“Here we are, Master Perian!” said Bergil, throwing open
the door. “Your own room at last. Do you wish to sit down on the
bed?”
Merry did indeed. Painful though it was to admit it, the long walk
to and from the City gate had tired him a little, and his limbs felt
strangely heavy. His heart felt heavy too, for his own dear Pippin had
ridden off to war with Aragorn, Gandalf and the other Captains. Legolas
and Gimli had gone as well, leaving Merry alone in the Houses of Healing.
How would he bear the long days of waiting that lay ahead?
Bergil watched him, fidgeting.
“Are you comfortable?” he inquired. “Do you need
anything?”
“A little sleep is what Master Meriadoc needs,” answered
the Warden, who had come in silently behind them. “And you, Bergil,
have errands to run. Quickly, now!”
With a parting wave, Bergil darted off. Merry stared regretfully after
him. The well-meaning Warden had succeeded in driving away the one person
he knew in this great, unfamiliar city of Minas Tirith. Where would
he find company now?
“I suppose everyone here is terribly ill,” he said to
the Warden. “Or wounded.”
“You are right,” the Warden agreed gloomily. “Many
are still recovering from the Black Breath. Lady Éowyn will see no one
as yet. Thank goodness Lord Faramir, at least, is out of danger.”
“Faramir!” Merry pricked up his ears. “Is he here?”
“He is. We’ve been ordered to keep him for a few more
days. He is a man of great strength, both in body and in mind. Gondor
will need that strength.” The Warden turned to go. “Farewell,
Master Perian. Try to get some sleep.”
Merry nodded distractedly. So Faramir was somewhere nearby! He had
never heard the name till day before yesterday, but it was already firmly
fixed in his imagination: Faramir, Ranger of Ithilien, who had entertained
two wandering hobbits with such exceptional hospitality. That’s
what Gandalf had said, anyway. The subject had come up because everyone
wanted news of Frodo and Sam, and Faramir had surprised even Gandalf
by producing a bundle of it.
“The love of men!” Merry whispered to himself. This, Gandalf
had said, was what Frodo and Sam had discovered among the Rangers of
Ithilien. Pippin had laughed and dismissed the whole story. But Merry
had waited till he could corner Gandalf alone, and then he had pumped
him for details – lots of details! Uncharacteristically, the old
wizard had supplied those details. Orgies! The mere thought of those
orgies made Merry hard even now.
But what of it? Faramir was the Steward of Gondor, whatever that meant.
He would have no interest in a bit of halfling baggage left behind while
all the important people rode off to battle.
No, Merry was on his own here in the Houses of Healing. And he did
need a nap, as the Warden had observed. Laughing at himself, he took
off his coat and vest, curled up under the blankets and drifted off
to sleep.
Although the Houses of Healing maintained a general air of peace,
they were not altogether silent. Footsteps came and went in the hallways.
Urgent voices could be heard at times. More than once someone groaned
in pain. Merry slept through at all until, two or three hours later,
the faintest of creaks woke him.
He was not alone. In a chair by the window sat a man he’d never
seen before. Sunlight lay on his golden hair, and his blue eyes gazed
thoughtfully toward some unknown horizon. He wore a long white robe
that had probably been given to him by the healers. A wounded soldier,
perhaps? Another bit of baggage in search of companionship?
“Hello,” said Merry, turning on his side. “I didn’t
know I had a visitor.”
The man gave a start. “Pardon me, Master Perian,” he said,
smiling. “I did not mean to wake you.”
“Not at all,” replied Merry. “Too much sleep can
be as trying as not enough. And I hoped there would be someone to talk
to when I woke up. I’m Merry Brandybuck of the Shire.”
“I know,” the man told him. “Your deeds have already
won renown here in the City. And I myself owe a deep debt of gratitude
to your friend Peregrin Took, who saved my life.”
