** RAVEN'S HOLLOW – Part VI **
=== THRICE UPON A TIME ===
The address had led to a café with a dingy facade but a clean, if overly dark interior with enough black satin and silvered accents to seem out of Phoenix's price range for a night out.
The clientele stayed quiet as he walked up to the bar with feigned confidence, giving him the impression of being curiously judged. The barkeeper, a bald middle aged man with sunken eyes, smiled at the student, but his nose twitched as if he could perceive the lack of funds emanating off Phoenix as a stench.
Upon hearing the name Sloane Courtenay, the historian was shown upstairs, to meet the local chapter head – chapter of what, he wasn't told.
Bronwyn Hastings welcomed him warmly and with a cup of Earl Gray. She had the same aristocratic demeanor as her friend at the Raven Resort, but allowed herself a more casual attire, though still all black and made distinct by a necklace of blood red gems.
"My dear," she said, as she had taken to calling him, "you're wholeheartedly invited to peruse my little library. I think there are some books of interest to you more than to Mordecai. You're a scholar of the Romans, I've heard?"
"I... yes, ma'am."
Taken aback at how fast word traveled, Phoenix let himself be led through the collection, excited at the long out-of-print tomes on subjects scientific, fictional and occult.
Until his hand stopped at a row of weathered, leather-bound journals, staying frozen in dizzying confusion with a slight note of fear.
What were his own journals doing here?
But no, rationally he couldn't have owned one this old. It must have been similar to... Phoenix blinked heavily. He had never possessed a single journal even remotely similar. Why did he feel one of them should be on his person even now?
"Charles Neville's diaries, my dear," Bronwyn said. "Born in eighteen-something England, died in Oregon under mysterious circumstances. Feel free to have a look."
The woman left him alone in the room and already his fingers brushed along the spines. The one reading `Travel - Sudan' felt the most important. Why, he couldn't say.
He dropped himself into a chair and began.
Charles' journey to Sudan was already complete by the first page, beginning with a description of his accommodations and European companions. Their search for promised archeological findings was unsuccessful for the first week, but amazingly the young Charles was also a scholar of the Roman Empire.
In fact, Phoenix could imagine the scenes in the diary so vividly he could have believed Charles to be the most capable author of all time, yet the entries were sparse and vague in places that Phoenix' mind filled in with consistent details like it was no effort at all, despite lacking familiarity with the period and location.
Then Charles met an African...
=Journal page 6=
A frighteningly large man, taller and more muscular than the drought plagued region had led me to expect. His features and skin were not quite that of the local population.
He introduced himself as the vagabond Lazarus, a name he had chosen from a text he claimed to have read. I was skeptical but he proved capable of speaking Latin as fluent as I!
This was not the work of an eager priest who had Christianized him thoroughly, no, for it was Latin of classical pronunciation. And while he was familiar with the bible, his religious views were those of shamanism and witchcraft, telling me of deals with dark forces in the area he had himself partaken in.
For reasons I cannot elaborate upon I felt drawn to this dark goliath and our colorful conversations.
Eventually, he promised to show me artifacts of Roman origin, which was obviously ridiculed by my colleagues. But the possibility of trade leading all the way down here was impossible to deny and as the only specialist with interest in the eternal city, my older companies sent me `on a wild gazelle chase' with Lazarus.
==========+++++==========
Phoenix' heart raced. Not because of the possible archaeological findings, but because he already knew what would happen next.
Upon leaving the camp, Charles and Lazarus narrowly missed an ambush by locals, trying to raid the site. The twenty attacking African warriors had themselves been under surveillance from the British who counterattacked.
It felt as though Phoenix was right outside the camp, helplessly watching until Lazarus tore him away from the spear and bullet hail.
They made it to a temple, half a day away, and although Charles did not describe it, Phoenix could clearly see the sandstone pillars and faded markings.
=Journal page 9=
The temple was shelter to five other Sudanese men, of equally impressive proportions, upper bodies bare like my friend's. Despite their savage appearance and the spears in their hands I was not afraid to approach. They spoke Latin, though none as fluently as Lazarus. The head priest, introduced to me as Aloysius, handed us water and bread.
