19. Uma

One dream blossomed into another, thin and voluminous, enveloping me in their intangible embrace. I slept the entire trip away, sealed up in one of the provisional coffins. When I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was the Zion logo, embossed on the ceiling, a pyramid with a dotted circle above it.

Valigha X-99 was where the shuttle landed. A cylindrically shaped tower of obsidian black, one of the tallest in the city. The medics on duty peered at me anxiously through thin plastic masks. They gave me a situation booster even before I climbed out of the compartment.

"I can't afford that shot." Was the first thing I told them. "That's all right." A young one said, "Zion commissioned it." They gave me some clean but otherwise uninteresting garments, and an i.x. card.

"What's this?" I asked, fingering the thin strip of magnetized plastic.

"Money." The medic answered, uninterestedly entering data into his board. "Twenty thousand creds."

"I know its money." I said irately. "But why are you giving it to me?"

He smirked. "You think I have that much money to just give away? It's all on Zion. Don't ask, I have no idea, I just work for them. Comes from high up, though. Privileged, aren't you?"

"Don't I know it." I was a bit miffed. They sent me packing. Before I knew it was ushered out of the glass doors. I blinked at the bright light, overwhelmed by a general sense of disorientation. I was back in Calcutta, it all seemed so unreal. A floater shot into my general vicinity before I could fully grasp my situation, I got into it by force of habit.

The car buzzed for directions, I punched in the coordinates for my apartment automatically. The slightly acrid smell of the interior was comforting, amicable like an old friend. The landscape whizzed by, glistening under the afternoon sun. I basked in the familiar warmth, my body melting in a pool of golden shadows. Calcutta... I closed my eyes briefly. What was I to think? Things have changed so much, nothing was as it seemed, not even myself. It was like a nightmare, from which I was not to awaken from but to awaken to. The floater stopped suddenly, plunging into a sudden drop. Interrupted from my train of thoughts, I opened my eyes wide.

We landed in front of a temple. Not just any temple, I realized, but the one I've frequented in what seemed like my previous life. I repeated my home coordinates to the floater, but it did not budge. A red light flashed in irritation, I was supposed to disembark.

She waited for me at the altar. Crushing garlands of poppy blossoms under her bare feet. She wasn't quite like the way I imagined Her to be, not so small and delicate. Ethereal and untouchable like an angel from the heavens. Her skin was made out of milky glass. Her hair black and thick and coiling, long enough to touch the floor. She wore a crimson dress, the ruffled hem brushed her knees. Her lips were red. Her eyes like bottomless pits of glittering diamonds, they sparkled furiously, burning with unseen fire. I thought of all the things that I wanted to say, that I wanted to ask, but I could not utter one single sound.

She smiled curiously. "Neuro." Her little hands grasped mine, they were warm and smooth. She was so small, perfect like a doll. "How do you do?"

"Dark...Dark One!" I stuttered.

"I'm fine. Thank you." Her grin was playful. Her fangs flashed for a brief second, startling white. "But you can call me Uma for now. As for the other me... I'd think you would never want to see Her, Neuro."

I said nothing, uneasy before her. The statue of the Nataraja loomed above us, throwing its shadow protectively around her. Things shifted in and out of focus around her. A faint outline of heat radiated from her body.

"Neuro." She sang softly. I felt my heart twist cruelly with pain, desire, unidentifiable whims. "Do you know why you do the things that you do? Do you know what purpose you serve in this world? Do you?"

"I..." I swallowed. "I must serve him. Dharma..."

"Your true dharma, Neuro." Uma corrected me. "Do you know what it is? Is it to be his? The lotus is the world, and he had you bring it before the Great Lord. Why? The lotus, the world, they are not his alone. We share it. Yet he takes it to symbolize his own. The lotus, his lotus, is not the same anymore. He has contaminated it with his own meaning. Vishnu's lotus represents the idealized world, a world without suffering, without pain, without the anguish of every day life..."

