Part 4: The Gentle Unhappy Uncle *** His Unruly Treacherous Nephew

The big man was struggling to let awkward words out.

(Liu ShanShun:) - That's because... the skin there, on your chin,.. under your chin... there..

(Liu LiZhong, trying to make out what the other mumbles:) - ???

(Liu ShanShun, even quieter:) - That skin, it looks... sort of tender... I felt awkward. I felt like it would be indecent to touch you.

Now Liu LiZhong was out of his fucking mind. He had been expecting anything but this. That muscular idiot... for five years he's been too shy to touch him because of his sort of tender skin? He's hiding his eyes because he is fucking shy?!

He grabbed his hair exactly the same way his uncle did it when he couldn't think straight. Fucking nuthouse!

(Liu LiZhong:) - What are you saying? Are you saying it's indecent to take your own nephew by his chin? What's going on in your sick motherfucker's head?

(Liu ShanShun, barely alive:) - LiZhong, what do you want from me? What are we even talking about?

("I shouldn't have come!")

(Liu LiZhong:) - I want you to touch my fucking chin already! That's a man's last wish before the gallows. Or whatever.

(Liu ShanShun:) - Do not say such absurd things!

He was as red as that very volcanic magma. What was going on near the pantry grate started resembling one of his dreams, some realistic details adjusted... like bars, grocery sacks and those wet rags on Liu LiZhong.

(Liu LiZhong, stepping ahead:) - Here. Reach out your hand.

Liu LiZhong smelled the blood like a foxhound. Or an anaconda, for that matter.

Despite what people said about him, he wasn't a spoiled youngster taking pleasure in throwing tantrums at his poor uncle.

Parents are the ones to be thrown tantrums at. As for love, the rules of the game are totally different.

He has been probing for the points not to be stretched over twenty years. He learned his lessons, he changed his tactics taking into consideration the other man's rare resistance, his moods and facial expressions. The stakes have been growing higher: an extra fairy tale for the night, lunches to be brought to school by the Lew Silk Trading House owner by himself, the evening ritual of waiting up for his nephew after work and many more. The goal has always been the same - to appropriate this man. This kind, beautiful, big, strong, omnipotent man. Not to be shared with anyone.

He bared his nerves like a burglar grates the meat off finger pads in order to perceive a response from a metallic mechanism. He has become a predator aware of his victim's manners, its routes home and to waterholes.

He could feel it in his own body how his uncle was trembling inside. He was trembling all over too, resonating. He already knew who would be the one to give in. Still, he was afraid.

As the great Bo Bayun wrote somewhere, no idea where exactly, "The sea of great despair swallows the weak and raises the strong on its tide..."

Screw the great Bo Bayun. Five fucking years...

Liu ShanShun reached his hand through the bars.

(Liu LiZhong:) - You should really see yourself, how you are holding my face with two fingers, like a fucking dead rat. Take a proper grab!

The fingers lay down on the soft spot under the lower jaw and Liu LiZhong locked them outright with his own palm. He took another step ahead still holding on to Liu ShanShun's hand. Liu ShanShun felt the boy's palm stroke and rub his hand as it pressed tighter into his cheek. Liu LiZhong was hardly breathing, his eyes agape, fixed on his uncle.

Liu ShanShun didn't have a chance to make himself free: the younger man clung to him with the might of the Earth imprisoning its Moon in its orbit. Pulse was beating violently in the carotid under his large palm. Every feverish blood push in Liu LiZhong's body echoed as a shock wave inside the older man.

The usual feeling of guilt multiplied by the anxiety in his chest overtook Liu ShanShun, but the nephew was already holding his elbow with the other hand. Liu ShanShun couldn't look him in the eye.

They both looked miserable.

Liu ShanShun extended his other arm through the grate and put the hand on the boy's head. The hand closed in a fist gripping a strand of hair. Then he let it go and shifted it down. The hand moved again, stroked or rubbed the nape of the neck, whatever the movement was. He was pressing it so hard the hairs cracked and broke at their roots, his fingers and shoulder went into spasm.

Liu ShanShun pulled Liu LiZhong over to the bars and rested the forehead against his. Their breaths were mixing up in one and intoxicating them both like samshoo - which wasn't actually a metaphor because Liu LiZhong had already uncorked a bottle in the pantry.

