“Weird Story in C Minor”

By RD Rivero

May 8, 2001

 

**final version**

 

Moderato

 

And who would have thought that the Titanic 47, just like the 46 namesakes before her, would strike and iceberg five days from port to sink in less than two hours?  And who have believed, for it was so appallingly extraordinary, that out of the thousands of survivors who had fled aghast in lifeboats that only one dinghy would fly astray from the rest to take its singular occupant on a voyage of unimaginable proportions across the sea of Tethys of the Third Earth onto horizons beyond reach, ever distant.  And yet without care to decency or believability, such was the state of affairs for a certain saber-toothed lion.

“‘Come aboard,’ she said,” the insane one roared, his mouth dry, his mind reeling with images of delirium.  “‘It’ll be fun,’ she said- if I ever get my hands on that cheetah’s neck I’ll, I’ll-” he raised his hands, fists clenched and shook them at the gray heavens.  But having spent so many days alone, adrift, he had lost much of his strength to his struggled to survive.  “I’m going to live, god damn it!”

He fell back, exhausted by his torment.  He was upset and angry about a lot of things, but more than anything it was his lack of beer.  The mouth-watering thirst for a thick, heady brew was driving him mad, as if that were possible.  Yet he could blame no one else but himself for that predicament- he had only taken a meager supply from the sinking boat and had consumed it quickly two days before.

As he lay back, quietly, he was oblivious to the course the currents were taking him.  Or to the massive clouds that had in an instant turned deep shades of black.  A gnarled bolt arced from one collection of misty vapors to another and in its wake the skies resounded with a crash of thunder.

The fierce lion did not react immediately for his mind was as adrift as his boat.  He did not cover himself with the blankets when the cold rains started to fall.  Rather, he opened his mouth wide to let the droplets collect under his tongue.  The light drizzle intensified and before he knew it the boat was flooding.  He was sinking slowly and surely and all he could do was sit up a little and laugh out loud in defiance at his accursed fate.

“Look-e, look-e,” he said- or tried to say over his cackle- “Zhie, look at that!”  He pointed to the brackish waves where a gray fin stuck out of the foam-crested water.  He blinked and in the passing of those mere seconds the triangular shape vanished.  Looking again with squinting eyes he thought he saw a face beneath the surface, a grayish face with the deepest, black eyes.  “I’m going mad, mad, mad-”  His voice trailed off as he began to lift himself in the dinghy.

The boat was already inundated with two feet of water.

Panicking and acting without reason, he picked up his spiked mace and leaned out on the side of the vessel but in his groggy state his weapon slipped out of his fingers into the ocean.

“My mace!  My mace!  What a vacation, ahhh!”

Still over the edge and with his arms skimming over the water, as if he could reach down and take the mace back, the weight of his body was great enough that he, too, slipped overboard.  The saber lion struggled to keep his head above the waves that thrashed his face while he cursed and blurted out threats.  His metal uniform and general exhaustion caused him to loose his battle.  He felt the cold ocean reach up over his head and envelope his body completely.  And then something happened-

A pair of arms grabbed onto him from the side.  He opened his eyes to see that same gray-faced figure stare back at him.  The unexpected shock startled him and trying to get away he exhaled the last of the breath he had taken.  Lungs not empty, a different kind of terror sent shivers throughout his body.

The merman- for it was a merman, half-man and half-shark in construction- pressed his lips upon the Thunderian’s, giving him a breath of life from his own body.  No longer alarmed, the lion reached out and wrapped his arms about the figure, whose exposed skin was far softer, sleeker than he thought it would be.  The ocean traveler eased around the saber tooth’s mighty hold, to let him latch onto his dorsal fin and brought him up to the surface for fresh air.

“Where, where are you?” The insane one asked, whipping his face and rubbing his eyes.  He felt those hands again, groping his hips and reaching into his shorts.  “Are you real?  I’m not dreaming you up, am I?”  He tried to hide the smile on his face while the merman was finding his flaccid dick and making it grow erect with smooth, gentle strokes.  The sensation of lips wrapped around his shaft filled his mind with dirty thoughts.  “You’re, you’re a nymph,” he said when his throbbing, hard cock was left to ache alone.

The pressure of the hands returned to tug him beneath the ocean.  He let himself fall after taking a deep breath.  The sun had broken through the patch of clouds and for the first time he saw the gray figure clearly- or as clearly as possible under the water.  His head arched back in a hydrodynamic quality that was both timeless and elegant.  His eyes were very black but trimmed with a thin ring of white.  His lips were curled in a warm smile- small, pointy teeth were exposed unthreateningly.  Fins were attached to the sides of his arms, his legs seemed fused into a single, fish-like tail.

The saber tooth leaned forward and gave the creature a kiss on the cheek and hugged him, pressing their bodies together.  Never before had he felt so safe and at peace and although the thought was passing, fleeting, it occurred to him but for a moment that perhaps he was dead and in heaven.

The merman swam toward the slopes of a nearby island, dragging the insane lion with him under him.  For his own part the Thunderian was so content and relaxed that he had been lulled into a kind of dream.

The lion washed up on shore, the crashing foamy waves spread out about his body.  He opened his eyes, fluttering in the glare of the sun, that red-orange orb that hovered over the western horizon.  Hands twirled his black mane, giggles tickled his hears.

