Copyright 2002 - 2003 by Nicholas6996@hotmail.com The author retains all rights to this story and requests that you do not alter or post this story in any form without his permission. The following is a work of fiction.

This story will contain gifts of love and caring between a man and a boy. If you don't like love, then stop reading now. If love and caring between unrelated men and boys is illegal where you are, then I'm sorry for you. If you aren't old enough to legally read this story, then I hope someone loves you enough to read it to you. If you know of a Finding Place and have stories about it, please give me a gift and share.

My deepest thanks to Rod, I name him friend and what he's given me helps make this story sing.

To Ganymede and Teglin I thank you for the beauty you have shared and hope this reflects a fraction of the light you shine so brightly.

Namaste!

Part Nine – Running Deer

Except for one amazing time held within the turning of a single set of seasons, this ranch had been my world. I knew it far better than I knew the backside of my hand. I had explored it, lived it, breathed it, worn it every day until I left for college.

There was a space high in the barn loft where, when I was ten, I had run away. Some boyish misbehavior causing Grandfather to "ground" me. I cried bitter tears of anger; anger more at my stupidity than at his punishment. Grounded meant the end of life I knew. My school and city friends pronounced it a death sentence meted out by cruel, uncaring parents. How could I survive this terrible catastrophe?

I got off the bus that afternoon exploding into the kitchen before I remembered I was in trouble. Maria wasn't there, no cookies on the table. I trudged out to the barn and started on my chores. The horses needed feeding, I had two stalls to clean that night. Nobody answered my plaintive call "Hello?" First Maria, now Grandfather and the hands all outside my bubble of punishment. The horses even seemed to shy away, I was branded bad I knew.

I moped through work and shuffled my boots leaving two furrows through the straw. I couldn't stand the thoughts bubbling in my mind, I climbed and hid, I ran away, I'd just disappear and then they couldn't hate me anymore.

Seemed no one told the barn cats I was evil though. They flocked to me in my hollow back beneath the hay. I tried to bat them off and make them go away, they just thought I wanted them to play. Soon I was being petted, licked and purred to, my neck and legs entwined in cat. A proud new mother quietly brought two kittens out for me to see.

Maria rang the dinner bell and sweeping cats aside I slid down the ladder almost smashing the plate with two cookies there. I grabbed it and ate the cookies as I dashed across the yard and bursting through the screen door I launched myself against Grandfather promising to never be bad again.

He hugged me, assured me I wasn't bad, that he and everyone still loved me and made me look around at smiling friendly faces. He told me I was now ungrounded and then sent me to wash for supper. That night sitting in his lap and wiggling round I told him that I loved him as I purred against his chest.

He said familiar safety, "I know, I love you too, now settle down."

--

For two days Cloud Walking had us stay almost always in our tipi. She greeted us very early and kept us close when we went to pee, she brought us food and sat and talked and did quillwork with my brother, I worked fletchings onto arrows. She'd leave a while and we would find more interesting things to do. It seemed that overnight my balls had doubled in their size. My little bit of milk was fascination to my brother.

He'd hold me, rub me softly, slowly, gently, driving pleasure through my body. He'd taste my sac, my balls, my tummy and drive me crazy with his tongue. He'd push my hands away and sit between my legs intent on only giving pleasure. The feathers of his lips would brush me, crush me, rush me to the stars. His tongue deep within my mouth would envelop me then dive between my legs, engulf me, fluttering against that most sensitive of spots. I'd rise up off the buffalo robes and cry out our joining with the heavens; he would sing inside our head as he drank our tiny drops.

Cloud Walking brought us supper while my brother was purring on my just spent pole. She set the bowls aside and slid down beside him, petting his cheek still cradling my softening pleasure. Her other hand trailed across my chest. I could feel her touching him in me and me in him and mingling with us. She pressed the pouches of our Tunkasi against our beating chest. I felt the power of the stone spirit feeding off our love. He was welcome: we made room for them too within our heart.

She knew that I was spent, that my brother had only flown in me. She lifted him from his suckling place and lay him back against the robes. I lifted up and kissed his eyes, his lips, his chest, his stomach and his still tiny balls. I savored the ready shaft and licked and loved and nibbled it. Taking it deep inside I tried to draw our milk back to me. He moaned, I fluttered on the winds. He cried, I drove harder to the clouds. He soared, I rode his wings around the world.

