A Song of One Word
‘Papa Zarbo and the Prince of Pavon’ – scene #3
The final part of this week’s hot fantasy story ‘Papa Zarbo and the Prince of Pavon’ - and I hope you have loved reading as much as I have loved writing. Let me know what you think!
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Starlight above us. We are a mile off the coast. Safe in the darkness, The Swordfish drifts towards blackest night. The heat is palpable, and the greater heat of the young man lying back against my chest creates a layer of slick sweat between us. If we could see the shoreline, we would see sand and palms, waving silver and indigo against black, and lush as they climb low hills. By morning they will be an endless emerald ocean where few if any towns break the flow. Beautiful as this place is we have now sailed too far. I need access to news. Tomorrow, we head back south. I may be endlessly patient. But this perfect summer cannot last, not least because we have escaped the reality of what has happened onshore. His father and brothers? The rumors are mixed. His place in the succession? Unknown. There is a small chance that even now he is The Prince and not just A Prince of Pavon.
And if that is the case I need to know it so I can help steer him through it. There’s no ambition here for any form of role in a new Pavon regime, even if keeping him by me would have the glorious personal benefits of his mouth, his ass, and his utter willingness to please me however he can. I work in the shadows as you know, and the shadows are where I will stay.
So I must draw him gradually back to the world. I have helped him to escape – my first allotted task. And I want him here with me. Always. A fool of an idea hooks itself into my mind that we can simply keep sailing. With no repercussions. That we can live this life until I am old and he tires of his Papa, perhaps finding a younger man in his turn. Of course the fleeting picture of ‘Grandpapa Zarbo’ is a temporary hit to the ego but perhaps it doesn’t sound so bad.
We lie together on the rope hammock rigged high above the ship’s wheel, the criss-cross of hemp eating into my back, him between my legs, and the long lines of his own drifting away into the gloom. He is hard of course, he is always hard, and as we talk he reaches the occasional distracted hand to scratch at his balls. There is no angle, even this one so focused on the top of his head, from which he isn’t beautiful.
“Papa Zarbo,” the prince says. “This cannot go on, can it? This moment is perfect. Every minute with you is perfect. But it can’t go on, I think. I have to make some choices.”
His voice seems deeper somehow, as if he has grown older even in these sunshine days.
I am glad he has begun this conversation, because it means that I don’t have to.
“Choices, boy?” I ask. I’d like to know his mind.
He has walked a very fine line these many weeks with the men, and with me. I have no right to stand within ten yards of a Prince of Pavon, unless he gives me the right. Yet I have fucked him wide open every night without the slightest consideration for the wisdom or the safety of this course of action. He has been everything I might possibly ask as a lover. His skills, his energy, his stamina have drained me again and again and again. He walks naked about the ship, from task to task, as he has done since the first day, unconcerned and barely aware of the way my sailors look at him. Like hawks to the rabbit. They are good men: I recruited the best rather than merely scraping the prisons. But even good men can be provoked only so far. In his mind it isn’t a provocation. It is a practicality married to an understanding of his station. It doesn’t matter what they think. He will do as he wishes and if he wants to sail naked through a thousand miles of shimmering azure archipelago then that is what he will do.
He isn’t a fool. He has stayed in his cabin whenever we have docked. He has been so clearly under my protection while on board, and as I have described, so fundamentally popular, that none of the men have considered taking liberties. Until now.
I have allowed them to taste his body. And he has shared his gifts generously and often with them, endlessly keen to kneel and accept their cum on his face. But none of them have had the slightest doubt that he remains a prince. They recognize their good fortune, and their gratitude shines in their eyes. It is the spark of devotion.
And all this has been his reaction to the first freedom he has ever had in his life. That freedom has meant happiness of a kind that has masked a truth – he is a figure fleeing from bleakest reality, his life in danger once on shore, his status uncertain. If his father’s regime has ended then he is a minor son of a fallen House. Yet while on my ship he is the beautiful king of the world - with a court of twenty rogues. But it is not a life for a prince, no matter that each one adores him.
Adores him until now.
He tells me the story after I return to the ship. The port visit has been interesting, if a mixed bag of disaster and disappointment can be called that. It is on this day that the death of his youngest sister in the storming of Pavon is confirmed to me by secret messenger. The whole of the outer city wall has been destroyed by great fire-cannon mounted on teams of elephants. But there seems to be a truce of a kind, and messengers are dispatched north and south, high and low. The message is to return to Pavon. To help his father to reassess and rebuild. To seek new alliances in a new reality. The boy must return to carry his share of the weight of whatever needs to be done. He says his likely role is that of a diplomat, and I can see this for him: to be endlessly charming on behalf of a state too small to do anything other than seek protection under the wing of the eagles, and to rebuild its wealth through trade, as it has done in the past.
