Issue 14 - September 2007

Cycles by J A Zecca

Carl had no business complaining. He screened plenty of data before applying to Varlu Colony and knew all about the rain. Perhaps he was a little naïve thinking that a childhood on tropical Tr'Saht would inure him to chronic humidity, but he clearly knew Varlu would be cooler and windier, meaning life in waterproof clothing instead of shorts and nothing else. And considering his lack of body fat, he had probably overestimated his own hardiness. Still, the persistent chill and damp, and the dismal, endless coffin lid of thin gray clouds were fraying everybody's nerves.

Worse was the unpredictability. Two large moons in very different orbits rarely repeated their choreography, dragging the heavy, waterlogged atmosphere around in tidal cycles even more complex than those in the oceans. Their gravity caused Varlu's orbit to wobble, so weather forecasting was as much guesswork as science. Even this close to the equator, only fields of native crops were left open to the capricious elements. The four hundred plus colonists had simply grown accustomed to accepting each day as a surprise, though usually it was more of the same.

Groggy and irritable as always on such mornings, Carl tossed handfuls of translucent, chartreuse Pirri fruit into the blender, enough for seconds for both him and Trask, counting on their stimulant power to strip the fog from his mind and his mood. But something was odd. Only when the blender stopped whirring did he notice the silence. No rain. And light, dim and colorless, was bulging in through the window.

Preceded by a nearly operatic yawn, Trask padded into the kitchen in his stained green waterproof socks and long underwear, so large and muscular he looked almost stumpy despite being over 6'4. It amused Carl, lanky, blond and shorter, that he and this hairy-chested, big-boned bull made such perfect teammates. Carl's pure science and mathematics complimented Trask's vast practical knowledge of circuitry, mechanics, and membrane physics, and when it came to farming their competitive egos kept them strong and tireless. They simply enjoyed working together. With no single women to fight over anywhere in the colony, their only arguments had been cerebral, never emotional, and each knew what it took to maintain a decent living space. And they always got each other's jokes.

Unaccustomed to being greeted with silence, Trask shuffled over to the sink to see why Carl was staring out the window.

"Man, you smell worse than Pirri juice," Carl needled his pal.

But neither could take his eyes off the dark brown soil because neither could remember the last time their three-room cabin had a shadow. From left to right, straight as a laser, the peak of their roof cast a crisp edge beyond which sunlight, thin and barely yellow, had restored color to their world. Nearby lazy hills rolled mauve, lavender and azure while just beyond bright red machines in the yard the Pirri arbor was lit by hundreds of glistening, greenish yellow globes. The gelatinous leaves refracted and reflected light up under blue-green fern trees, and cobalt paddies of Varlu Lotus glowed like dark blue glass. Even the road down to the village was blacker then they remembered.

"Damn!" mumbled Trask.

"I hope the crops don't burn", Carl replied.

Carl was in heaven. In over two standard years on Varlu, he had never experienced embracing heat or the hand of tanning sunshine. For eleven days, he and Trask had been working the paddies barefoot, shirtless and with trousers rolled up to mid-thigh. They had browned and gained weight, arms and legs thickening as they harvested fat rhizomes of rapidly spreading lotus, which had tripled its growth rate in the sun. Though there were no flowering plants on Varlu, and no flying insects to pollinate them, parades of striped reddish spears had risen out of the paddies, and Carl made a bet with Trask that they would soon see plant genitalia waving in the breeze.

In fact, sexual reproduction was missing on Varlu. Lacking intelligent life to consult, colonists named native species according to ecological niches similar to those on Earth, rather than by appearance. The "lotus" grew in ponds. The amazing varieties of six-limbed "monkeys" lived in the "trees", which were tall, deep rooted and manufactured their own food. "Birds", though scaly, flew through the air and snakelike "fish" wriggled in ponds and rivers and breathed water. But no recent settler had ever seen any animal pregnant or caring for young. Eggs were nonexistent. Even the "fruit" of the Pirri vines were actually water storage globes that had finally come into play and begun to shrivel in the sun. The amazing spectrum of species was scientifically baffling. Older residents knew something, but never discussed it. Rumor had it that organic compounds in the rain actually suppressed the sex drive, and that was why Terran animals never reproduced, and men and women never fought over mates.