“It’s you,” he said, getting up.  The merman smiled broadly, his eyes sparkling at the sight of the lion’s stone-hard manhood that had popped out of loosened shorts.  That time it was not caressing touch that had excited him- “You’re so naked,” he struggled to speak through his out-of-breath panting.

His rescuer stood before him, letting his own rod throb up over his shrunken balls.  He kissed the saber tooth and let his quivering, furry hands roam about his chest and back.  An unseen animal howled in the thicket of the forests that surrounded the scene.  Quickly the gray figure dashed to the side, cutting off the Thunderian’s admiring view.  On two legs he crawled back into the ocean, looking back once only.

“Hey wait, wait!”  On shaky, weak knees he tried to run after him.  “Wait!  Who are you?  You’re beautiful!”

The gray-toned figure vanished with the thrashing of his tail over the waves.

“Come back,” his voice trembled.  Covering his deflated dick and tightening back his shorts he said to himself:  “It must be a dream, a hallucination.”  He sighed- “ah, but what a dream!  Zhie and the others would never believe it!”

He looked back to the island.  In the dying light he caught but a few hints of up-sloped forests, looming mountains.  The sound of trickling water echoed in his ears along with bird chirping and faint, howls.  The telltale calling of those animals did not frighten him at all and just to shoo off interlopers away, he ran into the underbrush yelling out roars of his own.

His booming voice was his own again.  Somehow, in someway he did not fathom, the merman had indeed breathed new life into him.  He walked on, smiling at the thought that the gray, shark-man was real and that indeed he had a warm, attentive admirer out there in that cold ocean.  It was something the fierce lion had never dared dream before but now that he had it he did not want to let it go.

 

 

Largo

 

For as long as there was a slant of light on that half of the world, ThunderWolf set out to find a place to build a fire and rest.  Following the sound of tricking currents, he treaded through dense undergrowth, over soft, root-covered soil, around moss-encrusted trees until at last he came upon the lowly banks of a free-flowing stream.  Tiny rocks dotted its rippled surface around the coast, the shiny pebbles sparkled in the last, dim rays of day while ever-lengthening shadows sprawled across the face of the island.

The clouds shined in an eerie white amidst a purple haze that gradually lost its luster as all colors were extinguished.  At the end only the bright moon and the twinkling stars dotted the heavens.  He sighed as the stood next to the babbling river, awed by the spectral display he had witnessed.  He leaned into the waters and scooped up handfuls, seemingly drinking from the quivering reflection of the yellow, crater-marked lunar orb.

He removed his heavy armor, leaving only his shorts to cover him.  The cool breeze titillated his fur in a way that was not uncomfortable but not welcome either.  He walked about the rocky clearing and found stumps of fallen trees and their hollowed-out logs.  Dragging them into a corner where he felt safest and with brute force alone he smashed the logs into mangled scraps of firewood.

“My mace, god damn it!” He spit on the ground in disgust.  “I remember now!”

He lamented the loss of his weapon with a moment of silence.  Undeterred, however, he worked on until he was sure he had enough material to sustain a decent fire for that night.  Collecting the dry pulp into a neat pile, he began the equally laborious task of getting it ablaze.  Without anything to work with or help him he had to light the fire the old-fashioned way, rubbing two pieces of wood together.  It was an act that got him hotter long before the wood burst into flames.

 “It’s Fianna,” he said as he warmed himself before the fire- his discarded clothes were dripping wet on a log next to him.  “He and Zhie, they arranged this horrid nightmare.  Oh, when I get off this island, when I get my hands around their necks-”  Visions of chain saws ripping into flesh with glee passed his mind.  His face was painted with a slight grin.

As he reminisced, he did not hear the approach- until it was too late.  A wet hand ran across his black mane, stroking his right ear.

He turned around in a sudden jerk:  “You,” he said as he got up to his feet.

The gray figure was about as tall as the saber lion.  He reached out a hand and revealed from the shadows ThunderWolf’s own spiked mace.  It was dripping fresh from the sea, sharp sea weeds were entangled about it.  “You dropped this,” the merman said in tones dulcet to that insane lion.

“Thank you,” he said, nervously taking the weapon.  He held it low at about his waist, stripping the leafy greens from its shaft.  “Thank you for saving my life.”  He looked up at the stranger’s eyes, black, wet eyes from which he could catch reflections of himself.  Letting his weapon fall to the ground behind him, he leaned up closer to the merman, stroking the side of his face and planting wet kisses on his lips.  His heart raced and his breaths were shallow.

Breaking away the two looked upon one another in a nervous kind of curiosity.

Admiring the shark-man’s nakedness, the saber tooth developed a very pronounced bulge that he did nothing to hide.  The merman took notice and, smiling again, he pet the lion’s crotch.  He cupped balls covered by the thick hide of clothing the let his hand climb up to tickle the Thunderian’s rippled stomach.  “You are so beautiful- I’ve never felt fur like this before.”

“You like it?” He took the gray figure’s hands up from his stomach to his beating, palpitating heart.  “Touch all you want.”

Embracing tightly, pressing their bodies together, they held one another for what must have been endless minutes.  Wrapping his tale around the ocean traveler, the insane lion lost control of his senses.  His throbbing flesh was so aching for attention that he dry humped him, slowly, gently until the pressure at the base of his dick was too much and his gyrations raged.