Pippin had saved someone’s life? This confounded Merry until
he remembered, dimly, a part of Gandalf’s story that had been
overwhelmed by more sensational aspects. The man Pippin had saved from
a fiery death was none other than –
“Lord Faramir!” Merry sprang out of bed and hastily tucked
in his shirt. “Please excuse me. I didn’t realize –“
“There’s no need for ceremony,” laughed Faramir.
“We are merely two wards of the healers, lonely and forgotten.
I hope we may be friends.”
“Of course.” Merry sat down sheepishly. Now that he looked
again, he wondered how he could have mistaken the Steward for a common
soldier. His resemblance to Boromir seemed perfectly obvious, as did
his noble bearing and keen intelligence. He was, in addition, a remarkably
beautiful man, and all the more so for the air of grief that hung about
him even when he laughed. He’d just lost his father, Merry remembered,
and that had been only a short while after his brother’s death:
reason enough for grief.
That, however, did not answer the more immediate question: what was
Faramir doing in Merry’s room?
“The Warden told me I might find you here,” Faramir said
as if he had read Merry’s mind. “It is a great honor to
meet another halfling. It seems that Shire-folk possess extraordinary
courage.”
“If so, most of us haven’t found it out yet,” Merry
said. “But wait – of course you mean Frodo and Sam! Gandalf
told me you’d seen them. You can’t imagine what that means
to us.”
“To you and to all the free peoples of Middle-Earth.”
Faramir’s face was grave. “Your friends have gone into unimaginable
peril. They are, I think, the bravest souls I have ever met.”
Merry nodded. He was trying to attend, but his head was full of orgies.
“Oh, yes,” he agreed. “Frodo and Sam are brave all
right. It seems an awfully long time since they left us. Pippin is gone
too, now. And Strider and the rest. It’s hard to feel brave when
your friends are all off in the thick of things, facing goodness knows
what danger. But then, you’d understand that – wouldn’t
you?”
All this was perfectly true, and a palpable sense of dread rose up
in Merry’s heart. At the same time, he glowed inwardly when Faramir
walked across the room and sat down on the bed beside him. Summoning
up a bit of halfling courage, he took Faramir’s hand in his.
“You really do understand,” he said. “Don’t
you.”
Faramir held the hand tightly. “I was brought up to be a warrior,”
he said. “Yet I have never loved battle as others do. I fight
because I must, not because I relish it. Now a great battle looms and
you and I are kept from it. A fine irony! Yes, Master Merry. I understand
you very well indeed.”
He did, too; that much was plain. But Merry wanted to be understood
even better. He wanted more than a scrap of sympathy, and more too than
the bare details of orgies past. He wanted an orgy of his own, and in
order to get it he would have to come clean. He took a deep breath.
“Lord Faramir,” he said. “I know about you and the
Rangers of Ithilien.”
There was no answer. Merry went on.
“Gandalf told us. It made me feel – I don’t know.
It made me want things, wonderful things, things I’d never heard
about before. The love of men.”
Still no answer. Was Faramir angry? He didn’t look angry. There
was nothing to do but plunge ahead.
“It’s not that I’m a babe in the woods,” Merry
explained. “Pippin and I used to touch each other sometimes. You
know, just with our hands. Nothing more. No one told us there was anything
more to try. And for Pippin, I always felt, it was only something to
do till he got a girlfriend. He wasn’t in love with me. I mean,
he loved me. He still does. He just wasn’t in love with me. We’re
best friends.
“But me, I’m different. I’m not waiting for a girlfriend.
I know that. So when I heard about you and the Rangers, I felt –
how can I put it? I felt I wasn’t alone anymore. And to be perfectly
honest, I got hard. Very hard. I wanted my share of the fun. Most of
all, though, I felt that I could be loved – really loved. I’d
never felt that before.” He looked up into Faramir’s face.
“And it’s your doing, in a way. In a way, I should be thanking
you. Will you let me? Thank you, I mean?”
Faramir raised a hand to his cheek and stroked it affectionately.