"What's wrong with that?" I interrupted. "What's wrong with a world without misery?"

"Such a world would be even more intolerable than the deepest of hells." She fixed me with her eyes, dark and moist. They reminded me of the colorless depth of the Edge. "What is pleasure without pain? Love without hate? A world without suffering would be like the shifting gears of an eternal machine, drudging on without purpose or finish. Without passions, without sorrows, without all that makes us what we are."

"But I long that world! Don't you? To be utterly happy, to be content!" I squeezed her hands unconsciously, "Don't you want to be....?"

"Sometimes what we desire the most is the bitterest poison." She looked at her hands, I released them. "Once you did what you wanted most to do, Neuro. You wanted to release your kah, and so you did, and so you destroyed your lover. Was that what you wanted? The urges within are deceivers. Physical sensations, lust, needs, wants - they cloud your mind's eye like so much pollution. He plays upon them, and beguiles you into believing his absolutions. Neuro..." She reached up to touch my face. "My prodigal child, born from the ashes of the millennia. You were the first to release your kah, the most powerful of the ep sim dis I created. More complete than the rest, more chaotic, more variable, more complex, more versatile, more! I feel as if I am too blame for bestowing too much upon you. How you've struggled to come to term with your powers! Oh, Neuro..." Uma dug into her pockets, wrinkling her forehead childishly as she searched. "Here..." She put into my palm a small ivory stick. I blinked, it was light, knotted on both ends. My throat constricted, it was a bone. A human finger bone.

"It's from my first Synthetic child, call it a charm, if you wish. I created from the Glass Womb, for I am unable to conceive natural offspring. The Synthetics are my children. You and your brother-sisters will carry my darkness. Neuro, soon your eyes will be opened, and you will learn your true dharma. It will shine so brilliantly, inside your mind, not your body. The path to such a revelation is long and arduous, but you have already tasted much of the venom along its way." I stared at the bone, bleached and naked in my palm. I wondered to whom it had belonged to, and if he was still alive inside a new body, his missing digit long forgotten.

I took in a deep, shuddering breath. "What is it... What is it that you want. Kal... ugh, Uma? If he wants me for my powers, what do you want from me?"

She laughed softly, her forehead was high and clear. "What I want, Neuro? I already have what I want. I'm merely trying to hold on to what's rightfully mine."

"I don't understand any of this." I tried to keep the frustration out of my voice, it didn't work. She arched a delicate eyebrow. "What is it that I'm suppose to do now?"

"Go to him." She said. "It's what you came back for, isn't it?"

"But... aren't you trying to uh, kill him?" I flushed even as I said it. It seemed so ridiculous to imply that such a little thing like her could kill anyone. But she was, I reflected dutifully, not what she appeared to be. Just like everything else.

"Do you think I could kill him?" She asked. "Do you think I would dare? Or that I can possibly succeed at it? He is a god, after all, and a deceiver as well. He is so good at his lies he ends up deceiving himself sometimes. Death - it's fast becoming a stranger to us all..."

"Where can I find him?" I blurted out, impatient with her vague words. Uma smiled knowingly, drawing away with a faint rustle in her voluminous skirts. Her feet scuffing track marks into the ashes strewn on the floor.

"Not in heaven, but on earth."

I stood in the same spot for a long time. Without her the temple seemed empty, unreal. Brahmins shuffled past me, giving me curious looks. I wondered if they knew who she was, if she was indeed who she claimed to be. And would the world be so different if it was true? Would I be different? Would my desire be changed, somehow? Would I no longer want to be with Kalkin? I studied my balled fist carefully. My mind was a complete blank, I gave up trying to think.

"And why shouldn't you?" A familiar voice said. I started, disbelieving my eyes. He threw himself into my arms. Shocked, I could only stand there as his hands roamed over my body unabashedly.

