BETA MALE: FULL MOON LONELINESS - COMPLETED

Chapter 1. Black Moon

After my man ejaculated on my naked body and filled me with his wild fluid, I laid on top of him. We were drenched in sweat. And there, sliding my fingers through his hairy chest, I set out to remember how I got into his arms.

By that night, I had walked for almost a fortnight without stopping. I was officially a rebel, a deserter to the war, and I was trying to eat my shame to feed my hungry body and starving soul. But there was no shame in me, because neither hunger nor thirst were enough to make me regret the decision I had made, so I was destined to die. The thick jungle had turned my army uniform to rags. My boots were trashed. My skin was so dry it was falling apart. My thirsty soul insisted on leaving my body, but I wasn't giving up.

The nights were heavy. When I fled, the moon had begun to wane, and it did so until it was completely black. That night, the new moon in its dark splendor had abandoned me to the mercy of the courage that I was losing day by day and with every step I took.

I was so hungry that it was impossible for me to fall asleep, so I could have kept walking until dawn despite my fear of the supernatural. But that night in particular, my feet and nails hurt so much that I had to lie next to a weeping willow, which was dancing in the wind and seemed like it was trying to take me among its branches and tear me to pieces.

I immediately heard footsteps. Someone, something, was approaching me. I grabbed my gun at once, aimed it into the darkness, and held my breath.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you," said a man's voice from the darkness. I breathed again, desperately. "Find your way back once and for all. In a few days, this forest will be filled with death once again."

"If I could find a way out, I would have left a long time ago," I replied.

"Go away," said the man when I felt that he was about to walk away.

I begged this man for mercy and he threw a piece of bread at me, which I ate eagerly and almost choked since I had no water. The only liquid I managed to collect from a water puddle was hardly enough to get this bread down to my stomach.

Two nights later, in the midst of the loneliness and immense distance of that sinister jungle, I found a wooden cabin. The low light the moon was giving me at the time let me see how old this cabin was. If I had been less hungry, I would have been terrified to imagine what kind of witch would inhabit it.

I knocked on the door, got no answer. I insisted, yelled through the windows for help and charity the whole night and got nothing. I tried to open the door with my knife, but it was impossible. That night I found neither help nor food in that cabin, but one way or another, I found peace of mind. I felt safe for the first time since I had left my house to go to war and managed to fall asleep lying on the damp ground in front of the door of that old hut.

Soft drops of rain on my cheeks woke me up at dawn. The first thing I saw was the door of the cabin. It was open. There was also a man leaning against the frame. He was looking at me. His gaze was as intense as lightning, but it wasn't a look of rage. That man was admiring the misery of my malnourished body just as I was admiring the greatness of his. This man was wild in a clean and beautiful way. He was barefoot, wearing jeans and nothing else. His hairy torso and defined abdomen, the size of his nipples, his huge arms, shoulders, and neck, his beard and his gray hair, the bulge between his legs, the faint gray hairs and scars that adorned his entire body, the lines that softly crossed his forehead, speaking of his experience, and his masculine way of looking at me made that man too much for me. What was I doing having an erection if I was practically a dead man?

He seemed to be stalking me as prey, and I wanted him to eat me alive.

Without saying a word and without changing his expression, he made a sign with his hand inviting me to follow him into the cabin, and I lost sight of him. I sighed, struggled to get on my feet, and walked to the door. Upon entering, I found a small, rustic and simple dwelling. It was a single room with a rustic wooden bed in the middle with brown sheets, a very rudimentary metallic fireplace lit in one of the corners, and next to one of the windows, a table with a single place to eat. On that table, there were also a couple of clean plates and glasses, a frying pan and some food.

The man was leaning against one of the walls, looking at me in the same way as before. He invited me to the table where a breakfast of bread, coffee, and a couple of fried eggs was waiting for me. I thanked him and sat down. I ate that breakfast and came back to life.

"Did you miss your battalion?" he asked me after I finished eating. His voice was hoarse and very deep.

"They all died," I answered.

"You are a deserter, aren't you?"

That question hit me like a bucket of cold water. Fear took over me once again. It seemed that I was never, and in no way, going to be able to get away from that stupid war in which I did not believe. However, I was tired of running.

"Listen, if you're going to turn me in, just do it. We don't have to have this conversation if they're going to kill me anyway," I said, feeling finally defeated.

"I don't think this war will get us anywhere either. I don't totally respect your running away, but I get it."

I looked at him and saw a soft smile on his lips. In that moment my world lit up.