Before I was allowed further than the antechamber, I was told that this temple was dedicated to no god, but to nature – to life and the celebration of it, to forces immaterial and to yet more animist concepts, that even Lazarus had difficulties putting into Latin terminology.
Nobody's clothes were permitted further than the anteroom. We disrobed and washed ourselves before entering the inner chambers.
While I had gotten used to nakedness in the heat of the camp, I was nonetheless intimidated by the physiques of these worshippers.
Eventually, I was welcomed into the sanctum, kneeling before the Africans as I opened a crate with their permission.
My find was the promised treasure. Tablets and decorated amphorae of Roman make. But I was thunderstruck. I nearly shouted in anger for I was momentarily convinced they must have been stolen from a museum in Britain. It was as if I had held these scriptures before – as if they had been under my nose my whole life.
==========+++++==========
Phoenix' hands trembled. The words were difficult to read now but he knew what they said. He was remembering. More even – a memory within a memory.
=Journal page 11=
The text was written by Aurelius of Rome, son of an equites. He worked as a doctor's assistant in the colosseum, healing gladiators in the corridors below when he wasn't cheering along on the podium above.
He developed a fondness for, and a friendship with, a slave from the south-most end of Aegyptus. A man so strong and muscular they called him The Giant on the arena floor. Although he did not go undefeated, he was quick to heal from wounds beyond the natural abilities of a human body.
As Aurelius taught the slave the Roman language, the gladiator chose for himself the name Lazarus, speaking often of divine foresight saving him in battle as the result of dealings too mysterious to put to words.
Any attempt to buy the slave were fruitless, since Aurelius had no funds of his own, his father would not agree, and the gladiator's owner was not interested in selling.
Eventually, luck turned against the two and under accusations of supernatural dealings and with the anger of losing arena fighters, Lazarus was poisoned before a match and struck down in his stupor.
Aurelius enlisted in the military, with approval of his father, and went on campaign to Africa. He found a temple, dedicated to nature, headed by a man of impressive stature, and wrote his story.
Although Aurelius did not elaborate upon it in his writing, I could see it clearly. Lazarus' hands, gripping the dark blond hair of a young, slender noble boy, their bodies pressed together in the dim light of an alcove, his olive-oil-slickened cock penetrating the boy's anus and driving into him a most rapturous pleasure. Their lips would have been locked to muffle the sounds as their doings had to happen in secret, yet the gladiator was not allowed to stray far from his dormitory.
As I experienced these memories as if they had been my own, I felt myself unlocking a desire, no, a certainty that I had denied slumbered inside me.
As I looked around, Lazarus' mighty sword stood erect and I cannot deny that mine rose at pace. Kneeling amidst the African men, I awaited confirmation, watching Aloysius procure amphorae of oil. With raised flags, we slickened each other's bodies, my pallid, lithe one and their six dark, muscular ones.
As we stood glistening in the sanctuary I requested timidly to experience the joy Aurelius had been taught by the Lazarus of his time and the temple priests on his African campaign.
I spent the night in their company, learning of pains and pleasures I had not thought my body capable.
==========+++++==========
Phoenix stopped. He couldn't go on. Not only because tears were blurring his vision but because he didn't want to – didn't want to live through the pain again, of the next day as the British arrived to `rescue' Charles and, spooked by the musclebound Africans, opened fire.
Charles never knew if Lazarus had been among the fallen, being refused the chance to go back despite resisting his would-be saviors from the homeland.
The crate was taken, the temple marked on the map. Charles never managed to return. The next journal was labeled `Departure for New York'.
Tragedy had struck them twice, but Phoenix wouldn't let that happen again. At last there was no slavery or colonialism surrounding them and the time was right.
He stormed into the front room, stopping abruptly as Bronwyn looked up from her papers. He must have looked crazed, with teary eyes and jitters all over, but she only nodded with a smile and waved him out into the dense fog of the small towns late evening.
==========+++++==========
The front desk at the Raven Manor was unmanned, so Phoenix simply stormed up the right staircase and to the end of the hallway, hammering on the corner room's dark door. It was unlocked and he stumbled into the Cedar Room where artful wall carvings and stained glass framing a space devoid of inhabitants.