The shark-man giggled, amused that he was having such an effect on the furry man.  Exhibiting a great strength of his own he managed to break free from the lion’s arms.  He sprinted off to the outer edge of the forest.

“Don’t go, wait,” ThunderWolf said, running up to him, “Who are you?  What’s your name?”

He caught up to the mysterious figure under the overhanging vines of a tall tree.  The gray-toned, hairless man reached up into the branches and brought down a pair of ripe fruits, giving one to the saber lion.  The two sat, huddled close, near the exposed roots.

“My name is Shark,” the merman said, “and this is my island.”  He looked around as he bit into the ripened ovary.  A sticky liquid trickled from his lips.

The Thunderian followed suit, gulping his food in two bites: “My name is ThunderWolf.”

“Such a strong name,” Shark said, “for such a strong body.”  He twiddled with the lion’s playfully swinging tail.  “Are you still hungry?”

“Hmmm, I haven’t eaten in a few days.”  The insane lion pounded the trunk of the tree with a clenched first.  Three or four more fruits fell to the ground within reach.  “The ship I was sailing on hit an iceberg and sank.  I’ve been in that little dinghy for almost five days.  More maybe.  I lost track.  What does it matter?”

“I’m sure you have friends looking out for you.”  Shark took one of the fruits that had fallen.  “Maybe they’ll find you.”

“Maybe.”  He swallowed another fruit in one and a half chomps, much to Shark’s delight.  The merman followed the lion’s example- except that he swallowed it whole.  ThuderWolf’s eyes widened, impressed.  “Hehehe, you’re good.”

“No, I’m evil!  I’m an crazy shark.”

“So am I!  I’m an insane lion!”

Laughing heartily, the two continued to eat of the fruit of the tree.

ThunderWolf noticed a small trickle of sweet juice that had formed on Shark’s lap.  His mouth salivated.  He leaned down and lapped up the excess, sugary water.  His roaming tongue explored the forbidden flesh around the merman’s dick.  He spread apart his legs and watched his balls bouncing in their sac and his limp dick falling before it.

The lion cupped the ball sac in his fingers careful not to hurt them.  He rolled the loose flesh between his fingers, feeling its soft, coolness until the skin shriveled into a taut mass.  He kissed the two, little ellipsoids and with glee watched as the dick inflated.  It grew longer rapidly but gained girth only slowly and with his stroking touch.

Comfortably reclined between Shark’s legs, his head resting on the merman’s heaving stomach, ThunderWolf started to play with the still, flaccid member.  He paid careful attention to that rough rim of skin beneath the cock head, feeling the texture with the tips of his own finger, sending feelings of orgasmic ecstasy down the pulsating shaft.

Shark moaned as he stroked the saber lion’s mane.  His toes curled and his head arched back as the underside of his dick was liked.  Lips curled around his head, tongue poked about the knob of his erect rod.  The sensation of air passing around the tip of his cock sent him into a orgy of guttural moans that were interrupted only by a few, passing fragments of words.

“More, please, more, kiss it more,” Shark pleaded as he was quickly sent over the edge.  He fought back the instinctual urge to buck his hips.  ThunderWolf was driving him wild as he bobbed his dick in and out of his mouth, worshiping his manhood without bearing.

The saber tooth took the dick out of his mouth and studied it with his eyes.  Its flesh was wet with his saliva and the natural lubricant let him massage it with pumping strokes.  Gasping for breath, the shark-man let out an agitated roar.  A shot of white spunk erupted from Shark’s dick and landed on ThunderWolf’s arm with a soft, wet sound.  He kept stroking the cuming rod, getting his hands covered in that milky-white cream.  He stopped when it had begun to deflate in his grip.  He let it fall limp to rest over its balls, kissing it good-bye, as it were.

Out of breath but still strong enough to lift the insane lion up to him, Shark clasped him in his arms kissing him in the wake of his rush, his eyes still rolled back white in utter pleasure.  He rested his face next to his.  “That was so awesome!”

“I thought I’d never find someone like you, my sweet, ocean nymph.  I don’t know what it is, fate, love at first sight, I don’t know but-”

“I love you,” he kissed ThunderWolf on the lips, silencing him but for a moment.

 

 

Adagio

 

The kiss was the last thing he remembered about that night- gone were foggy visions of being led back to the fire to rest, gone was the buzzing high that the fruits he had quickly consumed had given him.  He awoke beside the fire he had built- it was exhausted and burned out completely.  But he was ecstatic and jubilant for he knew then that the merman was real and that they were in love.  The thoughts of what they had done cast his face in a permanent smile.

He looked down the river stream to the wide mouth where the freshwater met the foamy ocean.  He wondered where is soul mate had swum to.  “Shark,” he said aloud, his mane waving in the breeze.  He could still feel the pressure of his lips on his own.  “Where are you, my lovely fish?”

It seemed as if in the course of that night that his memories of his life- the Titanic’s sinking, his fellow authors evacuating, his friends, his enemies, all of that and more was replaced by a new reality.  Now all that existed was Shark and the only thoughts that crossed his mind were those of snuggling up to him, holding him in the deepest nights.  Thoughts of kissing him, rubbing his smoothness in those daylight hours of silent stillness.  Thoughts of tender devotion that in a thousand years he never believed he would ever feel.  For the first time in his life he had met his other ‘I’ and he wondered how long it could last.

