Hunting Grounds

Balo drives his spear down into the beast again -- the impact spikes through his body, rippling across his back and shoulders. The tip plunges past the beast's core and into the ground below.

It spasms. Once, twice, thrice. Then, at last, the pinned beast falls still.

The young hunter slumps against his spear. His tanned chest burns with every heaving gasp; his lean body gleams with sweat. Balo is strong, but strength has limits. This journey continues to test them.

The beast is an eyeless, furless shadow in the shape of a hound. Deprived of its bloodless heart, the rubbery mass retreats -- unraveling into wispy black threads that swirl through the leaves above. It only takes a minute to evaporate.

All that remains is Balo's spear, a flattened patch of forest foliage, and the sound of the hunter's heavy, frustrated breathing.

He grunts with disatisfaction. Wrenching his spear free, Balo ventures on.

Upon reaching their twentieth year, most of his peers head to the nearby city in search of work or adventure. Balo has other priorities.

Those priorities have brought him here, to the Umbra -- a forest where it is said that the shadows conspire to obscure all light. As he walks, Balo casts his skeptical gaze up. The evening sky is visible through the canopy of trees.

Still, he cannot fault others for such embellishments. This place invites them. The umbral beasts that stalk these woods are quite real, and quite dangerous.

His thoughts drift to home. To his village, his house -- and the young man who waits for him. Balo's face grows warm.

The young hunter's earlier frustration surges. He forces himself to focus on the journey ahead.

Once the sun sets, he finds a spot and makes camp.

It is only when he is resting beside the crackling campfire that Balo permits his thoughts to drift.

They instantly go to Caleb. Like Balo, he is a hunter -- but smaller and more cunning. He would have brought his bow.

Balo shifts in the bedroll and lays atop his belly. The umbral beasts stray from fire, but they are not the only threat in these woods. He should stay alert. Thinking about Caleb right now is a dangerous distraction.

He sighs. And yet...

The thought of Caleb -- his smile, his laugh, his sandy golden-brown hair -- stirs something up inside Balo's belly. A familiar yearning swells through him; one that years of frustration have only served to refine into a razor-sharp ache.

His hips move before he even realizes it.

The young hunter reminds himself that this is neither the time nor the place. But the more he gives in, the more memories unlock. Caleb, squirming beneath him in the dark, lifting his hips back against Balo. Caleb, thrusting forward against the bedding, crying out with a frustration that mirrors Balo's own.

He closes his eyes. Gods...

With each slow roll, Balo's buttocks clench. His back spasms. Sinew twitches as his shoulders slide apart, then pinch back together. He thrusts down against the furs -- openly humping the bedroll besides the fire.

Between his legs lies the source of his troubles -- the very reason he's come to these woods.

The black rubbery mass is made from the same substance as the umbral beasts. It is a bulge of shadow that swallows the entirety of his manhood, from its tip to its testicles and even down to the edge of the perineum. Each thrust does nothing but flatten the bulge, dragging it across the furs.

Despite this, each flattening still transmits a pulse of sensation. It's as if the contained shaft has become malleable clay. Whether it's squished, stretched, or otherwise squeezed, it sends a spike of pleasure -- but never enough for release.

During childhood, the affliction is thought of as little more than a curiosity. But from adolescence onward, it becomes a source of endless sexual frustration. And now -- in his twentieth year -- undoing it has become Balo's obsession.

His thrusts quicken. He bites down on the bedroll, his face burning with a mixture of want and shame.

It's as if the bulge has stripped him of his gender, leaving him as some sort of neutered, sexless thing. He hates how it restrains him. He hates how it teases him with a climax that will never come. He hates how good it feels.

I need to stop...

Balo shudders, remembering his last time with Caleb. Locked in a futile embrace, kissing and grasping at one another in the dark of night. Desperately chasing their need for hours on end. Then, when dawn at last came -- the look in Caleb's glazed eyes.

Not just frustration. Not just want. Not just need.

Surrender and acceptance.

Balo throws off his blanket and rises. He seizes the nearby spear and paces around the campfire.

