In the Darkness

In the Darkness

Charles Edward

www.loose-id.com

In the Darkness

Copyright © August 2011 by Charles Edward

All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

eISBN 978-1-61118-452-5

Editor: Venessa Giunta

Cover Artist: Valerie Tibbs

Printed in the United States of America

Published by

Loose Id LLC

PO Box 425960

San Francisco CA 94142-5960

www.loose-id.com

This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Warning

This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id LLC’s e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

* * *

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Dedication

To Daryl, for everything

To Becky, for friendship

Acknowledgement

I owe a debt of gratitude to Bob Davis, who gave me the glimmer of a character idea, which led me to ask the questions answered in this story.

I’m grateful to my editor, Venessa Giunta (www.venessagiunta.com), for her guidance, patience, and the things I have learned from her.

This book would not exist without the encouragement of my beta readers (in order by draft):

Becky Spain-Kaiser

Krista Robinson-Lawlor

Jade Archer (www.jadearcher.com)

A. B. Gayle (www.abgayle.com)

Roger Kean (recklessbooks.co.uk)

My models for “how to write naughty” in this book were Brandon Fox and Amanda Young.

Several critique partners provided guidance on portions of the manuscript: L.C. Chase, William Cooper, Casey Cox, Lissa Kasey, Evie Kiels, Piper Vaughn, and Xara X. Xanakis.

I am grateful for the advice and support received from authors and readers on Goodreads.com:

The On Fiction Writing Group: especially Anna from Alaska for help with the bear.

The M/M Romance Group and authors I “met” there: moderators Lori, Jason, and Jen; everyone who participates in the discussion threads; Heidi Cullinan for teaching me how to write a blurb; Jordan Castillo Price for her fantastic erotica-writing podcast and book recommendations; and Josh Lanyon for
Man, Oh Man: Writing M/M Fiction for Cash and Kinks
.

Chapter One

The ghost watched the boys’ campsite from a discreet distance. They had set their tent in a place they should not be, and for that he was truly pleased.

They were young men from the nearby village. Maybe they didn’t know they trespassed, or maybe they didn’t care. Either way, the ghost could watch them more closely than ever.

He had learned to be a ghost when he was very much smaller, when his parents first let him go out to do chores alone in the darkness that would conceal him. He worked out how to do his jobs quickly so there would often be time to go near the village, to learn about the people who lived there. But, always cautious, he remained far enough away that they wouldn’t see his eyes upon them.

The three who trespassed tonight were the most interesting of the villagers, youths older than his own eighteen summers. Often they did things he understood, like having practice battles in the field, hunting, or fishing in the river in the early morning. Sometimes, like all villagers, they did things he didn’t understand at all.

By now he knew their names: Tyber, Evin, and Johan. He had seen them many times in the evening or early morning, unloading crates and barrels from barges that came downriver, or searching in the woods for plants. They and others did these tasks at the direction of an old woman. What did they do with all that stuff? Whatever it was, they did it during the day when he couldn’t watch, so he had never managed to find out. Yet.

He had come to observe them at nightfall, and as the protective darkness deepened, he crept yet closer to their riverside camp. They danced around a fire, waving swords and axes, boasting to one another about how many boggarts or demons from the underworld they might kill to protect their village.

Arms and tongues soon tired of that game. They dropped their weapons, shed their clothing, and went to wash in the river. While bathing, they laughed and shouted and flung water at one another.

Their laughter made the ghost happy, but it also made him hurt because he couldn’t join them. He liked to play in the water too, but of course he had to do it alone. It was strange—exciting but somehow embarrassing—to see them cavorting naked and unashamed. He couldn’t imagine doing such things, but he understood why they could be so carefree: they were normal. They didn’t have his filthy, cursed skin.

After bathing, they did one of the things he didn’t understand. They carried their clothing into the tent and closed themselves inside. For a long while, they made noises like they were hurting each other—except that one or another would giggle sometimes. Tyber gave orders and they called Evin ugly names, and sometimes there were moans like his mother made one time when she was very sick.

