Far-north Lover

Esca's voice: What Was This All About.

Something I'd written a long time ago, recently edited.

This piece is for my readers who are kind enough to have added What Was This All About to their Story Alerts and Favorites. A special present. :-)

Summary:

"My Roman master, sometimes when I thought about him I touched myself at night where he was still deep in sleep. He knew nothing about this either. I traced every inch of my body, feeling the warm flesh, the hardening organ as if some kind of gravity was inside it."

Disclaimer: I just own the plot.

Far-north Lover

OUTSIDE, THE GARDEN WAS BATHED IN SILVER LIGHT. The entire scene resembled a fever that had seeped inside me: changing directions, shaking things, breaking grounds.

The room was dimly-lit: most candles were off already. He was lying on the bed, clad in a light linen clothing. His skin retained the traces of the harsh sun, his skin dry, his lips cracked. We'd went out together in a hunt earlier this morning.

He'd told me about his wishes.

There we were, two imperfect lumps of flesh gazing at the sky.

DAY BY DAY HE TOLD ME HIS DREAMS of freedom, of going back to war, of finding the lost insignia that was gone altogether with the disappearance of the Legion. "How would you define freedom?" I said: I would never know, since I was a slave.

His slave.

He smiled. "Then imagine it. Envision yourself as a free man in Rome."

I told him I'd talk to many philosophers.

"Good," he said with a smile, "Actually, that's really good."

The summer sun was beating down on our skins. We frowned, from time to time we'd narrow our eyes.

Unlike him, my father had declined my thoughts harshly. As a child I'd told him I wanted to see the other face of the world. I would cross the Wall. I would invent knowledge.

He said I was cursed in the head.

LIVING WITH MY MASTER I realized that Romans were not all the same. I never told him, but I started respecting him in a way he'd never imagined before. He was a very opinionated man, too, there was a time where he'd slammed the table while debating against his uncle's friends to defend his father's honor against the rumors.

Sometimes he'd ask about my language. That was why he knew that I could assist him across the Wall. "The insignia must be there, the far-north." He always addressed my homeland that way, the far-north, it would sound distant. Distant, because I would suddenly become aware of the wide gap of our origins.

The far-north.

MY ROMAN MASTER, sometimes when I thought about him I touched myself at night when he was deep in sleep. I'd trace every inch of my body, feeling the warm flesh, the hardening organ as if some kind of gravity was inside it. I'd regained life that way. If only he knew what I was doing, and how everything had grown so much further across the limitations. Probably he would never know, my Roman master.

I would remain time I looked into it the mental images from last night would return to me, flashing before my eyes like distant thunders.

Every time they returned inevitably, I thought of my dreams, long-lost dreams. I wanted to talk to philosophers and invent knowledge. Then, I wanted to possess and be possessed by him.

Marcus Aquila. I loved the sound of his name, it evoked so many stirs in me.

"Esca?" he said, breaking the silence, "You seem so lost in thoughts nowadays, what could you be thinking of?"

"Freedom," I said.

He laughed. The same light, melodic laughter.

"Now that you've seen the world beyond the Wall, what do you think of it?"

"I couldn't say," I said, "I entered the world as a slave, which was not as what I'd dreamed of. My opinions would be entirely different."

He said nothing, still smiling.

I was wresting with the feeling that I wanted to be set free and the feeling that I wanted to be possessed. I looked at him, questioned myself: Was this Roman a right person for such submission?

"Esca, you've crossed the Wall." He said, "A different beginning doesn't always mean a different ending, just like a different opinion doesn't always mean a disagreement."

He took a thick wooden branch on the ground then started carving it.

The far-north. The way he always mentioned my homeland. The far-north. He was always distant even in his closeness, this Roman, probably he was supposed to be distant in reality also.

I TOUCHED MYSELF AGAIN THAT NIGHT, almost violently. I called his name over and over, as if I was inside some kind of trance.

Marcus. Marcus.

I came violently. I came as if I would, in any moment, explode with desire.

IN THE MORNING HE TOOK ME OUT AGAIN FOR A HUNT. He looked very happy, as if he'd discovered something in him that people couldn't see. His bad leg had gotten better. The time we got home he told me stories about the worlds he'd seen outside England.

The afternoon came. The happiness was something he was about to hide in himself until the time would come. I brought him his wine and fruits, cooked his meals, listened to his stories. When in the night, he finally told me what had caused in him so much joy, I sat there listening to him talking in low voice.

"I'm going to the far-north to find the Eagle." He said, closing the night's story, "That is the least I could do for my father."

LATER THAT NIGHT I STRIPPED MYSELF out of all clothes before him, right before he blew the last candle. The room was bathed in the cold lights of the moon, the wind carried such comfortable chill. Everything was right, as if someone had just arranged them together for a story worth-telling.

As if we were inside a story ourselves.

In the darkness I found myself.

He told me to come closer. I found myself under his gaze. He desired me as much as I desired him. His eyes said: 'I've been waiting for too long for this.'

My eyes must've had echoed the same. He embraced me right away.

HE KISSED ME, a long, languorous kiss.

My Roman lover, I wondered after tonight he'd be pleased if I called him that. Marcus to me: my far-north lover?

He traced my flesh the way he traced the contours of his carvings. I never knew such pleasure existed, because nobody would be able to recount it perfectly unless they've experienced these themselves. There was the wind brushing my skin lightly. The cold lights. The stars. I breathed on his neck, breathing him in. He smelled of such manly sweat. He locked his lips on mine almost all the time. I said: "Come enter me."

I was probably dreaming, because the phrase was something I'd extracted out of a dream. Even if I was, this dream had, since long, merged itself into reality.