“What is in those kisses?” He wondered as he waded naked into the waters.  He sighed as the cold fluids engulfed his body.  The merman overpowered his senses and he did not care, he did not want to resist.  “Mmmm,” he moaned, letting the currents drift him from the shore.

The island was immense.  A tall, ragged peak loomed over the east, its white-capped dome attested to its volcanic past.  Streams of melt water trickled down its gray, stone face even while bright, white clouds above replenished the glacier with a dusting of snow.  The green of the jungles began at around the base of the mount- a thin fog permeated the trees there and extended about the center of the isle.  The air was silent, interrupted only by the random flapping of birds or the swinging of a branch.  No animal clamored his ears- perhaps they were nocturnal, he wondered.

He dunked his head below the surface and looked around the light, blue haze.  The waters were lifeless, except for a series of long, leafy plants that clung to the mossy rocks of the shallow river.  Surfacing he found that he had moved a long way up the stream toward a sharp bend.

He clung to a large, flat rock that jutted out of the banks.  He stood on it and looked forward into the space between the shadowy foliage.  Moving silhouettes alerted him to a lurking presence within the forests.  As the sun continued to rise a bright light reflected from the water around distant rocky cliffs and caught his eye’s attention.  It was followed by the sounds of splashing but he could scarcely discern it for his own hike through the bushes was much more distracting.

ThunderWolf found himself on a ledge that overlooked a pool carved deep in a small ravine of sun-backed stones.  A gentle cascade from the main river fed the pristine oasis that itself emptied to a side stream that snaked off through the wilderness beyond the resolving power of the senses.  His eyes widened and he covered his smile at once, giggling like a school kid.  He dropped at to his chest, his hard, plump dick resting uncomfortably on the ground as he peered below, amidst the cover of stringy vines and leaves.

In the waters swam his tempting nymph, his shark god.  He watched eagerly as the merman lapped around the lake.  Only rarely did he come up for a breath- if indeed he had to breath air in that aquatic form.  He rubbed his stiff rod as he studied the nude body like an artist in those few moments when he had unblocked, unfettered images of it- as though he was trying to memorize its every detail.

“This is a creature built to perfection!  What strides, what curves- how glorious to be the master of such nature!”

ThunderWolf turned over, his cock poking its hole to his face and he looking at it.  He had brought himself close on the verge of cuming and stopped because he wanted more.  He wanted to save it for later knowing that his climax would only be that more intense.  He lay there silently watching as he throbbed and deflated, waiting to return to a tranquil, flaccid state.

When it was normal again he got back on his feet and lumbered into the trees.  “Do I deserve him?  Am I good enough for him?”  For a moment he paused to think- how things had changed so quickly.  Gone were the thoughts of home and what he had known his whole life.  Gone was the yearning to return to his life.  “Yes, a new life!  Because if he loves me then that’s all that matters!”

Reassured, he looked about the unspoiled wilderness and to those brightly-colored flowers that bloomed on vies and scented the air in a sugary, sweet perfume.  He picked the buds and carefully intertwined them in his twiddling fingers.  He did not know how many he had gathered or even how long a garland he had knitted, he was too lost in a fantasy world that was actually true.  For the longest time he had kept those vulnerable feelings repressed and not that he was on that enchanted island, free and open, the sentiments gushed out of him like a broken damn.

Down an embankment and between eroded steps ThunderWolf came to the flats of the stream and the opening of the lake.  His heard fluttered and his stomach tickled in shivers of nervousness.  Shark sat at the base of an outcrop of rocks, kicking his fin-lined legs into the bubbly waters.

“Hi,” the saber lion said- he was behind the merman.

“Hi, you!” the shark-man said as he turned around with his arms open.

ThunderWolf, waist high in the water, lunged up onto the base of the rock and all but fell into Shark’s embrace.  Anchoring himself on the stone with his knees, he leaned back, letting go of his hug.  His hands shook as he wrapped the flowered garland around the merman’s neck, letting the untied ends droop before cut and trim shoulders.  He let his fingers roam about the deep lines that formed between tensing muscles on the gray-figure’s chest.

“You are so beautiful,” he moaned- his pulsating rod was up at attention again, poking his friend in the ribs.

“No, you are the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen.”  Shark took the lion’s aching member and rubbed the loose flesh gently up and down.  “You’re so soft and cuddly.  I could lose myself in your arms forever.”  He wrapped his arms around the saber tooth and pressed their naked bodies onto each others.  He rested his face around the Thunderian’s furry pecs while his webbed hands patted around his back, feeling the bumps of his spine down to this tail that whipped around in pleasure.  He returned to the naughtier parts, cupping the fierce one’s balls that rested just above the water, exploring the rugged, scrunching flesh with his eager fingers.

“I missed you last night,” ThunderWolf said between groans.

“You fell asleep after I kissed you- you weren’t too excited, were you?”  he asked while he massaged the saber lion’s phallus.

“I was, but I-” he lifted Shark’s face up and tongued his lips, roaming his mouth.  “There’s just something about your kisses.”  He rubbed the side of his face against Shark’s cheek.  “I am putty in your hands.”