"Well, Neuro? Don't you miss me?" Kalkin said. His eyes big and silver and mischievous. "I saw her, you know. And I hid. What nonsense has that girl been saying to you, my love? You don't believe her, do you? Neuro, my Neuro. I knew you would come back for me! I knew she would bring you here. She knows that he's been missing...But it doesn't matter, Neuro. I know you would be on my side. She can't do anything to you. You are mine, Neuro. I love you."

"Kal...Kalkin!" I trembled at the unexpectedness of it all. "How... Oh, god. I've..."

"Neuro!" He pressed his body tightly against mine, his small erection rubbed against my thigh through the fabric of my trousers. He wore a large t shirt that threatened to fall off his narrow shoulders and faded jeans. He was bare foot, his brown hair pressed under a ball cap. "Neuro, do you want me, still? Do you love me? Will you protect me? I need you, Neuro. I need you more than anything else."

"Do you?" I fought his hold over me, like a siren song luring me to the rocks. It was hard, and I didn't really want to resist. "Do you need me? Tell me why. Tell me... Is it true? Are you..."

"I am whatever you want me to be." He said, guiding my hand to his face. He was so soft, so precious, so utterly beautiful in my eyes. I bent down to kiss him, his cap fell off his head and rolled under the altar. His lips were like satin, parting under mine eagerly. His tongue made me forget, tasting of cream and sweets, flicking gently against my teeth. "Neuro..." Someone protested loudly in Hindi. He pulled me after him, laughing.

My apartment seemed cramped and empty, smelling of stale sun. Kalkin searched in the fridge endlessly, settling finally on a piece of dried up bread. He sat on my bed to nibble on it, crumbs flaking down the front of his shirt and onto my sheets.

"Will you tell me what's going on now?" I asked, sitting down next to him. He scooted into my lap, rubbing his backside against my crotch and leaning his back against my chest, chewing loudly still. I wrapped my arms around him protectively and didn't want to let go. It felt right, some how. This is the way it should be. I belonged to him, even though...

"It's all lies." He swallowed noisily, "Whatever she told you. She hates me. We've always quarreled. For milleniums we've been struggling to gain control over the destiny of this world, ever since we were born from nothing. Sometimes she won, sometimes I did. But ever since she had been able to force the Kaliyuga I've been loosing steadily. The First Dark, the Second and the Third stole the world right out of my hands. I must steal it back, everything depends on it! And I can't do it without you, Neuro."

"Everything?" I hugged him a little tighter. "What do you mean everything?"

"Didn't she tell you? Didn't she tell you that there is going to be a Fourth Dark? Good things come in fours, after all." He licked his fingers, "The four horsemen of the Apocalypse: famine, war, pestilence, and..."

"That... can't be!" I turned Kalkin around to look at me. His expression was serious, none of the playfulness that could be usually found in his eyes shone through. "What are you saying? She can't be planning to kill us all!"

"Death. What else does it mean?" He shrugged. "I have a plan though, for getting it back. If I do then the Fourth Dark would not come, and everyone will be saved."

"Get what back?" I asked apprehensively.

"The world, of course." He yawned, showing his sharp pearl-like teeth. "Or, not the world per se, but something like the world, that controls everything in it. Sort of like an algorithm, sort of like a ghost, sort of like..." He wrinkled his brow, "I don't know how to explain it. It can be called essence. Sometimes you call it kah, or pseudo-matter, or energy, or power, or whatever. Everyone has it, some have more than others. You have some, I have some. But none of it amounts to anything compared to the core essence, the essence of the world, which she posses."

"And she's going to destroy the world with it?" My tone was incredulous. "But why would she do that? It's her world already, isn't it?"

Kalkin rolled his eyes. "Women! Who knows? The important thing is I have to get it back. You'll help me, won't you, Neuro? Won't you?"

My mouth opened, then closed again. "I still don't understand."

"That doesn't matter. Just say you'll help me, Neuro?" He threw his arms around my neck. "Say you'll help me anyway? No matter what?"

