Life on Zion

Part 4

Puck:

The Professor wants me to love him, I think. I'm getting a birthday party.

We was still up there in the tent, but almost time to leave, and Levi says how his birthday is March 15, but he don't know when that is. And I says big shit, I don't even know what day mine is, or even how old I'd be if I knew.

And the Professor says it don't matter, because nobody really knows here on Zion -- and he explained it, but I didn't get it much, but I still got it more than Levi. And then he says he'll make me a birthday when we get back to the house in town. He says I can pick whether to be nine or ten this year, but he says he'd pick nine because there's no sense rushing your life away.

I think probably I'll be ten.

I never been to a birthday party, so I really don't know what I'm getting. Levi says you get presents and a cake and smacks on your bottom, and that don't make no sense at all. And anyway, Levi never seems to know nothing.

I still love him, though. And maybe if it's a real good party, I'll try loving the Professor too.

The Professor:

We live in Despair most of the year.

I couldn't resist it, of course -- a town to live in named "Despair." It was just too sweet.

To understand this world, you have to remember it first was settled by the Ecumenical Warriors of Christ, which is a pretty good indication that nobody thought too hard about making things work because they were sure their boy Jesus would take care of it all. He didn't.

First, let me tell you about the birthdays, though -- or, more to the point, the local time and calendar. When I told Puck that nobody actually knows their birthday here, I was neither lying nor exaggerating. Sure, lots of the people from back Home know what their birthday would be there, but they don't have a clue what it might be here -- and even inside the Church, I doubt anybody can tell you the current date back on Terra unless they arrived yesterday.

Some people arrived here with timepieces of one sort or another, but Zion takes a bit longer to rotate on its axis than old Terra, so give it a few days and your chronometer or whatever tells you nothing. Zion also takes longer to get around its star. If I remember what I read back Home, the day is thirty-seven point something Terran minutes longer than a day on Terra, and there's an extra fifteen point something days in a year.

The asshole Christians, of course, decided keeping the ritual calendar was more important than, say, agriculture, so they just kept going "thirty days hath September" and so on. They fell a month behind roughly every two years, so every twelve years the months and the seasons totally reversed, if you follow me.

Maybe someday somebody will work out a clock and a calendar for this world, but in the meanwhile most of us just go by where our local sun is in the sky and what's blooming and what's not. Me, I like it that way. Back Home, I might be really old by now.

Levi:

It was in the winter when we left home, a couple of months to my birthday, but when we got here summer was almost over. The birthday before, Daddy gave me a real knife for a present, but the raiders got it. The Professor bought me a bunch of nice tools, but it wasn't my birthday, I don't think, and I wish I still had that knife.

Puck is getting a party. Well, he never had one before, so that's okay, and I shouldn't feel bad about it, even if the Professor likes him more.

I feel bad about feeling bad.

Puck:

I am going to make a good clock. I am going to make a good calendar. That's what I will do, and the Professor will be real proud of me. The Professor tells me I can be real smart if I try, so I will try hard and I will be good at it.

He said it to Levi too, but I don't know if he meant it. I love Levi, but he's not specially smart. Some people might say he is a little dumb. Course, it don't matter. None of that matters too much here.

Nothing much matters at all, here on Zion.

The Professor went out somewhere this morning early, so me and Levi was by ourselves for once, which was nice not having the Professor in between. He pulled me on top of him in bed, and we was just rubbing our dicks together real slow and gentle, and kissing. I like kissing Levi. His mouth tastes good, even first thing in the morning. Then he asked if he could try fucking me.

Levi like it when the Professor fucks him. Me, I never saw what the fun is. You know, after those butt plugs it's not like it hurts or nothing, but it just never did much for me, at least not until this morning. Levi's dick is not even half as big as the Professor's, but it is Levi's, and I guess that is the difference.

So he asked me, and I licked his mouth a little more and then said sure, why not? So he just kind of turned me over so I was laying on him on my back. And then I felt his dick poking up against my hole, but I was kind of dry and it wasn't going in so I said Levi, put on some lube please. Well, the Professor always has a jar of grease next to the bed, so he reached over and dipped his finger in, and then he reached down and rubbed his finger around my hole and pushed it in a little, and it was weird but it felt great. Really, it never felt like much at all when the Professor did it, but Levi's finger felt so good.

