Date: Sun, 26 May 2019 04:00:17 +0000 (UTC)
From: Milford Slabaugh <tommyhawk1@aol.com>
Subject: In the Shadow of the Pyramid, Conclusion

             IN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRAMID, CONCLUSION
                      By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
                  WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM

     The Pharaoh was dead. While they prepared his body for burial, we
worked to complete the pyramid to receive his body. It had been two years
since the battle near the pyramid, but on the day we laid the capstone, a
small pyramid shaped stone on top of the pyramid, I stood nearby at the top
of the ramp and I looked out at the area where the battle had been. Nothing
there remained, that which hadn't been scavenged had been covered by the
sands of the desert which reclaimed its even sheen of brown sand over
everything. The horses, the blood, the broken chariots and the detritus of
battle, all of it was gone. Like it had never been, all the fear, all the
fighting, all the terror, all the turmoil, all of it...gone as if it had
never been.
     The work remaining was the removal of the ramp, the long compacted
mass of sand and straw. Not only did it have to be removed, but made to
vanish as if it, too, had never been. Nothing must remain to mar the beauty
of the pyramid. The houses we had built, too, must be removed, destroyed,
and the stones taken away. Only the pyramid would be allowed to remain, for
our work was done.
     I went to my house, a comfortable place with three rooms, one of which
permitted me to prepare my own food if I chose. Instead of a mud-packed
platform, I had an actual couch upon which to lounge when I rested, and
cushions made of a beautiful purple dye we had obtained from a far-off
land, cloth usually reserved for the Pharaoh, for in his final days of
life, he had been most generous with those of us building his final resting
place. But he was dead now, and we must soon move, me back to my home
village unless I found another building project that needed a Master
Stone-cutter, for I was now of this exalted rank.
     My home village had its own reward, for he had left in his will that
all who had suffered his displeasure for the rebellion was to be given
remission from their burden of extra taxation. The Pharaoh was about to
embark upon a treacherous journey of the spirit, and he did not wish to
meet any along the way who bore him ill-will.
     The ramp did not require my help, and no buildings would be torn down
(which would require my supervision) until the ramp was gone, another week
hence. So I had several days of rest forced upon me, a chance to consider
my life and my position and my future.
     I didn't see one. My purpose in life had been this pyramid, and it was
done now. So many had died for this pyramid, this Pharaoh who was to be
laid to rest there, this land which was to now revert to desert except for
these shining white forms.
     Nothing of me was to remain.
     I looked upon my walls. I had taken to studying the hieroglyphics for
myself, I had petitioned for permission and it had been granted with the
understanding I use it only for the lesser prayers. I had decorated my
walls with them, using the prayer for happiness. Writing out the prayer
upon the wall as I had was supposed to grant happiness. So far, it
hadn't. I was to now lose this place, this house, this purpose. I had to
replace it with something...but what?
     "Ho, Kephrin!" came a call from outside my door. I didn't recognize
the voice, some worker under my supervision wanted to speak with me for
some reason, I presumed. Another reason I was feeling lost was that I had
been so busy for so long, dealing with everyone else's problems, I hadn't
had time to even realize that such waited for me as well. Now, I had
time...
     Well, I was distracted at least, by this call. "Enter." I said. "I
shall help you as I can."
     The man stepped inside and at first, I didn't recognize him at all. He
wore the headdress of an artisan, and I knew most of the artisans of the
pyramid, but this one was new....
     "Keotin!" I shouted and jumped into his arms. For it was he, my
beloved Keotin! "I thought you were dead!" I hadn't heard from him since
the battle, and had assumed him to be one who had perished both in body and
soul on that day.
     I held Keotin as tight as I could...nearly as tight as he held me. I
had thought I had lost Keotin in the battle, getting him back today, now,
when my life was foundering and I was about to lose my roots...here was he,
my lover, my beloved Keotin, back with me again!
     After many, many moments, we let got of each other and I said, "Sit,
my beloved, and tell me how it is I find you alive now, and here...and of a
higher rank than myself." I admitted as I gazed upon his headdress. "How
did you survive the battle?"