"Kalkin..." I groaned. It wasn't a choice, not really. I couldn't deny him anything and he knew it. Sly with victory, He straddled my thighs and guided my hands to his buttocks, from which he had already peeled down his pants. His skin was burning hot, firm and smooth. I kneaded them gently, cupping them in my palms. He put his head on my shoulder and busied himself with unclothing me, impatient and child-like, throwing the discarded garments onto the floor.

Kalkin rubbed our erections together, his not so much smaller than mine. I wanted to take it into my mouth, to taste him and hear his squeals as he climaxed, but I couldn't quite force myself to break our contact. Before I could protest he bent his head and engulfed my shaft with his perfect lips. I cried out in mingled pleasure and surprise, overtaken by the hot, moist sensations of his mouth. He sucked me expertly, his tongue whipping across my engorged head and stroking the underside of my dick. His hands fondled my full sacks, pulling teasingly, sometimes squeezing with gentle pressure. I squirmed under his administrations, wanting to thrust savagely into his throat to appease my libido but not daring. He was a child... or a god, either way, I didn't dare to do anything out of line. It was hard, biting back my urges, it seemed like years since I've gotten any pleasure that didn't turn into sudden pain.

"What's the matter?" Kalkin demanded suddenly, spitting me out. "Don't I give good head? Why are you sliding away from me?"

"No! It's great!" I stuttered, "I'm, uh, I just... Don't want to hurt you, that's all."

"You're acting like I'm gonna bite it off or something!" He pouted. "Neuro, you're such a baby!"

I winced. "It's just... You're too young! I can't..."

"I told you, I'm way older than you are!" He sighed exaggeratedly. "Would it make it better if I looked as old as you? Would it?"

"I suppose." I said. "I can wait until, uh, until you grow up, I guess."

"Don't be stupid! I'm already grown! For a Synth, you're pretty slow on these kind of things, aren't you?" He jumped out of bed onto the floor. "Fine then, I'll forward myself."

"Forward?" I said dumbly. What was he talking about? Kalkin closed his eyes and swayed slightly in the same spot. I watched apprehensively as the air around him seemed to ripple and shake. His outline was fuzzy, shimmering with white heat. I heard myself gasp. One second he was there, another he wasn't. I blinked, a faint halo of blue superimposed upon the air solidified from nothing. Kalkin reappeared. Kalkin... I stared, wide eyed. Not the young boy that I've come to known, but someone...

"Do you like me like this?" He demanded. His voice was deeper, melodious, rough with textures. He's taller than me now, almost by a full head. His face stronger, his cheekbones sharper, and his chin exotically arrogant. I gulped, he caught my face in his hand and smiled. His body was chiseled from alabaster, firm and angle-less like that of a statue's. Kalkin pressed his thumb against my lips, forcing a kiss. He wasn't a child anymore, nor a man, but something caught haphazardly in the middle. Only his eyes stayed the same, silver and laughing.

"Do you like me now, Neuro?" I couldn't answer. He kissed me roughly, impatiently, his fingers pinching and pulling at my nipples. I moaned in objection against his lips, it was like being kissed by a stranger. "It's not the same!" I said lamely when he pulled away from a breath. He glared at me. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know." I looked down at my hands, "It's... just not like you!"

"Of course it's like me! It is me! This is my body at twenty years human age. Neuro...!" He pulled me to him possessively. "Come one! Let's fuck! That's what you want, isn't it? Don't you want to fuck me? Look, I got big just for you! So you don't have to feel bad about doing it to me! I want you to do it, Neuro! I want you to fuck me!"

"You..." I looked at him in horror. How could this be my Kalkin? I always thought him innocent and precious, implicitly sexual in the way all young boys were. Even when... Even when... I backed away from him slowly. This wasn't what I wanted, I told myself. I wanted him as a child, to love and protect, to be my beloved, not my lover. I didn't like him like this. I didn't like him as an aggressive peer.

"Neuro!" He narrowed his eyes, reaching for me. "What's the matter now?"

