The Village Shaman’s Lover
Part 2 of 3
By Alastair Anders
Copyright 2012 Alastair Anders
Smashwords edition
For adults only.
I wake up, still warm and woozy from the night before, and I reach for my lover. I kiss him good morning, and he kisses me back, but chaste, passionless. We knock down camp and pack up, and he barely says anything. He doesn’t even acknowledge that anything happened between us last night.
I was on fire last night, my whole body alive with passion. I felt wanted. I felt perfect. I felt loved.
Now, I can’t believe it. Our cum is still dry on the insides of our clothes and he’s trudging next to me, his eyes fixed on the ground. Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt him, somehow? Is he having second thoughts about me?
If that’s the case, then I want to bury my head in the snow and die.
I swallow. I force myself to say, “Are you thinking about what happened last night?”
He blushes.
“I really enjoyed it,” I say. My voice is shaking. I think about his delightful promises: to lock us in the sauna when we get home, to soap and caress and massage each other, to take me to bed and teach me how to make love to him. Is any of that still going to happen?
“I did, too,” he says softly, and then says nothing else for the remainder of our walk.
When we get home, he immediately drops his bundle on the floor and rushes back out, to check in on all the projects and cases he left behind. All day, I throw myself into chores to try to take my mind off things. I sweep the floors until no particle of dust remains. I wash and boil our heavily soiled clothes. I reach inside his trousers, and I scrub the evidence of our pleasure away.
I go to his bed, kneel down beside it, and press my face into the blankets that smell like his skin, delicious skin that I may never get to kiss, lick, or touch again. I gather them up in my arms and squeeze them, a poor substitute for his lovely body.
The sun is setting when I leave his house and make my way to the cookhouse. I’m not hungry. Not for food, anyway. I pass the sauna, and I keep my eyes fixed on the ground so I don’t start aching again. The sky is clear and I know tonight’s going to be another of those horrible, supernaturally cold nights, with no lover to warm me.
I hear a knock on a wooden wall. I turn around, and the sauna door opens, just a few inches, just enough for him to reach out and make a silent come-here gesture to me.
I bound up the steps to the door. Oh yes, yes, yes!
He takes me into the dry heat of the sauna’s dressing room, and he locks the door behind me. Oh, yes!
He’s wearing a plain linen shift, and smoking a rolled-up bundle of some of those herbs they find out in the fields, the ones that make you feel all open and rested. He passes the herbs to me, and I inhale, deeply, knowing that my mouth is touching the place his mouth has touched, breathing in the same air. I feel my thoughts become quiet and my insides relax.