Eventually they settled down and slept. The ghost decided they were probably okay, so he went off to do his chores.

Morning threatened when he returned to wait for them to awaken. The ghost himself should not be here in the day, but he wanted to see them come out of their tent. He wanted to know how they would behave today and if they were all well after the strangeness of the night.

He glanced up at the sky, trying to judge the growing light and determine how much longer he could stay and still be able to leave unseen. He was being stupid and he would be in trouble when he got home, but he didn’t want to go yet.

Evin emerged first, still naked, into the cool morning air. He yawned, stretched, and walked over to the river to relieve himself by pissing into the moving water. The ghost was close enough to smell it.

Faint morning light gave Evin’s light brown hair a coppery sheen. An almost invisible down covered his entire body. He wasn’t hairy, like Tyber was in places, or furry like an animal. Just fuzzy. Still pissing, he started to wave his cock around, making the stream arc and loop in the air. And he laughed.

The sound of it touched the ghost deep inside somehow, making him feel tight and very happy for no reason. But then his own cock began to get stiff, like it did sometimes after sleeping, and the feeling crept on that he was doing something wrong, stealing something by watching this private moment. He would have been ashamed to be seen that way, after all.

Evin certainly seemed none the worse after last night. That was good.

Slowly, taking care not to be noticed, the ghost slipped away and headed up the mountain toward home.

* * *

It was getting a little too light outside, but the ghost was sure he had not been seen or followed on the way home to his parents’ cabin. The rough house stood in an area of thick forest high up on the mountain. The cabin’s front door opened onto a path that eventually led down to the village. He had never used that door or path. He always entered by the back door, which opened onto trails around the mountain where Father placed his game traps. Here in the back, no outsider would ever see him approach his home.

As he reached the door, it was ripped open from within by his father.

“Gareth, get in here now!” Father clawed at Gareth’s shoulder, gripping it as if it were a stone he might use for murder, and tried to drag Gareth into the cabin. “Get in! Are you trying to drive us mad, boy?”

Gareth didn’t protest as he was urged inside and Father slammed the door behind them. As usual when returning home at dawn, something warm snuffed out inside of him when the door closed on the morning’s light.

Farther into the room, Gareth lifted aside an armoire that stood over the cabin’s cellar door—a trapdoor covering the mouth of a pit. Gareth or his parents always lifted the armoire to move it. It would never be dragged to leave telltale marks on the floor. Mother sat knitting in a rough-hewn chair. At first she just glared at him, but as he revealed and then lifted the door, poised to leap down, she did not restrain her anger.

“The queen’s agents will be here today. They could come at any moment, you little piss-eyed fool! Were you trying to get yourself killed?”

He replied in a low voice. “You’d be better off then. Rid of me.”

A shadow of fear flickered across her face, one he had seen many times before. Though he was a terrible burden to them, his parents were terrified for Gareth—and for themselves, if he was found in their care.

Before Mother could make a reply, Father shoved him hard in the back and he had to jump down into the cellar in order not to fall.

Now alone, he lay down on his bed of burlap and straw, pulled his boots off, and tossed them aside. Gareth’s parents expected the tithe collector today, and because of the official visit, he might have to wait for hours in the cellar, even longer than he usually slept during the day.

The cellar door closed with a slam that jiggled the knotted rope he would use to climb out later. A soft thump followed as his parents put the armoire back in place. Then the floorboards creaked and groaned as they went back to their work above and awaited the arrival of one of the few visitors they could not refuse. He could picture them, talking nervously to one another as Mother continued to knit and Father repaired one of his animal traps or cages.

Gareth thought of himself as a ghost because he was good at spying on the villagers in the valley below and because he wished he could go unnoticed and unpunished at home. But he was all too real and solid. He couldn’t float invisibly up through the floor and go to the village to see more of the people and their homes. He could only wait for nightfall.