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So rapier-keen the mind of this great man
Sharp-set for truth, so lofty in its plan
Small wonder that his brow would fit no wreath,
That this too-whetted weapon nicked its sheath
El Aurans has his little book out again, writing in it, reading from it, his always pale face drawn with a concentration that looks like pain. I cannot fathom what it is that draws me to this man, this English. This creature not of my kin or tribe or people, not born of the desert that nourishes the People and gives us purpose and delight, but one who has come among us from alien places, wet and distant. This man of shadows that is yet sunlight, mirage made real.
We are waiting. El Aurans and I both hate waiting. We have been here a day already. The oasis we camp at is small, but the water is fresh and sweet, the palms fertile and sturdy. Our party is small — five men, nine camels, and when Assaf returns from his reconnaissance we will be ready to make the next move with swiftness. But he will not return tonight, and likely not the next. Days to wait. Days — and nights — of each other's company. We brought only two of the lighter tents, knowing there would be waiting, and it is the season of wind. The men have the other tent. El Aurans and I share the first.
He has read the same page three times. I would have it memorized by now. If he has not I would be surprised. I rise from my bridle-mending and go over to him where he sits in the shadow of the palms. I have not often asked to see his book, and he will not always let me see more than the printed words, tipping the page toward me and turning his face away, that I not read the things written in his countenance wherein the meaning lies, but even then the poems are a glimpse into his so-guarded inner self.
"What do you read," I say, ordinary and undemanding. The men playing chess do not look up. El Aurans lets his startlement flow through him, turning with it to look up at me, smooth-faced, but I know to look for it. "What words that you would know by heart? A tale to tell at the fire tonight?" He does tell tales, dazzling and drawing in the men, but they are never from his book. He knows I know that. It is something of a jest between us. He shows me the page, and does not hide his face.
WHEN the words rustle no more,
And the last work's done,
When the bolt lies deep in the door,
And Fire, our Sun,
Falls on the dark-laned meadows of the floor;
When from the clock's last time to the next chime
Silence beats his drum,
And Space with gaunt grey eyes and her brother Time
Wheeling and whispering come,
She with the mould of form and he with the loom of rhyme,
Then twittering out in the night my thought-birds flee,
I am emptied of all my dreams:
I only hear Earth turning, only see
Ether's long bankless streams,
And only know I should drown if you
Laid not your hand on me.
The words and the look in his eyes sweep me into the stark and lonely place in which he dwells. My heart in my breast clenches like a fist, aching for him. I have been that hand for him, anchoring him to life, drawing him out of the quicksand depths of despair. I have tended him when he could hardly bear the weight of eyes, of air, much less of hands, his spirit more wounded than the flesh, and that wounded grave enough. Yet endure he did, and hold fast: my fingers well remember his fevered, hectic grip.
It is the essence of the poet's art; experience distilled from every sensibility and sense into words that pierce deep, cut to the very marrow and convey that essence set in words that another spirit may understand and know from inside out whereof he speaks. El Aurans has a poet's soul.
He searches my face in the fading light, and something eases in his own. He turns the page to another poem, a longer one of valiant deeds and challenged honor, and we both read, close enough to touch, to feel the other's warmth. He allows no other half as near.
The desert night grows cold, the rising wind sharp. The stars begin to burn overhead like signal fires, bright and distant. Salah and Harad have lit the lamps, built up the cook-fire; coffee and supper are waiting in camp. I touch El Aurans' shoulder to draw him from that place he goes in his mind when he communes with his thoughts, his book, that ether from whence dream and memory take form. "Food is ready. We must eat."
He shivers and looks at me, fever-bright. The breath he takes as he closes the book (always with care, smoothing the page, touching the cover, cradling the spine as he returns it to the pocket in his thawb) is quick, sharp, then deliberately deep and slow.
When we come to the fire he is very much his surface-self, sparkling, sly and swift as we banter and debate over folk-tales and treatises, black powder and modern explosives, whether mint goes better with lamb or goat. The men are cheerful, teasing and teased, comfortable together in long acquaintance.
Unnoticed by them, El Aurans begins to shiver, the faintest tremble of the fine cloth flowing down his back. He is feeling his scars. I finish my coffee and bring the conversation to a close. "We should sleep now. Khazen, keep the first watch." In moments the fire is banked, the coffee-tray and all evidence of the meal vanished into safekeeping, and I am walking with El Aurans to our tent, the lamp warming the drab white canvas to gold.
Inside, the rugs and sheepskins are neatly laid in separate bedrolls.
"Ali," he says, in that note I know, a breath of sound, a cry that only I can hear, am given to answer as I will. His eyes are black, that even in the lamplight should be pale, and I know what he is seeing, what the wind is whispering in his ears.
