Bound & Bound – the Curse and the Captives – - 30. Chapter 30: Rapt Disbelief

Chapter 30: Rapt Disbelief

The raking slant of moonlight inched across the slaves in their bed.

As was their custom, Junayd lay asleep in Ahmed's arms, his head dreaming over the soldier's heart.

The young dervish dreamt of being in the well; he dreamt he was alone in the depths of the pit and looking skywards. The circle of blue light dilated like the iris of an eye to be larger and larger, and within the young man's core, a joy built; it was an ecstasy akin to the sensation of his physical body continuing to sink farther along the stone-lined walls into the fathomless depths, while simultaneously, his soul rose to merge with the boundless blue above.

There was a slight pressure against his lips, and Junayd awoke peacefully to see Ahmed pulling his head back; he had just been kissed.

Junayd's hand flexed over the warm flesh of Ahmed's chest as he stirred and moaned himself awake. He pulled back on his neck slightly and looked up into Ahmed's eyes.

"Ummm," the professional soldier grunted languorously. "I didn’t mean to wake you."

"No man was ever more pleasantly awakened."

Junayd felt his hair being caressed, but far from seeing the joy he thought his words would raise in Ahmed, that man only seemed to be weighed down by them.

The sleepy hand on Ahmed's chest reached up to support Junayd as the younger man drew himself into a kiss. Ahmed closed his eyes and the touching of their lips turned momentarily passionate – that is until the soldier pulled slightly away.

Junayd asked probingly, "You cannot sleep, habibi?"

"I'm sorry to have awoken you. You need your sleep, so why don’t you close your eyes again?"

Junayd inhaled until his lungs were full and his heart rate increased. Strength returned to his limbs as he rose and sat up in bed with his back against the wall. Ahmed, who had moved out of Junayd's way, blinked at him with an unspoken question.

Junayd's reply was to kiss him, and guide the soldier to rest his head on Junayd's lap. The older man's was facing away from him.

As the creeping moon glow caressed both of them, he smoothed the strong man's short-cropped hair. He did it like Ahmed was a baby with a troublesome fever. The dervish knew what that fever was too. He could see the soldier's sadness; he knew Ahmed was trapped by his own emotions, and Junayd felt honored to have inspired a love like surrender in the man he held. Now the only trick was to bring Ahmed along, and to move him out of the conceit that love is a 'thing' which can exist purely along selfish lines. The dervish needed to mature it to an understanding of love as existing for and because of the All, and somehow have the man see that it stems back to the creator who is the only source of it.

Junayd spoke softly, imbuing his caress with the tenderness of his words. "You've asked, but I have never told you of my first love. Would you like to hear about him now?"

"Yes."

Junayd felt Ahmed's tear touch the skin of his leg.

"Mustafa was a boy in Konya my same age. His uncles were young men in the school of the dervish and he learned quickly. At age fourteen, this friend of mine suddenly looked different to my eyes. The youthful fuzz sprouting along his upper lip and chin held an intrigue for me that was new. The line of his tanned arms seemed an impossible riddle to be solved – a divine enigma of beauty.

"We would go walking in the country, and he would hint of 'the mysteries,' and sitting under the tree one day, I reached out to embrace his hand. To my surprise, he not only embraced it in return, but he pulled me into those sacred arms to sit like this – my head in his lap, his hand on my temple and on my heart.

"So beautiful is love, Ahmed, that the pain of momentary separation from Mustafa became like the bliss of holding him; we were just living in the moment.

"We made love, and he revealed the nature of true love – of God's love to me – and I began the wearing of the wool with him.[1]

"I was so enamored with the boy, and he with me, that both of us could use our love like a ladder to climb higher to God."

"So, what happened to this Mustafa?"

Junayd renewed stroking Ahmed's head with tenderness. "I suppose nothing happened to him. I imagine that if I were free of these Giaour,[2] and if I were free of service to the sultan, I could go back to Konya and find him waiting for me under that tree."

Junayd felt Ahmed's entire frame grow rigid. There was a stultifying tremble in his voice as he said, "So, when you are free, you will go to him."

The dervish stayed his hand; he was touched down to the depths of his soul. "No, Kapikulu. Can't you see..? I have no home now, but the one I have built in your arms."

Ahmed sat up. He knelt with tears streaming down his face. Staring at Junayd, he asked, "You are not teasing a foolish old man now, are you?"

"Love does not fool, husband. I have no ambitions but to have this, here, now – with you."

Ahmed blinked. A trail of moisture fell which Junayd wiped away with his thumb; he chuckled while doing so. "My goal was to make you feel better with comfort – it seems I am failing."

The soldier launched himself into an embrace of Junayd's torso.

Into the top of Ahmed's hair, Junayd whispered, "The Master said:

"If you seek to ask

'Who am I..?'

Then be prepared to learn

'I am but you.'"

"I do not understand your Rumi."

Junayd guided Ahmed to resettle his head in his lap.

"Shall I sing a lullaby to you, Ahmed, habibi?"

"Yes, my love."

"Then I will sing, and I hope you may sleep."

Junayd drew out the sweet-sounding vowels of his song and pulled long strokes of comfort across Ahmed's troubled brow.