ThunderWolf straddled Shark on the rock, spreading his legs wide just enough.  He thrust his hips down to bring his dick to the same level as the shark-man’s.  The merman’s rod was limp.  The lion held it in one hand and stroked its exposed head with the palm of his other.  As he felt it stiffen he angled his own cock down and with a series of rapid motions he rubbed his tip around the nymph’s until both were feverishly erect.  They watched in amazement at the sight of their dicks as they hungered and lusted for each other’s touch.

“That’s what you do to me,” the insane lion roared as he lifted himself up, giving the insane shark a better view of his knob.

Shark decided to repay the saber lion for that splendid favor he had been given that last night.  Happily he licked up the cat’s balls, kissing the hanging, rounded stones through the thick, muscular sac.  Taking little, playful ‘bites’ of the fur-covered shaft with his lips, he turned his attention to the feline’s cock.

ThunderWolf began to laugh because it tickled him, he did not resist although he had begun to lean back away from the merman as the pleasure that surged through his pulsating rod increased.  He wrapped his arms around Shark’s shoulders and stroked the sides of his face, the nape of his neck and the sleek lines and aquatic forms of the back of his head.  All the while he moaned for his manhood was being stroked vigorously by the firm hands of the man he loved.  The feel of his semen moving up his balls gave him the frustrating sensation of peeing, one that he tried to hold back but that he wanted more of.  He roared, arching his head back, his body tense, heaving and trembling, ready to spill his seed.

Shark did not stop even while the thick, fur-covered rod he held erupted in an orgasmic display of streaming white, hot cum.  The shaft contracted like one, long muscle, each pulse accompanied by a low grunt and a shot of spray.  Most of the saber lion’s cum creamed his chest.  The gooey mass dripped down his nipples to his lap around the base of his dick that, too, stood at attention.

Exhausted, his heart racing, ThunderWolf  fell atop of Shark.  The merman angled him to the side and snuggled up to him on the rock.  He rubbed his furry back and played with his snaking tail.

The sun ascended to ever higher reaches in the sky- soon it inched above the trees that marked the rim of the small pond that the two were in.

“Where did you go last night?  What do you do on this island?” ThunderWolf asked, as he played with Shark’s webbed ear.  “I for one I like to beat up Liono and the other Thundercats.”

“Oh, beat them up, too?  Why?”

“He’s an arrogant little twerp.  He’d be nothing without that sword.  And I happen to have an evil streak in me, hehehe.”

“Hahaha, you’re mean, I like evil, too- it’s just more fun sometimes.”

Kissing his brow he said:  “Then that’s all that matters.”

Getting up over him, Shark rubbed behind his ears:  “Let me show you where I live.”

 

 

Andante Comodo

 

Without a moment of hesitation, the insane lion followed Shark off the rock and into the water.  The two treaded upon the pebbles that lined the bottom of the pond as they headed to the emergent stream that stood opposite the sparkling cataracts.  There the currents were strong and the river bottom was deep.  It took only the slightest effort to dunk themselves beneath the surface.

Shark waited for him to take a deep breath before he helped him down to the muddy floor of the brook.  The water was clear but ThunderWolf’s eyes were not built to see beneath the waves so even though he could tell shapes, colors and differentiate between objects, he could not see as sharply as the merman whose eyes had a flexible layer that covered his black irises in his aquatic mode.

ThunderWolf could not see how the shark-man’s body had morphed from his more familiar dry-land mode.  He could not see how his fins had grown and strengthened, how his head had become more fish-like.  His legs had fused into one, singular structure, long and triangular, that terminated in a pair of broad fins that patted the lion’s chest as though to entice him to come along.

The saber lion let his body levitate as it were to Shark’s dorsal fin which he then grabbed tightly.  Curiously, even though he had been underwater for a few minutes he felt no fear or panic for breath.  Indeed, he was at peace, relived and reinvigorated.

The swim began at once, traversing the curves and depths of the meandering stream.  The waters were a light blue and as he moved deeper, looking up, he saw slants of sun braking the rippled texture of the river’s surface.  Aside form the large plants and drifting debris the stream was devoid of life.

In an unexpected move Shark brought them to the deepest level of the stream, down so close over the bottom that the mud streaked his chest.  The insane lion found himself amidst a shadowy darkness and shivered in the omnipotent cold that enveloped his body.  Still, the merman sped forward and at once the most magnificent and terrifying change occurred before his eyes.  No longer was there a bottom- or if there was it was so many thousands of feet below that is was invisible.  The water seemed thicker, dirtier and replete with distant, shimmering shapes.  Holding on tighter still he wanted to close his eyes but at the same time he wanted to see and know.  He did not want to be afraid.

Shark turned to the left to let ThunderWolf catch a side glimpse of the deep cliff that marked the island’s underwater border.  It was ragged and beaten by the elemental forces of erosion.  It was lined with the telltale marks of streamlines where once rivers flowed, once, when the waters of Third Earth were not as deep.  At top notch speed his ocean companion circled around in a wide arc.

He saw to his dread that the merman was headed into a sparkling mass of heaving darkness.  It had the appearance of being a blob, a large, living mass acting and reacting to the varied currents of its surroundings.  They got so close to it that he saw that it was not one body but a conglomeration of many, hundreds of little fish behaving in unison, each no longer than ten inches.  Their bodies were thin and sleek and covered with sharp fins that scratched his arms and face.

