Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 18:02:36 -0500
From: Milford Slabaugh <tommyhawk1@aol.com>
Subject: The Blank Wall

			      THE BLANK WALL
			   By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
		      WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM

     It was a good night to be a soldier of the Guard of the Empire of
Oparia. His Supreme Ruler Aberin had been kind enough to declare his
birthday to be a holiday throughout the Empire, and Merreck had been lucky
enough to have not drawn the duty. He had been able to enjoy the
celebrations as a private citizen might, and after, he met with some of his
friends who had been less fortunate and kindly stand them all to a round of
drinks, and then another. They'd been fellow Guardsmen together for several
years, and he knew them better than he knew his brothers; Gwyll, Foult,
Tilvin and Broud, they'd fought and won battles and lost battles and tended
each other's wounds, he'd looked about and realized that, deep in his cups,
there wasn't a one of these men who wouldn't die for him, or he for
them....
     And that was where it all ended.
     His next sensation was that of darkness. A darkness that had held him
for a long time, and he was feeble, painridden, his head, oh, Goddess, his
head! He moaned, and then there was a flurry of sound, water moving about,
splashing, and then a wet rag was placed over his forehead. "Don't try to
move." came the soft voice.
     "Uhhh?" he asked instead.
     "Can you talk?"
     "Uhhh, yeahhh!" He managed with some difficulty, his throat hurt. Not
like it was sore, like it was...rusty. "I guessss sssso."
     "I've been worried about you. You've been out for more than two
weeks." The rag was moved, dipped in the water again, placed on his head
again. "You remember much about the battle?"
     "What battle?" Merreck stirred, found his body aching.
     "The doctor said some memory loss may occur. It should be temporary."
the voice sounded more assured. "You had me very scared. I was thinking you
weren't coming out of it."
     "I'm not sure I have." Merreck admitted. "What battle was it we were
fighting? Who were we fighting? Oparia is at peace, isn't it?"
     "Oparia?" Merreck had the voice placed now, it was Gwyll. "You're
joking, aren't you?"
     "No, no, it was the Emperor's birthday and I had taken you all out for
drinks after your shifts...."
     "Four years." Gwyll's voice was wondering. "You've lost four years."
     "Four years?"
     "Yes, that party was over four years ago. God, Merreck!" Gwyll sounded
nearly hysterical. "You've forgotten everything that happened after that
party? Zerstorin struck Oparia only three weeks later. His hordes, five
million or more strong, invaded Oparia across a border five hundred miles
long. Zerstorin's magical storms struck every city in Oparia."
     "Dear Goddess!" Merreck attempted to sit upright and felt the world
whirling. "What? Where?"
     "Oparia, my dear Merreck, is no more." Gwyll sat down on the bed
beside Merreck, and Merreck saw the years had worn hard on Gwyll. Gwyll had
always been a slender man and was still, his blond hair and soft lines of
his face had made him seem even younger than he was. But now, there were
lines that aged his face until now he seemed a few years Merreck's senior.
     "Nothing?"
     "Zerstorin drove what was left of our men out of Oparia, seized
everything, killed everyone who didn't follow our troops. It's now a
wasteland, all of it."
     "So...so where are we?"
     "Pelingrin." Gwyll said. "We serve the King of Pelingrin."
     "And we were fighting Zerstorin? I was fighting to take back Oparia?"
     "No. No, we were fighting Chendrel."
     "Chendrel?" Merreck was scandalized. He and his comrades had lost
Oparia and now they were fighting on behalf of one tiny-kingdom king
against another? "What about the others?"
     "What others?"
     "Foult. Broud. Tilvin."
     Gwyll paused a moment, and Merreck knew what he was going to say.
     "Dead." Gwyll said so softly Merreck was barely able to hear
him. "Broud died in the first attack. Foult fell defending the last
surviving members of the Emperor's family fleeing Oparia. Tilvin...died of
his wounds after that. Everyone else who lived just sort
of...dispersed. There comes a time when you have to just walk away, you
know?"
