Oman
Follow the journey of Kuluk and Oman as they face the greatest trial of their relationship, and their lives.
I'm quite proud of this one.
A nameless fear bloomed in my heart.
The noon sun burned hot and urgent on my face. The sea lapped ravenously against the rocks, hungry to drag someone beneath its waves. Once, when I was young, the cave paintings of our clan filled me with a childish awe and a seed of pride. Now, as we passed by them in torchlight, the paintings flickered maliciously, viciously almost, skulking across the walls. Oman told me I'd imagined it.
Perhaps I felt self-conscious or overindulgent. Maybe we were meeting too often or being too selfish. We both came from a village several miles from the coast of the ruby sea, a quiet place, with just one elder to dictate our laws, our traditions, our way of life.
Oman asked me to shirk my duties and go to the alcove with him, and it was hard to say no -- the way he smiled always slithered past my walls, into my heart, and I always let him have his way. Our union was an open secret.
"They won't even know we'll be gone -- they don't pay attention to us anyway. None of them do." Oman said.
As soon as he brought me to our hiding spot next to the sea, he turned to me and peeled away my clothes. First the vest, plucked off of my shoulders and tossed to the stones. Two orc men barely beyond the threshold of adulthood. I pulled off his tunic and tossed it, too. It was hard to hold back our passion. His tongue found my nipple and danced on it. He knew that was a weak spot, and he grabbed for the thick outline of my cock under my pants, wanting me, pleading for me.
The sun bore into my back as I took him on the smoldering coals. He begged for me by name, "Oh, Kuluk," legs spread beside my head, toes curling as my hips bucked into him. Sweat fell from my brow, lungs heaving, hot and humid. I loved grabbing sweaty fistfuls of his chest hair, looking down at him. He smiled at me, that handsome smile that told me there wasn't anything else he'd rather be doing than surrendering himself to me. Sometimes I'd hilt inside and kiss him as the surf broke on the rocks, spritzing us in drizzles of salty rain. I came inside him three times, enough to ooze onto the rocks. My legs burned and I collapsed on him. We kissed there.
When we were ready to head back, we only took a few steps up the hill before we were stopped by glowering orcish slavers.
"Look at what we've found," one of them said. No doubt the captain, flanked by dirty, roughed-up men, sabers on their hips. "A couple of pieces of meat. How much do you think they'll sell?"
*
They wrapped our wrists in rope and forced us to march in front. The tail end of the rope served as a leash. The more I resisted, the more they tugged, dragging me to the floor, finding any reason to beat me.
They hauled us along the gravel roads, further away from the village. By then, a few miles. Oman complied with that soft dignity of his, held his chin high, but something sank in us when they stopped us on the road to Asqelon, unfastening their pants.
We'd stopped on a shaded cliff. Away from the road, secluded, the perfect place for them to test out the merchandise. Both of us on our knees, Oman looked at me with raised brows and I knew exactly what it meant: Don't resist. Just play along.
When the slaver's cock bounced into view in front of Oman, I lunged, my heart in my throat. They beat me into the floor. Yelling, screaming in their native tongue. One of them grabbed me by the hair and tossed my head back, telling me to behave or I'll have my cock cut off. It would be a waste. You'd lose value.
The slaver pointed his cock at Oman, who hesitated, lips pursed. He obeyed only after they threatened him, but I wished he didn't take to the cock so quickly after yielding. His mouth glided on it the way he used to with mine-- those nights under the red moon, his gentle tongue snaking its way under my foreskin, lapping the sweetness from me in every crease that he couldn't go without.
The thought betrayed me. My cock throbbed.
To my dismay, the slavers liked that. "Cocksucker," one of them spat. "Bitch."
A slaver stepped to me and toyed with his bulge in front of me. I tried to look away, but whoever had my hair tightened his grip. I couldn't move. I bucked, shook my head left to right as he pushed the bulge onto my face. I smelled his cock through the fabric, then it came out into the open when he pulled the waistband down. It was huge, the crown glistened in the orange, evening light.
