— originally published in Honcho Magazine - February, 1991 issue —

What's a prince in love supposed to do?

_____

I can't even remember a time when he wasn't around. My earliest memories always involve his looming giant-like body or his dark, wild jungle of a beard. And in the background of my memories, I can always smell his rich, manly odor and hear his deep, resonating voice. I guess it's strange. Don't most people's childhood memories involve females? There were women in my life--a whole flock of nannies attending to the prince's every whim and, later, something called "nursemaids" to wash and pick up after me. And I had a mother. But the faces of the nannies and nursemaids seemed to change weekly and, with my father the King dead, my mother was busy ruling the kingdom in my stead. Or maybe she just didn't like children. Whatever the reason, Thull's was the only face I saw regularly, day after day, year after year.

Thull was my Lord Protector, the warrior responsible for my safety until I would inherit the throne from my mother at age twenty. Oh, one day a week Thull was replaced as Lord Protector by the Captain of the Guards or an Admiral in the Royal Navy. But on each of the other six days, he was there, night and day, eating at the seat next to mine, sleeping in the bed next to mine. He wouldn't play with me--and only rarely spoke to me--but he was always with me, standing behind or to one side, watching out for my safety.

As a child, I don't think I thought it was strange. Maybe I thought every child had a Lord Protector. But as I entered puberty, I began to resent his presence--his constant observation of my every move, the damper his peering scrutiny put over every potential friendship. And I resented the appalling lack of privacy.

But by my eighteenth year, I had learned to like his presence. His strong manner and deep voice were a comfort to me amid the flurry of screeching advisors and whining tutors. And though he must've known what I did late at night under the covers of my bed, Thull never judged or even questioned me about it at all.

On my eighteenth birthday, I was provided with an array of royal concubines. Each woman was very beautiful, but Thull's watchful presence distracted me; I couldn't very well have sex right in front of another man, could I? I thought it might help if Thull were naked too, but every time I asked him to join me with the concubines, he'd just laugh. "Assassins can be female, too," he'd say. "Getting me naked is just what they'd like."

I didn't send for the concubines much after that.

I grew moody and irritable. Shocking new thoughts and ideas wormed their way into my masturbatory fantasies--terrible secrets that made my face grow red with shame. But though my late-night solo sessions became more and more frequent, I grew hornier than ever--at least until Thull would call for the concubines. Then I'd suddenly lose interest. But if I was irritable to the guards and servants on the days that Thull was around, on the one day a week that he was gone, I grew downright evil. He never mentioned a family-he rarely spoke at all. So where did he go on his day off? What was he doing? Was he thinking of me? Wherever he was, whatever he was doing, I was certainly thinking of him.

I wanted to know. And a few minutes after my nineteenth birthday, I grew determined to find out. His replacement always relieved him after dinner on Saturday night; it was the Captain of the Castle Guards one particular weekend.

Even though he had just started dinner in the Royal dining hall when the Captain arrived, Thull stood to leave anyway. "My Lord," he said to me. "I'll be going now."

"My Lord Protector," I said sullenly.

"Until tomorrow, then."

"Until tomorrow." And he was gone. But late that night, I slipped out of the room. Thull I never could've escaped from. But I knew the Captain of the Castle Guards was a heavy sleeper.

Down into the courtyard I went, where my dog, Amber, was tied up to a post. I held a piece of Thull's clothing up to his nose. "Follow," I said. "Follow the scent."

Since the castle guards were on the watch for people trying to sneak in the castle, I had no problem sneaking out. Then Amber followed Thull's trail into the peasant village down at the foot of the castle hill, and on through town to a small inn on the outskirts of town. I suppose this made sense; having only one day off a week, Thull didn't really need to keep a permanent home. And this at least meant he wasn't married. But I still didn't know what he did.

Peering in the window, I could see him drinking tankards of ale in the inn's rowdy, torch-lit tavern. Did he just come here every Saturday night and get drunk?

I watched a few more minutes. I couldn't hear what was being said, but he seemed to know most of the people inside. He spent most of the time talking to a youth at his table-a thin, dark-haired lad about my age. So he had a son, after all?

Thull stood up a second later, made an announcement to the people at his table, then headed to the stairs obviously off to his room for the night. So that was it? Every Saturday night he did just get drunk and go off to bed.

