cock as big as a child’s arm, framed by huge, hairy ball-sacs. But it had a human’s face, visible even as it was shrouded by overgrown beard and eyebrows. The body was the most menacing thing Miles had ever seen. The face . . . .
The face was the most heartbreaking.
“Send him away,” Terris said, his voice a gentle command. His hand was sliding up Miles’s thigh. “Send him away, or he’ll catch us, and then I will have to go. Only one of us can have you. Whom do you wish to claim you, Miles?”
Miles watched the hooves of the beast hammer into the ground, watched that heavy cock sway like a weapon, and he shrank a little closer to Terris. But the face kept drawing him back. “What happened to him?” Miles whispered.
“He chose to get out of the sleigh,” Terris whispered back.
Miles curled his fingers around the intricate sliver grillwork on the top of the sleigh seat, letting the metal cut into his skin as he stared back in a strange mixture of terror and pity. There was more to this story, that much was clear. But it was also clear Terris wasn’t going to explain it to him.
“That’s because there isn’t time,” Terris said, his voice tight. “At this moment, Miles, it comes down to this: do you want to be with me, or with him?”
What do you mean, with? Miles bit his lip. Why was he even wondering what that meant? Why was he even considering going off with a monster? He didn’t want to, no. And yet something about the hideous creature-who was now less than twenty feet behind them-that tugged at Miles’s heart.
“He’ll rape you, if he catches you,” Terris said, matter-of-factly. “Whatever pity you feel for him won’t do you any good once he has your body beneath him. And might I point out that’s the size of his cock when it isn’t erect.”
The beast reached out its hands, hands which Miles saw were half-finger, half-claw. Its mouth was foaming, and as the beast drew closer, the sorrow in its eyes was giving way to a desperation and a ferocity that quickly doused his empathy. Miles tightened his hands against the grillwork and shook his head.
“Go,” he whispered. “Go-please!”
Terris rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes. That will work.”
“What will work?” Miles cried, starting to panic now. The beast was so close that it could leap onto the sleigh, if it wanted. Miles could smell the stink of it, sharper and ranker than ever.
“Banish him,” Terris said. “Tell him you don’t want him.”
“I don’t want you!” Miles cried, with feeling. But even with the sight of that drooling mouth, those claws, and that horrible cock, Miles couldn’t quite forget those eyes. The edge of empathy remained in his voice, and the beast stayed.
Terris sighed and turned to Miles. “You’ll have to show him, then. Show him you don’t want him. Show him that you want someone else.”
“No!”
The cry came from the beast, and it tore at Miles: the voice was rough and wild, but it was undeniably human. This beast was once a man, he realized, the fact instantly certain inside his head, twisting as horror and empathy all at once. His emotions seemed to give the beast some power, for it leapt, landing on the back of the sleigh, now just a little more than an arm’s reach from Miles.
“Oh god!” Miles cried, and moved as far forward in the sleigh as he could. He tangled in the horses’ ribbons, and the beasts reared, knocking the sleigh from side to side as their course became erratic. Miles pitched against the rail, and at the back of the sleigh the beast struggled to keep from falling off. Only Terris remained unaffected, moving with the motion of the raucous sleigh as if it were the easiest thing in the world.
Terris leaned forward to Miles. “Time to chose,” he said, calm as ever. “You may only have one of us. Which would you like?”
“No!” the beast roared again. Still fighting to stay on the sleigh, he dared to extend one arm towards Miles. His eyes were small and sad, and wild. “No, please-don’t leave me! Don’t leave me alone again!”
Miles ached at the yearning in the beast’s voice, and without thinking he began to reach forward.
“Ask him what he plans to do with you,” Terris said, calmly, keeping his gaze on the horizon. “Go on. Ask.”
“What will you do with me?” Miles whispered.
The beast was huffing now, its hairy nostrils flaring. “Keep you,” it said gruffly. “Keep you. Love you.”
But there was a funny edge to the word love, which Miles caught even before Terris snorted a derisive laugh. “Love him. Fuck him, don’t you mean? Push him into the ground, rip at his clothes, and rut inside him like an animal. Isn’t that so, Beast?”
Miles held his breath, watching the beast’s face, waiting for it to declare what Terris said to be a lie. But it only huffed and whined, pawing at the back of the seat now as it tried to get to Miles. “Love him,” it said gruffly. It looked at Miles, and all the sorrow was gone, replaced with thick, black lust. “Love you. Love you. Love you.” It said the words over and over, and Miles watched in horror as it thrust its hips against the side of the sleigh, its grotesque cock expanding with every plunge.
Miles turned quickly to Terris. “And you? What will you do to me?”
Terris smiled, a slow and sultry gesture that, despite the terror of the beast, made Miles feel hot and liquid inside.
“I,” Terris said, quietly, “will do whatever you like.” He leaned forward. “Whatever you like, darling.”
Miles reached for Terris. “You,” he said, his voice only wavering a little. “I want you.”
The beast cried out in rage, and reached for Miles again.
“You!” he shouted, and caught Terris’s hand. “I want you, Terris. I want you. Not him.”
The beast made a strange mewling sound, and Miles knew if he looked at it, he would see the sorrow, and he would be lost.
Pushing aside the empathy the sound had aroused, he shut his eyes.
The sleigh jerked, but this time Miles moved with it as easily as Terris. He heard an anguished cry, and then the sleigh shot forward. He opened his eyes in time to see the beast rolling away into the woods. He yelped in pain and screamed in misery, and the sound went like a lightning stike into Miles’s soul.
Terris caught Miles’s face and turned it towards his own. “You’ve chosen me,” he said, patiently. “Now tell me what you want.”
“What is this?” Miles whispered. “Who is he? Who are you? What’s happening to me?”
“He is the bad dream. I am the good dream.” Terris stroked Miles’s cheek, his eyes lingering on Miles’s lips with a look of lust. “What would you like to dream with me, Miles?”
Miles could still hear the beast’s cries in the distance, but he could feel Terris’s hands moving against his skin, across his cheek, down to his neck, and against the fabric of his jeans, moving up his thigh. He had lost his gloves and scarf somehow, and his coat was open, making it easy for Terris to slide his hand beneath Miles’s shirt and explore the tender flesh of his stomach. Behind them Miles heard the thrashing of the monster in the underbrush, but he also heard the soft jingling of the horses’ harness, and the even softer sound of his own breath coming faster and faster as Terris touched him. I want to kiss him, he thought, the urge primal and deep, born of a lust for the beauty that was the man before him, of a longing for the sort of cool cunning that apparently came so easily to him. I want to kiss Terris. I want Terris to kiss me.
A soft, wicked smile played against Terris’s lips. “With pleasure,” he said, and leaned forward to press those lips against Miles’s own.
In the distance the beast cried out again, but he was very far away now, and Terris was so close, and so warm. And wet, he thought, as he opened his mouth at the urging of Terris’s silky tongue, sighing as he let the other man inside. Terris smelled of the spice of summer, and he tasted like rain, sweet and wonderful release. Miles sighed and opened wider to him, and when Terris slid his hand between Miles’s thighs, he opened for him there, too.
“That’s the way,” Terris whispered, trailing his kisses now down the curve of Miles’s throat. Between Miles’s legs he was unzipping, then reaching inside Miles’s underwear to take him firmly in hand. “Let go to me, Miles. Forget everything else and ride away with me in a beautiful, sensual dream.”
Miles did. He shut his ears to the beast’s cries, which had grown plaintive again, and he surrendered to the magic of Terris’s mouth and hands as the horses pushed off the ground and into the sky, their silver ribbon reins flapping uselessly in the air beside them.