He stepped on my cock and ordered me to open my mouth. When I didn't, he shoved his thumb past my lips, pried my mouth open, and guided his cock between my tusks until it met the back of my throat. I gagged.
Another slaver took a blade to my dick and threatened to cut it off if I bit him.
I hadn't been with many other men. He was saltier than Oman. Longer. Thicker.
My tongue found the veins on his flesh, tracing over them, and he seemed to like that. To my right, more slavers surrounded Oman. Cocks wagging around his mouth. Drips of spit breaking from his tongue every time he pulled himself off of a cock, bulbous heads bathing his cheeks in pre. Thumbs pushed between his tusks, and then spit rained down on him from the slavers like humiliating rain, degrading my Oman, getting him used to his subservience under them.
I felt thorns wrapping around me from the inside. I hated them for it.
I numbed the pain by losing myself in my own degradation. The slaver's cock twitched between my lips. I let the spit dry on his balls, jostling them when I went in with my tongue. The way he grunted when his cock hilted in my throat was a good sign. The climax, however, was a powerful surprise.
His cum was thicker than Oman's. It rushed to fill every empty space in my mouth. I swallowed. Some of it dripped from my lips, and I licked it from his fingers when he scooped the excess off his cock, his thighs, his feet. We were having sex with strangers. Fighting for our lives, in a way. But I resented being so intimate with an orc who didn't know my name, who wouldn't think of me again after he'd sold me to his masters.
The slaver rose his foot to my face. His toes, the valleys between them, and his rigid, tough soles, tasted like the rest of him: Hot, salty. He wouldn't take his feet off my face until they were clean. Oman told me once of the masters and their slavers, how they had a tradition of having their feet cleaned at the bath houses, because it demonstrated religious inferiority. Those who took to it better usually lived longer. The musk from that foot stained my tongue.
When I turned to Oman, cum and sweat and musk on my face, they were already fucking him. Digging out the cum I had just gifted him, spilling to the dirt.
He moaned the same way. That needy, gasping whine, the same one that told you that you were hitting his spot, the one that would make him cum soon. The others circled him, waiting their turn.
I let them fuck me, too. The orc in front of me leaned back with his arms behind his head. Fucking smug grin. He was bigger than me and he knew it. I swallowed my pride and saddled him.
His cock prodded my ring, wagging behind me. Another slaver doused that erection, and my ass, in lubricant. Of course they'd carry some on them.
Another slaver opened a small jar from his pouch and tipped it near my nostrils for me to breathe in-- it smelled of alcohol, or something like it. I coughed, pushing it away, but then a fire welled up within me.
My head throbbed, my ears hot. A moment ago I worried about taking a cock as big as the one bobbing beneath me, but as it prodded my ring and pushed past it, it didn't feel so difficult. His shaft slid deeper, fat inches of virile orc cock sinking into me, and it felt good. I helped him by easing myself on it, and then my ass met the base. I held back my moans but the orc below me sang his into the dry air.
I held onto him as he fucked me. I felt his balls slap my rump more than a hundred times. I edged a few times, but I never came. He did though, and warmth bloomed inside me, then oozed out of me.
Everything melted into a haze after that. They scent-marked us, fucked us, testing our willingness to comply, to see how far they could push us and have us deliver a worthwhile experience for would-be clients. The light of the red sunset winked at the edges of my eyes. They doused us with water from their skins, and I drank until they ripped the canteen away. More cock, after that. More cum.
*
I woke under the low crescent moon, just barely after sunset. Oman was half-asleep next to me on a pile of rags. A campfire burned a few steps from us, the slavers making conversation in a circle, jeering and laughing.
Oman pulled close and leaned under my chin, nuzzling into me. I hugged him tight. As close as I could.
"We have to find a way out of here," he whispered.
"But how? We're too weak to leave in the middle of the night," I added.
He chuckled quietly.
"I don't know yet. But we'll figure that out. We always do."
I felt myself smiling, but I didn't believe him. I had a dreamless sleep.
*
In the morning they woke us with their yelling, kicking dirt on us. One of them grabbed Oman by the collar and I scrambled to my feet after them. A slaver kicked me back down. The metallic taste of blood bloomed at the back of my mouth.