There was a twinkle in his eye as he said, “I don’t know
what the healers would think. You and I were called back from the threshold
of death just three days ago. What you seem to be suggesting might be
looked on as an unnecessary exertion.”
“Or as a sign of renewed vigor,” argued Merry. “I,
for one, am feeling exceptionally vigorous after my nap. And the same
might be said of you,” he added, indicating a prominent bulge
that was stretching the folds of Faramir’s robe.
“You’ve found me out!” laughed Faramir. “Very
well, Master Merry. Have it your way. Let us thank each other as best
we can.” And with that he kissed Merry, not hard but lightly and
tenderly, his lips barely brushing what they kissed. Merry had never
felt anything like this soft, searching touch. It could not have been
gentler, and yet it gave promise of strength held in reserve. Instinctively,
his body pressed itself closer against Faramir’s.
The kiss, in answer, pressed closer too. Tongues met between lips,
shyly at first, like two small fish bumping noses in a pond, then twining
silkily round each other. Merry sucked at Faramir’s tongue, drawing
it deeper into his mouth. His fingers nested in the unfamiliar roughness
of golden beard – a delicious roughness that tickled his own smooth
skin as they kissed.
“I want . . .” he said between kisses. “I want .
. .” “What do you want?” asked Faramir, his hands
sliding up and down Merry’s delighted body.
“I want to get your robe off. May I? May I see you naked?
By way of response, Faramir disentangled himself and got up. Then
he lifted Merry and placed him upright on the mattress. Standing this
way, Faramir on the floor and Merry on the bed, they were almost the
same height.
“I am yours to command,” Faramir said simply. “Do
what you will.”
It was at this moment that Merry realized fully what was happening.
Here stood this magnificent creature, this unmistakably male being,
entrusted to him for his sole joy and comfort. He would waste no time
but would begin at once to explore this natural wonder, to taste every
inch of this golden flesh, and to touch, if he could, the noble and
generous soul within.
The robe was a plain affair, tied at the waist with a white sash.
Merry reached up and begin to nurse it apart, savoring the feel of fine-
haired skin beneath. As he worked he revealed more skin, and yet more,
inch by precious inch, for Faramir’s rapt stillness told him there
was no need to rush. He slipped his fingers under the cloth and felt
– oh, sweet! – nipples he could not yet see, now soft and
pliant, now tight and knobbled. There were bones, too – long thin
ones at the base of the throat, with a tender hollow between that had
to be kissed and nuzzled; and a wide flat bone down the middle of the
chest, a hard valley between the muscled slopes on either side. Merry
explored this entrancing landscape with fingers and lips, with cheek,
nose and tongue, with knuckle, palm and wrist. His, all his, in the
breathless hush of afternoon!
Slowly he parted the robe. His hands slid it across curving shoulders
and down powerful arms, baring all to the delectation of his wondering
eyes. Down, and yet further down, Merry moved the robe until, with a
smile, Faramir lifted first one arm, then the other, out of the sleeves.
Merry could have dropped the robe all the way to the floor. Instead
he held it against Faramir’s belly, first with his hands and then,
moving forward a little, with his own hips pressed firmly against it.
Before he uncovered anything else, he wished to devote himself utterly
to Faramir’s chest. Salty and sweet, smooth and savory, he devoured
all that he could reach. He nipped and squeezed, licked and teased in
an ecstasy of adoration. He burrowed into the warm, enveloping hollows
under Faramir’s arms, and buried his face in them, rubbing his
nose in soft fragrant hair. He would have climbed right in if he could,
and curled up in those perfect little nests of flesh and fur. Below,
down the long flank that plunged toward a far-off swell of hip, all
was smooth and hairless, a joy to finger and tongue.
At last it was time to move on; but first there was renewed kissing,
much more kissing, and arms pressing bodies so close that their ribs
creaked in protest.