"Don't!" I cried, trying to push him away. "Change back! I don't like it! Kalkin! I don't!"

"Neuro!" He exploded. "What the hell do you want? Nothing pleases you, does it? I should have expected it from one of her damned spoiled brats! I should have..."

"No! Kalkin, I..." I cringed. He pushed me angrily down on the bed. For a moment I thought he was going to force himself on me, his teeth bared threateningly. It wasn't like Kalkin at all, no. It occurred to me that perhaps... perhaps I didn't know him very well at all. I shuddered under his weight.

"Oh, Neuro." He said suddenly. I opened my eyes, I didn't realize that I had them closed. He had rolled off of me, and was laying on the bed next to me. He was small again, and for that I was grateful. Something about the other him bothered me extremely. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew that it definitely wasn't a good thing. "Oh, Neuro." He said again. Sadly, perhaps, regretfully, penitently. He squeezed my fingers lightly. "I didn't mean to do that. I'm sorry. I got carried away. I shouldn't have expected you to take well to a change like that. Neuro, do you forgive me?"

"Yes." I said, melting. We looked at each other for a long time. His eyes like shearing knives that cut to the core of my soul and held my will power captive. Hesitantly he put his hand on my thigh and slipped it between my legs, coaxing me back into full hardness. I let him suck me. His silk-like hair tickling my crotch, his coquettish lips rubbing sensuously up and down my shaft. I moaned loudly, running my fingers along the nape of his long, delicate neck. Kalkin's throat contracted deliciously as he took me down deep. The feeling was unbearable, the warm, wet pressure sending hot spikes of pleasures through my groin. I dug my fingers into the bed, fighting my climax as it climbed from my balls to erupt into his mouth. My cum dribbled from the corners of his mouth like white rivulets. He choked slightly, struggling to swallow as I came again and again.

"...tastes like you, Neuro." He muttered, grinding his still erect penis against my flaccid one. I spread his buttocks, inserting one finger up inside of him. He mewled happily as I pressed against his prostate. "Fuck me now, Neuro?"

"Yes." My throat constricted. "But tell me something, why is it that you need me to help you? What makes me so special? There are other boys, aren't there? Why..."

"Silly Neuro. Always seeking assurance, approval from others. Do you want me to say that I love you? I love you, Neuro. Are you satisfied? Why did I choose you - how can I choose anyone else besides you? Only you have the one-half kah pattern that is key to the retrieval of the essence."

For a long time I watched the peacocks preen in front of the fountain, their tail feathers gathered modestly behind them. Only one male displayed, shaking the blue green eyes of his beauty proudly on top of a carved ivory pedestal. I peered at the sun from the four walls of the courtyard, it was a hard white disk of burning light. The bamboo trees rustled, I heard his feet padding softly across the wooden floors.

"Are you ready, Neuro?"

"What is this place?"

Kalkin stooped down, his arm hugging his knees. He was wearing a long linen tunic and little else underneath. I averted my eyes from the privates he showed when he posed that way. "It's the palace of Kama. You said that you'll help me, remember?"

"I remember. But what are we doing here?"

"To save the world, of course." He frowned a little. "Didn't I explain this already?"

"Yes." I said, a little hurt by his abruptness. "But..."

"Kama caught him, it wasn't easy." He interrupted me distractedly. "In the wild woods, he was dancing and didn't even notice as the arrow of passion grazed his thigh. That presumptuous bastard! He's not even taking this seriously! I knew she hid it inside of him. Women! They are so predictable. But I can't touch him, not with the essence inside of him, anyway. And Kama was burnt to cinders for trying. That's why I need you, Neuro. I need you to get it from him."

"Inside... who? How will I..."

"You were made by her, so he would not hurt you." He pulled on my hand. I stood up and followed him down the arched hallway. The dizzying scent of honeysuckle and thick incense drifted out to greet us. Small bells chimed with the wind, dangling on red threads from the rafters. The walls were decorated with plaster casts of love-play, scenes from the kama sutra. The rich, warm colors were almost suffocating. A scented breeze wafted, fanned by brilliant plumage. I felt as if I was walking into another world, punctuated by the strange, inhuman cry of the peacocks.