Oman was kept near the captain, uncomfortably. They kept us separated like that for the rest of the journey, until we arrived at Asqelon's city gates. The guardsmen let us in without even batting an eye. I trudged by their uncaring faces, trailing rope behind me, and I had never been so angry. How many other orcish men and women were brought to the capital in chains, sold to pleasure houses and brothels? And were we to meet the same fate, all under the nose of our glorious Emperor?
They brought us to a slave master's palace, built of sandstone and colored in ivory so striking it nearly resembled gold. Most houses in the slave capital were like this one: ornate, cream-colored or white, with an enormous front procession and courtyards full of flowers. How else could you flaunt the wealth of the slave market you run?
Beyond a curtain of beads, we arrived at the master's room, a space big enough to hold twenty slaves, with carpets and throw pillows the color of gold and crimson. Nothing short of decadent opulence. They threw us to the floor, and I was the first to look at him: A brown orc, earthen, skin pigmentation of brown spots dotting his left shoulder and breast. He kept a cutlass on his thigh and a goblet of wine in his other hand. His beard was tied into a single knot, though he was bald at the top. He looked more like a fat sultan in a loincloth than a slave master.
But then he gestured for Oman, and something inside me split open. With quiet dignity, Oman obeyed, kneeling at his feet, arms tied behind his back. He kissed the floor in front of the slave master reverently three times, the same way we had seen the other slaves done.
The slave master downed a gulp of his wine and slammed it on the table, then took Oman by the chin, appraising him. "I will make this one my husband." His accent was thick with the old tongue.
Before either of us could know, before we could even understand, he opened Oman's mouth with a fat thumb and spat into it. I rose on one knee but a slaver kicked me to the ground. This time, the foot that knocked me down pressed into my face to keep me there.
Oman tried to pull himself out of the slave master's iron grip. And then he started trembling, like something was squirming inside him. He shut his eyes, grit his teeth, lowered his head to the floor when the slave master finally let go. Whatever rose in him had risen to his head, clawing into his mind. I could hear him whimpering, quietly begging.
The slave master tugged his loincloth aside. His cock, brown and fat, bounced free. When Oman had finished whimpering, he rose and dove for it with his face.
He was too happy, too joyful. Something was eerie about the color of his eyes. They spun like whirlpools, like scrying ponds thick with magic. Oman fully gave himself to that cock, dragging tonguefuls of the slave master's shaft from base to tip, licking along the hairy hills and creases of his foreskin, effortlessly pleasing the master. Not like he did with the others, or with me, just lost in the heat of it, in the submission, serving but seemingly not thinking, thoughtless but eager, empty but full. Full of something else. Someone else.
"What--" I tried to push against the foot that had me pinned. I was screaming now. "What did you do to him!?"
"What will we do about this one?" The slave master asked with such a calm, reassured voice.
Oman stopped, wiped sweat and spit from his lips and tusks, and looked at me with a confused smile. "Doesn't matter to me, Master!" He sang. "Maybe he could be your husband too?"
The slave master chuckled. "No, no. I only need one."
The slavers dragged me away despite my kicking and screaming, by the burning rope at my wrists. I watched the slave master hold Oman by the throat, spit in his mouth again, then kiss him with tongue, before we passed the curtains.
*
I woke up under the half moon this time. Lasca was right beside it. The red wandering brother of the pair, a small moon, shining so much brighter than his older brother. In ancient times, our ancestors called it the trickster. A god who played with the tapestry of our lives, delivered us magic, and then disappeared the next night after sowing chaos.
I'm not sure where they took me. A camp outside of the city, maybe. Someone was at the wooden gate, cutting its locks and letting the mangled lock fall to the dirt. When they pulled it open, they asked for my name. "Kuluk?"
I rose to my knees. That familiar voice. "Oman?"
His arms were open and I leapt into them. I'd never felt so relieved to hold him, to feel his warm breath on my neck. But the way our skin touched felt off. The hills of our bodies mismatched instead of fitting together how they always did. I pulled away to see faint inscriptions written on his skin.