     Keotin smiled. "Because I was not here. I was at the temples of
Karnak, learning my trade as an artisan." He gazed upon the crude workings
I had done upon my walls. "While I am here, I shall give you some lessons,
if this is your work."
     I admitted it and passed on, "So you were not part of the rebellion,
then?"
     "Never." Keotin said. "The artisans owe everything to the Pharoah,
whoever he is, and we owe our allegiance to him."
     He paused, and I realized, "Whoever he is?"
     Keotin smiled, shrugged. "It is why I am here. My job is to serve the
Pharaoh now upon the throne, by converting the pyramid for himself. He did
not get on well with his elder brother, and cannot build a proper pyramid
for himself in the years he has left, so he will pre-empt the pyramid for
himself. I am to help alter the glyphs upon the walls, so that they give
his name rather than his elder brother's. A place has been made for him in
a valley south of here, not as grand as the pyramid, but worthy enough."
Keotin made another shrug of helplessness. "Where I cannot strike out the
name, I am to deface it, removing the penis if one is displayed. No trace
of him is to be left so his spirit cannot travel here."
     So even the Pharoah would not keep the fruits of the many years of
labor. I began to laugh, helplessly. So many men had struggled, so many had
died, and none of us, not a one, would keep so much as we could not carry
away from this place, where we had lived out our lives. Disappearing, as
like so much smoke.
     I spoke of this to Keotin, told him of my despair. "And have we
labored for nothing?" I cried out. "Have we built and lived and fought and
died for nothing?"
     Like a longtime lover should, Keotin comforted me, and then when my
shakes had stopped, he reached and lifted up my head by my chin with a
forefinger's edge, as though I were a simple child. "You worry too much."
he said to me. "Do you feel yourself so little loved?"
     I had to smile at that. "I have been little loved these years. My job
as Master Stonecutter does possess more material wealth, but I have paid
for them in the loss of my friendships. Few are on my own level, and none
of them seem to care a fig for me." That was true, they had remembered my
own intimacy with the Cult of the All and avoided me lest the taint carry
over to them. I was respected and obeyed by my underlings...but nobody
else. My sexual activities had to carry the burden of being with one of my
own men, and were thus for the obvious reasons unsatisfactory. The man
would want compensation, or take on an importance he did not deserve, and
would have to be punished or transferred. Such things happened...but the
fourth time it had happened, some five months before, I had been warned not
to ask for a transfer for such a reason again.
     "Your time of lovelessness is at an end." Keotin said. "For I have
power and shall use it. We shall need a Master Stonecutter's assistance in
our labors here. I shall ask for you, and then insist on keeping you upon
our return to the Temple at Karnak. Much work remains to be done there, you
will be needed."
     Such a blessing, to have an opportunity such as this! And from the
hands of your long-lost lover, it was doubly blessed! I fell upon Keotin's
shoulders and babbled out my gratitude as only one can who does so to a
person they trust so much. I could not lose face before this man, my lover,
my Keotin, who knew me to the very core!
     I kissed his shoulder in my gratitude, that warm, firm shoulder, the
ardor of my appreciation knocked his headdress from his head and it
clattered upon the floor, and my lover's upper shoulder revealed itself for
my kisses upon it, and upon his neck!
     Keotin's laughter was a balm upon my soul, for he did not mock me with
his laugh, it was the joy of a reunion, and I knew that he had missed our
times together as much as I had, missed the days when we had been mere
stone-cutters together, our lives spent together all day upon the unbuilt
pyramid and our nights together in our simple bed.
     And Keotin showed his superiority in age over me by taking command as
he often did in our bed, my kisses upon his body were interrupted by his
peremptory hands and I was thrust back against my pillow upon the couch and
Keotin was now kissing me, his lips fastened upon one nipple and he
sucked/wrenched it with a vigor that made me wince, and yet that pain
converted itself into a lance of pleasure that arced down my body and
jutted my cock skyward, a spear of lust.
     And Keotin's hand caught and freed my cock from its trap of cloth and
I thrilled to feel his hand upon my prick again...so long! It had been so
long! I had once been so innocent that I had expected Keotin and I would
stay mere stone-cutters for our entire lives. It had been so simple, then,
the work had been hard but our lives had not been without our
compensations...no, no indeed! Too poor to consider buying a wife for
ourselves, we'd had each other, yes, each other then, and each other now!
