Zel's Story
by J.L. Atwood

 
     With a bit of an effort, Zel heaved himself off the false-mare’s back. Inwardly, he winced at the state he must look, far from the pretty peacock exterior he usually put forth. Outwardly, he could barely shake off the lethargy that threatened to send him to sleep, right where he stood. The warm glow that follows pent-up release filled his body, and made walking difficult for a few moments. Ruefully, he rubbed the back of his neck as he wandered towards the bath, stretching occasionally.

     ‘Dvan…’ He mused. ‘Who would have thought he could be so… interesting.’ Interesting, indeed. While servicing the carpenter, Zel had been hard pressed not to make more… overt and direct play, leading the pliable and desperate male to acts he would regret later. The stallion’s reactions had been positively delicious, and by the time he’d left, Zel had been half-mad to work out his own frustrations upon the false-mare. Or, as he preferred to think of it… false-stallion. He had done well, indeed, judging by the amount of seed Dvan had smeared along the inside. Seed he gladly used to slicken his own efforts towards release…

     He turned the handles in the shower, letting the water thunder down on his cooling body. Resting his uppershoulders against the wall, he sagged into the heat, letting his mind drift away from his body and wander where it would.



     The first thought was of his dam, Kelsey. Kel was the daughter of a rouge, a mare gone ‘wild’ and broken off away from her own ‘herd’ to seek her own fortune and be every bachelor’s dream of finding and earning as his own. Kel’s mother Zalda sought and picked her foal’s sires from where she would for many years, moving from bachelor camp to bachelor camp with a gradually increasing group of fellow rouges. Some even said she stole a few mares herself, tempting them away from their sedate city life. Kel was her first-born, and little better than a rouge herself until she found his sire and he earned her respect. She was raised practically nomadic, and as such knew a great deal about the outer camps and their customs than the average mare. Perhaps that was how she noticed that her firstborn was a little fey himself, before the others did, and began to lavish a bit of teaching on him.

     He knew the other mares thought her daft when she began to teach him some of the ‘womanly’ arts. Some blamed his outcome on this behavior, but he didn’t believe it. She recognized early on that her son much preferred the company of males to females, and grew distinctly uncomfortable when one of the other went into her estrus. He had the right reactions, but they panicked him rather than enthralled. But her son was just that, a son, and as such he would be ousted on his 15th birthday no matter what his tastes. But she knew there was a need for his orientation in the camps, and if he played it right his life could be a comfortable one.

     So, she taught him poise and how to be ‘sexy’ in pose alone. The care of mane, tail, and coat… exercises to keep his form sleek and nimble. The things a filly is taught when she, too, is trying to vamp the stallions and find herself a place to settle and live. And then, when his 15th arrived, she sent him to an old friend of hers. A stal named Vanel, with whom Zel was instantly smitten. Which, of course, is what his mother intended. Van taught him the act of love, male to male, and in as many different ways as a body can twist. He taught young Zel the code the camp ‘courtesans’ lived by. The unwritten rules, the boundaries drawn. And how to service a male who was not... necessarily… enthused with the idea of another male providing him with relief. Zel once envied the humans, who could reach their own equipment without their spines protesting when reaching for an amount of time.



     His thoughts lingered on Vanel a while, and if he hadn’t just spent himself so thoroughly, he would most likely have needed a session. As it was, the thought of the stal sent a shiver down his spine; a true master of the arts, true, but he sent Zel’s thoughts downwards long before he ever laid hands on him. Black… black hide, black hair, black eyes, seated in a skin so fair it looked as if it had never seen the sun. Zel sighed, or meant to, but it came out more as the lusty hurr of a stallion. A smile came to linger on his lips, thinking of the stall’s fine hands, and how they knew just where to touch, when, to send another stal plunging over the edge. How many times had he stroked him just so, tracing the flare… making him spill without the false-mare’s help…

     Zel groaned, his hips arching forward into his memory-lover’s hands, the image so strong that he could… almost… feel the fingers tracing. So soon after his last spilling, he was willing to let the feelings play out, lost in his thoughts. He leaned more against the shelving, letting it take more of his weight, as the warm water flowed over both sodden hair and slick hide.

     Vanel had a way of making a stal wait, of drawing out the act, that kept him in steady business, male or not. His customers always reeled after he was finished, left weak and spent. He could remember the warm weight of Vanel, leaning against his haunch, one arm thrown over his rips, gripping him lightly to remind him of the sensation he loved… the hearty clasping of a stal’s hooves around him. The other, so busy beneath, rubbing his shaft, circling the flare lightly until he was ready to scream. His shaft, in the here and now, had long since escaped it’s sheath and stiffened, and with the idea of such running through his brain it gave a hearty slap against his belly, breaking his dream-lover’s grip upon him.

     Smiling at himself, and now aware that the mare was to get another use before her cleaning, he returns to his reminiscing, content to let the urge build until for now. Slipping into the folds of memory again, her found Vanel’s touch to be all too enticing. Perhaps because it had been so long since another had returned his affections; perhaps because Vanel’s memory was a luxury he didn’t afford himself too often, lest he grow melancholy.

     Ah, how he wished he was here now, but Vanel was dead a decade now, and his fond memory was all there was left of him and the skills he lovingly passed on. His hips twitched convulsively forward, the shaft tingling with the passage of water over it and the threads of memory. He felt his flanks begin to tremble, the feeling of the water racing down his shaft almost too sharp in the wake following his earlier. But it was enticing, too, and aided in his memories. Vanel…

     The first true aching set in, and the mare grew more tempting by the moment. He grunted, reaching for the grip of his lover’s memory and finding it all too real. Far too real were the hands about his shaft, and he made use of them. Moaning, he found himself rapidly approaching his second spilling… and found himself surprised by the reality but unwilling to open his eyes to dispel it. He felt his flare swelling, belling, and the fingers were there to trace it. The limit is passed, and he thrusts into the hands, his seed spurting out to spatter the wall before his forelegs, jetting into the ether and a ghost lover’s hands. This spilling is as intense as the first, and he finds himself nearly choking on the water as he tries to gulp in air between jets…

     The memories fade, leaving him to his shower; the falling water, the gurgling sounds of the drain. Groggily he straitens up, rubbing numbed arms, and reaches for the opposites shelving and the soaps upon it. His hand encounters slick flesh… the kind stals sport upon their upper halves. His eyes open, blinking away the water, to find the grinning and somewhat bemused visage of a sodden Dvan greeting him, his fingers and arm still bearing the goopy evidence of his recent activities.

     "Wash your back?" Dvan offers, a bit too smug to be completely casual.