The shark-man’s intrusion had turned that envious, well-oiled biological machine of fish into a quivering vortex of chaos and frantic disorder.  The panic was evident in the thrashing that echoed through the ocean.  The saber lion was just a tad disconnected in that environment that was so thoroughly alien to him.  Yet he knew that as long as he did not let go of his friend that he would be all right.

The attack lasted but a brief moment but to ThunderWolf it passed like an eerie eternity that he would have preferred to have spent with his eyes shut and his face pressed into the folds of his arms.  It was like a film that he had tried to see once a long time ago, a film whose details were only now returning to him.

Soon the little nips that tickled his body ceased.  He was headed back to the island, getting nearer to the main river.  At the interface between the salt and fresh waters he felt the difference in the environment almost instantly.  Shark swam up the stream’s course, slowly, slowly, letting himself metamorphosize.  ThunderWolf felt long before he saw the changes that were at work on his friend- he had legs again but his fins were not fully retracted.   The saber tooth did not let go until he was deep in the island.

Rising to the top he gasped- water had seeped into his nose and a strange taste came from the back of his throat.  For a second it was painful to swallow but the effect passed.  Rubbing his eyes he saw the merman’s back fin and followed it to the banks of the shore where he had spent the night on the rocks.  Shark was struggling to get on his feet so he picked him up with one hand.

“Are you all right?” ThunderWolf asked, a bit worried.

“Just sea legs, that’s all.”  He reached out and handed the fierce Thunderian a fish.  It was still alive and thrashing.

The saber lion grabbed it, sticking his claws into its meat.  “For me?  Thank you.”

“I thought you might like some breakfast.  I already ate.”

ThunderWolf smiled and looked at the fish in his fist- it was bleeding and moving.

“Your home is a whole other world, Shark, I wasn’t built for it.”

Fondling the lion’s bare chest:  “I know,” he sighed, “but what does it matter.  I wasn’t made for your world, either.  We don’t need that, we have our own reality here.  Forget about your past, about everything and you can be happy here, with me.”  He pulled his face up and tongued him deeply for the better part of a minute.

ThunderWolf knew he was being seduced by the merman and he loved every moment of it.  He loved that he was so completely wrapped around Shark’s little finger.  He came to realize then, too, that he loved Shark because to him alone could he feel comfortable being totally and absolutely vulnerable.

“I will learn to live in your world,” he said as he embraced the shark-man, enjoying the way their hot cocks rubbed onto each others.

Shark stepped back with a sly smile.  He returned to the waters and vanished in the deep.

ThunderWolf’s heart was sent a flutter.  It took him a second or two to remember the fish that had been caught for him.  He took it to the site of the dead fire and worked hard to re-ignite it.  Once that was up and going he turned to his food.  With his claws and through sheer force he gutted the animal with a single slit down its underside.  It was a dirty, stomach-turning job but all the while he did it his mind was elsewhere, his thoughts lingered in another place, his imagination was with Shark, his soul mate, his other-self.

A bright smile came to his face.

Headless and sliced in half, the fish sizzled in the fire pit’s flames.  The air was scented with the sweet smell of its charring flesh.  The saber lion sat back on a stump and as he waited he carved into the sand the words:  “Shark + TW, 2gether 4ever!”

After a quick breakfast that was eaten so late in the morning that it was almost lunch, the insane one set out to explore the island on his own.  If it was to be his home for the rest of his life then he wanted to get to know its every detail.  He had already seen what lay in one corner so he wanted to hike through the rest.

He treaded across the river, clothed only in his shorts and armed with his mace.  As usual, the silence of the forests was deafening- Third Earth was notorious for being densely packed with exotic life forms.  But not that island, at least not on the surface, it was almost purposefully devoid of animal life yet there did not seem to be anything wrong with the place.

At the top of short, root-covered hill, he spread apart thickets of fronds to reveal the gray-face of the looming mountain.  Its ominous slopes hinted of a darker past but ThunderWolf paid it no notice and continued on with his trek.  He was on a part of the island that was unusually rocky and marked with smooth, eroded craters.  A thick salt encrusted the soil and soon even the vegetation faded and vanished under his feet.

He was in a clearing of brown sand and mangled monoliths.  A hot stream of air vented close to the earth- its weak gusts waved his mane about.

He spotted a trail on the soil.  It was the first evidence he had that he was not alone.  The prints had a familiar caninoid appearance but small and light.  The beast that had formed it was no doubt a weakling.  He followed it to the edge of the flat-land, to the border with a field of crabgrass.

Jetting up from the ground were the ruins of an adobe village.  Destroyed by the irreversibility of time, the half-buried huts managed to retain a certain echo of livability.  Indeed, when he peered into one of the larger homes he found the remains of a pillow and mattress that had been used relatively and recently after the settlement had been eradicated.

The animal trail itself led to a cavern opening surrounded by thorny bushes.  He spread the undergrowth with his mace.  A small animal that looked like a cross between a dog and a raccoon poked its furry head out of its shadowy cover.  It was startled but not threatened- no one else had ever done that to it, perhaps, perhaps not in a thousand years.  He laughed gruffly and stood back, letting the thick leafs ruffle back in place.

For the next few hours he walked around the shore of the island, leaving the vast, steamy interior for another time.  Aside from other villages he had found statues and engravings under massive vines and leaves that had reclaimed them, artistry that reminded him of the merman.  But the shattered relics were badly whether beaten and eroded and told him very little about that place’s history.