“Turn around,” Merry whispered finally. “Don’t
let the robe drop yet.” At once he was presented with a generous
expanse of back, luxuriously wide across the shoulders and tapering
to a taut, narrow waist. There was only one way to do justice to this
overwhelming vision. Merry took off his own shirt and rubbed his bare
chest against it, covering it with as much of his torso as he could.
His crotch, tight almost to bursting, pressed hard against the curve
of Faramir’s spine. He knew what he wanted next, but he would
take his time getting there; so he blazed a slow, seductive trail of
kisses, one vertebra at a time, down the long line of Faramir’s
back. As he went, his hands molded themselves to muscles and bones,
shoulder blades and ribs, and at last to the squeezable flesh between
ribcage and hips.
Merry hopped down off the bed and took a firm grip on the bunched-up
robe. Slowly, slowly, he inched it down, exposing the first soft swell
of posterior flesh, the first faint shadow of posterior cleft. The heels
of his hands pressed into buttocks that remained, as yet, invisible,
while his mouth and tongue darted over new, untasted skin. Down inched
the robe, and more came into view, tender and white till Merry marked
it with nibbling teeth. More and more, further and further – behold
the round, sweet splendor of buttocks, so firm yet so temptingly kneadable!
Let the robe go now. Down it fell with a soft plump! And Merry pushed
his face into the cleft that beckoned him so irresistibly.
The rest of the world no longer existed. There was only this, man’s
hidden secret, revealing itself now to Merry’s unstoppable mouth.
Deeper and deeper it called him, deeper than tongue could go, till fingers
were drawn into service. No end of fun, it seemed, could be had in the
paradise Merry had found.
But what was this, brushing the back of his hand? A ball sac! He forced
the sturdy legs apart, dropped to his knees and wedged himself under
the entire magnificent apparatus. His face was awash in Faramir’s
body – thighs, balls and buttocks – and he licked voraciously
at all of it. Where, he began to wonder, was the cock that should crown
the whole affair? His right hand found it, soaring hard and proud above
the greedy gobbling that continued just below. He felt along the shaft
till he could squeeze, with thumb and forefinger, the swollen head.
“Merry! Oh, Merry!”
He paused in mid-lick. Why on earth was Faramir calling his name?
He poked his head out and looked up?
“Yes?” he said. “Is something wrong?”
Faramir returned his stare. “Wrong? No, nothing’s wrong.
Everything’s right, as right as it could possibly be. Why?”
“Well, you called my name, didn’t you?” Faramir
grinned. “Yes, now that you mention it, I suppose I did. Or perhaps
it would be more accurate to say that I moaned it. I’ve been moaning
a great deal, as I’m sure you must have heard.”
Merry shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything till just
now,” he admitted. “According to Pippin, it’s awfully
hard to distract me when I’m enjoying myself. And I’ve been
enjoying myself far too much just now to pay attention.”
“Attention? You’ve almost driven me mad with your attention!”
Faramir was trying to look aggrieved, but without success. “I’m
absolutely itching to get my hands on your fair flesh. When will I get
my chance?”
“Soon, soon,” Merry promised, his eyes straying down past
Faramir’s naval. “There’s one more bit of you that
I want to sample. I won’t say it’s the best bit, not when
the rest is so delectable. But I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
He extricated himself, stood up and found that his face was perfectly
placed to do as much sampling as he wished. Here, he thought, was an
utterly beautiful cock, a model of its kind, long but not too long,
ever so slightly curved, nobly veined, and crowned with a head both
proudly domed and generously ridged. Merry licked at the dewdrop that
hung from its dilated slit. Delicious! He placed his lips around the
head and moved them up and down, squeezing as he did so. Somewhere above
him, Faramir was moaning again, his pelvic muscles twitching. Merry
hoped this was a good thing, for he had no intention of stopping. The
only question was, how much could he fit into his mouth?
Not all, as it turned out, but a considerable amount nonetheless.
