The Mist and the Lightning. Part 19

“You can get up.”

Kors got up. His legs didn’t obey him. Nik covered him with some kind of cloth, like a cloak, put something on his head, completely covering his face. Was it a bag? No! This was a cape! Nik put on him a woman’s cape, as if he were a slave woman. Kors cringed.

“Zaf will take you to him like that,” Nik explained, “I don’t want others to see you. You will be his slave.”

“What a tall girlfriend,” Arel laughed.

And Kors stood crushed, his head bowed low, and was silent.

“You can talk to Zaf, I allow it,” Nik said. But Kors said nothing. Zaf firmly took his arm and slowly led him along. Confused in the cape, Kors felt the cool floorboards in the corridor with his bare feet. He barely hobbled, Nik didn’t pull the dildo out of him, and he was in pain. Fortunately, it was not long to go, and when they arrived, Zaf immediately removed the humiliating cape from him. But Kors didn’t know if anyone else was in the room, and he only hoped there wasn’t.

“Sit down on the bed,” Zaf slightly directed him, and Kors carefully sat down. Why didn’t you call me? Zafasked.

“I’m all right,” Kors barely said, and Zaf ordered: “Lie down on your side.”

Kors immediately obeyed the order and lay down, as ordered by the unclean one. He was in their power, Nik gave him, and, therefore, he will obey Zaf.

Zaа gently lifted his leg to the side and pulled out the dildo, but Kors wasn’t happy, although he was relieved from the stick that tormented him. He knew that just now Zaf’s cock would replace the stick, and he would move, which would be even worse.

But Zaf was clearly not in a hurry, but for some reason covered Kors with a blanket:

“Sit up, have a drink, you’ll feel better,” he said.

Kors drank the offered wine.

“You will fall asleep for a couple of hours, rest. Anddon’t be afraid, Vitor, I won’t touch you. I have taken not you for this.”

“And for what?” Kors asked indifferently. Now he didn’t care anymore, and he was really tired.

“I took you to get some rest from them. I can’t take your glasses off, but I can do everything else, and you can just rest at my place.”

“But why?”

“What — why?” Zaf didn’t understand.

“Why are you kind to me?” Kors lifted his swollen face approximately in the direction from which he heard Zaf’s voice.

“I like you,” Zaf explained and ran him over his head, straightened his disheveled hair a little, “and I don’t know how much longer they are going to torment you.”

“You don’t know?” Kors was embarrassed by his impulse, it was impossible to show weakness.

“No, I don’t know,” Zaf replied sadly.

Kors wilted, but gathered his courage and said without any intonation:

“No, they don’t torment me, it’s training, examination and initiation,” Kors realized that it turned out very unconvincingly.

“In our tribe, young guys also go through initiation,” Zaf said, “not the same, of course, as yours, but also not easy.”

“And those who passed it are put plugs in their noses as a reward?”

“Yes.”

“What about those who can’t get through it? What does your tribe do with them?”

Zaf hesitated with the answer:

“They are eaten,” he finally said. And Kors covered his face with his hands:

“Ooh, it looks like this awaits me! I am a mediocre student, I laughed at Prince Arel that he was stupid, but he was no better. I’m probably dumber…”

“Vitor, sleep,” Zaf said softly and carefully, “stop stuffing your head with all sorts of thoughts, lie down.”

Maybe Zaf had slipped something into his wine, but Kors really wanted to sleep unbearably. It was as if a soft cobweb wrapped around his head, there were no thoughts, but it was pleasant, because along with his thoughts, his worries and fear disappeared. Dark blue clouds floated slowly before his eyes. They stretched out in long rows in the sunset sky. He saw a flat, endless steppe covered with dry grass, and the ground, dotted with some kind of small minks. Kors relaxed, lay down more comfortably, falling into sweet visions, when he suddenly heard the voices of Nik and Arel, he didn’t see them, but he heard them. Arel said:

“He doesn’t change,” and by the way he sucked in air, Kors realized that the prince was taking a drag on his cigarette.

“He needs time, not a long time has passed,” Nik objected.

“No matter how much time passes, he won’t change,” said Arel, and Kors heard him puff out smoke. “Vitor has lived his life,” Arel continued, “he is many years old. At this age, people don’t change.”

(Hearing this, Kors went wild with indignation — well, Arel, I’ll remember it!)

“On average, people live fifty or sixty years, and he is fifty.”

“But he is a true black,” Nik disagreed, “he is not an ordinary person and can easily live more than a hundred years, which means that now he is not old yet.”

“This is only a state of the body,” Arel disagreed with him again, “but the state of mind of true blacks is the same as that of ordinary people, and the lived years leave their mark. I, too, can live a hundred years and even more, my blood is purer than Vitor’s. Then, by your standards, I’m still a child. Do I look like a child?”