It was not until the early evening that he discovered a most tempting, tantalizing artifact.  An airship, that had crashed into a thicket of trees a hundred yards from the shore, still stood in the canopy that had dulled its impact.  It was untouched by fire and although key elements like engines and propellers were missing it was still in essence whole.

Looking around he saw the ocean beyond the beach.  No longer blue and dull, it was now a flat, eternal plane, ruffled with foamy crests that shimmered like strands of silver.  The sound of the crashing waves was muffled by distance.  Turning back he saw a most paradoxical sight- though the sky above was a strong, bright gray, the trees that surrounded the site of plane, indeed the entire jungle as far as he could see, was black with quivering shadows.  Still the sun hovered precariously over the western horizon below the cover of the mountain.  It would not set for another hour or more but its telltale doom was already having an effect in the coldness that the air suddenly attained.

“You found me,” Shark said appearing unexpectedly from the underbrush.

“Do you live here?”  ThunderWolf spun on his heels in time to catch sight of the shark-man.

“Sometimes I do, when it’s quiet in the island.  Sometimes I just stay in the water.”

“You mean this place isn’t always so quiet?”

“It’s deceptive because the animals tend to come out at night but even then they tend to remain silent except for certain times.  When the moon’s out, when it’s the breeding time of year.  It frightens me sometimes.”

“Don’t be afraid, not around me.”  The saber lion wrapped his arms around the merman.  His heat and burly fur dried the ocean traveler’s gray skin.

“You’ll protect me?”

“Of course, silly.”

They stroked each other’s backs tenderly in the night.

 

 

Finale.  Allegro moderato- Allegro Energico

 

A rope dangled freely from unseen attachments that secured it to the open hatch of the plane above.  The large, square-shaped door was basked in shadows that revealed nothing of the ship’s interior.  ThunderWolf grabbed one of the rungs that Shark pointed to- he paused for a moment to reflect upon its safety.  Clenching the mace in his jaws, he set foot on the makeshift net-ladder.  It sagged audibly under his weight, stretching beyond groaning as he ascended into the body of the crashed vessel.

Shark was immediately under him, stopping from time to time to enjoy the view, as it were.

The insane lion crawled into the fuselage on his stomach and waited by the opening until he saw the merman’s head emerge.  He reached out and, grabbing him by the shoulders, he eased him into the plane.  Together they lay, arms and legs intertwined, on the cold floor, squeezing hands and giggling intermittently as they conversed.  Their words were soft and few for they knew exactly what they were thinking.

In the dim plane, gray light and cool winds seeped through broken windows and holes eaten into the metal.  The crashing sound of the ocean echoed alongside their rapid breathing.  The saber tooth let his hands wander into the warmth between his mate’s legs.  The shark-man jerked almost in shock when he felt those fingers on his cock, petting and squeezing his loose flesh.  He closed his eyes and moaned as the growing pleasure of his erection burned in his loins.  He loved it, he could not get enough of it, to have his dick  worshiped if for no other reason than because it was his dick, a throbbing, pulsing symbol of his manhood.  The plethora of sensation was beyond bearing.  Steadily, with lion’s every stroke, he was losing control of his body.

“Don’t stop,” Shark pleaded- ThunderWolf had taken his hand away from his aching balls- “you’re not hurting me.”

“Oh, I know that!”  Sitting, he moved his fingers back around his lover’s balls, rolling his sac with his fingertips.  He smiled but his eyes deceived him.

“What’s wrong, TW?”  Shark turned up to face him.  “You look sad.”

He sighed:  “I’m torn, my tempting nymph,” he said with a faint grin.  “I guess.  I wonder what’s become of my friends.  We were all on a boat that sank.  Everyone got away but only my boat drifted off.  I wonder if they miss me.”

Playing with strands of his black mane the ocean traveler said:  “I’m sure they do- but fate brought to you to me and that means everything.  I know but a little of what your world is like.  I’ve roamed about the seas, following boats, entering ports throughout the globe.  I could never live on land in the places that I’ve seen.  It’s just not for me, I’d be a caged animal.  I know it’s odd but here in this little island I’m at home and in the ocean I’ve found the most perfect kind of freedom.  The world is ruled by the small and arrogant, but just a few feet from shore, in the waves of the sea their tyranny drowns, their-”  ThunderWolf embraced him tightly, holding him to the warmth of his fur.  “A big ship is coming near,” he said, “and I found the small boat.  I dragged it to the beach.  If you want to leave-”

“Never, I’ll never leave you.  You’ve opened up a whole new world in me.  I owe you so much, my life, I belong to you, Shark.”  He kissed his forehead, leaving his lips there to linger on the flesh.

“You mean that?  Really, really mean that?”

“If anyone does come for me, I’ll tell them I’m staying and if they want to see me again, they’ll know where to look.”

“I’ll find out who they are and if they’re looking for you I’ll lead them back here.”

“Yes, that sounds workable.  Hehehe, it’ll be quite a story to explain but I always get my way.”

Shark stood and, holding onto ThunderWolf’s tail, he dragged his mate toward the front of the plane.  In the hollowed-out cockpit the last light of day were still visible through the shattered glass.  Under a table crudely formed from what survived of the crash, he removed a green, tine case.  A name had been etched on the lid in stencil, but age and use had withered the letterings.  He opened the box on the cluttered desktop.  It contained nothing more than maps and scribbled documents but amidst the withered confetti were two, small round objects.