Then Liu ShanShun felt Liu LiZhong's lips, teeth and tongue on his lower lip - in the mentioned order. The tongue fought its way into his mouth spreading a flavor of alcohol. Liu LiZhong was thoughtful enough to keep a hold of the uncle's hair with his two hands though the precaution was already excessive. His face was in the uncle's palms and the older man was not going to let it go either.

There are first kisses of all sorts. One has to admit that a good half of them is flavored with booze. And yet, through cell bars while awaiting to be quartered for high treason - that's worth mentioning.

(Liu LiZhong, tearing himself apart from the other man's lips but keeping solid hold on his hair:) - Open up this fucking room now!

(Liu ShanShun:) - Haven't got the key. (Pulls Liu LiZhong back by the rear of his scull.)

(Liu ShanShun, Liu LiZhong:) - ... ...

(Liu ShanShun, trying to break free at last:) - Let go.

(Liu LiZhong:) - No way.

The older man was stronger. He pulled Liu LiZhong's fingers out of his hair and freed himself. He took a step back, got a steady hold of the grate, tensed up his muscles, the bars bended, splinters of wood bolted out of the holes. Liu ShanShun threw the grate away.

Liu LiZhong grabbed him again, clasped his head, caught Liu ShanShun's lips into his. The tongues were sliding one against the other while the brains in the head were becoming lighter and lighter, almost airy, until they were no more.

"Come here," Liu LiZhong commanded.

If someone had witnessed the culprit, instead of getting out of his cell, giving the robbed merchant a helping hand to climb inside, that someone would have most likely agree with Liu LiZhong in his assessment of what was going on as a full-scale fucking nuthouse.  

(In the process, that watchful and law-abiding someone would have probably reported the broken gate, hopeful of a reward from the prefecture administration, so they were lucky nobody actually saw them.)

Liu ShanShun climbed obediently into the pantry through the window. It looked like he had it in the marrow of his bones, to give way to his nephew's moods.  It looked like the nephew had it in the marrow of his bones too, to have his way with the uncle.

That level of idiocy they achieved through their well-chorded actions was a new world record.

"I hate you, motherfucker," Liu LiZhong informed the other man, kissing his neck.

This sounded so familiar Liu ShanShun even found it comforting.

"I know," he said dolefully.

"Senile idiot!"

Liu LiZhong bit his shoulder over the collar bone and didn't want to unclench his teeth jamming the sore spot again and again and caressing it with his tongue at the same time. Liu ShanShun lowered his face on the boy's wet hair with a sigh.

They were pressing into each other and couldn't find a way to cement themselves together tighter. The flesh had been flattened in a thin interlayer, there were only bones left. Regrettably. Two layers of a blade being merged, their heated steel penetrates each other's. Why can't people be like that? Their bodies were hotter than melting metal.

(Liu ShanShun:) - You are all wet!

That precious young body he had been cherishing and protecting his whole life, even mainly from himself, was now sullied, broken, tired, a bit drunk, lacking of sleep, having spent the night hell-knows-where, in a soaking wet hanfu.

(Liu LiZhong, without unclenching his teeth:) - Don't give a fuck.

Yet, he rustled in his clothes and threw the robe and the sash off leaving only the inner shirt.

Liu LiZhong pulled his shirt from under Liu ShanShun's hands lifting it up so they were on his bare waist. Liu ShanShun shivered, the familiar sense of guilt started an alarm signal, too weak yet, in his unclear mind.

That was almost like in the dream... Almost, but... It was worse! Tons worse!

Liu LiZhong was tenderly confining Liu ShanShun's palm in his and guiding it underneath the rim of his pants brushing the thigh and pressing it to the lower abdomen so the pubes tickled his fingers. The belt landed on the ground gracefully like a wounded bird.

Frankly, Liu ShanShun didn't have enough imagination to see himself stroke his dear boy's anything besides his chest, back and buttocks. Accordingly, his dreams never showed him what he couldn't imagine himself. Yes, he kissed Liu LiZhong's chest and belly, he's not gonna deny it.

While in reality... Liu LiZhong's firm palm was lying on Liu ShanShun's firm palm which had already slid smoothly onto no less firm Liu LiZhong's cork.

Liu LiZhong gulped. He was hardly breathing. He put his head on the older man's shoulder, one hand locking his backside, the other one helping to stroke the penis. Liu ShanShun heard his breath tremble.

Liu ShanShun's mind was a mess; the alarm signal went out the same quiet way it had appeared. Probably, because it had been so weak. His buttocks clenched unconsciously. It was only when the boy's elbow brushed his lower part through the clothes that he became aware of his own penis standing up like the marble memorial column in the Ceremonial Imperial Palace... Liu LiZhong's loins tightened a few times.