A second later, the dark-haired kid stood up and said something that made everyone laugh. Then he went upstairs too.

I saw a lantern light in a room upstairs. Thull's room? There was a tree right outside his window, so I quietly climbed up it.

Thull's window was open--and the curtains weren't drawn--so I could see right inside. Thull was sitting on his bed in the lantern light and shucking off the rest of his clothes and armor. Then there was a knock on his door.

"Come in," Thull called.

It was the dark-haired boy from downstairs. Up close, I could see that not only was he about nineteen--my age--he looked like me too. Lean body, dark eyes, lots of hair. He was dressed in rags, but the resemblance to me was startling. Maybe he wasn't Thull's son after all.

"My Lord Protector," the boy said. His Lord Protector? What was this all about?

Thull immediately stood up and saluted like I'd seen him do to me so many times. "My Lord," he said.

"No," the boy said. "Please sit down." Thull did.

Then the boy slipped out of his tattered jacket and smiled at Thull. "I'm so horny tonight," he breathed. "I have all those concubines, but they don't satisfy me. I wouldn't fuck them even if I could." I started blushing. Did Thull know I was watching? Was he making the boy mock me on purpose?

"It's you, My Lord Protector," the boy breathed. "You're the one I really want to fuck."

I froze. What?

Thull smiled back at him. "Me, my Lord?"

The boy slipped out of his shirt, revealing a torso of lean, hairless flesh. "You."

I nearly fell out of my tree. And then the boy un-roped his loose brown trousers and let them fall around his ankles, and I felt my head start to swim.

So that was what another man's erect penis looked like? It wasn't huge, but it jutted straight up between his legs. His tight balls were lost in the dense black hair that covered his crotch, and I could see the silhouette of his sleek bulbous ass as he stood before Thull.

But two men--and one of them was Thull? It didn't make any sense!

Thull stood up and shucked off the rest of his clothing. He was twice as big as the boy--at least--and unlike the smooth flanks of the boy, Thull's massive chest and back were covered with thick reddish hair, the same color as--and almost as thick and wild as--his beard.

"Oh, my Lord Protector!" the boy moaned--while I echoed that sentiment in my mind. I knew from the athletics he performed with me in the castle courtyard that Thull had to have a good body. But even I hadn't imagined such impressive mounds and valleys, ridges and ripples.

Then Thull dropped his own pants--and I learned the true meaning of the word, "penis." It was thick and fat and hard, sticking up like a lance from out of a thatch of thick, dark red curls between his legs. The boy must've been thinking the same thing I was, because he immediately fell to his knees and started licking the bobbing member. "Oh, my Lord Protector!" he managed to gasp before impaling his face on the enormous spike.

Thull groaned, a long, guttural sigh. "Suck it, my prince!" Then he lowered his hands into the boy's head of thick, black hair and started fucking his mouth, his muscular, hair-covered ass clenching and unclenching behind. The boy gurgled and whimpered, but he was obviously used to the treatment. It didn't seem possible, but over and over again the hardened organ disappeared into the boy's mouth-jammed deep down his throat.

Without warning, Thull reached down and picked the boy up in his thick arms. The boy's body fell slack while Thull pressed his smooth, slender torso against his own bear-like one. Hungrily, their mouths found each other and locked together, licking and suckling. Thull's hands were all over the boy's body--gripping his balls and jerking on the throbbing, flexing protrusion between his legs--then fondling his nipples and sliding his fingers up and down in the dark crack between his round butt cheeks.

Meanwhile, the boy's hands found Thull's upraised organ, first tenderly gripping it with both hands as if it were a holy artifact, then wrapping it inside his fist and pumping on the loose, gnarled skin.

Still holding the boy in his arms, Thull fell backward on the tiny bed and the springs squeaked noisily. He was on his back, but he lifted the boy so his lean frame was sitting right on Thull's collarbone and facing forward, the boy's stiff tool hovering directly above his hairy face.

Thull went wild, licking and sucking first the rigid organ itself, then the boy's hairy balls. The boy moaned and wormed his crotch deeper and deeper into the man's eager face.

Then Thull reached behind the boy's ass and--with another squeak of the bedsprings--jerked him forward, ramming his spread-open ass into position right above his face. Thull's tongue didn't stop for a second, but immediately burrowed upward into the boy's butt.