     "So we just walked away." Merreck lay back on the bed again. He'd lost
more than four years! He'd lost his entire life! Nothing was as it had been
before! It was like looking at a blank wall.
     "You just lie there, try to rest. You've been sick. I'll go fetch you
some soup."
     Merreck spent the next several days lying in that bed, while Gwyll had
tended to his every need. The bedpan was embarrassing, but Gwyll assured
him it was less unpleasant than the diapers he had put on (and taken off)
Merreck for so many months. An empty wine jug made a good piss-pot for him,
and he could handle that for himself. After that, he moved to a comfortable
chair Gwyll had brought in and began to learn his new comrades who now
began to visit. It was embarrassing to listen to them, talking of things he
had done but of which he had no memory. He learned he had saved ten men
trapped in a gully ambush by a feat of derring-do he still had trouble
believing in, were these men playing a joke on him or had he actually
fought off three men at once while one of his hands had held onto a rope
that kept him from falling into a jagged-bottom crevasse? That was hard for
him to believe, even if it did explain some scars he bore on his left side,
where normally his shield kept free from harm.
     He was still wrapping his brain around that when one of the men said,
"Yeah, and Gwyll came riding to the rescue about then and his sword was
moving so fast, it was like a circle! He raged in and kept you from falling
into that crevasse when the rope finally broke...."
     "Broke?"
     "Sure." the man went on. "And he caught hold of you and swung you onto
his horse and you rode on to help in the rest of the battle by...." And
more stories were told of this new world Merreck had just entered, and
which was new, bewildering, and filled with dangers foreign to a man who
had lived his entire life in a sovereign empire's capital. Merreck had to
shake off a sense of persistent fear as if he were trapped in enemy
territory unfamiliar and weird.
     And as they talked, Merreck realized just then how often Gwyll had
been a part of the stories they'd told, he'd been so caught up in his own
role, he hadn't thought it through. Gwyll, who had been merely one of
several fellow warriors back in Oparia, had become his best friend. Of
course! Two warriors, outcasts in a new kingdom, would find their solace in
each other's company. What would be more natural than that?
     And the tender ministrations he had received during his recuperation,
and the endless tending he'd received before that. Yes, he owed Gwyll so
very much.
     He wasn't up to much beyond thinking for another week after that
moment of revelation. His immediate past remained a blank wall to him, but
Gwyll was more than willing to reminisce about Oparia with him, welcoming
the chance to flee into the past with him.
     Except on one subject. He didn't want to talk about Tilvin at
all. They'd been very close back in Oparia, and whatever had happened to
Tilvin that had caused his death was still a closed door. Merreck had a
burning desire to place everyone he'd known before, he had to fill in that
blank wall some way or another, even if it was in the form of notes pasted
on from someone else.
     None of the others knew anything about Tilvin. He must have died
before he and Gwyll had come to Pelingrin. But when? How? Where?
     He puzzled about it an afternoon spent otherwise in exercising his
legs, rebuilding his strength. Tomorrow, he'd be ready to re-enter the
world once again. It let him fit the last bits of the puzzle together
again.
     Gwyll felt Tilvin's memory was too painful because they had been
lovers. Of course, he should have realized it, there'd been any number of
hints back in Oparia. Nothing in their culture cast any aspersions against
warriors forming liaisons with each other, in fact, it was felt to be a
benefit to a happy, healthy unit to have some bonded lovers among them. And
now Tilvin was dead, and Gwyll was so solicitous of him... He had been
seeking to form a new bond with the only man who would understand him among
all these Pelingrin men...a fellow outcast of Oparia and fellow former
member of the Imperial Guard.
     Gwyll was in love with Merreck! Why hadn't he seen that?