One could hear each raindrop fall down outside... each maple leaf rustle... At that moment a hot wave of sperm hit Liu ShanShun. His nephew was sticking tight to him, rubbing his forehead against Liu ShanShun's shoulder like a wild cat.

"It is all your fault," he said softly, kissing the older man's neck.

(Liu ShanShun:) - ...

He was almost in the same state though they hadn't even gotten down to masturbation. Liu LiZhong was rustling in his long narrow robe trying to get to the belt.

(Liu LiZhong:) - Before I get you undressed, they'll execute me three times already... wrapped up like a sausage...

(Liu ShanShun:) - What are you do...

(Liu LiZhong:) - Come here.

(Liu ShanShun:) - I am here, where else can I be?

(Liu LiZhong:) - Idiot.

He pulled the older man down on the floor and stood kneeling over him. Still kissing him and clinging to him the boy slid Liu ShanShun's palm along the spot he had some sperm left on him and further between the buttocks.

Liu ShanShun's penis couldn't harden more... but it did. Red mist started to haze his eyes. Liu LiZhong, that little punk, was smiling with his eyes on the other man's face. He had finally succeeded in getting inside the uncle's robe and was loosening his trousers letting outside the reproductive organ, out of its mind with desire.

"Out of its mind" applied to a penis is a perfect expression for a situation like this because due to the extensive damage to the brain both men had suffered even before they broke the pantry grate, the only place left to look for the mind was the opposite end of the body (the legs don't count). It wasn't there either.

It was quite a challenge to reach Liu ShanShun's sacramental regions: he was dressed as proper as usual.  Apart from the tight formal robe he was also wearing a strict tangzhuang shirt with nine pearled buttons. Four lower ones were torn off by Liu LiZhong when he jerked the shirt open with a single elegant gesture. "Was" is also a perfect and well-chosen word in regard to Liu ShanShun's proper dressing style.

Liu LiZhong suddenly leapt on his feet.

Liu ShanShun didn't want to let his thighs go, but the young man was already gophering behind the sacks. Within two seconds he dived out triumphantly with a vial of aromatic carnation oil in his hand. Supervising the company's business, the nephew had a very good picture of the household supplies.

Having mounted Liu ShanShun's legs again, he poured a generous amount on his own crotch and also lavishly showered Liu ShanShun's penis. The nephew's hand touched Liu ShanShun's organ.

The boy's face was right opposite his: eye to eyes, nose to nose, one irregular breath in the other's irregular breath. That wasn't the face Liu ShanShun knew. That was someone else.

Liu LiZhong always kept his eyes squinted and his lips were curved in a sneer. He was all set for any kind of mischief any second, it was never possible to figure him out.

Yet, that young man looking at Liu ShanShun like he was enchanted, he could actually smile. He shot his incredible blue eyes open and spread his excitement over Liu ShanShun. He could say "Reach your hand" and "Come here". Who was he? Could it be the real Liu LiZhong? And where did the old one go?

The boy's finger pads were touching the older man's penis leaving carnation oil spills on it. Liu ShanShun's palm dripping the oil on the floor was between his buttocks. Liu LiZhong moved even closer, leaning Liu ShanShun back, on a rice bag.

"What?! What are you doing?"

Indeed, Liu ShanShun had a distant idea of what might happen between two men but he never could picture himself doing that very thing with Liu LiZhong. Not even in his worst nightmare. All the more, at that very moment!

"What are you?!.."

Liu LiZhong took his uncle's neck in the iron grip of his arms and leaned on him. He brought his face nose-to-nose with Liu ShanShun and said cordially:

"Why don't you tell me now how you bathed me when I was little, motherfucker?.. Look at me, schmuck! Does it look like a fucking toddler's face to you? I haven't shaved for three days!"

He pulled his uncle's head closer and pricked his nose with the hard scrub on his chin.

Not exactly the nose: his movements weren't completely precise, more like hectic, so he got Liu ShanShun in the right half of the face and partly the nose. And he also occasionally hit him in the eye with the chin. Turned out that was still Liu LiZhong, the actual him.

"Does it look like that?"

He rose up a bit and stuck his hard dick into Liu ShanShun's face, jerking the man's head down with one hand. Then he bent over and caught the other man's lips in his.

"Do you want me?" he asked between the kisses in a horse voice.