Glyphs. Words written on his abdomen in the native tongue, glimmering faintly in the pearling light of the campfire, crystallized lines on his once beautiful, green skin.
"What did they do to you?" I tried to touch them, but Oman pulled back.
"It's too late for me." His voice was worn, harsh. "But you still have your body. You have to go. We don't have much time."
"I won't leave without you," I hissed back.
He must have known I wouldn't leave. He was always thinking several steps ahead. When we laid in the grass under the stars one night, I always joked he'd have been a scholar if he were born into a wealthier family. He thought so too.
"I'm so sorry." His voice broke, barely a whisper. He raised two fingers and pressed them to my forehead. His body came to life, warming with light at its edges as something rose within him. His eyes colored like tinted glass.
Magic.
It wasn't until later that I realized what spell he'd casted. His words came at me all at once, jumbled, as he put me under. Dominate Monster.
"This was all planned by the elder. He sold us to them." His lips moved, but his words were separated from them, unsynchronized. A cloak pulled itself over my mind, my eyes. He told me to walk back home, in that echoing voice, and I obeyed, no matter how much I resisted, no matter how much rage seethed through my pores as I beat my mind against a magical wall. This was always him, this selflessness, this sacrifice. It had always been him.
I marched toward my destiny as he and the campfire shrinked behind me, flickering like a firefly as it weaned farther and farther, winking on that dark horizon until the darkness swallowed that too.
That was the last time I saw my Oman.
*
I woke up under the gibbous moon. Its wandering, trickster brother was nowhere to be seen.
How long had I been walking? My legs were sore. Lips dry. Body crying for water. I crested a dirt hill, and down below were the flickering torch flames of my village. Our village.
I remembered Oman's words and rage swelled again inside me. I had never known Oman for a liar.
The heat within boiled up to my ears. I didn't care for the consequences. I needed to speak to the elder. Get an answer out of him. I didn't know what I'd do if what Oman said was true, but my legs moved first seemingly before I'd made up my mind. I began to jog, then sprint. Down that dirt hill. My legs burned. I didn't care. Anger right now was all I had.
I skulked in the shadows of the huts, behind tents, past the guards until I arrived at the elder's tent. Two shadows were already inside. I sat quietly in the dark and listened.
"This should buy your village enough to get you through the summer." A gravelly voice, nicked with years of smoking and regret. "The younger one was chosen as husband for the slave master, so that has earned you a considerable bonus."
An older, tired voice replied, "You must mean Oman." The elder.
"He will have a new name after the ritual."
"And what of Kuluk?" the elder asked. I quivered.
"The other one?" The gravelly voice asked. "He will find some use."
"I see." The older voice chuckled to himself sadly, as if he disapproved of it.
The man with the gravelly voice left the tent and the elder's silhouette slumped into a chair. He began to cry.
He must have put his face in his hands. I waited in the shadows for him to stop, refusing to move. Waiting, waiting for a break in the tears, an opportunity for me to charge in there with my anger, my rage. But his whimpers rapidly calcified my wrath. All that was left was a cold, hardened resentment.
This is what it had boiled down to: Ruthless arithmetic. Sell two of your clansmen, and use that money to purchase rations for the rest. Oman and I were sacrificed. Luck of the draw.
The elder wept bitterly. It was enough for me to leave him there to weep.
*
I had made up my mind by the time I got back to my tent, and gathered what I could. A leather pack, a talisman, enough water to last me a few days. Meat. Cheese. Bread. A clean cloth.
I slid the pack over my shoulder. On a wooden table, my clan totem sat upright in the center. An idol of the dragon god with its wings folded inward. Once, my mother told me that I had been blessed by the dragon at birth. I took the icon and placed it in a satchel. I would need that blessing now, more than ever.
I emerged from the tent back into that dry night. I felt my wrists, where the rope had left its mark.
That night I disappeared from the village forever. A journey awaited me. I raced down that road, to Asqelon, where I'd look for Oman. Where I'd find and rescue Oman, then find a new home for us. No matter what it took. No matter how long it'd take.
I would travel the ends of the earth to find my Oman.