"See how the night sighs for the love we share? –

The moonlight strokes the skin we touch so bare,

And re-shines our affection everywhere.

'My love,' I whisper on your lips most fair,

'How will we live when dissolved in the air?'

'We will live,' you answer with smiling flare,

'To find and caress the great love that dare

live as one man, as though without a care.'

Thus sings the poet Junayd, while I stare,

And moonlight strokes the skin I touch so bare."

By the end, Junayd was silent and ceased his hand movements – he wanted to listen for signs of sleep from the soldier astride his lap.

Ahmed mumbled, as if choked with emotion, "I only know how much I love you, Junayd. That, and how I dream of our freedom and a life together. Can you ask God to allow us that one thing, please?"

Junayd felt Ahmed kiss his thigh, and then the soldier's hands tighten on the younger man's lower leg.

"One time," the dervish tried to say with calm detachment. "The Master taught the following parable:

A man knocks on a door.

'Who comes to bother me? –

The voice from the other side says.

'It is I; you know me for sure.'

'Go away, and seek a better answer.'

Years later, the knock returns.

'Who comes to bother me?' –

The knowing voice commands,

'It is you; I know myself for sure.'

The door opens, and reunion occurs."

"My brain is not good. I do not understand your mysteries – so tell me, dervish, what does it mean?"

"It means we already have a life together, and we should treasure every moment of it."

"But, do you love me..?"

Tears again fell helplessly from Ahmed onto Junayd's leg; his own began to well. "You do not understand, do you?"

Ahmed shook his head.

"Yes, Kapikulu – the same as God loves the universe, and no love can be greater than that."

"Thank you, dervish."

"Shush now, husband – go to sleep."

Gradually, the weight of Ahmed's head and limbs increased on Junayd's body. Both of his hands came out to gently stroke Ahmed's head in a relentless and continual caress. The soldier's breathing finally regulated off into sleep.

Junayd slowed and lightened his pressure; his touch lightly lingered on Ahmed's ear. He felt the soft fuzz there and was put in mind of an apricot.

Quiet thoughts instilled themselves within him. He felt that the professional soldier was trapped in his beautiful oblivion. Junayd grappled with a strong desire to bring Ahmed along before it was too late; to have the other see his own love in a truer light.

The dervish also had to consider just how real his love for this short-tempered and beautiful Herculean man was. But even in the simple act of just contemplating it, Junayd knew with the bedrock faith of conviction that his love was part and parcel with the complete aspect derived from Divine adoration – and that is the real love.

'My feelings,' he thought. 'Are for that source as well as for all of its manifestations, and that encompasses Ahmed too. We must live fully in what time we may have left together.'

As Junayd allowed these ideas to come, he began to be aware of a physical sensation as well.

Ahmed was not asleep – his hand was slowly inching its way along Junayd's inner thigh. It was heading to the place where the younger man's legs joined.

The soldier's firm lips rotated and began to travel the area of flesh his fingers had just trail-blazed. He slowly turned his body, and re-positioned himself to lie flat on the length of the mattress. All the time he was doing this, his face and parting lips continued to make their way towards Junayd's waist.

The dervish felt the hem of his tunic be lifted, and Ahmed's lower lip come into contact with the tip of his member.

Junayd sighed and his hands clawed gently at Ahmed's hair. His manhood swelled steadily while his soldier's fingers lifted it up and his mouth applied delicate rings of moving suction on the sensitive skin underneath his flaring crown.

Ahmed's free hand came up and cupped Junayd's weighty orbs with a commanding grasp. Finally, and it did seem like an eternity of anticipation to the younger man, Ahmed's greedy mouth fully enclosed itself around Junayd's engorged hood.

The soldier applied suction. The dervish gripped the soldier's head in rapt disbelief. The sensation was engulfing – as if Ahmed's life breath was imbibing itself on and around Junayd's manhood.

Ahmed kept the force applied by tightening his lips, and slid that precious sensation down the shaft within his mouth.

Junayd stifled a cry, but guided the head under the control of his touch to descend all the way, until Ahmed's lower lip was again in contact with the top of his scrotum. The skin there was in motion as the orbs within rumbled mightily to make suitable reward for his lover's tender ministrations.

Ahmed began to rise, and now a mind-numbing new stimulation was added to tickle Junayd's already raddled wits – Ahmed used the tip of his tongue to follow the sensitive line along the underside of Junayd's phallus. He slowly drew it up with pressure from the base of the shaft to the bottom of the glans.

When that maddening organ got to the flaring separation of shaft and head, Ahmed's tongue seemed to flatten itself into a burning piece of wet silk. Hot pressure was everywhere on his hood at once – underneath, on top, at the sides – and most pervasively of all, the moisture invaded as a delicate caress on the slit itself.

As tribute to his lover's skill, Junayd bore down. His cock flared powerfully in Ahmed's mouth, where the older man slurped up the crystal-clear and sweet-tasting liquor that preludes a man's ultimate excitement.

Ahmed's eyes smiled up into Junayd's.