The purported purpose of the device is to teach discipline, focus, and patience. Balo has never understood this. A man tethered to a boat cannot learn how to swim; how can anyone learn restraint with no risk of failure?

At 21, villagers may undergo a rite to prove themselves. If successful, the device is removed and the boy becomes a man. But Balo's rite is a year away -- and he cannot bear this denial any longer.

More than that: some part of him is terrified that if he waits for his opportunity, he may no longer want it.

Again, Caleb's expression flashes across his mind. Balo shudders. He needs to distract himself.

A nearby stream offers temporary respite. Balo slips in, naked; the cold water rushes past his thighs and nearly up to his hips.

The moon's silver glow shimmers over the water's surface and casts itself across the landscape of his back. A cartographer could spend a lifetime mapping out the jagged, muscular cliffs of his shoulders -- or the ridged valley of his spine. He has the physique of a young long-distance swimmer: a broad upper torso that collapses into a narrow waist and hard, dense buttocks.

The bulge is barely visible from behind; just a sliver of black that intrudes up the crevice of his posterior, with its tip barely touching the sensitive ring of his sphincter. But from the front, it couldn't be more obvious. It envelopes him just below his flat abdomen and navel. Aside from a slender silver chain snugly coiled around his throat, he wears nothing else. Despite ostensibly covering him, the bulge only heightens his sense of vulnerability -- as if going naked would somehow leave him far less exposed.

He tries not to think about it. Instead, he focuses on scrubbing himself with a pad of soap, sliding the dwindling lump across his skin. He lifts one arm up and smears the soap across his bare and smooth chest, leaving a gleaming path of suds. It isn't long before his fingers have worked up a lather across his upper body. Dipping beneath the water, he rubs away the layers of oil and grime. Beads of water whip from his hair as he re-emerges, straightening his back. He shivers and moves his hands lower.

Careful... His soap-slickened palms glide across his toned stomach and around his hips, then down his thighs. A spike of heat jolts through him. He tries to ignore it, just as he has so many times before -- but it's become so much worse. As if each step toward freedom pushes his body to greater heights of desperation.

His hands smooth out across his waist, and... fuck. Ragged gasps escape him as he stares down at his palms -- on either side of the bulge, framing it. He sucks on his bottom lip. Don't...

He can't. Gods, help him, he... he squeezes his palms together, trapping that bulge. Squeezing it. Imagining what it might feel like to be free; to have the length of his cock in his hand, slowly stroking... building. Closer and closer, pressure mounting... building toward his release.

"...hhhhahhh... hhh..." His eyes close. He moans. A rhythm develops; his ribcage swells as he sucks in, expanding every tendon across his naked glistening chest. When he exhales, it shrinks -- retracting back like an elastic band. This process creates a natural undulation that guides his hips and pelvis forward, pumping the bulge into his squeezing palm. With each thrust, he can fit in two, maybe three strokes in.

"...hahh..." His wrist moves faster. Shaky, needy sounds escape his slack mouth. His excitement mounts.

Need to... to stop, he tells himself, but it's like trying to think through an impenetrable fog. His silver necklace slides across the bare, slick skin of his chest. He whimpers, imagining his cock. He's never even seen it, but he can't get away from the image of it. The way the skin would glide over the central sleeve, swollen with heat. The way each stroke toward the crown would draw his swollen sac with it, only to descend when his hand slid down. The dollops of seed, gathering like pearls upon the tip. Oh, Gods... anything, please, anything, please please please --

Water sloshes somewhere behind him.

Every muscle in Balo's body tenses. His thrusts continue, but a spike of adrenaline has pierced the lust-induced fog. His spear is twenty, maybe thirty feet behind him. If he lunges now, maybe he can --

An arm of pure shadow coils around his waist, touching his wrist. Another slides past his throat and necklace, fingertips clasping his chin.

Both touches are as light as a feather, akin to how a gentleman might delicately hold a wineglass's stem. And yet -- Balo cannot bring himself to break the hold. He is rooted in place, held by a grip no stronger than a house of cards.