Lazaro seemed to be a scholar himself, as old leather-bound volumes attested, stacked between bird skulls, hand-labeled maps, dreamcatcher-like webbings, other strange knick-knack and mundane protein powder.
"Looking for something?" asked a female voice. A housekeeper in a navy blouse and white apron shoved a cleaning cart into a cabinet down the corridor.
"The man who lives here?" the historian asked, sheepishly leaving the room.
"At the gym, I guarantee it" she said with annoyed finality.
"Oh. Thanks."
But the gym was empty, too, leaving Phoenix to wander into the spa area. There was no sound of running water coming from the showers - and why would there be when each room had a shower of its own – but he poked his head in just to check.
When the historian rounded the corner, his heart skipped a beat.
Among the hotel's bathrooms, this one had the most modern amenities. Blue-gray tiles and natural wood stretched around a shelf of heated towels.
Over a vase of yellow peonies, he saw dark, flawless muscle, more built and cut by modern training regimes and nutrition than past centuries allowed, unmarred by arena-battle scars.
Lazaro was in the nude at a basin, oiling his skin with treatment.
Staring at the shining backside of the muscle hunk, the uncut cockhead poking down between bombastic thighs, Phoenix lost himself in time.
He struggled to remember whose life he was living. What century it was.
"La-lazarus. Ego Aurelius sum." He shook his head. "Ugh. I mean, it's me, Charles."
Lazaro turned around, cock and balls swinging and drawing the eye down his popping abs. His face carried a smile of pure relief.
"You found a way to remember?"
"Yes. Sloane did it."
"Ah," Lazaro said and stepped closer. His presence seemed to envelop the shorter man. "You're Phoenix. And you're back, at a time when we are both free – in so many ways. And this time we're doing things right, if you're up for it."
Phoenix tore his shirt off. "Fuck me."
Lazaro laughed and centuries echoed from the tiles. "Not what I meant, but I was hoping we'd get there."
Phoenix stripped and went to his knees right away, taking the growing dickhead in his mouth as his hands rubbed over the oil-smooth thighs.
Lazaro moaned at the tonguing. "So much better than ever before. You've been a good little slut for dick in this life, haven't you?"
The student jerked Lazaro off and looked up as the hunk poured oil onto Phoenix' chest.
"I was," Phoenix said, rubbing the oil onto himself. He had never done it before, not in this life, but he could have sworn he had missed rubbing oil on each other. Maybe that's why he had always been such a diligent lotion user.
"And I wasn't kidding," Phoenix added. "Fuck me. Right in that shower, like we're hiding in plain sight at the colosseum again. For old times' sake. Nobody works out at this time anyway."
Lazaro grinned. "Then get up and get your hole ready."
They stepped into the shower, Phoenix at the wall, ass out and legs spread. He looked back. "You waited for me? All this time?"
"Not... continuously," Lazaro said. "Eternal Wanderers... don't die exactly, but we don't live more than one life at a time. It's hard to explain. I've skipped some decades. But I've waited, yes." He lined up his dick. "But the hardest part," he said and popped his cockhead inside Phoenix, "was the last week, waiting for you to remember."
He slid in and Phoenix whimpered, tip toeing his legs farther apart. His own dick was achingly hard and seemed to strain forward as it got pushed from inside the student's guts. "Then... ugh... show me what I've forgotten."
Lazaro's massive arms enveloped the smaller man from behind and it was a hug like getting home. The mix of getting his ass hammered by the stud for the first and yet the hundredth time made Phoenix slide in and out of the present, memories of harder and gentler fucks mingling.
A minute in, they switched positions. Phoenix climbed the standing hunk face to face, wrapped around the top's hip and was held up by steeled arms as if his weight were of no consideration.
Lazaro turned on the shower and made the stream splash between them as he bounced Phoenix on his dick until the bottom couldn't stop himself from moaning loud enough to make their ears ring in the echo.
They locked lips – for the first time, in a sense – and the reborn scholar was truly present.
Warm water ran over them, slowly washing off the body oil they'd sensually reapply later in the Red Room where they would have a long conversation, lounging on the bed and making out. Then the bodybuilder would fuck Phoenix's face to tears before dinner and they'd retreat to the Cedar Room with a bottle of wine and fuck through the night.
And nothing was going to stop their destiny in this life.