     When Gwyll came in after his duty (he'd been off duty for weeks while
tending to Merreck, now that Merreck could look after himself, he couldn't
stay off any longer), Merreck was waiting for him. Gwyll looked at him,
surprised, for Merreck was lying on top of the covers of the bed, stark
naked. His body was darker in skin tone than Gwyll's by several shades, and
he bore a plentiful harvest of hairs on his chest, stomach, legs, and
arms. Even his face, newly shaved, bore a blue-black shadow upon it where
the beard he had grown during his invalid period had been. The hairs formed
a shading that accented his muscles' curves, until he looked more like a
statue carved to catch the light, more than a man. Gwyll looked at him,
agog, wet his lips, then cleared his throat and said, "Well, are you
feeling better today?"
     "Better than I have in a long time." Merreck said and rose. "I feel up
to doing a lot of things I haven't done in a long time, in fact."
     Gwyll was walking closer as if he didn't realize he was doing
it. Entranced by Merreck's naked body. Seeing him unconscious and sick
hadn't satiated him, but Merreck understood that. When you tend a wounded
man, you don't see the man, you see the wound. Now he was whole, and Gwyll
could see him, see him clearly.
     Merreck reached down and stroked his manhood, bringing it to fullness
and said, "I was wondering if you could help me with some of those things,
in fact."
     "Are you sure about this?"
     "Surer than I've been about anything."
     "What about your memory, do you remember...?"
     "Still a blank wall. But a blank wall means I can fill it in to suit
myself." Merreck reached up and caught hold of Gwyll's hand in his own. "So
I'm going to fill it with you."
     Gwyll quit resisting, he bent over and his lips met Merreck's and the
hand being held by Merreck squirmed free and caught hold of Merreck's
cock. The fingers stroked along his length with a familiarity and adeptness
that felt like his hand belonged there. Perhaps he was benefitting from the
past liaison with Tilvin, but those fingers were wringing his body with a
pleasure he hadn't felt in so long, it may well have been those four
missing years since he'd last felt it! He'd been alone in those days, as
well, save for the social closeness of his fellow warriors, and the
occasional ease of the body he'd gotten from paying one of the many whores
in Oparia. He'd never crossed the sexual border before, not that he had
ever been opposed (witness his current resolution) but it had simply not
happened. And if he'd known the pleasure another man's experienced hand
could wring from his dong, he'd have crossed that line long, long before
and often!
     He groaned and Gwyll pressed him back onto the bed, stood over him and
tore at his own clothing with a franticness that stirred him more than a
slow seductive removal would have given him. Only a man in the throes of
long-withheld passion would practically rip his clothing apart to get
himself ready for love!
     When Gwyll's nude body laid itself over him, Merreck felt it again,
the sense that this was right, it felt so very familiar and normal for him,
and when their cocks touched, he wanted them to fuse together, become the
single cock that would please both of them for the rest of their life.
     Gwyll rubbed them together and that was better than fucking, for he
could kiss Gwyll and stroke his body at the same time. But Gwyll moved on
him, his lips sliding onto his cheek, onto his neck, down onto his
shoulder, over to his breast, down, down, the lips and tongue roved like a
wet rogue over his left nipple, then rode the lips like an impertinent
child who threw wet darts as he went, down the hills of Merreck's six-pack
of abs, paused at the oasis of his navel and then trekked the path of pubic
hairs toward the tower waiting for it there.
     Merreck moaned as that tongue danced its way up his shaft, as the lips
caught his glans, as the mouth descended up on his column of manhood, and
as it did, passion flowed in its wake. Merreck felt as if he were being
swallowed entire by that warmth, the moist soft velvet of the lips caught
hold of his cockskin and pulled upwards again, and more delight swarmed his
senses.
     "Oh, oh, Goddess!" he moaned again. "Please, more, more!"
     Gwyll gave him more, but as he did, he also began to move around upon
the bed and Merreck watched as Gwyll's prick aimed itself at him as would a
fleshy lance, and he braced himself for the impact.
     His lips parted as the shaft touched them, Gwyll's dong slid into
Merreck's mouth and Merreck found his lips and tongue all knew what to do,
they wrapped around them and caught the prong as it hit the back of his
throat, and Gwyll stopped and Merreck began to move, to try to give Gwyll
the same joy he was giving Merreck. He milked at that pud ardently and was
rewarded by Gwyll's sounds of pleasure in return.