Cloud Walking gently took my cheeks and lifting me off the center of our joy, guided me beneath. This strip of skin, a simple crease like on my moccasins sewn shut, so soft, so hot, so tender to my touch. My brother gasped, Hawk pulling him even higher in the sky. I tasted us, salt of our body, water of our stream. I drove my tongue across him riding higher on his glory. She lifted up his knees and held them above my head. The seam of our combined existence led further in the valley. I floated down the pathway as we sometimes floated in the stream. I found a quiet eddy, a pool deeper than the rest. I darted in, around, between, beneath soaring ever higher. I found a secret cave and entered in, accepted past a once strong barrier. My tongue perished in the heat. It danced a thankful dance of death. My brother screamed, pulled dying tongue into himself. We exploded near the starry hunter just peeking up from realms of darkness.

She led me to his mouth. I kissed his lips. He opened to me sharing tongues again, both dancing in the glory of rebirth; his taste, a sudden taste of me. My eyes were wide and calling him inside. He was there before I asked and we were sharing breath. My lungs my mouth his mouth his lungs one air. We breathed each other across the sky, Wi Hanwi spinning round; our shining self for all the universe to see.

Cloud Walking didn't leave our side that night, at least her body didn't. I heard first Straighthorn, then Grandfathers chanting magic above our dreams.

Our dreams were mostly glowing shining golden sun and shivering silver moonlight. Mother fox and deer looked down upon our sleeping self, then turning up to us we smiled down on us too. They spoke to one another, I could not grasp the words.

We slept on and on waking late within the day. Cloud Walking sitting silent waiting just below our tangled feet. She greeted us and opened up her arms, we fell within each other kneeling to her strong embrace.

We went down to the stream and splashed and played and blessed ourselves with sun. Cloud People scattered before the face of Wi, he wanted only the sweet kisses of our skin. Wakinyan rumbled contented on the prairie, Tate's sweet Northwest breath kept us cool.

That night Grandfather told of how the skies had danced last night, they had watched it from the prairie. A pair of shooting stars had flown together in Orion. We told the story of our dream of Brother Crow and showed them the Tunkasi. I told of ships and water on the prairie. My brother told of buffalo and all the seasons flown within one night.

The men sat in silence, Cloud Walking sang us both to sleep.

--

I carried the bags of my clothing upstairs to the bedroom I had always known was mine. I looked in awe to see what "mine" had meant to me. Someone outside our family would have seen a jarring conflict, I saw the path I'd walked between two worlds for so very many years.

The shelves held a mix of trophies won in school debates and rocks and shells and feathers gathered out upon the plain. A picture framed of my prom date and me; a quill worked sheath and hunting knife. Books and books and books seemed to line one entire wall. No westerns, no comics, no lazy reader's digested. Books of minerals and birds and plants and art and art and art. I hadn't realized Grandfather had spent so much for me on paintings of the world; I'd read everyone of them. Usually Maria had to dig them from within the sheets when washday came around.

No pictures on the walls, how could one compete with the beauty held within the books upon the shelves? A bow and quiver hanging between the windows. A skin stretched tight upon a frame against the inside wall. A single buffalo robe from the piles of our shared nest was draped across the bed. Everything here selected, earned or received as gift and carried up by me.

I thought of the place in Denver, modern decorator pale pastels arrived by dint of checkbook. I hadn't picked or touched a thing.

I realized my boyself had made far better choices.

--

Grandfather came with wagons late in the fall that year. I ran to him to hug him and couldn't figure out where to put my arms. The familiar place they fit beneath his shoulders up against his chest seemed far too low to hold me. He laughed that I must like Cloud Walking's cooking, I was growing like a weed.

We carried piles of cans and blankets inside the shack. Like that first year we had stocked it, I made six trips to every one of his, but now I could bring a box instead of a single pair of cans. We soon had one wagon all unloaded and as I started on the next he bade me leave it for the morrow.

Next morning Grandfather Coyote was waiting on the porch. Running Deer and I ran laughing nearly crushing him as we tried to land inside his lap.

We had so much to tell them we talked late into the night. There were so many things we'd seen and learned and made with Cloud Walking's help. Most precious was the beautiful quillwork of my brother. I showed and crowed and glowed to lay out all the leather.

Running Deer beamed to show collected furs and amazing fans of feathers from the spirits who had gifted me their lives. We blushed to see each other's pleasure.

Next morning snow lay lightly on the prairie, Grandfathers each drove a wagon away, Grandfather Coyote's full like we had left it.