So I am making these happy noises, and Levi says, you really like it? And I say yes, it feels so good, and I want your dick in me. So he pulled out his finger and started poking with his dick again. I had to reach between my legs and get it pointed right, but when we got it in it felt really great, even if it fell out a couple of times. Levi is not that big.

So I said maybe I should get on my belly and you get on top, and he said okay. I put a pillow under me to keep my ass sticking up, and that time when he stuck it in it stayed there. And he fucked me hard, for a long time, jamming it into me over and over, getting pretty rough, and I couldn't believe how good it felt. And I was saying go on, Levi, fuck me, fuck me hard. Harder!

And meanwhile he had reached under me and he was squeezing my dick and balls, and he was kind of sucking and biting on my shoulder and my neck, and somewhere in there he said I love you, Puck, I love you so much. And I said Levi, please just keep loving me, because I never loved anybody so much as you ever in my life. And it was true.

He still can't squirt, but I sure knew it when he was coming. I felt his cock twitching in my ass, and his whole body was shaking, and I started shaking too, and both of us were yelling I love you and coming and coming and coming.

When the Professor got home, he saw the red spots on my neck and my shoulder. And he said my my, you guys have been busy while I was out. Then he grabbed both of us in a hug and kissed us. He really is nice, and I am starting to love him a little. Well, maybe not just a little. It's not like I love Levi, but it still is love, I think.

The Professor:

If you add some honey and citron zest to old Oscar's sugar beet rum, you actually can drink the stuff with a degree of pleasure. I'd been drinking it with a degree of pleasure the afternoon I promised Puck he could have a birthday party. It was only after I sobered up that I confronted the big problem I would have keeping that promise: who in hell would I invite?

I'm not the most social guy in the world, and it's not as if the kids went to school and made friends. Hell, the schools on Terra were almost extinct way back when I was going to them, and all they ever had here was the EWC Church school -- an hour of pure bullshit once a week, no thank you! Then I thought of Gray.

Gray is every bit as social as I'm not, and the evidence for that is he even befriended me. He's a huge, furry fat man who came out here to relieve the pressure on his bad back -- Zion's gravity is about nine-tenths of Terra's -- and he's befriended (and usually had sex with) more people than I think I've even met over the course of my lifetime. He had to know some people with kids who would go to a kid's birthday party.

And so, when we got back to Despair with eight fat bricks of opium, two barrels of old Oscar's, and a couple of bushels of not quite random herbs, I figured I'd just send a message over to Gray's and ask him to plan the party. He's good at that sort of thing.

Levi:

You have to stir and stir before the secret ingredient dissolves in the rum, and it has to be all dissolved before you put it in the bottles and the leafs from the herbs strained out, and that is hard work. I don't mind hard work, but I also didn't much mind not working while I took the letter to the Professor's friend. He told me how to go there and made me repeat it till I got it right three times in a row. I learnt it fast, though, so it didn't take too long.

Mister Gray lives the other side of the Bridge of Sighs, and I run a lot of the way so I was pretty sweaty and tired when I finally got there. He is a giant fat guy with a big beard, and he is pretty nice because he gave me cold drinks and told me take off my shirt and he dried me with a soft towel.

There is a boy there works for him maybe my age or a little older Mister Gray calls Slave. He is a super pretty boy, maybe even prettier than Puck, and Mister Gray dresses him in kind of funny clothes. Not funny like you would laugh at him, but funny like it makes your pickle stiff just looking at him dressed like that. It ain't even clothes, really, just mostly black leather straps pulled real tight. There was straps crossed down from his shoulders to a strap around his middle, and then more crossed down between his legs so his bare butt stuck out all pink and round behind him, and there was like a ring of leather strap around his thingie and his balls so they stuck out in front.

Actually, the way the straps were wrapped around him, kind of everything stuck out on him -- his titties too. And I could tell if you took off those tight leather straps, there would be red lines left behind. Me, I thought it would be awful to go around like that, but he didn't seem to mind at all. When he brought Mister Gray the towel to dry me he got down on his knees and put his head on the floor and somehow held up the towel the same time. Mister Gray told him he was a good slave, and when he got up Mister Gray pinched his behind hard enough to leave a red mark, and I could see he liked that too. Weird.

On the way back to the Professor's, I was thinking about what it would be like to watch Mister Gray give Slave a spanking. I don't know why I was thinking that, but it sure made my pickle stiff.

