Elf-Boy and Friends
by George Gauthier
Chapter 12. Aodh's Tryst
After a march of ten days across the flat country of the Long River Plain the road they were on reached the foothills of the mountains that bordered the eastern side of the great rift valley. The weary travelers took lodgings in the town of Bled. The site of an army garrison, Bled was the last settlement of any real size within the Commonwealth proper.
A town of some ten thousand, it sat at the terminus of the east-west road they had taken, having crossed two similarly constructed wide roads running north and south, spaced one-third and two-thirds of the way from the river to the mountains. Together with lateral roads along both sides of the river, these routes form a grid of roadways that served both commerce and the needs of the government including the military and the postal service.
Each right-of-way was really two roadways in one. One was a carriage-way paved with flat stones which served horses shod in iron, whether mounts and draft animals. The heavy infantry of the regular army also marched on the pavement in their sturdy hob-nailed sandals. Travelers who went barefoot or in soft foot gear took the other walkway, its firm but resilient surface was designed for them and for the unshod feet of oxen, aurochs, and camels. The top level of that roadway was a composite made of sawdust and bitumen. compressed and heated, then laid in squares over the same substrate as the stone paved roadway alongside.
In Bled, Aodh took temporary leave of his friends. They would follow the narrow mountain road as it wound its way eastward. The minstrel would go by a direct route cross country, traveling in his panther form. It had been quite a while since he had spent more than a short time as a beast. So it was time his soul answered the call of the wild.
He left his scant belongings with his friends. They would care for his mandolin and purse while he set out unencumbered. The guards at the town gate thought that it was foolish for a small youth to set out all alone across the mountains, unclothed, unshod, unarmed, and un-provisioned.
"A bare ass run thru the countryside for exercise is one thing, son, but setting off across the mountains on a journey of many days is quite another. A pretty little thing like you, striking off on his own, nothing to hand in the way of supplies or weapons and starkers to boot? Are you daft?
"Thank you for your concern, sirs, but as hard as it might be to believe, I really do know what I am doing."
The guards sincerely hoped so. It would be a shame for something to happen to such a nice looking kid. The lad had such an air of innocence he didn't look like he could take care of himself. More like the kind of boy who ought to be under the protection of a rich patron, a man who would appreciate what a mouthwatering morsel he was.
As for the mountains, though they lay within the boundaries of the Commonwealth and were exploited commercially, the eastern range was rugged and wild territory, with steep slopes blanketed by tangled forests, prime habitat for wolves and bears and occasionally outlaws and slavers. Just recently several youths had disappeared, vanishing without a trace. Though the Constabulary patrolled the mountains, the lawmen mostly kept to the trails linking the various outposts of civilization to the outside world: logging camps, mines, water mills, and summer resorts.
So Aodh set off alone, morphing into panther form as soon as he was beyond the belt of farms that fed the town. He was eager to make his first kill but careful to spare the farmers. Soon enough he chanced upon an unwary antelope, no one's livestock then. The hunt was rather perfunctory, he merely crept up from downwind and pounced. Not much fight in a creature that weak, though for a predator the size of Aodh, the animal made a satisfying meal, especially since he ate all of it except bones and horns and head. Most folks think cats eat just the flesh of their prey, but they also savor organ meats, and the half-digested contents of the stomachs of ruminants are a kind of salad course.
The mountains were rugged and steeply sloped to the west but easy to descend traveling east. Aodh kept out of sight during the crossing, avoiding contact with humans. True he could easily assume human form, but then he would have had to explain his presence. Besides, the whole point of the journey was to live wild for a time, to prowl the forest like the predator he was, to get back in touch with his killer instincts as he stalked, pounced, and dispatched prey. Aodh was in his element, once again the hunter at the top of the food chain.
Afters days of such travel, just after crossing the divide, Aodh stumbled across a secluded valley, a lovely green bowl about eight miles across, ringed by mountains and closed off by vertiginous cliffs on the east. The dark green of the forested slopes was broken here and there by lighter areas of clear cut areas. Sheep meadows and vineyards on the lower slopes gave way to flatlands with pastures, orchards, grain fields, kitchen gardens, and other works of man.
The valley held a single settlement in the center, a sizable village, one large enough to call a town, with a manor house hard by. With dark falling, Aodh realized he would not reach the settlement till after nightfall, definitely not a propitious time for strangers to come calling. He would have to spend one more night roughing it. So he found a comfy spot, made a grassy bed, and lay down, changing into human form to sleep. It was cooler that way, sleeping in bare skin instead of fur.
Which was how the owner of the manor, a youthful nobleman named Klarendes found him the next morning. Klarendes was checking out reports from loggers that a black panther had been spotted prowling the mountains. His three giant Molossian mastiffs had found upon the scent trail the boy had left while in his feline form. Expecting a wild cat, the nobleman carried a boar spear held at the ready. To his astonishment he found a youth of surpassing beauty fast asleep on a bed of grass.
