“Mmm, mornin’,” Colhern slurred as Xala’s eyelids opened. He barely heard him as Xala groaned. A raging thunderstorm headache swirled around his head as he held his temples.

  “Wh-What…” He hissed as he tried to lift his head in vain. He laid flat, only his eyes able to look down at Colhern, whose head rested on his chest, and managed, “What happened?”

  Colhern chuckled a little, “You’re not very good with alcohol.”

  “An unforgivable understatement.”

  “Here, I’ve got something for that,” Colhern reached across Xala’s body, opened up the nightstand beside the bed, sorted through a few wooden boxes, and plucked one labeled Hang-Over Cure on the side. He opened it up to a whole array of different colored pills, looked over them gingerly, and said to himself, “Hmm, which one will you do best with?”

  Xala frowned as Colhern plucked out a pink pill with a satisfied smile, held it up to Xala’s mouth, and reassured him with a wink. He sighed and let the pill fall into his mouth, accepted the cup of water Colhern also had on standby, and winced as the cold water battered against his throat the whole way down.

  Rapidly the pill absolved his headache, but it also made him feel less heavy, calmer, and more alert but in a good way. In that alertness, Xala finally rationalized why Colhern was laying on top of him and between his legs.

  He had to hide his face with the blanket as he spoke through it, “What else happened last night?”

  Colhern’s laughter seeped through the silk, “Not much. We both passed out before we got very far.”

  As much shame as Xala felt, being in a man’s bed after only two days of knowing him, or moreso two nights, he could not bring himself to crawl out from underneath him. He wanted to keep him between his legs. He liked the weight of him. It both relaxed and thrilled him without end.

  “Do I want to know the details?”

  “Hah, maybe, maybe not. But,” Colhern pulled himself further up, their intimate regions grazed each other, which made Xala gasp, Colhern laughed, and he leaned forward to whisper through the silk blanket, “I enjoyed being inside of you.”

  Xala clutched onto his blanket like a life raft. He did not feel penetrated. “What do you mean?!”

  Colhern’s amusement never ended as he slid back down and rested his chin on Xala’s chest. “Your mind. You let me in last night.”

  Slowly, in an ebb and flow of whispers and waking dreams, it came back to him. Flickering moments of light and sound. Those flickers lengthened here and there, allowed moments of liquid ambiguous pleasure, and he bit on the inside of his cheek as he remembered more.

  “Y’know, I wonder if weird, psionic, mystical conjoinment is more,” he waved his hand about, “I don’t know, maybe you’d say profound, than physical sex? So, really, this,” Xala felt his smile when he kissed his chest between sentences, “Is kind of tame, right?”

  Xala pulled the blanket down just enough to reveal his eyes. “Does my embarrassment nourish you in some way? Does it feed some greedy, gluttonous part of you that aches to see me this way?”

  “Hehe, yeah. Just a little. Aw, don’t hide again,” he leaned forward and looked down into Xala’s eyes. “You know I like seeing you like this.”

  “I’m going to hide in this bed forever.”

  “Can I lay here like this with you forever?”

  The blanket went back over the eyes. Colhern laughed and kissed his forehead through the fabric, “Want me to get up?” When he received silence, he tilted his head and asked, “Should I take that as a no? I mean,” he started to get up. Xala’s legs held him in place like a vice. “Oh! Oh, no, are you going into shock? Should I get a doctor?! Should I get a doctor to walk in on us like this?” The embrace tightened menacingly. “Agh, ok, ok, no doctors!” That appeased Xala a little. “Ah, well, I’m a little lost here. I figured thinking silence meant no was polite. But,” his hands found Xala’s thighs and gently squeezed them. “I’m so confused. What should I do?”

  “Colhern.”

  “Yes?”

  “If you get up, I will burn this bed to ash.”

  “Ah-hah! There we go,” he flopped down ontop of Xala, knocked the wind out of him, and chuckled as he snuggled and hugged him. “Was that so hard?”

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  Xala mumbled his contempt, much to Colhern’s entertainment. They laid there for some time, Xala’s flushed face slowly paling back to normal, while his hand reached down from its silken nest to the contours of Colhern’s back. The touch sent a shiver through him, which made Xala hesitate, only for Colhern to mutter his delight in an improper mutter.

  Xala’s hand continued to graze and encircle and slither over muscles and scars alike. He felt them all, pleased to accept another’s scars as he so desperately wished he would his. Alas, revealing his scars meant revealing the scar that he was upon the world. The dark grey splotch of evil genetics written out of time for universal rationale.

  But, in Colhern’s embrace, he did not feel like a monster. He did not feel a connection to the wretchedness of his ancestry. He did not feel designed to kill, maim, and consume. He felt like a person. A person who could love and be loved.

