House of Refuge, Chapter 9

9 Brightsong

We went forth into blackness until my eyes adjusted from the bright light of the hall. I walked by the sound of the footsteps of men around me, and the comfort of Yarrow’s hand in mine. Then pools of light emerged on the ground beneath the Tree, through level after level of branches in new leaf rising above us. The outline of the bowers set up in a circle, each with a lantern set next to its entrance. The banners of Refugetakers tied to the lowest limbs, still invisible but brushing my face as I passed them.

Men removing and folding garments to the side of the walkway. And in the strengthening pale light of the moon, faces nuzzling into necks or laid against chests, hands reaching for rising stands. Men pressing themselves in embrace against the trunk of the Tree. A man leading another by the hand--Willowwind leading Arrowshot, I was sure--toward one of the bowers.

Then Yarrow’s breath on my face. The brush of his stubble against my cheek. Our lips parting. The second time that day, I thought with a moment’s confusion, and the second time in my life, that I’d opened my mouth to the kiss of another man. My hand reaching down to the stand I could already feel pressing against my hip. His laughing encouragement to slow down as I kneaded him desperately.

The awkwardness of feeling the hands of another man caressing our shoulders. Then Yarrow leading me away to a bower, and the flickering play of lanternlight inside the door over the cushions inside as we fell into each other’s arms. Our faint shadows on the walls of the tent.

His weight on top of me, the roll of his belly against mine. My hands on his flanks, and then sliding down to clutch the hard muscles of his buttocks.

Home. Sanctuary. Refuge.

His teeth gently biting at the line of my jaw, the warmth of his tongue against my neck. The sound of my own moans as though they belonged to another man; my disbelief that all this could be happening. My prayer that it would never end.

The moment when we rolled over and I found myself on top of him, now with his face pressed into my chest, as it had been that afternoon into Yellowwood’s. The impossible ecstasy of it, believable because I’d already witnessed it between the two of them. My stand pressed against his belly, slick now with the flow of my arousal, and his against my thigh.

Sanctuary. Refuge. Home.

My gasps quickening.

“Remember what you learned in the Longhouse, Brightsong. Use your breath. You can hold it, you can hold more. Our seedflow belongs to the Staghorn Lord. But not yet, not yet. Stay with me. Hang onto me. Breathe.”

Sitting up together, stand to stand, heart to heart, Not-One-and-Not-Two. Slowing our breath down. Breathing as one. Stillness. Stands cradled in palms almost motionless. Then anointed with oil from a bowl in the corner and stroked so slowly that the rise and fall of our breath was faster than our hands. Time falling away, the very possibility of words falling away. The energy uncoiling up my spine as we’d learned to recognize in the Longhouse.

Refuge. Home. Sanctuary.

The point when I began doing in turn to Yarrow what he’d done to me. The hardness of his nipple against my tongue. The roll of my own body as he lay under me. The moment when his own gasps told me he in his turn was just at the edge of seedflow, and his deep, slow breaths bringing him back, making room within himself for more pleasure.
The memory of his bare skin against mine in the river, years before. The knowledge that I’d wanted this then without knowing what it was I’d wanted. That I’d wanted this as a child of five, sitting on his knee.

Home.

Rolling over again, and his arms sliding down my body in firm embrace. His hair trailing over my chest, the roughness of his chin nuzzling my belly as he kissed me just below the navel. And down again, his hair brushing my thighs. The unimaginable miracle of his mouth for the first time on my stand.

Sanctuary.

Outside our bower, a soft, slow, steady drumbeat. His head rising, his smile just visible in the dim light from the lantern behind him at the door. His hand extended to pull me up and guide me out of the tent back into the company of the others. My arousal evident to every man who looked toward me in the moonlight, as theirs was to me.

Refuge.

The steady drumbeat grew gradually louder. Men stood in pairs, or in knots of three or four or five. Two or three lay face down, spread-eagled and thrusting against the earth.

At the edgeof the circle, alone with his arms crossed, stood Amberheart. I saw nothing of Bowstring and their cousin-down-country among the men close enough to me to make out their faces. The four men who’d walked up country ahead of us stood together in a circle, each with one arm around his neighbour, their heads bowed and their free arms reaching down into their midst in the now-bright moonlight pouring straight down through the tree.

One of the men lying face-down on the ground groaned, cried out “Twice-begotten and twice-born!” and lay still. Another man knelt down to lay a hand between his shoulder blades, then gently stroked his hair, speaking softly to him, all the while continuing to caress his own stand.

Yarrow knelt before me, taking me once more into his mouth. My knees began to buckle. I caught myself on his shoulders, then found myself cradling his head and thrusting my hips forward. Behind him facing me stood Yellowwood, watching but hesitant until I smiled and extended my hand.

Now I can name what was happening to us as I couldn’t have then: the dropping away of the small self, as we merged into the Soul of the Staghorn Lord. Thought no longer preceded, the body no longer followed. Our mouths opened to one another--to Yarrow’s momentary surprise, as he looked up, then turned to take Yellowwood in his mouth as he’d taken me, before Yellowwood himself sank to his knees, the two of them licking at my stand, their hands clasped between them and around my thighs.

The drumbeat louder still, and and with it the moans of a dozen men around the Tree. I heard again, from across the circle, the cry “Twice-begotten and twice-born!”--which one man after another began to echo in quick succession.

“I can’t hold back any longer,” I whimpered.Both men rose.  Yellowwood stepped behind me, his one arm around my chest, pulling me back to lean against him, his other reaching down to cradle my sac. Yarrow’s cheek against mine was bliss. His firm, slow stroke was sweet agony. My seedflow erupted in a moonlit fountain and fell glistening onto the ground at my feet.

“Offer your seed. Declare yourself His son,” Yellowwood whispered into my ear. “Twice-begotten and twice-born.”

“Twice-begotten and twice-born,” I stammered, to hear it repeated around the circle by still more men, before I collapsed entirely into Yarrow’s arms.

I have no recollection of leaving the Tree--none even of Yarrow or Yellowwood offering his seedflow to the roots of the Staghorn Lord. I remember only the door of the dormitory, and moonlight streaming through its high windows onto the curtains around the beds. Falling into one of them, crawling somehow between the sheets, embraced on either side by Yarrow and Yellowwood. Vaguely aware of the voices of Arrowshot and Willowwind murmuring just beyond the curtain in the next cubicle. Sinking at once into the deepest, most fully dreamless sleep I’d known in weeks.

Sanctuary. Refuge.

Home.