     Keotin's hand slid up and down my cock as he continued to worry my
breast, me groaning with the rush of sensations racing down across my
stomach and into my groin, until my balls boiled just from the feeling of
my lover's hand upon my body, upon my manhood, once again! So long, it had
been so long!
     I moaned in my helpless need beneath Keotin and could only mutter out,
"Please, Keotin, my love, my life, my body needs you, take me now, take
me!" I meant for him to mount me for my asshole ached for his return.
     But Keotin said, "Take you I shall, for it has been too long for me as
well!" and he took me, not by his cock plunging into my ass, but by his
mouth covering my cock and surrounding my shaft with the hot warm wetness
of his throat that pulsed around my rod and warped itself around until I
was buried completely within him.
     "Ohhh, gods be kind to me!" I gasped out when I felt that. "Ohhh, my
beloved, you have returned to me completely, and I am yours!" and Keotin
held me inside himself like that until I marveled that he did not pass out
from lack of air in his lungs, and then, as I felt his gorge pushing at me
and thrusting me out of him, I moaned again and my cock seethed angrily at
this displacement.
     "Ohhh, uhhh, ohhhh!" I gasped as my prick fell moistly upon my thigh,
a thick gray coating of Keotin's throat-slime upon it, heavy and
hot. "Again, my beloved, please, again, take me again!" I begged him
without shame, saying the words heedlessly, caring only to be returned to
that dark dominion of his body, there to feel his throat writhe once more
around me.
     "I shall take you." Keotin promised me again, and I held still,
quivering as a small boy upon his first climax's approach, for I was as a
small boy again in my friend's bed, and he was teaching me anew what it
meant to be his playmate. I lay there, my eyes shut for the light oppressed
me, even the small light of the daylight through my window, for it meant I
was not within Keotin as I longed to be.
     I felt Keotin's hand upon my slimy dong and I shuddered, dared to open
my eyes, and I saw Keotin straddling me, one leg upon the couch and the
other on the floor, his body at my waist and his hand guiding me upwards as
he descended, and I could only watch in helpless passion as Keotin lowered
himself upon my manhood and the heat of his lower body now surrounded me,
the difference between it and his mouth was that of the pot in which I had
boiled, and the fire beneath into which I had now fallen, all the same, and
yet more of it, more, the raw unrefined experience now, the heat of
Keotin's blood surrounded me as it throbbed in the walls of his bowels, and
that heat pounded as it flooded my cock now within that warm tunnel, and
then I was again submerged within Keotin, and he was smiling into my face,
my lover's smile looking right at me again as our bodies were joined!
     I had to kiss that marvelous face as he stared into my eyes, and he
let me and then he broke away not to force us apart, but to lever his body
so that he could bounce up and down upon me. What else was there for me to
do in this position but lie there at my Keotin's mercy and let him use my
body for himself? Somehow, even though it was my prick imbedded within him,
he was in control here and this position was his choosing and I was to
comply with it whether I would or not, though I could not wish a better
fate in that moment even if I could have chosen my lot in life including
the lot of being the new Pharaoh not yet crowned.
     Instead, I watched with a sort of bemused satisfaction as Keotin, who
normally insisted upon his own pleasure first, moved his body upon me, and
I saw the light I had cursed so early before as it danced itself upon his
tawny form and the yellowish glints caressed that body that I loved so!
     I would have joined those lights with my hands if I could have, but
the movement may have interrupted his careful dance upon my body, so I
settled for my hands upon his fore-thighs and I squeezed those muscles as
they flexed and extended in his motions, and in doing so I reaffirmed my
gratitude for this favor of his pleasure.
     Keotin looked down upon me, his face softened with passion and his
lips ached me to kiss them, yet I dared not move, so I loved him with my
eyes as I could, stroking his body by my look at him, telling him with that
I was happy, so happy, that he had returned to me!
     And Keotin leaned over to rest his upper body upon his hands on either
side of me and now I could and did kiss him while he writhed his hips back
and forth to continue his loving of me.
