Obsidian: Retribution (Book 2)

Thirteen: Reminiscence

WARNING: This chapter contains explicit sex with important information revealed so it cannot be skipped without being lost. If you are not yet 18, you should not be reading this book from the start. If you are, consider yourself warned. 

Nazir woke up with the most painful erection in his life, swearing profusely at the recurring dream and the man who had caused it. The dream––a reminiscence of an event he had so far failed to leave behind––was still following him everywhere, attaching itself to him like the scent of Baaku that still clung to his nose, his skin, like the too familiar silhouette he could always see in the back of his head when he closed his eyes, like the charred, peppery trace of khizrar on Baaku's lips that never left his palette no matter how long ago they'd parted. Baaku liked to smoke right after sex. Khiz was the one thing he couldn't give up no matter how many times Nazir had voiced his aversion to it.

'It isn't that I can't quit,' Baaku had argued one night, taking another pull on the slim, silver pipe and made a perfect circle with the smoke on the release. 'I just haven't found a reason to.'

'It's bad for you.' He'd scowled then, made sure it could be seen. It did nothing––his scowl. None of his reactions had an effect when it came to quitting khiz. 'Everyone knows that.'

Baaku looked up from under the hooded lids, eyes already losing some focus from the herb's influence. 'So is me being here.' The reply came readily, without thinking, without effort. 'So are you. Everyone knows that.' Another pull on the khizrar pipe, a deliberately slow one this time, to make a point. 'I'm not quitting one or the other. You can't make me.'

You will have to quit both now as kha'a, Nazir thought, pulling himself back from the distant memory as he walked over to light his own pipe. He'd never liked the smell of khiz, hadn't smoked it unless out of obligation until a couple of months ago. Now, he craved the scent, the taste of it, the feel of the silver pipe on his lips. It cleared his mind, made it near impossible to focus, chased away some of his visions.

Like Baaku, only the man could do it better, faster.

It all came back to him then, drifting and coiling like the smoke that materialized to shield him from the room at present, taking him back to the past, to the first time Baaku had come into his tent to demand what he did.

'We may die tomorrow for all I know,' Baaku had said, had stood there like a tree, growing roots, claiming grounds and spaces he had no right to. 'I don't want to die not having done this.'

Such careless words, spoken so easily, as if the conclusion had been the most logical thing in the world. Nazir drew a breath and found the air turning thick, like water, like smoke from a new fire trapped under a low ceiling. "You could also die doing this, Baaku.'

He remembered the shrug, the smile, the way his own heart skipped a beat at the reply that followed. 'Can't think of a better reason to die if you ask me.'

He remembered the five steps it took to cross the line, too, five effortless steps that felt too many, too slow. He remembered their first kiss, the sense of danger that came with it, the thrill of diving into that perceived danger, head first and without thinking. He remembered the shortness of his own breath, of Baaku's, when their lips came together, as the taste of khizrar filled his mouth, blending with the aftertaste of wine from his own, altering both, changing all, taking residence where it shouldn't.

Baaku pressed onto him with his bulk, crushing the distance between them with the urgency of a man starved near death being fed for the first time. There was pain everywhere––in his chest, on his ribcage against which his heart hammered, on burning, bruising skin where calloused hands scraped and scorched, between his legs for the pressure Baaku's rock-hard erection brought upon his own.