     Gwyll broke off his sucking of Merreck and rose from the bed, and
Merreck wondered, until Gwyll said, "Now, fuck me, Merreck, fuck me nice
and hard. But let me do the work here at first."
     Merreck let Gwyll crawl onto his body again, this time in a straddle
of Merreck's midriff, and then he sat backwards, his hand guiding Merreck's
wetted cock into his anus. Gwyll threw his head back and moaned as
Merreck's prod slid into him. Merreck put both hands behind his head and
grinned up at Gwyll as the blond-haired warrior moved up and down on
him. Gwyll looked down at him with passion-fogged eyes and saw that smile,
smiled in return.
     Merreck enjoyed watching Gwyll service him like this, but then he
realized that Gwyll had been doing little else for so long. Time to give a
little back to this wonderful comrade. He reached up and pulled Gwyll down
onto him and then rolled them over and now he was on top and he began to
thrust his prong into Gwyll's body, wringing from him ragged gasps of joy
as he rammed in and out of those tender buttocks.
     "Oh, Goddess, I'm getting close!" Gwyll groaned after a few minutes of
this. Merreck only growled and humped his friend harder, and Gwyll reached
up, his fingers sunk into Merreck's flesh like claws, and he clung like the
panther does its prey. Merreck's growls became a roar as as Gwyll spasmed
in his pleasure, Merreck drove his dick in deep and sprayed his liquid love
into his partner's bowels while white geysers of jizz peppered Merreck's
stomach liberally.
     "Oh, Goddess, more, more, Goddess, more!" Gwyll groaned as he was
shaken about by his passion and by Merreck's continued thrusting.
     "Yes, yes, all of me, it is all of me!" Merreck moaned. "As you gave
to me in my illness, I give now to you, all of me, it is all of me!" And
his ejaculation ceased and he fell onto Gwyll's worn-out, sweat-soaked body
and their male sweat combined into a common puddle of spent masculine
delight.
     When his senses returned to him, Merreck rolled off of Gwyll and these
two warriors panted side by side in the bed. Such a nice, large bed,
Merreck wondered for the first time at how roomy it was.
     "Another time like that, and I will not be able to return to duty
tomorrow after all." he told his comrade, to win from him a smile and
slight laugh. "I am fair worn out and ready to sleep."
     "Sleep calls to me as well." Gwyll agreed.
     Merreck considered the cot that Gwyll had been using and couldn't bear
the thought of banishing his friend to it. "Stay here with me this night."
he said. "There is room enough for two."
     "I would like that, if you are ready." Gwyll moved only to pull the
covers over both of them.
     "We must find some way to tell the men under our command." Merreck
thought of the duties he must reassume. "It would not do for them to engage
in speculation. If you are to be my lover, and I want you to be my lover,
then we must tell them."
     "That will not be necessary." Gwyll demurred.
     Merreck was surprised. "You know as well as I that a liaison in secret
damages any unit. There is no shame for us in our union, it is the
warrior's way to...." Gwyll's finger on his lips silenced him.
     "Are you still innocence of knowledge of the past four years?"
     "I know naught save what others have told me." Merreck agreed. "It is
still a blank wall for me otherwise."
     Gwyll smiled. "Then let me paint a section for you. We don't have to
tell them because they already know. Merreck, you and I became lovers
nearly three years ago. When you lay naked before me, I thought you had
recalled at least that."
     "I am innocent." Merreck repeated. "But at least I know I am
rebuilding my life the right way. Just because a wall is blank doesn't mean
that the building of which it is a part has changed. And we can color it
any way we want to, or redo it the way it was before, whichever is better."
     "Then let me help you in that." Gwyll said.
     "Always." Merreck agreed and kissed his lover slowly and well. It was
still a new world for him to face. But he wasn't afraid of it any longer.

                             THE END
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             E-mail the Author at Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
                  WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM