The Hot Springs

Naoki's always been shy.

Being at the bathhouse has always made him flush and squirm, has made him unsure and made him terribly, uncomfortably anxious. It's just been easier, all told, to avoid it all.

Instead of going to the bathhouse, he trudges up to the mountain hot springs one day a week, goes extremely early in the morning - normally arriving just as the sun is visible from the mountain peak, but before the day has properly dawned - and that's easy, simple.

For some time, this has been the ideal solution to his nerves, until one day Naoki comes up the mountain and finds that some gigantic, burly warrior has chosen to visit at the same time.

Naoki stumbles into the clearing later than usual, the sun already above the horizon, and he is utterly dismayed to see the silhouette of a figure already in the spring.

The man rises immediately from the steaming waters, greets him politely, says he was just leaving - as he descends the mountain, Naoki undresses with trembling fingers, unable to think of anything but the seven feet of stacked muscle and the biggest cock he's ever seen.

It is not just a singular coincidence: Naoki sees the warrior again some weeks again, and the next week, again.

Each time he comes to the springs, the great warrior is already dressing himself to depart, or steps politely from the water to leave Naoki to his solitude. Each time, Naoki is so nervous he can't say a word, only bows back and doesn't say anything aloud to greet the man, to acknowledge his departure.

One week, he manages it: as the warrior is stepping out of the springs, his body gleaming with water and ensconced in clouds of steam, Naoki blurts out, "You can stay."

The warrior stares at him.

"If you want."

The warrior raises his chin. "You come here to be alone," he says quietly.

And yes, that's true - Naoki most certainly does come here to be alone, but it feels wrong, feels rude, that he keeps turfing this man out before he's finished with his bath, no matter that he never actually asks him to leave.

"We can be alone together?" It sounds ridiculous. Of course it sounds ridiculous, of course it does - Naoki hates talking to people at the best of times, frequently finds himself stumbling over the rules and the expectations, often prefers silence over saying something wrong--

But the warrior stares at him, then nods his head and sinks back into the water.

Now all Naoki has to do is take his clothes off and get into the steaming bath with him.

His hands shake on the tie of his belt, his sleeves feeling suddenly too big and unwieldy, and he sets his yukata over a warm rock, stepping out of his sandals too. He dives into the water so quickly he makes a significant splash, and he hisses at the sudden hot temperature - then shivers, because there's a rumble.

That rumbling sound is not the shift of stone on stone or the sound of thunder in the distance. It's the warrior, laughing, a low noise that comes from very deep in his prodigious gut.

Naoki is blushing and can't stop, hope it seems like his cheeks are only glowing red because of the steam and hot water.

"Eager to bathe?" asks the warrior once he's finished, wiping a tear from the corner of one eye.

"Mm," hums Naoki, sinking back against a natural seat on the stone, shuddering as he feels the deep heat of the spring sink under his skin, into his bones. He leans his head back and exhales, feels himself all but melt into the waters, and he loses himself for a while - when he opens his eyes, he finds the warrior is looking over at him, eyes heavily lidded.

Naoki adjusts himself in the water, pressing his knees together. "Do you--" He starts, then stops, furrowing his brow. "You like to bathe alone, also?"

"I do."

"Sorry."

"This spring belongs to no one, not to you or I. No sense apologising."

"Right," Naoki says. "You're-- you're a samurai?"

"Me? No." He laughs like the very idea is ridiculous, and maybe it is. Naoki's never seen a samurai as big as this man, and although he saw a sheath hanging up with his clothes, he only saw one, not two. "I smith their swords."

"Wow."

"... Wow?"

"I mean, you, I... Yes. Wow."

Naoki is thinking of the blacksmith smithing. He's thinking of him in front of a forge, working blades to fine, tempered steel. He's thinking of him with sweat and smut on his cheeks, body glistening, muscles straining, thinking of sweat running down the middle of his fat, hairy breast, of his belly.

"Wow," repeats the blacksmith slowly, consideringly.

Naoki swallows.

"Why come here?" asks the blacksmith in mild tones. "You don't like the baths in town?"

"Don't you?"

"No," says the blacksmith immediately. "Everyone's too chatty."

Naoki looks at him wryly, and the blacksmith chuckles, but does not cede his hypocrisy. He makes a gesture with one strong, meaty hand for Naoki to answer the question.

"I know everyone in town," he says.

"Everyone?"

"Most everyone."

"Why?"

"... I don't know."

"You live at the crossroads, maybe?"

Naoki shifts in the waters, tracing one of his fingers over the surface of the steaming water, sending ripples through it. "I work," he says. "In town."

"Where?"

"Hanako's."

"Hana...?" The blacksmith bursts into laughter again, that deep rumble, and Naoki stares at the ripples in the water that overtake his own, feels his skin prickling all over with sticky heat. "The brothel? You work in the brothel, and yet you're so...?" He gestures to Naoki in a way that Naoki is devastatingly familiar with.

"I keep the books," he says.

The blacksmith's laughter fades, as though he's realised he might be hurting Naoki's feelings, and he's quick to collect himself, although the smile lingers on his face. "Ah," he says.

Naoki thinks that perhaps it's over, that perhaps silence will now reign, but instead the blacksmith asks, "Get a lot of patrons clamouring for a taste?" There's something about the way he says it, the natural rumble of his voice, the pitch of it, the slight hoarseness, something that goes straight to Naoki's cock, that makes him subtly rub his thighs together and hope that the smith doesn't notice.

And--

Yes, sometimes.

Most of the patrons looking for a man, whether they be men or women, are looking for an ideal wakashu, and that's not Naoki: they want someone younger than he is, slim and delicate. He might be short, but he's not slim and he's certainly not delicate; his head is balding at the front; he's hairy all over, and not boyish by any means.

Some of them, though, are looking for a man like him, and their tastes do run in his direction, for the most part, but that's really not... He couldn't, he doesn't think. He can barely fumble through a sexual encounter already, without worrying about it being bad business.

"All the work I do is with coins or pen and paper," he says.

"That sounds like a fun performance," says the blacksmith, and Naoki doesn't mean to laugh, but he does, turning his head away.

"You've never been in," he says.

"Hanako's? No. Don't care for women. Don't like wakashu either."

"One or two of our regular men are ex-warriors," he says automatically: cringing inwardly, he hates what a relief it is, how talking about work is so much easier than anything else, because this is a script he's used to. "And Hideyori is a big man."

"I know Hideyori," says the smith. "He's a better lay than he is an actor, but still not good."

Naoki tries not to laugh at that, tries not to meet the smith's cool, comfortable gaze, because it's making him feel hotter than the water does.

"I think he's a fine actor," Naoki says loyally.

"And you?"

"Me?"

"Can you act?"

"No, not really. As you can tell, I can barely carry a conversation."

"Good," says the blacksmith, and his gaze flits down in the water. "Keeps you honest, I bet. No pretending."

"Why would I pretend?"

"Well, you wouldn't. With me, you wouldn't have to."

"Oh," says Naoki, before he's registered what the smith has said. Then, louder, abruptly alight with awareness, he says it again: "Oh."

The blacksmith's grin shows the shift of his lips, makes the stubble on his cheeks move - he's a large man, and his face is big and square like a tom cat's, made to seem even more so by the heavy bun on his head, his hair a lot thicker than Naoki's.

"You don't shave," he manages to say.

The blacksmith shrugs. "No one's big enough to make me," he says simply.

For some reason, this makes Naoki's knees feel week. He looks wild, the blacksmith, strong and dangerous and... unkempt. Before he comes to bathe in the hot springs, he must wash off a lot of smut and dirt from his forge, must have to scrub it all away. Why exactly should that thrill him?

The blacksmith moves in the water and Naoki's body thrills, anticipating the touch - how long has it been? Months, maybe even a year - but then his hands are on the side of the pool and he's lifting himself out, water dripping off his huge body the way it might drip off a bear's.

Once more, Naoki is heavily aware of how much fucking meat is dangling from between his massive legs, how thick and heavy his belly is, what a thing the blacksmith's arse is.

The smith doesn't even begin to dress right away but sits back on a stone - the sun is rising, and he's going to let himself dry off first.

"Will you decline me, just because I have a beard?" asks the smith, raising thick, bushy eyebrows.

"I might decline you because you haven't invited me," says Naoki, the words falling out of his mouth, far too direct, too rude, unbidden.

The smith laughs from his gut.

"I invite you, then - quite formally."

"Invite me to what, exactly?"

"You work in a brothel and you can't figure out what?"

"You'll find that in a brothel people are quite specific about what services they're offering and what services they want." He feels hot and flushed, speaking like this with a stranger - it's liberating, being up here on the mountain, not really knowing each other, not having anyone watching on, not having anyone who'll observe and pass on whatever they see. Gossip. He's never been good at keeping up with it.

The blacksmith is grinning now, his eyes crinkling at their corners. "You're quite the funny one. I'd pay a lot for your company if you were on the menu at Hanako's."

"Would you?"

"Mm. But I must say, I'll prefer having you for free."

"Who says you will?"

"Come, sit."

"You're inviting me to come out of the water and sit on the stone? Not exactly enticing."

"I don't want you to sit on the stone," says the blacksmith, and winks as he taps his chin.

Naoki feels light-headed.

He sits there for a few long moments, frozen, as the smith bundles up a piece of cloth and lays it under his head, settling back on the stone. "What?" he asks. "Not enticing enough for you?"

"I don't even know your name."

"Saeimon. Come. Sit."

Naoki nearly falls over getting out of the water, the stone slippery, but he goes nonetheless, clambers up onto the rock. He straddles Saeimon's body and thrills at the heat of him, the way he radiates it like he's a forge himself rather than its master - and he's so hairy, and Naoki is forced to spread his thighs so wide to straddle him.

The texture underneath him makes his thighs quiver, and he grinds himself between the fat swell of his chest on each side, gasps at the roughness of the curling hairs there against his cock.

"Mm, higher, higher," rumbles Saeimon, tapping the back of his thighs, and Naoki yelps, because he can fucking feel it, the vibration of Saeimon's voice coming from his chest.

Saeimon doesn't wait for him to move but grasps his thighs in each big hand - Naoki can feel the callouses and scars on each palm and thick finger, the differences between hard-won scarring beneath the flesh and where the skin has turned shiny-leathery from a burn.

His fingers make the fat flesh of Naoki's thighs dimple, so warm he almost doesn't feel the cold at having risen from the baths, and then Saeimon is dragging him forward, his thighs apart, and his mouth is open and tonguing hungrily between his legs.

Naoki lets out a cry at the sudden movement of Saeimon's tongue, sliding up between his lips just to taste them parting before he closes his mouth around Naoki's cock, sucking just for a second, just to tease, in a way that makes his vision blur. He can feel the man's beard.

The bristles of it are dragging so sublimely against him that he can't stand it, the pressure, the slight dig, and he whimpers as Saeimon explores him with his tongue and his lips, kisses and suckles at him, around the opening of his cunt. His hands remain braced on Naoki's thighs.

"I said sit," he rasps after a few minutes of this, and Naoki has to concentrate to have any idea what he's saying.

That doesn't mean he understands, though. "What?" he asks, feeling hazy and stupid.

"I said sit," repeats Saeimon. "Not hover."

"Wh-- Oh, ah, ah--"

Saeimon uses the obscene strength in his heavy hands to force Naoki down lower, his knees buckling, and now his weight is really and truly resting on Saeimon's face, all the better for him to thrust his tongue wholly inside him.

Naoki howls so loudly that birds fly up from a nearby maple, and he braces his hands on the stone over Saeimon's head, unable to stop himself from grinding down against him. Saeimon's lips and tongue are buried against him, his tongue swiping about inside where he's wet and open.

His nose, a big and blunt instrument, is shoving so incredibly against Naoki's cock that Naoki can't stand it, and he tries to whimper that, tries to let Saeimon know, but the words won't string together.

When he comes, his whole body seeming to clench with the waves of it, the smith just growls and tightens his grip, putting himself to devouring Naoki's cunt more entirely, more passionately.

Naoki feels dizzy, his cheeks so full of blood they might burst, his cock throbbing.

"I can't," he gasps out as Saeimon keeps on mouthing and tonguing at him, acts like he aims to drink every last drop of wetness from him. He's throbbing with overstimulation, his cunt clenching weakly, and at the same time he wants desperately to be filled. "Please--"

"So polite," rumbles Saeimon, his voice lower, hoarser, deeper now with arousal. He sits up and it's no effort for him at all, making Naoki fall back against his belly as he sits up, his head between Saeimon's legs, but Saeimon doesn't let him go.

He's aware of Saeimon's cock nudging against the base of his neck and the back of his head, huge and tantalisingly close, but he can't turn his head to look at it, let alone touch it, because he has Naoki's knees braced over his shoulders and Naoki is held in place.

"So wet," he muses out loud, and Naoki has to crane his head up to stare at him, then forces his blushing gaze away.

"Don't look," he hisses, and Saeimon laughs again, sliding two fingers into Naoki's open slit and making him moan.

"Why not? I have a good view!"

All the blood should be rushing to his head in this position, pinned and powerless where he's spread over Saeimon's huge torso, his hands grasping uselessly at the sides of his belly, his thighs, but the sensation is just more intense as Saeimon strums his cock with his tongue.

His fingers are thick, much thicker than Naoki's, and the texture of them makes him jump and jerk in his place - once Saeimon adds a third finger, it's easily as thick as any other cock he's ridden, and Naoki can't help but keen.

"You make beautiful noises, and you taste sublime," says Saeimon, then swipes his cock with the tip of his tongue again, a rapid side to side motion that has Naoki seeing stars. "You're wasted counting money."

"Fuck me!"

"Mm, later. I'm busy."

"Please, please, come on, come on," Naoki moans, but there's no escape, not with his arse resting on Saeimon's heavy chest, his legs thrown wide and kept braced in place by the smith's strong grip. Squirming does nothing but encourage Saeimon to mouth at him more.

He's plunging his fingers in deeply, rubbing and pressing at the sensitive roof of his cunt and making him almost feel like he's getting fucked, but it's not enough - he wants the real stretch, wants to feel it, wants the challenge of this man's gargantuan prick inside him.

It's somewhere between torture and bliss, trapped like this with Saeimon's tongue playing and dragging at his cock, his fingers thrusting into him - his second orgasm is slow to gather in him, and at the same time, it aches.

"I can't," he whines at one particularly hard suck right on the head of his prick, making him feel like his stomach is flipping over, his thighs spasming uncontrollably.

"You will," replies Saeimon in pleasant tones, as if they're talking over tea, and sucks again.

Ridiculously, he feels like a honeypot held against a bear's chest as Saeimon keeps fucking him with his fingers and leaving at him in turns: when he finally slides his pinky finger, slick with Naoki's own juices, against his arse and fucks inside it at the same time, it's--

What is it?

Everything? Utter ecstasy? Utter carnage?

It doesn't matter, because Naoki is howling so loudly they can in all probability hear him down the mountainside, his voice cracking with want, his hips canting up for more.

Despite the powerlessness of the position he does his best to ride Saeimon's face anyway, and he feels a release as he comes, feels himself squirt, and moaning and trying to scrabble away do nothing to escape the impossible pleasure of it all.

He's clenching down around Saeimon's fingers, his whole body thrumming, feels raw and open like a fresh wound, and when he finally starts to come down he actually feels outside of his body, ascended somewhere otherworldly, into some third plane with the rising steam.

"Ungh," he says incoherently as Saeimon relaxes his grip on his legs, beginning to turn him right side up.

"That's it, that's it," says Saeimon warmly, and maybe he's the honey, not Naoki, because his voice is perfectly sweet. "What was nice, wasn't it?

"I..."

"Here, sit."

That's all the warning Naoki gets before Saeimon, smoothly as anything, lines his hard cock up with Naoki's open cunt and slides home. Naoki can't breathe, he's so full of cock, sunk down to the hilt - it's so thick he can't believe it fits.

"Fuck," he gasps out, staring down at himself, almost surprised there's no huge deformation to his abdomen where all of Saeimon's cock is he's stretched wider than he's ever been before and it aches and it feels so perfect this might be the dream world after all.

"Mmm, fuck," Saeimon agrees, and moves his hips in a little circle that makes something burst inside Naoki's brain, dull, thudding pleasure that might just send him crazy on top of everything else. "That's what you wanted, right?"

Naoki can't think, and his legs are weak and boneless from how hard he just came - Saeimon makes up for this by laying back flat on the stone and rocking up into him evenly at a slow rhythm, his hands gripping Naoki's middle and keeping him upright.

He feels like he might as well have been some device brewed up in Saeimon's forge for the purposes of his pleasure, Saeimon uses him so easily, sinking himself within him as if he's fucked Naoki a thousand times before and will a thousand times again.

He's both within his body and outside of it, so overwhelmed and overrun with pleasure he can't do anything but let it happen to him, let it wash over him. Saeimon is talking to him, saying warm, coaxing words: "Good, that's it, just like that, sweet boy, yeah, good."

It should humiliate him, should embarrass him - he's not young enough to be a boy anymore for a start - but instead it just makes that raw, aching feeling buried in him intensify. He can't possibly come again. He can't.