Grey-Eye

"You can keep me up as long as you like, so long as you keep doing that."

Happy to have his permission for keeping him from his sleep, I ran a series of long, lavish licks up the back of his neck, letting the mild taste and texture of his skin saturate my mind. As he twisted his neck to face me I moved to licking his more sensitive throat, knowing from a rumbling sigh I induced that I was doing good. But as he moved to lick me in return I pushed him back down. The message to him was clear. I didn't expect anything from him in his current state of exhaustion. He was to lie back and let me enjoy pleasuring him.

And I certainly was enjoying it. As I licked his neck, as I eased my hand around to caress his chest in soft rhythmical motions, as I rubbed my leg slowly against his side, even as I let my tail loop lovingly around his, I took immense and deep satisfaction whenever he let out a small moan of tired pleasure. And my own flame of arousal burned within me as I pleasured his body.

The flame burning hotter, I stepped up my attentions. My tail squeezed and coiled around his, almost like two tongues kissing. My leg pawed against his side ever more insistently, until I couldn't help myself from squeezing his flesh between my talons, making him shiver. My fingers stroked more vigorously across his chest, and began moving down across his belly towards where they really wanted to go. And all the while I licked ever more passionately at his throat, his chin, his face.

At last I couldn't hold myself back any more and I reached with my fingers to see what effect I was having on his penis. I was relieved and gratified to find it every bit as solid and erect and pleasing to the touch as it had been much earlier in the pool. All my other ministrations fell to a standstill as I riveted my attention to that handsome shaft, letting my fingers flow up and down its pleasing length.

"You're not so tired that I can't have a little fun with this, are you?"

I felt him shake his head, and I began stimulating him slowly, relishing the smooth sliding sensation as my fingers worked up and down his shaft. As I worked him we shared a kiss, unreserved and urgent.

My fingers paused in their stroking in order to explore the head of his cock. It was brilliantly hard, and liquid seeped copiously from the tip, which I spread about the whole head, making it slick.

"Is this good?"

"Yes... yes..."

It had been my desire to bring him to a climax and feel him come in my hand, but then I had an even better idea. I leant over his recumbent form and lowered my head to just shy of his penis. Flicking out my tongue, I got a stimulating taste of precum, making him cry out.

"How about this?"

"Oh, Echobright..."

Pleased by the first taste, I licked the head again and again, wiping it clean of liquid, which immediately began seeping out plentifully to replace it. Grey-Eye writhed expressively under me.

Of course, licking wasn't enough. I meant to consume him. I moved to close my mouth over just the head, relishing the solid feel of it held between my tongue and the roof of my mouth. For a while I toyed with it, letting my tongue flow around it, careful not to let my sharp teeth touch it. Only when I felt him whimpering in sufficient ecstasy did I allow myself to push forwards, feeling his long shaft slip deeper inside me, wondering if I could take the whole length, until my lips reached the base at the same moment I felt the head push gently against my throat.

He was inside me! For a moment I simply held him there, excited by the throbbing size of it, until I began sliding my tongue up and down its length. Soon this wasn't enough and I started drawing my whole head back and forwards over him, feeling him quiver and shake in rhythm, wondering desperately what it would feel like when he let loose the liquid expression of his love inside me.

I was surprised at first when he joined in, thrusting his hips to make his cock slide even faster back and forth within my mouth. But when I realised how much I enjoyed this, and how muchheenjoyed it, I stopped my own movements entirely and simply let him thrust himself into me, his prodigious manhood pumping deeply into my welcoming mouth, faster and faster as he summoned strength even in his exhaustion.

I felt it as he came. First there was the convulsive shudder that passed through his body, then the hot salty explosion of his orgasm flooding my mouth in repeated, diminishing, glorious bursts. I held him as he came down trembling from the heights of ecstasy, my own sex screaming at me for its own release, and drew my mouth away from his cock, licking it clean as I did. The mouthful of his seed I kept there, savouring the strange taste, until he reached over to lick my throat tenderly; just at that moment I swallowed, knowing that he'd feel me doing it, that he'd know I hadn't spat his gift to me away.

I yearned for him to attend to my own ravenous needs, but knew that in his current state I could ask nothing more of him. Instead I lay his head down on the bed and draped my wing over his body, feeling him fall softly into a deep, deep sleep.

Only when I was certain he was well past the point of waking again did I tend to myself. It was with huge relief that I at last let my tongue slip between the lips of my sex and begin lapping in and out, bringing me rapidly towards a climax. As I worked I kept a wing drooped over Grey-Eye's sleeping form, synchronising my lapping rhythm to the rise and fall of his steady breath. And as I came, suppressing the shouting cry that tried to escape me and wake him from his slumber, I remembered his own orgasm in my mouth and wondered if he had felt the same shrieking rapture that consumed me.

The job done, I lay down entwined with my slumbering lover, holding him tightly to me, and joined him in sleep.

I must have slept for a long time, but when I awoke, Grey-Eye was still asleep. Sleeping off his climb up here to be with me, I thought, as I felt his chest rise and fall under my wing. And our hunting trip. And the lovemaking I practically inflicted on him.

Gently, ever so gently so as not to wake him, I stroked my fingers across his skin, noticing what seemed like a contented sigh in amongst his breaths, as though my touch were penetrating through into his dreams. Did he dream of me? When I felt his wing twitch, was he dreaming of wrapping it around me? When I felt his tail curl, was he dreaming of entwining it with my own?

Awake, I dreamed of him. Not just of sex, although that was never far from my mind. There were also dreams of waking in each other's embrace, of singing together into the endless sky, of soaring together through the air, chasing and diving, the whole world below us. It didn't matter, in a dream, that he could not fly.

As I carried on with my gentle caress I realised, without quite knowing how, that he had woken up. Perhaps it was just a change in his breathing. He didn't give any outward sign of it; in fact, I was sure he was pretending to still be asleep. Perhaps he imagined I'd stop stroking him if I knew otherwise.

"It's a shame you're still asleep, right when I want to give you the first kiss of the morning."

I'd spoken in the slightest whisper, but immediately he came to life and we locked tongues tenderly.

"Mmm, that's a great thing to wake up to. When do I get the second kiss of the morning?"

"When you get your lazy carcass off my bed and out of my cave, of course."

I gave him a playful lick on the nose, stood up, and left him; climbing through the narrow passage of my cave until I felt the cool morning breeze whisper over my skin. As I'd expected, I didn't have to wait long for Grey-Eye to appear at my side, and we each wrapped a wing around the other before I gave him the promised second kiss.

"Sing with me, Grey-Eye."

There was a pause, as though he were embarrassed.

"I haven't joined in the Song since my first mate died."

"Then forget the Song. Just sing with me."

I didn't wait for an answer but began to sing. I sang a wild and leaping melody, that carried in it all of my recent joy and excitement and hope. After a few passages on my own I heard Grey-Eye join his voice with mine, cautiously at first, just an echo of my own song, but then gaining in confidence and volume. He harmonised with me, elaborating on my motifs and handing them back to me sweeter than before. Oh, and he was good! Such a lyrical and inventive voice; he was just possibly almost as good a singer as I was. The Song had lost much from his long silence.

Together we sang and sang, as loud as our lungs could bear, our notes a tangled and sensuous kiss of sound, our songs entwining tighter and tighter until they almost seemed to merge into one brilliant soaring melody.

Quite suddenly and simultaneously, we stopped. But our music didn't stop. To my surprise I heard our final melody still echoing vibrantly in the complex weave of the Song. We had sung so well that the Song had had to join in withus. Together we listened to our music as it mutated and evolved and finally dispersed into the wider ecosystem of sound.

"Your leg feeling better after all that sleep?"

"Not just my leg, Echobright. I feel marvellous.Allof me! Is this cave blessed with some improbable healing powers? Or is it just that you know exactly how to hold me to soothe all my aches and strains? Either way, a few more nights' sleep likethatand I feel I could regain even my long-lost power of flight."

"And your pretty talk might just help cure my dead eyes. Describe for me what you can see right now."

I didn't know what it looked like, the view from my mountainside home. I knew what was in each direction, and how far, but all I had in my mind was a map. I couldn't imagine being able to see it all stretched out in front of me.

"Oh Echobright, if only you could see it, it's exquisite. The elegant curve of your back, the strong supple sweep of your neck, the brutal beauty of your jaw leading to the tantalising..."

"Grey-Eye! You know full well I didn't mean me. You have a devilish mind and a tongue that spits out the most trite, syrupy nonsense I've ever heard. Never, ever change."

His next question took me by surprise.

"Have you always been blind?"

He'd given me his story. For me, there was less to tell.

"No. When I was very young my eyes were fine, but then I got sick, and the disease took my sight. I can't remember what it was like to see."

"That may be the best way. I can still remember flying vividly and it torments me. It was always just a part of life I took for granted until I lost it, and now I yearn for the feel of wind rushing under my wings."

I remembered my waking dream of us soaring through the air together. A dream never to be. Unless...

"But you can still glide?"

"Yes, if I climb up somewhere high I can glide back down to the ground. But it means a lot of climbing for very little time in the air."

"Could you glide from here?"

From the edge where we stood, the ground dropped away almost vertically.

"Yes, I should be able to glide all the way down to town from here with this wind."

"Off you go then."

And before he had time to react I pushed him bodily over the edge.

I heard him yelp in astonishment as he fell, and then just on the edge of hearing the soft whoosh of spread wings hitting the air as he sorted himself out into a glide. Immediately I jumped off after him, unfurling my wings as I fell into a controlled dive.

I could hear him in the air ahead of me. Awkwardly, on imperfect and unbalanced wings, I heard him whoop and shriek as he turned and dived and soared chaotically in the air, with all the unbound enthusiasm of a child dropped into the sky for the very first time. And all the time he was losing height, drawing inevitably closer to the ground.

Click-click-click-click-click.I showered him with sonar as I homed in to intercept, but I hardly needed to, because he screamed out to me through the howling wind.

"Echobright! You crazy, unpredictable, outrageous, sexy thing! I'd be really angry if I wasn't having so much fun right now!"

"Shut up and watch out, I'm coming in on top of you!"

It was an awkward manoeuvre. I had to line myself up directly over him, matching position and speed, and then drop down carefully.

"What? What are you doing? Hey..."

I grabbed him. My legs found a purchase just behind his wings and held on tight, my feet gripping his belly, binding us into a single unit. I beat my wings, pushing us both forwards. And upwards.

"Oh! This can't possibly work! But it is! We're flying! Higher! Faster!"

I could give Grey-Eye back the flight he yearned for. I just had to carry him. He screamed in exultation as I strained myself to fly just as fast and high as we could.

"Keep your wings out! I can't do this if you're dead weight."

"Sorry! Wheeee! Hey, you've stopped echolocating, how do you know where you're going?"

I didn't. This kind of high flying was something I usually could never do; I had long ago lost all track of where we were or which direction we were going in.

"I don't. You do."

"Oh! Right. Sorry. Left a bit. Bit more. Fine. Angle down just slightly. Let's do a flyover of the town."

Grey-Eye's one working eye between the two of us made up for the extra weight. Flying blind was, perhaps surprisingly to most people, easier than walking blind: there were simply less things to hit in the air. But when you hit them you hit them a lot faster. Always, when I flew I lived with the fear that I might at any moment collide with some unseen, unexpected obstacle, possibly ending my life. With my sighted companion, I could finally fly in complete confidence.

We dropped down until we were approaching the little town. I could hear its noisome bustle, could smell its diverse stink.

"Here we go, level off, keep it straight. Wheeee! There's my home!"

He whistled a greeting to someone below, and I wondered if it could be his stouthearted friend, Lens-Of-Infamy.

"This is amazing, I'd forgotten flying was so much... up, up, pull up! NOW!"

Sensing the emergency in his voice, I veered upwards as hard as I could - not as hard as I'd have liked with Grey-Eye weighing me down - and felt my feet brush the topmost leaves of trees where they gripped onto his belly. I snapped at him for his inattention.

"Pay attention or you'll kill us both!"

"Sorry! Oh, damn it. Three old friends on intercept course."

"Who?"

"Disdain, disgust and pity."

I grimaced as I realised who he meant even before I recognised the wingbeats of Cloud-Splitter and her coven falling into formation behind us.

"Oh now what is this? The cripple leading the blindandthe blind carrying the cripple? This is justadorable!"

I snarled at her, not wanting her ruining my first flight with my new mate.