“I found these in the plane when I was younger.  I think they’re wedding rings.  So,” he held one up, it gleamed on the orange light of sunset.

The insane lion held out his hand, the insane shark took it in his own and explored the curled digits.  The gold ring was a bit large but with a squeeze the pliable metal conformed to the Thunderian’s finger.  It was ThunderWolf’s turn to wed Shark symbolically by placing the other ring around his gray, smooth finger.

“We are one now, my sweet lion, we are one mind in two bodies.”

The saber tooth grunted, leaning forward to plant a slobbery kiss on the shark’s lips.

A yellow crescent moon reflected above the eastern ocean as though it was a toy suspended with wires.  Emerging in the shadows of night, the wilderness awoke, teeming in an eerie symphony of bays and howls.  Shark shivered for the sounds of the scavengers  unnerved him worse than lightning, but ThunderWolf was unmoved.

“Now it’s my turn to protect you.”

Snuggled in the lion’s arms, the merman felt a certain peace and oneness that once he had thought- no, feared- to be impossible.  “Let’s have a snack,” he said at last.  He led his saber tooth to another corner of the plane, to what remained of a waist-high refrigerator.  Although there was no electricity and therefore no power, its walls were well-insulated enough to sustain a slightly lower temperature.

As ThunderWolf eyes adjusted to the blackness he could make out the details clearly.  The shelves were full of what appeared to be coconuts only smaller.  Shark removed two and closed the door with the back of his leg.  The radio that sat atop the appliance shook alarmingly.

“Does that still work?” he asked, pointing to the relic.

“That- it used to.  The battery died, though.  I like how it looks, that’s why I kept it.”  He bit into the tough shell of the fruit and spit out the rind from the side of his mouth.  He handed the open specimen to the lion and then opened his own.

The insane Thunderian looked into the hairy ball- a smell was coming out of it, the odor of which he thought was familiar.  “BEER!”  He jumped up and down, shaking the perched plane.  “It’s beer!  I don’t believe it!”  He gulped it down, smacking his lips while the insane shark looked on in glee.

They threw their empty fruits away, drew up the flimsy ladder and headed to a hatch that opened to a compartment below.  The secret chamber was basked in the electric, hazy light of night for the back doors had been crumpled open.  The stars and moon illuminated the cabin as though those distant orbs were part of a tall city’s skyline.  The only sounds were of the ocean and their heavy, beating hearts.  Nothing else existed, nothing else mattered.

Shark had made a bed for himself from piles of mattresses and pillows.  The materials were very soft and had a fluidity that let his fin not feel uncomfortable if he lay on his back.  He sat on the edge of the wooden frame and watched in awe as the lion peeled off his clothing- clothing that he would no longer need on that island as he had to hide nothing from his beloved.

Straddling before the merman, he cupped his balls forward, displaying his manhood.  Just the thought of his bare flesh so exposed and open for his nymph caused his dick to lengthen and widen in quick bursts.  Shark salivated at the feel of that forbidden flesh, he petted the well-hung meat and squeezed it ever so slightly, riding the skin of the shaft up and down.  To that titillation ThunderWolf was quickly up at attention, his breathing had become labored.

The shark-man gave the tip of his rod a little kiss.  He moved his hands up, over his stomach, around the sides of his ribs, stopping at his chest where his fingers came to rest around the lion’s pulsating heart.  That organ’s palpitations were also quite undeniable.

“I want you, I want you now!  I want to feel you cum over me!”  He eased back on the bed, dragging the saber tooth with him.  Their bulging rods poked into their stomachs.

ThunderWolf licked the underside of Shark’s rod.  He gave its hot, rough head a long, slobbery kiss that was more like the kind of deep-throated suck that he might have given a lollipop or an icicle.  Letting the aching cock fall back he got up and repositioned himself.  He rammed his own dick between his lover’s thighs- which he held close together- just around the gap below his shrunken balls so that as he stroked his shaft would rub against the shark-man’s bulge.  He fell over him, locking his arms around him, giving his hands ample room to grope the merman even while his hips were busy drilling his dick.

Shark was driven mad.  His dick was flat between their heaving bodies, getting rubbed and massaged by the constant action of the saber tooth’s chest.  He let out a low, long roar- he was the first to cum.  His hot seed streamed up in short bursts as he arched his head back and gyrated his hips.  His load spent and exhausted, his arms around the lion’s waist, like his whole body, fell back numb.  All he could feel was ThunderWolf’s heavy body, his hard, thick shaft ramming into his ass.

The feel of Shark’s cum sent him reeling past that point of no return.  Like a spring wound tight he was frustrated by the urge to erupt and the need to feel more.  A new pressure throbbed at the base of his cock.  He knew, as he shouted uncontrollably, that it was over and that he could not hold back his climax.  One moment he humped vigorously and in the next he stopped in midair.  Time slowed and as his body shivered, his dick, long and hard, squirted his seed into the bed.  He let out a gasp and began to drop from his high, his eyes rolled back in his head, his teeth glared, his lips curled.

Sleepily, he stayed over his mate, shifted a little to the side.  Close to each other so that their intimacy lingered, they spent the rest of the night together, content in each other’s warmth.  He sighed, knowing that it was but the start of an unending bond.

 

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