We came to a room with red gauze curtains. The floor was thickly carpeted, strewn with silk cushions and flower petals. Light slanted in through long, narrow windows, chiseled deep into the stone walls and screened with elaborately carved panels. He was propped up like a broken doll in one of the corners, his skin glistening golden in the patch of sun that touched him.

I stopped, open mouthed, my toe on the threshold. Shiva looked back at me impassively, his eyes glistening with the life of a thousand stars. He was nude, chained and shackled. Small and defenseless except for his eyes, they burned through my soul like the most acrid of flames. He was different than the last time I saw him. He seemed younger, some how. His hair more matted, the crescent moon dangled from a half-undone plait, sparkling silver. His face was a mask of silence, cold, wandering, some where else. There was an open wound on his thigh, sticky with blood. It was long and skinny, strangely erotic by its own right. I wondered what kind of arrow it was that had struck him.

"Snap out of it!" Kalkin told him. "I don't have time to play games with you anymore! I would have shared it with you, you know, but you rejected me without giving it a second thought! Everything would have been ours if you had just accepted it. Everything - this world, the next, and the next one after that. Everything, if you had just accepted the lotus. But now... But now I will take it from you forcibly! I have taken her Guardian from her. I have taken the key to unlock destiny and I dare to use it, unlike you, who merely sits on his woman's jealous secret! You... Ugh! Look at me, damnit!"

Kalkin balled his fists tightly. I've never seen him so filled with emotion, his cheeks blushing furiously and his lips trembling with passion. Shiva's lips curled into a strange smile. I shuddered, unable to break our mutual stare just like that time in the temple.

"Ep sim di wouldn't betray her." He spoke. His voice was like the stirring of autumn leaves. He pronounced the words slowly, fluidly, as if he was reciting a poem. "You're wrong. Did you think that she would give him to you so easily if he will? He is only doing your will because you keep him in the dark, you hid your true face from him, didn't you, brother? You are afraid that he will hate you once he sees you for what you truly are."

"Shut up!" Kalkin spat, "Shut up! Neuro is mine! Mine! I have the secret! I will take it from you! I..." He drew in a breath and laughed shakily. "I will..."

"What... What are you doing?" He grabbed my hand and guided it to Shiva's thigh. I tried to pull away but could not. Shiva bit his lips, his eyes narrowing. His skin was warm, supple and soft. "Kalkin!" He forced me to touch him between his legs, cup his genitalia in my palm, folding my fingers so that I was squeezing him tightly. "Stop... Stop! What are you..."

"You said you'll help me, didn't you? Neuro, only you can do it. Only you can get it from him. He's been wounded with Kama's arrow. He feels it now, now matter how much he tries to hide it. He feels..."

Shiva stirred in my hand. I blushed furiously, not wanting to meet his eyes though his face was merely inches from mine. It grew hard in my hand, a large shaft, uncircumcised. I stared at it, fascinated, and didn't even notice when Kalkin let go of me and I was holding him by my own will. My thumb itched to stroke it, to feel it's silky texture, to fondle the knob and peel back the foreskin. I gasped, trembling, but didn't let go.

"He lusts for you, Neuro. It is as it should be. I have let no one touch him since the arrow struck, not even myself. And now he's yours. His desire for you is made irresistible by Kama. Touch him, feel him, he can not resist you. Neuro, take it from him, take it... for me."

"What do you want me to do?" I asked. My fingers dancing shakily across Shiva's erection, brushing at his pubic thatch. A light-headed feeling overwhelmed me. Kalkin put his hand gently on the back of my head and pushed my face into the other boy's crotch. I felt Shiva's muscles tense, I squeezed his thighs automatically. He had the wild scent of an animal, mingled with the pungency of pine and ash. It was distinct, a bitter-sweet formula.