"Oh!" the boy exclaimed at the feel of that bearded face wedged up into his underside. "My Lord Protector!" Then he arched his back and spread his legs, giving Thull's impossibly long tongue even better access to the dark split in his buns.

Thull went insane, his tongue suddenly a battering ram pounding at the boy's castle gate. And while his tongue pierced the boy's interior, his hands roamed and fondled the exterior, pulling the boy down closer to his tongue.

Again, without warning, Thull's straining arms lifted the boy straight off his head, then threw him back down onto the bed. "Lord Protector?" the boy whispered. "Will you fuck me now?"

Fuck him? But how? Surely that was just an expression. How was it possible for one man to fuck another? Surely--

Thull grabbed the boy by the ankles and yanked him across the bed. Then he lifted the boy's legs onto his shoulders, and I learned exactly how it was possible for one man to fuck another.

I gasped as Thull's mighty sword disappeared into the boy's ass. But any noise I made was lost in the groans and the sound of the squeaking bedsprings emanating from inside the bedroom.

I watched while Thull's pole jammed again and again into the boy's ass, his shaggy, red-haired balls crushing up against the smooth, glistening flesh. Before long Thull's ass-jousting caused a high-flying load of thick white cream to spit from the boy's stiff prick. Then I suddenly realized that the sight of these two men feverishly grinding their groins against one another was far more exciting to me than a whole room of naked concubines had ever been.

I managed to sneak back into the castle without detection--which said something about how important my Lord Protector really was to my safety. I tied Amber back up in the courtyard and slipped into my bed without waking the Captain of the Guards.

Once down from the tree back at the inn, I had immediately milked a load from my own aching cock--but here, not fifteen minutes later, my dick was already stiff again and begging for relief. I knew the Captain could sleep through a catapult assault, so I wasn't worried about waking him up. I was worried about something else. What did it mean. Not just the fact the it had all seemed so exciting to me. Why had Thull and the boy been playing that little game of "my Lord" and "my Lord Protector?"

When Thull returned the next day and acted the same as he always did, I knew that what he'd done with the boy in that inn was what he did every Saturday night--and probably all day Sunday as well. He was my Lord Protector, true, but who would protect me from the Lord Protector? Worse, who would protect me from my own unspeakable desires?

Life went as usual--from all outward appearances at least. We still slept together, crossed swords together, and ate together. But almost every second of every day, I found myself wondering what was really on Thull's mind as he watched me. And each Saturday night, I would creep away to that inn on the edge of town to peer into his room and watch exactly what really was on his mind.

It went on for months--me obsessed, and Thull knowing something had changed between us, but not daring to ask what. A week before my twentieth birthday (and my coronation), I knew what I had to do. But did I dare?

I was bathing in the hot springs after our morning workout. Suddenly I stood up in the middle of the swirling tub--my crisp, dark thatch of pubic hair just clearing the water's surface, my half-hard dick floating free just underneath. "Thull?" I said casually, turning my back on him so he had a clear view of the top half of my smooth, rounded ass.

"Yes, my Lord?" Thull said.

I paused, the blurted, "I'm so horny. I have all these concubines, but they don't satisfy me. I wouldn't fuck them even if I could."

"My L-L-Lord?" Thull said. The words must've sounded familiar.

I turned around in the water, the top half of my now-erect dick poking up and visible now. He'd never seen it hard before, but it was far bigger than the boy's he usually fucked. I hoped he was glad.

Thull backed away from the tub and bumped right into a cavern wall. "My Lord!" he shouted. It was the first time I'd ever seen him show any emotion outside of the room at the inn, I mean.

"In a week I'll be crowned king," I said nervously. "I won't need a Lord Protector anymore, but I will need to name a consort. I ... want it to be you."

"My Lord, you don't know what you're--!" His eyes nearly bugged out of his head.

I stepped out of the tub and massaged my cock with a few gentle strokes of my hand. Then I cupped my dripping wet testicles with the other hand.

"I looked it up," I went on, my nervousness dripping from me like the water in the tub. "None of the court documents specify that the king's consort has to be female. And even if they do, I'll be king. I can just have them rewritten."

"But--" Thull was visibly shaking now.

I stepped right up against him and planted a small kiss on his lips; his beard tickled me and smelled of man. "Thull," I said. "I'm almost twenty years old. I'm old enough to know what I want. And you're the one I want to fuck."