And the rest was there for his wandering hands, as was the ball sac
swinging below. A resourceful hobbit could find plenty to do without
choking himself in the process. Faramir, at any rate, accepted all ministrations
with apparent gusto.
Too soon, though, Merry felt a pair of strong hands hauling him up,
up by the armpits till his face drew level with Faramir’s.
“This,” the man panted, kissing him sternly, “has
gone on long enough. It’s high time we got your breeches off.”
A fine tussle ensued, during which a squirming hobbit dived under
the blankets and rolled himself up at the foot of the bed. Faramir soon
dug him out, however, and at last the de-breeching had been achieved.
Now Merry discovered what it felt like when every inch of flesh was
nibbled and nuzzled beyond bearing. Faramir clearly knew how to extract
the utmost in sheer sensation from his writhing victim, and Merry nearly
climaxed at least three times by his own count. Deliverance, however,
was not yet his.
“Close your eyes!” commanded Faramir.
“Why?” whimpered Merry, wondering what other torments
lay in wait for him.
“I have a present for you. Close your eyes.”
Merry obeyed. To his surprise, Faramir’s weight heaved off the
bed and his bare feet were heard on the floor. What was going on? Back
he came at once, and Merry felt him settling comfortably and thrillingly
astride his hips. There was a small popping noise. A heavy, sweet smell
reached his nostrils.
“Now look.”
Merry opened his eyes. Faramir was holding a small vial of clear liquid.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked impishly.
There was a moment’s silence. Then Merry remembered. “It’s
that strange oil!” he burst out. “Gandalf mentioned it,
but I can’t recall the name. Luridas? Luminous?”
“Lubenas!” laughed Faramir. “From a plant of the
same name. You’re awfully well informed, as halflings go. I wonder
if you’re not more experienced than you’ve led me to believe.”
“I wish I were,” Merry said ruefully. “It seems
I’ve been missing out. But see here: who put this lubenas oil
in my room? Surely not that Warden!”
Faramir made no reply, but his face turned bright red. All at once
the truth became crystal clear.
“Come down here where I can kiss you,” Merry said feelingly.
He got his kiss, a sweet one full of love and longing, with a touch
of laughter at the end. When it was over, Merry gazed fondly at his
new friend. “You brought it along yourself,” he said. “Didn’t
you! You had this whole afternoon planned out from the start.”
“Not planned out, exactly,” Faramir qualified. “I
just like to be prepared. And if you must know, it was our friend Gandalf
who suggested the idea. When it comes to bringing men together, he’s
a grand old busybody – has been since he introduced me to my first
love – and he seemed to feel that this would do you and me a world
of good. I must say I agree wholeheartedly. Don’t you?”
Merry looked at Faramir’s cock where it lay at rest upon his
belly. “A question like that isn’t even worth answering,”
he replied. “The real question is, what are we going to do with
this lubenas oil?
Faramir took Merry’s hand and poured a generous dollop of oil
into it. Then he guided the hand under his crotch and tucked it between
his own buttocks.
“Prepare me,” he said. “Then you’ll find out.”
Merry didn’t need to be told twice. He set to work without delay,
probing again the enticing secrets of Faramir’s body. One finger,
then two, and finally three, found their way into that hot, moist darkness.
His own cock, meanwhile, was teased back to life by another, larger,
well- oiled hand. Wisely, this hand did not take him too far down the
path toward ecstasy, but contented itself with firming him up for the
final journey.
At last the moment arrived. Merry couldn’t help whimpering when
an inconceivable ring of muscle lowered itself onto the head of his
cock. For a moment it hovered there, warm and tight and wonderfully
alive; then it pulled away, only to sink slowly back, enveloping him
in its pulsing heat. Gradually, as it rose and fell, it made its way
further and further down his hard shaft, till at last it was slapping
the firm flesh of his pelvis. And Faramir, whose eyes never for an instant
left Merry’s, now began to groan as if the very essence of life
and love were moving through his body, filling him with its glory. For
his part, Merry felt that he’d been swallowed up in an entire
universe of love, a universe cozy enough to embrace his every contour
yet vast enough to encompass the full magnitude of his joy.