Liu ShanShun immediately felt like hiding his head in his arms and crouching in a corner, but his hands were still on Liu LiZhong's backside and had no intention of going anywhere. Not to mention a full-grown man was mounting him, clutching his body in a steel lock with his legs and arms. The plan to crouch in a corner seemed to be doomed to failure.

His intestines were tied up like a tight knot trembling and making his loins jerk involuntary. He felt like his penis wasn't the only one to get up because it was accompanied by the stomach, spine and femora.

His lips in the lips of his beloved one, he answered inaudibly:

"Yes."

He wanted that young, mighty, unknown, treasured body.

Liu LiZhong sitting on top of his thighs fixed his penis in a suitable position and went down on it slowly, his teeth clenched from pain, tears glistening in the eyes, but a mischievous smile curving his lips.

"Just you try to put it away, fuck you... Oh, that's deep! Fuck! Turn me, turn me somewhere, anywhere you like... Not like this! Son of a bitch!"

The one who ended up leaning on the rice sack was Liu LiZhong which wasn't bad - at least he had something to bite down on of pain.

Liu ShanShun was grabbing on to his hips and entered deeper and deeper. Blissful waves in his body rose higher and higher from the groin reaching the tips of his toes and fingers and convulsing them. Waves of pain in the younger man's body reached his throat so he couldn't breathe and bit the sack through. Both were growling like captured beasts. Both were happy, because what one felt - whatever it was, pain or pleasure - was coming from the other, it actually was him, that beloved other, dissolving in you and accepting you.

Liu ShanShun splashed out his semen into his young lover's hot inside and collapsed breathless onto his bare back. He lifted the other man's shirt up to the neck and was kissing the round bone under the back of his head, rubbing a cheek against his strained muscles.

Liu LiZhong, still kneeling with the rice sack in his dedicated embrace, spat out the rice which had been stuck to his tongue. He was slowly coming to his senses. He moved his torso up propping the back of his head against the older man's rounded shoulder.

Liu ShanShun was saying something inaudible into his back.

(Liu LiZhong:) - What?

(Liu ShanShun, softly:) - (talks to Liu LiZhong's back intimately, not possible to make anything out)

(Liu ShanShun, raising his head:) - You must run!

(Liu LiZhong:) - Screw it!

He threw his arms behind and stuck his back to his lover. They were both kneeling, Liu ShanShun's arms embracing Liu LiZhong's chest, Liu LiZhong's hands holding Liu ShanShun's waist behind him. Their eyes were still in a haze, like on a warm autumn night in the mountains. Rice was dripping into an aromatic oil puddle from the bitten sack.

(Liu LiZhong:) - Fuck! I must run!

Liu ShanShun was reluctant to let him go.

The boy pulled on his pants, popped the robe over and hung the sash on his neck in one swift movement.

One - Liu LiZhong caught his lover's lips into his mouth and reached the glands with his tongue.

Two - he jumped his backside onto the windowsill, threw both legs over it and vanished. While at it, he ouched and then there was his happy laughter, slightly hoarsed after all the strain, "Ah, my fucking arse, it hurts!"

Liu ShanShun stayed alone...

Three - Liu LiZhong reappeared in the broken window opening and waved his hands.

(Liu LiZhong:) - There's a bottle there! Give me the bottle!

Liu ShanShun started getting up but still had enough wits to stop in time.

(Liu ShanShun:) - No. There's no way you'll be running drunk from the Imperial Guard.

(Liu LiZhong:) - ...

(Liu LiZhong:) - Good point.

Four - he vanished for real.

Liu ShanShun stayed locked in the pantry in Liu LiZhong's place.

Recent images kept surfacing in his memory, and in front of his eyes, and around his whole body: his hand on Liu LiZhong's face being caressed with the other's hand, taste of the lips, shadow of the eyelashes, scent of the breath, the hair spilled over his shoulders, the bare small of the back underneath the lifted shirt, and the slim buttocks with smooth cavities under it, and then - that precious place where the buttocks become the legs with skin as white and tender as pearl silk. The heat inside his young body.

They had not yet said anything to each other but no words were needed anymore.

He rose and climbed out of the window. They left the pantry a mess. He remembered vaguely, they had dropped a couple of grates with groceries and broken a china vase.

Liu ShanShun was also dirty all over: covered in rice, aromatic oil, pearl buttons and male sperm. Like after a drunk brawl. He had some samshoo on his beaten self too - that little beloved brat Xiao Roe made him have a suck at some moment. A couple of times.

They had been seen...

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