Puck:

There are kids here in Despair. Some of them are working kids like me and Levi, and some are family kids, but I guess they work too. Everybody works here on Zion. Sometimes when I am outside I look at them and think whether any would want to be my friend, but they are always busy going someplace with some grownup, so I never get to ask.

There is one real little boy I see sometimes, maybe only six years old, who is so cute I just want to hug him. Sometimes when I'm by myself I hug my pillow and pretend it is him. I wish he could come to my party, but every time he goes by there is this lady holding him by the wrist and kind of dragging him along in a big hurry. I think about tripping her so she falls down and lets go his wrist, and then stealing him away. Then I think about him telling me how she is a bad witch and he is so glad I rescued him, and we just hug and hug.

Levi saw me hugging the pillow one day, and I guess I was crying a little too, and he wanted to know what was the matter. I told him to just go away and leave me alone. I shouldn't have said that, though, and I felt bad after.

The Professor:

Gray wrote that he'll "borrow" some boys for Puck's party, deliver them personally, and teach everybody some new "party games." He didn't say exactly what he has in mind, and it's making me just a little nervous because you never know what to expect from him. I'm hoping it doesn't involve handcuffs this time.

I met Gray just a few weeks after I arrived on Zion, so I've known him about four years now. I'd been dumped at one of those collectives, out near the Edge -- but since I'm really not cut out to be a farmer, I made my way to Zion City as soon as somebody pointed out the right road. The Edge wasn't quite as far from the City as it is now, but it still took over two weeks to walk the distance, and I was kind of a mess when I arrived. Gray found me sitting on a bench in the park near the Central Cathedral, watching some boys kick a ball around the grass. He sat next to me, and said, "Tasty."

"What's that?" I asked. He gestured with his beard towards the boys.

"Am I that obvious?" I asked. "I didn't realize I was leering."

He chuckled. It was a quite pleasant chuckle, not sinister at all. "Well, you might want to wipe the drool off your chin in case a church elder comes by. Newcomer?" he asked.

"Pretty much," I admitted. I told him how I'd left the collective and done the long hike into town.

"And if it's not too personal," he inquired, "how did you happen to wind up on Zion?"

I'd grown a bit of a beard on my long hike from the Edge, and I used it to gesture towards the boys. Then I told my tale of woe, about the awful Antonio. You may think it odd that I put that much trust in a complete stranger -- after all, he might have been an agent for the EWC morality police -- but people always seem to trust him. It's an uncanny talent he has for inspiring trust.

To make a long story short, he took me to the place he was living at the time, with a woman and her two sons. "I sleep with the mother," he explained, "but I also fuck the older boy when his mother's at work. The little one's still a bit young for me, but I've given him a lesson or two."

Siobhan was a worn looking redhead with a pair of breasts that looked far too large to be natural, but they were. She was born on Zion, and it's hard enough to find somebody here who can set a broken bone, much less perform breast enhancement surgery. The boys were redheads like their mother. Archie, the older one, looked about seventeen. Kevin, the younger, must have been around eleven.

"Bringing home strays again?" Siobhan asked when Gray and I walked in.

"Be good," Gray answered. "Billy here is a gentleman and a scholar."

"And he'll sell you a dead horse," she retorted. "Okay, Professor, make yourself at home."

Yes, she was the first to call me Professor, and the nickname just stuck. She also told me her entire life story while we ate bowls of some terribly bland stew, but I won't bother you with her litany of deadbeat husbands and the other assorted trials she'd endured. I wasn't really paying attention, because I was too busy exchanging eye rolls and winks with Kevin. Usually I'm not too fond of redheaded boys, but he wasn't too heavily freckled, and I was horny as hell. After all, I hadn't had a boy since Antonio.

When the stew was finished, Siobhan went off to her job tending bar at some hetero whorehouse, which kept her out most of the night. As soon as she was out the door, Archie was on his knees pulling Gray's dick out of his pants and gobbling it into his mouth. Gray shot me a grin, and shrugged his shoulders. I shrugged back.

Then I saw Kevin looking at them, his face a mixture of disgust and just pissed off. I was thinking, "Damn, he's probably totally straight," when he looked over at me kind of hopefully. I smiled at him, and just opened my arms a little. He jumped right in. I guess I'll talk about that another time, though, because I have to go out and order the goodies for Puck's party now.

With Gray as social director, it should really be a blast.

billy_budz@hush.ai