  Visions of the night before crept into his mind from a dark place, like liquids transferred and mixed across a separating cloth. Visions of his teeth bared against Colhern’s chest. The seductive draw of his heartbeat. The tantalizing scent of his blood as it coursed through his veins. The taste of his neck. It made Xala shiver a little.

  “Mm, cold?”

  “No, just,” he could not find the right word. What would be both truth and lie? What would be both omission and honest?

  “Nervous?”

  “Perhaps, I’m unsure.”

  Colhern lifted his head, tugged away the blanket over Xala’s face with his teeth, and leaned down to plant a kiss on his lips. When he pulled back up he said, “Am I your first?”

  Xala’s lips twitched uncomfortably as he averted his gaze. The sore subject of his first love, if it could be called that, ached within his soul, even after so many years.

  “Oh,” he reached up to place a hand on Xala’s cheek, “I’m sorry. I won’t ask about them again, I swear.”

  Xala visibly winced as if he had been struck by a dagger. Colhern’s powers of observation were incredible. Perhaps he did have the touch of clairvoyance about him, and Xala’s true self was hidden from his gifted sight. His eyes attempted to make contact, but failed miserably and went the other way. “It’s fine. I just can’t forget about him. I always fear that I’ll push you away, because of him. I won’t bother you further about him.”

  “Xala, it might help to tell someone about him. If he makes you feel this way,” Colhern kissed Xala’s cheek, rested his head against Xala’s shoulder, and said, “It might be good to get him off your chest.”

  “What? You’re on my chest.”

  “Ah, ha-ha, no, I mean,” his eyes darted around in subtle disbelief at Xala’s naivety, “Tell me about him so that it hurts less thinking about him. A problem shared is a problem divided. It might be good for you.”

  “Are you sure? I,” he made a shaky sigh, “It is not a fun story.”

  “I don’t mind. I’ll listen.”

  Xala sucked in some air, gently caressed Colhern’s back and arm, and exhaled the pressure of a world’s weight. “I…” Visions of terror flooded him. Colhern’s face if he knew the whole story. Even half the story would make him recoil. Xala knew it. Xala knew he could not entrust anyone he cared for with the whole of his tale with Lord Morl. It was too pathetic, too painful to even speak, he had never even committed it to written word. His mind and body refused to release the tale of his despair. “I,” he whined softly, “I’m sorry, ajirla, I can’t do it.”

  Colhern wrapped his arms around Xala’s back, held him close, and said, “It’s ok, it’s ok. I’m sorry, I understand.” Xala held onto him for dear life, and he could feel a part of Colhern give to that desperate touch. He could feel the way Colhern resigned himself to be his pillow, and that filled Xala with a whole different sense of shame. Until, Colhern chuckled and said, “Wait, what did you call me?”

  “Huh?” The suddenness of the question broke through Xala’s swirling thoughts and fears.

  “Just now, you called me something! Ah-jeer-lah?”

  Xala’s red face was his only response.

  “C’mon, please, pretty please, tell me what it means!”

  His mutterance was barely audible, “Uh, the Trymoran translation might be something like ‘dear’.”

  “Deer? You callin’ me a fawn because my title’s Herne?”

  Xala shook his head, suddenly matter of fact as he wanted to clarify in a scientific sense, “No, no, dear as in dear one, my dear, that which is precious, cherished, and, and,” he pulled the blanket back over his face.

  Colhern’s laugh echoed around the room as he nuzzled into Xala’s neck, burying his face in the amorphous blanket, and muttered, “Ah-jeer-lah! Oh, c’mon, say it again, I want to get it right.”

  His voice could not be smaller, “Ajirla.”

  “Ajirla?” When Xala nodded, Colhern chuckled and repeated himself a dozen times, each one squeezed between a kiss along his chest and shoulders. He tugged down the covers with his teeth and added a few more kisses to Xala’s bright red face, each peck leaving a white mark the blood rushed to refill. “I like that. Please, call me that all the time.”

  Xala swallowed hard, his embarrassment tumbled and twacked against the walls of his mind until it became overwhelming joy. He had no idea how to express it, save for the smile that deepened his laugh lines. He reached up and pulled Colhern down into a long kiss. In it, he hoped to absorb whatever he could from the man. He wanted to be more like him. He wanted to be more open, more joyful, more pleasant and pleased. Sadly, he liked Colhern far too much to consume him.

  Xala paused. His lips parted from Colhern. They looked into each other’s eyes, Xala’s asked a million questions, while Colhern’s made statements and love letters. Thus, he had to wonder, was this love? Did the poets and philosophers mean this sort of sensation when they spoke of what gods and the natural world felt for the sentient species? No. What he felt for Colhern was far too specific. He had no idea what he felt.

  Alas, he could describe it. As he looked into Colhern’s face, as he ached for the blood of Halifax Durnstrum, he felt nourishment at the very sight of Colhern. His thumb brushed his cheek gently, pulled him back into a kiss, and fed upon the feelings he spawned within him.