At times of war most of us do what we can. I cannot pretend I would rather have fought. But for my duty to have led to such an idyllic period with such a beautiful boy…it isn’t easy to come to terms with this, even for me. That his father has survived is welcome news for us both. I can dream of continued employment, and perhaps occasional future opportunities to fuck this magical boy. But the world has changed. Everything stands on its head, and we will see what we will see.
The night is oppressive. We lie together in a pool of sweat, and even with the cabin door open there is almost no breeze. His skin, where we touch, is hot and damp. He tosses beside me, half asleep, and though the cum still bubbling from his ass tells me it is barely an hour since we fucked, the sheer frustration of the effort to fall asleep only leads me further into wakefulness.
This fevered state isn’t the time to consider his story. But consider it I do.
I’d slipped ashore in the quiet of dawn, managing the small rowing boat with the ease of long familiarity. I’d left Golva in charge, my deputy in all but name, a man trusted and skilled in all the ways of The Swordfish. He can coax extra knots from my ship that even I cannot. We have raced from Harad to Harengor more often than I can count, usually in the service of the Prince himself, completing a quiet deed of huge value to a ruler. A message is sent, or an ‘item’ delivered or collected – human, often. Golva’s word then is as valuable as the prince’s, and from their joint tale I piece together a story that wounds me, confuses me, and finally leaves me silent and cold. Cold even in this furnace of a night.
The man’s name is Bavohad. He is a handsome streak of mean, viciously effective in a knife fight, a gifted cheat at card games and as it turns out, made mad with lust for the prince over a season of seeing what he cannot have. And now he must pay for what he has done, and I am sad.
Bavohad has seen the way I take the boy when and where I wish. He has seen me fuck him on the deck, or on a lagoon-washed beach. He has stood at the open door of my cabin and seen the boy gaping wide and slippery with my cum after an afternoon of fucking. He has seen the boy sit on the deck at my feet, the tip of my cock on his lower lip, while I give orders to the crew and steer into the wind. And these things have driven him mad.
In his heart he has not seen love, and perhaps this is because he is not capable of it. He has not seen the way the boy gives of himself wholeheartedly because he has a giant capacity for love. He has not seen or heard the whispered words that hold us together, the Prince of Pavon and I. He sees the boy squealing with delight on my cock but knows nothing of the thousand hours in which I trace words of protection, guidance and adoration along his spine as he lies on my bed. He doesn’t see us in the early morning, legs entwined in my cabin and feeding each other with our fingers, each small sustaining bite a promise, or a commitment. He doesn’t see the way the boy stands behind me each day, shaving with infinite care the sharp line of stubble into my jaw. He doesn’t hear us as I hold him and plan a hundred different futures with him, each one lifting him high in person and in spirit, equipping him with every breath of my body for whatever world he will meet once we return to Pavon.
Bavohad sees exploitation, because he wishes to exploit. He sees cruelty and domination, because he is cruel, and he hopes to dominate. He doesn’t know how freely the prince gave himself to me, or how easily he might take the gift away. His insight, his mind, his humanity are shallow.
And so Bavohad has made his mistake. It isn’t the prince that has come crying to me, but men of the crew, who will not forgive this man desecrating their prince. And as the man attempts to blubber an apology to me, as he lies tied in excruciating knots at my feet, I can only take the prince’s steer as to what must happen next.
“Papa. Tell me what I should do.”
We lie together in my cabin, his forehead a mere kiss away as we hold each other. I must help him remember he is a prince of Pavon.
Do not tell me I am a hypocrite. I know what I have done and I would do it again in a second. I adore this boy. I will never hurt him.
We decide to set the man to fishing, and we are scrupulous about his catch. You know where this is taking him because you’ve seen it done before? Patience. I shall tell the story in my way. Even on these shores the punishment is a rarity. It takes the man 72 hours, night and day, to catch the fish we are looking for; a single adult specimen, shocking in the vivid blue-red-blue of its scales. We kill it in a wooden pail. And we wait. I am not an alchemist and cannot tell you how or why. But by the second day the blood and guts start to leach towards a shade of purple valuable to the dyers who make their living from the famous cloth of Pavon: it has enriched this nation for centuries. By the third day, a drop of the mixture made with water and lemon could intoxicate a horse. And by the fourth? By the fourth we have what we need. Even diluted in seawater the effect will be extraordinary.