Cloud Walking and the two of us had made our tipi our single home. We piled the buffalo robes on one side and then hung some over the picture skins. We carried wood inside and strengthened the stone barrier around the fire pit. We lit it once and never let it go out, keeping a small and warming fire. I learned the difference between the types of fires. We could make it right for cooking, yet another type was needed if we wanted light. Still others kept us warm or dried our furlined moccasins after tramping in the snow.

We never stopped our playing in the stream, but our splashing time was very much the shorter! It would freeze along the edges and down in the still pools, but where it flowed past our treasure rocks it always sang its pleasure.

I learned that winter where the blankets went and how the cans got empty. Deep within the winter's snows Lakota families came. They would be waiting round the fire we kept burning in the middle tipi, horses loose in the brush corral. Cloud Walking would greet them happily and bid them welcome to our breakfast. They would offer me or my brother gifts of beadwork, silver or turquoise and accept the blankets in return.

I asked Cloud Walking if we shouldn't just give them away, she said we must grant the families honor by taking what they offered.

Grandfather Coyote brought a group of children to the shack, they stayed there almost all deep winter. Running Deer laughed to be with them again, they loved him too I saw. We all would play and walk close by on the prairie. The little boys would run and laugh with us but clamor for Grandfather Coyote and me to take them hunting. Their noise and barely held excited breath made the hunting very unsuccessful. The little girls would sit with Cloud Walking and Running Deer and make a rabbit lined glove or try to make a quillwork pattern. Their giggles and tickles made the patterns very crazy.

Running Deer was amazing taking little pieces of leather and fur and suddenly each girl had a little doll. I learned to make throwing sticks and other games and the boys would stomp the snow down all around.

Grandfather Coyote would tell all of us tales of Trickster Coyote. We could only talk of him when winter held the prairie.

My brother and I, sharing warmth and love, would burrow in our nest at night. Cloud Walking slept a little ways away and shared our giggles, or guided us in our constant exploration, she'd only laugh and say she was too old for pleasure when we tried to include her in our touching.

My penis grew with all the rest of my body. Where it used to fit inside my brother's mouth leaving room for tongue's barely touching dances, now it poked against his throat and filled the space so tongue could only caress and pet it. It didn't matter to my brother, he would take me all the way inside and learned to hum and chant. His throat would drive vibrations through my body like Brother Beaver's whacking tail sending sound waves through the ground. He could call my milk now twice each time we played, the first now more than drops: a little squirt he'd take into himself, then drops to share in kissing.

His too was bigger now and though mine had a tiny nest of silver curly hairs his stayed alone standing proud against his honeyed skin, I thought it needed no adornment. I couldn't bring our milk back out of him, yet we'd soar beyond the winter's cold my tongue hiding in his cave. Cloud Walking showed my how to enter with my fingers.

My hands would start us climbing, rubbing on his chest and touching on the dark mountains within the circles of his nipples. My mouth would start him flying, cradling his shaft, calling up the bone inside. My tongue would bathe the trail down through his valley. His legs would catch my head, his feet would caress my ears. My tongue would dart and glide inside the cave like fishes in the stream. I'd let it pet him there and glory in the heat.

My fingers would pull up my silky milk and take a drop upon one tip. Releasing lips but keeping tongue inside, my finger would slip between the gate. As it would glide in on my slickening juice my tongue and lips would walk the path up to the pounding heartbeat in his pole. Flicking on his rolling balls I'd draw first one, then the other, then both inside and dance them with my tongue. He'd squeal and hug me with his heels, his feet clamped on my back, his body stretching like the inch worm crawling up the grass on its journey to the sun. Moving up and swallowing the arrow of his boyhood I'd have him deep within myself. With him inside my mouth, my fingers would join inside of him and I thought I could feel my tongue against my finger tips. I'd rub the firmness of the lump in time with the wave running from his feet up through his center ending in his hands upon my head. This thrusting, driving, pounding in ourselves like drums going ever faster. We would ride beyond the sun, beyond the sky, beyond everything.

All day the children would giggle to be near us, always touching. Touching him, touching me, touching us as if they fed upon our love like we fed the Tunkasi within the pouches which never left our chests. Grandfather Coyote and Cloud Walking were smiling. Smiling joy, smiling pleasure, smiling love; smiling happy permission for the children to touch us once again.

Little Kit and Running Deer links are at www.netnicholas.com/littlebee

Namaste, Nicholas6996@hotmail.com