He feels the body press behind him. Strong, powerful, muscular -- and as smooth as silk. Each inch of it is broadcast to his back through a membrane of shadow so supple that it may very well be skin. He can see its hands on him; they're black, just like the umbral hound's. But these aren't the hands of an animal. Run, his mind pleads, and Balo tenses --

-- only for the fingers to guide his chin up and to the left, obstructing his vision as a face of pure shadow descends and...

"Mmhnhh... mmph!"...kisses him. He cannot see where its mouth begins or ends, only feel it. A warm, slippery muscle plunges past his lips. The tongue is glossy and slick, probing his mouth in search of something. The creature's other hand guides Balo's wrist away from his bulge -- as if it were leading a disruptive child away from a dangerous toy.

"...mmphh... mmph...!" The creature thrusts its own hips forward, and Balo feels it. No -- no, no, no, no -- A thick, throbbing spear -- a slab of cock, as smooth and perfect as every other part of the creature. It glides between his cheeks with slow frictionless thrusts. Balo's pouch throbs; his knees buckle. He slumps back. The creature's broad chest supports his weight.

"...nmhhh... hhh..." Balo's eyes roll back as the kiss deepens, still searching. His free hand reaches behind him to try and find something to grab hold of. His trim, fit figure twists in the water, but it's no use. All he can do is wriggle against the smooth, glossy shadow that holds him in place. It's -- it's not fair -- it's not fair that he gets to --

Balo moans. The tapered tip of its cock is now pressed against the tender ring of muscle at his buttocks; it nudges forward, inching inside of him. The shadow is so slippery that the first inch all but glides in. Balo still bucks up in its arms, like a horse being ridden for the first time.

Anything... he groans, growing weak. I'll -- I'll do anything... if you'll let me -- please. I'll be yours forever, if you'll just... please, please, please...

His mind crumbles beneath the successive thrusts. He doesn't even know what he wants, anymore.

Its cock slides back, letting Balo recover -- then nudges forward again, a little deeper. The process repeats -- pushing, stretching, expanding... then retreating. With each successive inch, Balo feels the strength fleeing him. By the time it's nearly half-way in, he's unclenched his body and draped himself back into its overpowering arms.

It feels... it feels so tender, he thinks. Whenever he fantasized about finally making love to Caleb, he saw himself driving into him in a fury of rage and desire -- hammering down against him, his eyes full of fire. This is nothing like that. The creature holds him close, taking its time. When it finally breaks its kiss, Balo's jaw is left slack -- mouth open, shimmering strands of saliva stretching out in the space between them. Its hand slips down from his chin and squeezes his throat. He moans, laying back.

Shhlk... plp. At long last, it plunges all the way in. Balo feels its hips slap against his toned buttocks -- the water sloshes around them. Balo's body gleams under the silver moon as he's held by the shadow, and -- slowly, tenderly, intimately -- fucked. One arm now clasps the shadow behind him, the other reaching down to squeeze and massage his pouch.

Schlk... plp. Schlk... plp. Schlk... plp. The young man does not even know at what point he stops pursuing his own climax. It simply becomes irrelevant; a vague memory of some need he has long since outgrown. All that exists is the strong, powerful grip of that shadow -- and its desire to use him. He sinks, deeper and deeper... succumbing to that desire. Becoming whatever it wishes of him...

Schlk... plp. Schlk... plp. Schlk...

By the time the shadow has pinned him to the shore -- his knees pinned to his shoulders, his back against the soft and loamy sand -- no trace of that fierce and indignant passion remains. When the shadow leans down to kiss him, his mouth opens to welcome it. And when the shadow's thrusts descend into a frantic series of frenzied stabs, Balo arches back and moans -- grateful for the opportunity to become the object of another's deepest desire.

Days later, Caleb rushes outside to embrace and kiss his returning beloved.

And when he pulls back to tell Balo how worried he's been, how his stomach has been tangled up with upset knots -- he's stopped by something in his lover's eyes that he's never seen before:

Surrender and acceptance.