Lying on his right side with his head pillowed on his arms and his legs drawn up, his nude body resembled nothing so much as that of a cat curled in slumber. Then the boy turned in his sleep, rolling onto his back, arms outstretched, legs splayed, giving an unobstructed view of his front: from his angelic face to a glabrous chest and belly down to a shapely cock painfully erect with morning wood. It cantilevered from a hairless groin over a flat belly, the engorged shaft rising and falling ever so slightly with the beat of his heart. His ball sac was equally hairless and pulled tight into his groin, allowing a view of a shadowed cleavage.
Klarendes nearly swooned at the revelation of such sensual beauty, a combination of the innocent and the wanton, the epitome of a boy in the full bloom of his youth, vitality, and virility. Small in stature, skinny, and smooth muscled, comely as an angel, with a skin like porcelain, and looking utterly fragile and vulnerable, the impossibly pretty youth aroused both the lust and the protective instincts of the lean-bodied nobleman.
Here was a boy so beautiful he took your breath away. In an instant Klarendes found himself praying to his gods that this would be the boy he had been hoping to meet for most of his adult life, a lover and a companion who would ease his loneliness. Since the untimely death of his beloved wife in a fall from her horse, he had been bereft. Their arranged marriage had blossomed into a real love match and produced two sons to carry on the bloodline.
After her death, Klarendes had indulged himself with dalliances with local youth. Yet he had never found any of the local lads more than a temporary diversion. Cute, yes; fun in bed, definitely, but immature and rather empty upstairs. Klarendes yearned for a boy who would be as much a friend and companion as a lover.
He wondered what this vision of youthful male pulchritude was doing in his hunting grounds. Only one road led into the hidden valley and that road came from the east through the cliffs, not the west. And why had the boy set up such a primitive camp, if you could call it that, no shelter, no fire, no tools or weapons, and no provisions. Just the boy himself.
As for his nudity, nothing remarkable there except he was a long distance traveler. On their home ground many a village youth never bothered with clothing, not even a thong or a genital pouch much less a loincloth. Those were regarded as no more than sissified affectations for up-tight city slickers. For rural folk, neither anatomy nor sex held any mysteries. Going naked was eminently practical in the oppressive heat. Besides it let assertive young fellows show off the trim taut bodies they had so recently grown into, whether to rivals or potential lovers of both genders. Nor were these youths ashamed to present to the world the manly parts which brought them so much pleasure.
Demure was for girls.
Klarendes noticed movement under the boy's closed eyelids, a sign that he was dreaming. Klarendes hoped it was an erotic dream of a boy consorting with a handsome and virile man. He himself would very much like to play the part the man of this boy's dreams.
While Klarendes hesitated, reluctant to awaken the youthful beauty lying before him, his mastiffs, more direct in such matters than thunderstruck human males, started licking the boy's genitals by way of greeting. At his nether regions, one tongue licked his shaft, rubbing and and arousing. Another slipped into his crevice, probing the cleft, reaching toward the subtlety scented rosebud in its depths.
The oral stimulation had an effect, bringing him to orgasm just as a third tongue licking at his face brought him to awareness. The boy's cock shot a rope of gism out of the slit, ejaculating in a graceful arc that intercepted his face and belly. Taken by surprise, the dogs took a step back.
As for Aodh, he suddenly found himself awake, supine, his limbs splayed out, surrounded by three gigantic mastiffs, his engorged cock shooting his seed again and again, while a handsome stranger in a sleeveless tunic with a boar spear in hand watched with interest. Caught out in the throes of passion, the boy could manage were incoherent utterances:
"Uuh, ugh, ugh."
Klarendes grinned, unable to resist the urge to tease this lovely boy a bit.
"Good morning, young master. Rest easy about my mastiffs, they mean you no harm. Go ahead and finish what you started, though once you have, er, collected yourself, I will thank you to tell me, as the lord of this domain, why you are trespassing on my lands."
Poor Aodh was mortified, caught out during an orgasm, his limbs splayed out, face and chest and belly splashed by his own ejaculate. His whole body colored, turning his skin from porcelain-white to blush pink, which only added to his intense embarrassment. While the boy gathered his befuddled wits, Klarendes went to one knee at his side and wiped a taste of the boy's gism off his belly, bringing it to his tongue.
"Ah! salty and sweet with a soupcon of male musk. Here taste some for yourself," he said, proffering a gob to the boy.
It seemed only natural for Aodh to lick the finger. He had always liked the taste of cum, his own as much as anyone else's. Klarendes followed this up by slipping the finger between the boy's lips, inviting him to suck it. In the warm afterglow of his orgasm, the boy readily complied with the unspoken order. Nor did he offer any objection as the man's other hand grasped his softening cock and milked it gently, thumb rubbing the sweet spot under the head, making Aodh shudder and moan with a delicious pain radiating from his groin.
"Pardon me if I seem forward, youngling, a stranger touching you so intimately, but I simply cannot resist your charms. You are the prettiest and the sexiest boy I have ever laid eyes on."
With a smile he added:
"That wouldn't be the first time you heard those words?"
"No. You are right, sir. Actually, false modesty aside, I get that rather a lot from handsome men such as yourself."