Bavohad was born far from the sea. He has no idea of what he faces, and the men of these shores, united in their disgust, give him no warning. By night I splay his naked body in a variety of positions that allow those that wish to, to fuck him. His body is hard. He is a fighter. He is also a squealer. The knot at his neck, which holds his head tight to his shoulder, connects to others across his torso and around his strong arms, and in turn, via every joint and curve and twist of his body, to his ankle. This I raise high, using a further rope to connect foot and thigh. More rope, and more, until he is a degraded piece of art. We raise him by his arms, tied tight behind his back, until his remaining foot barely touches the deck. His entire body strains. But he is in no danger. We don’t aim to break, or dislocate. His head hangs in exhaustion. I’ve seen his eyes. It isn’t shame. The men line up to fuck him.
And in the morning I loosen him, rearrange him ankle to ankle and knee to knee, his wrists tight behind his back; and then I re-tie him, with different knots and a different position. The final bindings can only be tied at the very end. Six men lift him into place, strong men, each attached by a safety line; and a fine sight he is, rope in multiple strands from his neck to his feet. He hangs beneath the Swordfish figure head, face down over the sea, which churns its endless chaos thirty feet below him. The men crane for a view as I take the pail of fish guts and mop it across his body, paying attention on this first day to his cock. It is soon slippery with the foul mixture.
Golva takes the wheel, the wind is behind us, and we have never in twenty years been so fast. The exhilaration is immense. Sails crack as we fly into the mid-day light. There is work to do. No-one has time for much more than a glance at the dying man apart from the sailor tasked with regularly mopping him with a new splash of the entrails. He is glued to the glass as the sand flows down.
By evening light we drop anchor once more. An idyllic cove. One group races for the trees and comes back baskets laden with fruit; while a second build fires and begin to fry fish. I take the time to swim with Golva. In the velvet blackness of night we return to our home to see the first crystals forming, unmistakable.
Crystals of salt. An unearthly lilac in color, a bleached and sickly echo of the beautiful Pavonian purple dye. Wherever the mop has touched, wherever the fish brew has slopped against his skin - crystals. I do not know if they are salt, but they look like salt. On this first night in clumps the size of a finger nail. His cock is hard, and despite his pain he cannot will himself soft as his skin begins to crust over with eerie crystals.
“Pour salt on a slug and what do you see?” This is the best explanation I have heard of what happens to men that experience the type of death now facing Bavohad. I share it for what it is worth. Hang a man by the sea shore, or from a boat, or to a dock; and the salt in the air, the salt in the water, the salt in the earth at our feet finds its way to him, guided by the blood on his body. Not any blood, but that of this one fish. Keep him soaked in the foul liquid. Mop his mouth and nose for a fast death. Mop the hands of a thief. Mop the eyes of a spy.
It takes him five days to die. And the next morning the prince of Pavon emerges onto the deck fully clothed. Boots, robe, and a golden torc at his neck. And I bow at his feet, and the men scramble to follow me. And they never see the boy naked again.
Zarbo? Zarbo is considerably more fortunate.
We will soon be back to Pavon, and I’ve left a knot untied, which frustrates me. As the coast flies past us the days play in reverse, the landscape on shore shifting as the skies change to Pavonian skies. But this knot. It has played in my mind - though I don’t believe it worries the boy. Golva, my second on the crew. Beruh, the former smuggler, usually the first in line to seduce any new member of the company. And wily Luban, the clever and handsome strategist. The thinker, if I need one. The quiet man of inaction and delay. The one who always chooses when the time is right. Men I like and respect. Men I have fucked with, in Golva’s case for more than ten years.
The only men that did not take their pleasure of the prince when given the chance.
I didn’t understand it then, and I do not understand it now. I will take these conversations one at a time.
Golva first. He appeared at my cabin door, and seemed reluctant to cross the threshold. This is a man I love as my best friend, a man I have shared dangers and adventures with, and fucked, for a decade. The man whose fat hard ass is as willing as any I have discovered in all of Guya. The best sailor on the ship, beating my own skills by a mile and a yard, and a gentle man capable of turning to a mountain of hell for anyone that is fool enough to cross him. If pushed, Golva is the man I trust more than any other. He stands shy in the doorway, a boyish grin on his face, as if he is fourteen again, crushing on the first man that smiles at him. I have to beckon him in. He’s been fucked to mindlessness a thousand times in this room. I don’t understand the hesitation.
I reach out a hand, and he smiles a smile that is so sweetly charming that I know we can get over whatever temporary difficulty this is very easily. I draw him to me, and hold him, this huge gentle giant, and he melts into me, and we stand together as we have on many nights before, our bodies aligning at nose and chest and hip. Our breath is shared, and I know this is about the boy, though how he has come between us I cannot say.