     And now that I could kiss him, it was all my body needed to complete
itself, and I found my cock electrified and the rush of delight rippled
through it and I moaned, "Ahh, ahh, Keotin, my loving one, I am coming, I
am coming, I, ahh, ahh, ahh, HUH, HAHHHH-HUNNNKKHH!" And my cock, so long
deprived, revenged itself by a most explosive orgasm, it felt like the
first burst of my jism upwards into Keotin contained a quart of my body's
life-fluids, and it made a mess appropriate to such a volume, Keotin's ass
was filled and overfilled all at once, and it squirted back out of him and
onto me as I creamed up yet more and more, and Keotin crouched down lower
and now his own dong was a hot pulsing rod upon my stomach and he rubbed
the sticky dong upon my abdomen in a helpless rut of excitation and as I
finished my fiery assault upon his bowels, Keotin sighed, and with that
single sigh the only syllable he exuded, he unleashed his own flood upon my
body, my stomach held a puddle, a pool, a lake, an ocean of his man-juices
and it poured over my sides not in a dribble but in a waterfall, and the
hot creamy fluids sealed us together like wet plaster might, no adhesion as
it was, but it would dry and seal us for eternity if we would but let it.
     With Keotin panting atop me as I recovered from my own climax, I
stroked his now-sweaty back and sighed my satisfaction into his ear. "Uhhh,
mmmh, mmmmm!" I murmured to him.
     "Mmmmh, uhhhh!" He returned to me in kind, though his face was
half-buried in the pillow upon which my own head reclined. He wallowed
upwards with an awkward sort of thrust and ended upon his elbows and
forearms supporting him above me, our faces a mere inch apart.
     "And so you have returned to me." I said.
     "It was you left me." He pointed out. "If you had stayed, I could have
told you of the artisan's plans for me, for the very day they told me their
wishes for me, was the day that I was informed you had to be stopped as an
escaped traitor."
     He pressed a finger to my lips to stop my protest. "I knew them wrong,
but you were gone just the same. The next news was that you had died at the
orders of the High Priest, and I still knew better than to think you guilty
of treason, but I did believe you dead. It wasn't until an hour ago that I
read your name upon the tablets of the workers and knew you were alive. I
spend that hour learning where you lived now, for nobody seemed to quite
know."
     "Many avoid me." I agreed. "For I was fooled by the Cult of the All
and though I was quick to make amends, they did not trust me even though I
was rewarded for my service by promotion to Master Stone-cutter."
     "I know." Keotin said. "But that time is at an end. I shall speak for
you, and if they do not listen, well, our days at the pyramids are at an
end anyhow, and you shall come with me to Karnak and we shall rebuild a
life together there with none to know your history save what you tell
them."
     "Yes, our days here are at an end." I sighed, my memories of the
futility of it all weighing upon me again. "And yet, for all those days,
what do we have to show for it?" I protested. "We built it all for a
Pharoah who shall not live in it. And even if there is a place within that
keeps the name of the Pharaoh whom I served, there is no place within that
bears my name. I shall be forgotten by the gods, one of a mass of men who
serve the Pharaoh in the next life, assuming he can find his way from a
land he did not expect to be buried within and if they write the proper
glyphs for him to read and say the prayers right."
     "You are wrong about that." Keotin said. "They shall not know his
name, or if they do, it shall be only lies, and they will not know him for
true. But you and I, who built these massive stones of the future, you and
I, they shall yearn to know."
     "But nobody shall tell them our names, even!" I objected.
     "They shall know our deeds, if not our names." Keotin
said. "Architects shall come and marvel at what we did here, and they shall
beseech our spirits to come and guide them upon their own projects. The
pyramids shall be silent as to who lives within them, and yet their very
size and their majesty shall speak our names to future generations
forever."
     And he was right, and I sighed so within his arms. "You have always
guided me, Keotin." I said. "It was only when I left you that I went
astray. Say that we shall never be parted again."
     "Never." Keotin promised me. "Never throughout eternity."
     And I rested at last in the comfort of that promise and embrace, my
spirit at peace once more.
                             THE END
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