"And you like hearing it, don't you?"
Aodh colored even more. He simply nodded, unable to speak, as the man's hands continued to roam. The friendly dogs surged forward, tails wagging, yipping excitedly. Aodh fell back, laughing at the absurd situation he had awakened to.
"So who gets my bum first, you or this frisky fellow here" he said, patting the lead dog's head.
"That's the attitude, youngling. My name is Taitos Klarendes, and these are my canine friends Cantor, Laegul, and Fardel. As for your question, rest easy. No one's bum is in play unless freely offered. Fair enough?"
"Fair enough! I am called Aodh, by the way. It's spelled A-O-D-H."
"Is it? Really? How strange!"
Right then and there Aodh learned one thing about him, that Klarendes had something in common with his friend Karel: an exaggerated regard for phonetic orthography. The two new-met males laughed when Aodh explained why he had chuckled to hear Klarendes utter the same complaint Karel had proffered so often. It helped break the ice between them.
The older male extended his hand to pull the boy to his feet, pleased with the strong and manly grip of the diminutive youngster. The kid might be on the tiny side, but he was no weakling, with a toned musculature moving under a taut skin.
Aodh turned down the noble's offer to ride double explaining that no equine could tolerate the touch of a cat, even in human form. His revelation about his status as a wir-creature did answer Klarendes questions about the scent trail and why the boy had spent the night on a bed of grass. Well tonight he would sink into a feather bed with clean sheets. Hopefully that would be Klarendes' own bed.
The duo arrived at the manor at midday, just in time for dinner, always the most substantial meal of the day among country folk. (Supper was typically a light meal of cold meats, cheese, sliced bread, and dried fruits for dessert.) Much as he liked his deer meat raw when in panther form, Aodh had to admit that, in human form at least, there was a lot to be said for venison simmered in a savory stew with all the right vegetables and spices. Bread hot out of the oven slathered with butter and a tangy salad, all washed down with chilled ale, completed the simple but filling bill of fare.
Partly it was the fascinating company, partly simple hunger, but it had been a long time since Aodh had eaten so well or enjoyed a meal more. The two talked that day for hours. Klarendes was a charmer, an engaging conversationalist, well read and widely traveled as a younger man. He didn't have to work very hard to charm the boy into his bed that night and those that followed.
The pair were a study in contrasts, the boy small, skinny, hairless, and impossibly pretty, a sloe-eyed beauty with delicate features, the man much taller, lean and muscular, manly with masculine good looks without facial hair. Though actually in his early thirties Klarendes had not aged since his mid-twenties, thanks to the strong strain of elf-blood in his ancestry. Klarendes stood a head taller than the diminutive were-boy, but that still put him at only middling height for humans.
In bed the nobleman found himself with a real wildcat on his hands. As a lover the boy was exciting, energetic, athletic, physical, and vocal. Good thing for the thick walls. Klarendes relished the way his wiry minstrel boy squirmed in his arms, twisting and straining that tight body of his. Slick as he was with sweat, it made it hard to maintain a grip on Aodh as he threw the boy onto his belly or flipped him over onto his back. Grabbing the boy's ankles, the man opened the slender legs like a wishbone to ready him for an assault on his boy hole. Driven by Klarendes' powerful hip muscles, the man's cock thrust into the welcoming orifice which grasped his member with its moist velvet walls. The count relished the sensation as he slid his cock in and out, sometimes nearly withdrawing entirely only to thrust back up to the hilt.
From long experience Klarendes knew just how to arouse sexually submissive boys like Aodh. You didn't want him to just lie there and let you fuck him. You wanted your boy to put up a bit of fight and make the dominant partner work at it to maintain control. And you wanted to make him laugh and cry, moan and whimper, beg and resist, all the while the boy knew in his heart that he desperately wanted the man to work his will, to make him do all manner of naughty things, sexual things.
Fortunately the boy's stiff prick made a good control handle, and the shaggy thatch atop his head afforded a good grip too when it was time for the boy to provide oral service. Gosh he looked so cute down there, kneeling between the nobleman's legs, pouty lips closed over his shaft, sucking and slurping, circling the glans with the tip of his tongue, doing everything in his power to drive the man wild with his buccal ministrations.
The youth readily submitted to the nobleman whose commanding presence had electrified him from the start. At one point Aodh shifted his attentions to the man's balls, kissing and licking and sucking them, finally managing to get both of them into his mouth at the same time, cheeks packed, eyes bulging. The sight set Klarendes laughing, which drew a puzzled frown to the boy's pretty face. The man hastened to explain his amusement.
"Forgive me for laughing, young Aodh, but kneeling down there, cheeks bulging and eyes crossed, you look like nothing so much as a demented chipmunk!"
Aodh released him and joined in the laughter. Aodh just hoped the folks back home never learned that a powerful wir-panther like himself had ever been tagged with the name of a creature so low on the food chain as a chipmunk. At least the tiny critters were omnivores -- opportunistic predators in their own small way, so junior colleagues of a sort.
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