“Do you love him?” Golva whispers.
“I love him,” I reply. “And I have had him. But he cannot stay what he has been. In days we will be back in Pavon, and then…? Who is to say? He will forget me and that is as it should be. These months, they are a glorious dream.”
“And when the dream is over?”
He has missed me. I have hurt him. And I see what I have never seen, which is that in his way he loves me too. Pushed to one side, eclipsed by a boy he can never be, either in age or status, nor in wealth or beauty. I haven’t let him down gently, I’ve dropped him. I’ve been bedazzled in the boy’s handsome glow, and I allow myself a moment’s shame. And in his pride Golva has refused to lick the scraps from the table, and has instead grown distant. I hold him to me, my hands slipping to cup the heavy muscles of his ass as they have a thousand times before. I nuzzle my head into his neck, and he kisses a slow and at first reluctant kiss to the top of my head. My hands take the light and slippery cloth of his robe and lift, and his ass bare to the breeze he must make a decision. The path for us to follow is incredibly well trodden. We are hardly explorers forcing virgin trails through unknown wilderness. He uses the hard bones of his face to nudge my head towards his, our eyes just inches apart, and in their deep sea-green I see forgiveness, and friendship that cannot be broken. And lust. For when the spirit is upon this mighty man, there is no one short of a single handsome boy, currently sleeping on that side of a flimsy wooden partition, that I’d consider being with instead.
Golva lifts me, as if he wishes to fuck me, but we both know that’s a joke between us. We smile and laugh into a kiss. Without the slightest strain on his magnificent body he reaches out to slowly place me on my back on the sheet. His lips will soon be on my cock, and they are. My hands will soon be on his smooth scalp, across his huge and iron shoulders, caressing the steel of his arms, and guiding him in a million long-understood signals of what I want from him. His back will arch, his arms tensed as if he is a lion ready to pounce. His knees will spread either side of my legs, and he will lower himself to take every inch of my cock into his throat, and his eyes will find mine, and they will weep in fierce concentration and with the effort of control. And not until I see the flesh bump of my cockhead in his throat and his nostrils gasping for oxygen as they press against the skin of my crotch will he raise himself and let me into daylight once more. As he raises and lowers himself in this way his asshole will blink. Opening and tightening. Opening and tightening. I know this script, I know these motions.
He shucks his robe away from his chest and it gathers at his waist, knotted somehow in a way that only highlights the extraordinary muscled ass that sits below the fabric like two ripe melons of flesh, smooth and juicy. And in the shadows I know he is hard. I know he will cum eventually, his cock heavy but hardly touched until the final moments where he will grasp himself two-handed and in furious concentration send his sperm shooting over my head. And he will lean back down onto me once again his initial release complete. Will slide me swiftly and efficiently to the very depths of his throat, where he will begin to massage a load out of me that would drown a lesser man. His tongue will lap out to lick my balls into his mouth, his lips will circle and slide and his hands will join in with slippery, slick and enthusiastic energy.
I know these things. They are established patterns. He always shoots first. I think it is to help him clear his head, so that he can worship my cock for longer. This is where he wants to be. On his knees on my bed, his ass in the air, preparing my cock for the fuck that he needs, his entire focus on licking me to a hard peak of readiness. He wants me deep inside him, sizzling with heat enough to sear his insides. He wants me slippery, leaking with anticipation. He intends to milk many loads from me. His guts scream for my cum. His body shivers with the excitement of what is to happen. We know these things. The stars know these things. Moons wax and wane and Golva gets fucked hard by Zarbo. Until the cum gushes from his ass, until his lips crack with the strain of sucking more cum from Zarbo’s cock, until his jaw locks, and he can neither speak or walk as he wishes. He sees, and he knows the timeless pattern is reasserted. The moon sees too, and knows. Ten-year rituals of pleasure never broken until these last weeks. Unbeatable, loyal Golva, drowning in my sperm.
So much about the night is so perfectly written in advance in the stars that when Golva takes a surprising break from licking my cock – though he keeps it firmly in both hands and bare inches from his mouth – and says “The boy needs to learn how to fuck,” I can do little more than cum in his face out of sheer surprise.
I’d seen the face at the door. Unexpected.
The prince is silent in the night but I see him from where I lie, enough moonlight lining his face that I see the blinking surprise of those pretty eyelashes. He pushes the door by an inch, and gently inserts a shoulder at the gap, edging it wider.
The pink-purple gash of Golva’s asshole mesmerizes him.
Sending love to all readers with thanks for your support. PAID SUBSCRIBERS can read to the end of the story below. How does the relationship of Papa and Boy play out? What will they find when they return to Pavon?
Zayq
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