"Yes," I say. "Yes." And with that, rug is laid on rug, sheepskin with sheepskin. He does not strip until I have turned the lamp to the merest glow and undressed myself. I lay my robes tidily at the foot of our sleeping arrangement, and busy myself with washing, then settling comfortably between the layers. I am hot with anticipation, enjoying the mere sound of cloth slipping from skin, the uneven tempo of his breath. I hear the quiet gurgle of water as he dampens a cloth and washes as well. I do not watch him. This is not the first time we have done this, and he does not like to be seen this way. I would it were not so hard for him to allow himself release.
He blows out the lamp and comes to me. He slips under the sheepskins with a deliberate care that tells me much and nothing I do not already know. His hands are cold, the skin of his arms and back coming up in chill-bumps and shivering under my fingers as I draw him close. He curls against me as his body remembers my touch, and I hold him until the shivers stop and his fingers warm where they press against my breast.
It is then that I begin to move, touching, tasting, rubbing, delving and demanding. I am careful but not gentle. Gentle is not what his body wants, nor what his self-constraint will accept. He is hard when I take him in hand. His breath grows swift and ragged as I press him to the rugs and my shaft slides slick and insistent against his, his hips jerking up as I grind down. He is arching against me now, breath catching, gasping.
We turn so my back is to the rugs and his lean, long-muscled thigh is sweat-slick and insistent between mine. Our cocks kiss as our mouths do not. I kiss his breast, the hollow of his shoulder, suck at the thin skin below his collarbone as he thrusts against me, hard and urgent. I do not kiss his lips, though I would like to. Now his face is pressed into the space between my neck and shoulder, his lungs laboring, breath near a sob. He cannot come without I make him; he cannot give himself release. In a moment I will be at the edge myself, and as I feel my balls tighten and everything coalesce in bright, tight incipience, I suck again at the hollow of his throat and drag my nails down his back, over the tender ridges of the long scars. It is enough. He shatters against me, shuddering and jerking helplessly, breath stopped in his throat, cock pulsing wetly against mine. Now I am coming too, our seed mingling on our bellies as we move together, ecstasy crashing through me like the wave of sand at the forefront of a storm.
For a long moment after we simply lie wound together. It is only in this timeless, too-short interval that he is unstrung, unstrained, the bow unbent.
When his breath evens out and our hearts have both stopped hammering, I hear, "Ali," in his most private voice. It Is a gift I did not look for, my name spoken with such feeling. He would not call it love. My eyes sting, and heart-full I say only in return "Aurans."
There is another quiet moment. When I feel the faint tension return to his limbs where they lie against my own, I reach for the towelling I tucked under my pillow. I am efficient and he is fastidious with the cloth, and we are soon clean. We do not move apart then, as he will often do, but he tucks himself against my side. In the morning he will be filled with energy, sparking and sparkling and tiring to watch, but now he is exhausted. Almost immediately he is asleep. Very gently, I touch the floss of his hair, curl my fingers protectively around the curve of his skull where his head lies on my shoulder. I love him. I can never tell him, though I hope, in some small way, he knows.
It is not pleasure that he accepts from my hand, my care for him flesh to flesh, one body striving with another, but the slaking of intolerable need. It is not my pleasure that distresses him, but his own. That I find grace and joy in his form and in the easing of his unspeakable desire, in the weight of him upon my breast and in the very feelings that his touch arouses in me: this thought is an agony to him. Though I am willing. Had I not made it made it known that I understood and desired the same, I think he would never have come to me at all, and Deraa would have killed him in truth.
I know I have him for but a little while: he is a storm, a wind, a djinn caught and pressed into a man's form, a spirit too bright for mere flesh to hold constrained, and thus he puts stern bonds on his own self, that he not shatter into pieces. I will hold him as I can, as he allows, in my arms. I will hold him always, willed or not, in my heart. It is flesh that is the shadow, not the spirit; neither the pain, nor the love is masquerade.
I would write in his little book a new poem, speaking no less of the high, the difficult, the challenging of greatness and the wracking ecstasy of beauty than the other pieces do, but have him know those things in the present, now, here, in this world, not nowhere, or only in the next. We cannot know our fate in the next world, no matter the Name we call on in our prayers or profanities, our joys and griefs. It is only in the present one that we may live, as best and fully as we may.
Oh what a sharp, white, eager and elegant blade,
That vibrates, bell-struck in its sheath
Of leather, pale, embroidered over in calligraphy
Of scars transmuted
Into stars,
Pain made ecstasy in need-desire.
This night, too short for sleep, is not too short for solace,
Too long for busy thought, is yet not long enough
To hold the starry vastness I would give you of my heart,
Let speaking hands invoke
A silent joy
With fragrant oil ease that too-honed edge.