"Go find another patch of sky, Cloud-Splitter, or I'll have my mate steer us right at you. We've both got quite a bite, remember?"

"Hey, if you two are going to perform this circus act in broad daylight, don't complain if you get an audience."

I was about to reply with a more explicit and painful threat when Grey-Eye unexpectedly intervened, shouting out in his pleasant, amiable voice.

"Come on Echobright, we don't mind people watching us, do we? In fact, Cloud-Splitter, why don't you go fetchyourmate and he can watch as well?"

Ha! So he really did have some vinegar in him when it was needed. I didn't need sight to picture the look on Cloud-Splitter's face before I heard her wheel away without another word. Her two companions lingered just long enough to address us.

"Hey, sorry about her."

"And congratulations. I think you're kind of cute together."

I snapped my head in irritation, but without any real malice.

"Piss off the pair of you."

When they were safely out of earshot I congratulated Grey-Eye for his indiscretion.

"You really hit a sore spot. How did you know she's never been able to find a mate?"

"I just guessed. I can't really imagine anyone being that desperate."

Slowly I was learning to read his directions from slight movements of his body and wings, letting him guide me without shouting up awkward commands.

"Where are we?"

"Right over the low mire, where we caught that loper, a few hundred spans up. I can see it shimmering in the light, looking like a great field of burning gold. We're heading just north of east, toward a big, broad, inviting swathe of bright green grasslands, dotted with trees, rising to our left and merging into the rich forests which bask in the sunlight all over the hills. The town's under us to our right, looking small and sort of lost amongst all the green; little white buildings which sparkle where a sun glances off a chance window. On the far side of that I can see the fields and pastures and roads, a kind of patchwork of neat little lines and squares, all slightly different colours, and beyond them are the higher hills where you live, all bleak and scarred moorland, rising up into the sky, blocking out the red sun and casting a half-shadow over the valley. I really wish you could see it."

"When you describe it so clearly, I think I can. You make it sound beautiful."

"What's below me isn't half as beautiful in my eye as what's above me."

I grunted in pretended displeasure, and bent my neck round for a tender mid-air kiss. Suddenly I was highly conscious of the supple warmth of his body pressed against my underside.

"Alright, find a good place for us to land."

"Down already? Are you getting tired?"

I was, but I could have kept going for a good while longer.

"No. But I need to make love to you and we can't do that in the air."

The disappointment in his voice at the prospect of going down instantly turned into eagerness.

"Down it is then. I see a good spot. Very slightly to the left, and not far ahead..."

To the left, and not far... I thought back to Grey-Eye's description of the view and my own knowledge of the valley. That would put us in the grasslands? As he guided us down the heady scent of pollen confirmed my guess. At last we flew a mere span above the ground. Now for the tricky part.

"That's it, nothing ahead of you but grass, just remember I'm underneath you as you land."

I solved the problem of landing by dropping him to glide down on his own, and then landing myself slightly further along, my feet brushing through long grass, slowing me down until I could drop into a run, and then slow to a halt.

My wings furled, I sat down in the grass, facing back to where Grey-Eye must have landed, and waited for him eagerly. A cool breeze caressed the field of long grasses and wild flowers, filling the air with perfume and a gentle rustling whisper. At last I heard footsteps above the whisper, walking - no,running- towards me, crunching and rustling through the vegetation. I sat as still as I could, listening as the footsteps bore down on me without slowing, and just as it seemed he was about to leap into me I pounced, fast, slamming hard into him and knocking him head-over-tail onto his back. Jumping playfully on top of him I ravished his face and neck with kisses, making him laugh and squirm under me.

Soon he took the offensive, trying to lick me right back and I let him, feeling his tongue rasp and slide rapidly all over my chin and nose in short, tickling little bursts. I didn't resist as he pushed me over to one side, rolling onto my back as he leapt on top of me, reversing our positions. I even arched back my neck to let him scour my throat with his tongue, making me mewl pathetically.

After that, it was war. I threw him to one side and we tumbled together, now me on top, now him, each trying to smother the other in kisses, each making half-hearted shows at blocking the other's intentions. We grappled furiously with legs and hands, grabbing and pulling at each other's bodies, the grass tickling our backs as we rolled through it.