No man ever wore a more contented look in the dervish's estimation. "Enfedi," Junayd whispered gruffly. "I want you inside of me. Please – can you do that for me, my love?"

Without a further word on the subject, Ahmed rose to his knees and lifted his own tunic over his head. It went flying to the floor. His strong hands gripped Junayd by his naked thighs and pulled the young man flat on the bed. In so doing, the rear edge of the dervish's tunic got caught by a fold in the mattress ticking and rode up along his back.

Ahmed applied pressure on Junayd's legs from behind the young man's knees and brought his lover's portal up to the level of the soldier's rock-hard cock.

Junayd rotated his shoulders a bit, forcing his torso to bend slightly within his burly man's grasp. He turned so he could lift his right hand and spit a deep-welled wad of expectorant into his palm. Once the deposit was made, he carefully cupped this precious liquid and guided his hand to Ahmed's shaft. There he lacquered it on, paying close attention to anoint the hefty tip with the lion's share. As he did so, he met Ahmed's eyes and saw love there – tender, passionate love – and he wanted that inside of him.

Ahmed applied greater pressure on the backside of his knees, so Junayd had to withdraw his hand. The soldier repositioned his grip to be on the underside of Junayd's thighs. The younger man's ass was lifted into the air and Ahmed walked on his knees towards his man until two things happened: one, the top of Ahmed's own thighs could support Junayd's backside in comfort, and two, the slick member of the man about to take him pressed firmly against Junayd's portal.

"Are you ready?" Ahmed asked. "For I do not think I can hold out for very long."

"I'm ready, Ahmed – and I will be ready to let loose when you are."

Slowly, carefully, Ahmed leaned in and began the process of pushing Junayd's legs back down towards the young man's shoulders.

Ahmed entered him, and over the external grimace of half-joy, half-pain Junayd knew was washing his face, his lover's sweet kisses flowed like honey. The soldier waited there, where he was: inside of Junayd, but holding still. He allowed time for the younger man to relax while he kissed away the minute moisture coming from the younger man's eyes. The dervish's mind reeled with over stimulation and enjoyment. His head began to feel light, and he aimlessly turned it side to side. Ahmed never relented, and his kisses massaged the tender, goose-bump-raised flesh his young man presented to him like a gift. The soldier's passion increased and he laid a smattering of heavily breathed and exquisite busses on Junayd's cheeks, chin, lips and youthful moustache, and he nearly wanted to cry out in triumph as he felt the younger man's passage gradually open to take him.

"Aman Allahim! Dervish, you are so tense tonight…but you never are for very long – not with me at least."

Junayd glanced up with opening eyes. His hand reached back and latched onto Ahmed's upper thigh at the line where the skin of backside folds inwards to become the muscle of leg. He pulled on his lover, hard.

Without another word about it, Ahmed sank his shaft down. By the time his own weighty spheres were pressing against Junayd's backside, the young man had narrowed his sight in deep, stunned-looking pleasure.

Ahmed took Junayd's right hand and brought it up to his lips. He opened the delicately clenched fingers and spat into the young man's palm.

Junayd felt that palm be placed on his own cock and Ahmed withdrew. He gasped as it felt like his soldier was about to pull all the way out, but that sensation got crushed out of him, when only moments later, Ahmed plunged all the way back into him.

"Oh, Ahmed," he moaned, as his hand gripped tight onto his own phallus. He experienced pressure from the growing threat of spontaneous orgasm at two places at once.

"Junayd!" Ahmed cried as he pulled out and plunged in deep again. "I can't…"

"Don’t fight it…"

And saying that, Ahmed went down again and stopped. A nearly pained expression lingered for a frozen second in Junayd's sight of the man he loved hovering above him; it was a pause in breathless anticipation.

Junayd climaxed.

Hot semen shot straight into the thin void of space between their two bodies. It coated the nearly horizontal belly and chest of Ahmed in wave after wave of wetness.

Ahmed's breath released into a convulsive series of gasping moans.

Down below, Junayd treasured every one of the throbbing sensations he felt directly from his husband's body.

From the young man's point of view, he was dissolved entirely in the delight of receiving the life force of this man. He did not need to think about it, for it was as if he were taking his God into his body at the exact same moment.

Ahmed – his pores suddenly open and fragrant beneath Junayd's touch, his body trembling from being weak and spent – collapsed onto him. The dervish ran his hands over Ahmed's back where a sudden sheen had taken to it like a vapour. The moisture he moved around there with his delicate fingertips was quickly cooling, and Ahmed turned to face him.

The older man asked with eyes so open and honest it almost made Junayd want to cry. "You do love me, Junayd, don’t you?"

There was only one way that his man would understand, so he would give it to him. Junayd smiled, rubbed the sheen from Ahmed's forehead with the back of his hand, and told him plainly, "Yes, Enfedi. I love you."

The two men slowly, exhaustedly, kissed with tender disbelief that the other was truly there, that the other was truly in love with him, but there could be no doubt that what they had was as real as the morning's sunrise would be. Junayd's eye, as if viewing it from the bottom of a tunnel, had fully dilated on the gloriously azure sky above, and on the sweet smile of Ahmed coming down to kiss him one more time.