"Suck him." Kalkin said. "Make him cum. The essence will be intermingled with his sperm. It's the only way."

"But..." I hesitated, the cock head was brushing against my cheeks and smearing precum on my lips. Shiva groaned slightly, a deep rumble within his chest. The chains around his arms and legs jingled melodiously.

"You're the only one who could do it, Neuro. You're the only one who could bring him to climax without being burned to cinders." Kalkin stroked my back with his fingers, peeling back my shirt and unzipping my pants. "The essence will respond to your kah. Don't you want to take Shiva linga into your mouth? Think of it as the holiest of consecrations. Don't you want to suck him, Neuro? Are you not appeased by his beauty?

"Oh, umph!" I moaned as Kalkin forced me to take it between my lips. He grabbed my hair and made me bob up and down on it for a few seconds. "Mmm!" Helplessly I let myself be used, my protests stifled by the penis in my mouth. Kalkin pulled my trousers down to my knees with his other hand, giving my bums a playful slap along the way. "You like it like this, Neuro? You're such a bottom boy! Would you like it if I plugged your other end right now? I think you would."

"...no!" I said around Shiva's throbbing tool. He had closed both his eyes and thrown his head back, his hips bucking with the want of my mouth. "Don't! Kalkin..." Before I could say anything further his fingers were already inside of me, buried up to the second knuckle. His arm around my waist to prevent me from squirming away. I gasped as I felt the head of his penis slide down my crack, pushing not so gently at my anal rim. His saliva slicked fingers guided the swollen bulb into my rectum. It burned, his shaft was not lubricated. My body shuddered, I felt my knees turn to water.

"Mmmm... Suck him! Don't stop, Neuro. I want to... I want to watch you do it. Ohhh... How could you be so tight? I want to put it all inside of you. I want to screw you. I want to watch you suck him as I do." He spread me as much as he could with his fingers. The penetration was slow, tedious, erotic and painful. Even though he did not have the girth and length of an adult, somehow the shape of his dick was more than adequate in making me feel utterly full. I squeezed my lips tightly around Shiva's shaft to keep from screaming. Pain and pleasure swirled angrily inside my head. I wanted to defy him, but I have already commit myself to obey him, and it was an obedience that was not so easily rebuked.

"Cum in his mouth!" Kalkin said above my head to Shiva, whose penis throbbed and danced in my mouth. "Cum in him! You know you want to! Don't you like it when I dry fuck him? Don't you like it when I stick my thing in him? Would you like it if I stuck it in you?"

"No!" Shiva said. "No!" My throat contracted as I swallowed him down past my gag reflex, my face was pressed entirely against his crotch, my hands stroking his testicles and the valley that led up to his anus. He was close, I could feel it. Urged on by the motion of Kalkin's thrusts into my behind, his shaft scraped furiously against my esophagus. He screamed when he came, a great gushing stream of semen that made me gag and filled my mouth so completely that some of it ran down my chin. "Don't swallow!" Kalkin yelled, squeezing my neck with both of his hands so that I coughed it all up onto the floor, between Shiva's legs.

I struggled for breath, the aftertaste of his sperm was like a great fire scalding my tongue. Kalkin scooped up the white stuff from the ground and ate it greedily, pressing his face to the floor to lick it with his tongue. "No!" Shiva sobbed, his face was flushed and tear streaked. He didn't look like a god then, just a lost boy who was made to do something he did not want to do. "No! You don't know what you're doing! You're wrong! You are the one who will kill us all!"

"Don't be silly!" Kalkin panted, "I will... I will..."

"What will you do?" I muttered, spitting onto the floor. The burning in my mouth would not stop, it was as if a great sun had been birthed at the tip of my tongue. I swallowed with difficulty, feeling tired all of a sudden, tired of it all. "What will you do now, Kalkin. Will you save the world? What..."

"I will do something!" He said defiantly.