Using the oil that was smeared now here and there on both their bodies,
he took Faramir’s cock and balls in his hands.
“Slow, slow,” Faramir chanted, panting raggedly. “Let’s
see how long we can make it last.”
Exquisite agony! Never before had Merry’s body cried so insistently
for completion: yet never before had he longed so deeply to make one
moment stretch into centuries. The bitter end of all their stories was
near, the final catastrophe that might dash all their hopes and dreams.
Perhaps, if this one moment of supreme love could vault over the eons
into eternity, that final catastrophe need never come. Frodo and Sam
need not die, alone and in torment; Gandalf and Strider need not fall
under the cresting tide of Mordor’s malice; Legolas and Gimli
might not perish far from their homelands; and he himself, Meriadoc
Brandybuck, might find a home for all time in the enveloping warmth
of Faramir’s body, Faramir’s love.
How long did it really last? A few minutes, perhaps, and those as
much like an instant as they were like an age. But at last their bodies
betrayed them into bliss, frantic and fleeting, that beat against eternity’s
doorway before subsiding, with a shudder, into stillness.
Hours later, when they woke in each other’s arms, Merry told
Faramir about those final moments, the glory and the sorrow of them.
He didn’t weep, but Faramir, surprisingly, did.
“I felt something just as strong,” he explained after
Merry had kissed the last tears from his cheek. “Yet it was different
too, not just from what you felt but from anything I’ve ever felt
before. I seem to have reached an ending, though of what I hardly dare
to say.”
“Our world, perhaps?” Merry suggested quietly.
Faramir shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. It’s
more like the end of a road, one that I’ve traveled all my life.
I didn’t tell you, Merry, but the Rangers of Ithilien are no more.”
“What? Why? Is Ithilien overrun?”
“Well, yes. It’s been overrun for many years now, and
we have all risked our lives going back there again and again. But the
end did not come in Ithilien. It came in Osgiliath, and on the road
home to Minas Tirith, where all but a handful of us fell to the enemy.
My Rangers, my brothers, my lovers, perished in their dozens while I
fought to hold them together – in vain, as it turned out. Of those
that were borne bleeding into the Houses of Healing, all have since
died except one – the captain who should have kept them safe.
You will think I blame myself, dear Merry, but that is not it. In losing
my Rangers I have lost my whole world, my whole life. I should have
died with them, perhaps. Instead, only one part of me is dying: the
young and hopeful Faramir who loved his men so much more than he ever
loved himself. That Faramir is dying here, in your arms, Merry. I feel
his passing. Soon he will be gone.”
Merry had never heard anyone speak this way. He clutched at Faramir
as if he were fading, that very instant, into a golden memory. He knew
in his heart that there was nothing he could do for his brave, beautiful
Ranger.
“But the love of men,” he couldn’t help saying.
“It’s real, isn’t it? It’s not a dream?”
“No, it’s not a dream,” Faramir told him. “It
is a road that you will travel joyfully with others who feel as you
do. And if that fair road is now closed to me, I must hope – I
must believe – that another will be laid at my feet. Where it
will take me I do not know. I know only that when I find it, I will
follow it to its end.”
Faramir stayed with Merry that night, and all the next day too, though
they did not make love again. Sometimes they talked, sometimes, they
slept, and sometimes they lay mute and wakeful in one another’s
arms. Merry felt that they were waiting for something, or that Faramir
was. Another morning came, and with it breakfast, which they ate in
affectionate silence.
Not long after, the Warden appeared.
“My lord,” he said. “There is one in the Houses
of Healing who would speak with you. It is Éowyn, the White Lady of
Rohan, she who slew the Nazgûl, as they say.”
Faramir rose and looked long at Merry.
“I will come to her,” he said.
Finis