"Hey! Get away from there!" Trask suddenly bellowed at a troupe of crested, green and yellow "hawk" monkeys sliding down the fern trees. With peculiar glee, they tumbled towards the laborers' woven basket containing lunch and Pirri juice. At top speed, Trask splashed powerfully across the pond, soaking himself thoroughly. But the monkeys, who had also gained considerable weight, seemed nearly giddy with delight, and only scampered up to safety when he was close enough to actually hit them.

"Oh, shit!" Trask exclaimed, lifting a huge right foot freshly coated with thick, reddish purple paste. Carl burst out laughing as Trask, dripping wet, grabbed the basket handle in his massive paw and tip-toed to the edge of the pond muttering, "Oh man. Gross! It's everywhere." But at the water's edge, he turned around with a puzzled expression and intently scrutinized the shadows under the gently swaying, indigo branches.

"Hey Carl! Check this out," he called to his partner, who waded over to join him.

All across the carpet of maroon moss in the shade of the ferns, small purple domes were popping up out of the ground.

"Like mushrooms", Trask noticed.

"Fungus, actually", Carl corrected him, eying the path of destruction caused by Trask and the monkeys. "Don't they call them puff-balls on Earth?"

"Smells just like honey-suckle", Trask added, pure pleasure sparkling in deep green eyes.

"Tra'an fruit, I was going to say", Carl laughed, and glancing up at the giant next to him, he noticed that Trask's dripping black hair had framed his wide face in long, corkscrew curls so much like tendrils of the Tra'an.

Flooded with boyhood memories, they slapped each other on the back simultaneously and waded back into the pond.

Almost immediately, Carl's sandy brows pulled together into a frown.

"Aren't you hungry?" he asked. "Isn't it time for lunch?"

They both turned to scan the ebony ribbon to the village. They usually stopped to eat when local kids drove their tri-wheels home from school. The long Varluan day made it possible for the children, who clustered around five and eleven years old, to study in the morning in town and work the farms in the afternoons. But the men had seen no one all day.

"Yeah!" Trask agreed, checking his chronom, his one precious extravagance. "Our lunch whistle is over an hour late." The large silver communicator on his hairy wrist was in perfect proportion to Trask's bulk, and his fat fingers never fumbled with the controls. Quickly he punched up a news screen and turned to Carl with thick, black brows climbing up his forehead.

"All school canceled until further notice", he reported. "I guess everybody's crops are going wild."

"Yeah. Makes sense. Think we should get in some hunting while the monkeys are looking so healthy?"

"Great idea", Trask responded, delighted, "I've had enough of this farmer thing. Lunch, and then we hit the woods? Never know if this sun's gonna last another day."

"Absolutely,' Carl smiled, and with his long arms outspread he fell back into the water to cool off. And Trask did the same.

The forest was pumped. Their farm was so close to the foothills that, after only an hour's hike, Trask and Carl were deep in familiar woods, climbing gentle slopes past landmark trees, creeks, crystal veined ravines, curtains of pale orange vines and a small bridge they had built over a narrow, deep gorge. But every plant was thicker, stridently greener, bulging with what could only be buds, and everything, living or inanimate, was transformed by filtered light. Everywhere they saw deeper into the forest, layer upon layer of plants, trees, boulders outlining each other in previously unsuspected hues. Birds flashed through illuminated gaps in the distance, but the hunters' prey was avoiding the new illumination. The hollow barking of wolf and hawk monkeys, squabbling over territory, ricocheted all around, and treetops occasionally shook with skirmishes, but all were dodging the revealing sunlight. And everywhere were signs that animals had been gorging on strange new shoots budding from existing plants and sprouting fresh out of the ground.

"Wow!" whispered Trask, enchanted.

"Yeah," Carl agreed shifting his heavy rifle from one bare shoulder to the other. "But not helpful. Let's check the lookout."

The lookout was the bald brow of a hill where slides had left a cliff with a command of surrounding valleys. On the way, Carl and Trask had to cross a clearing usually so marshy that trees fell over trying to grow into it. But at its edge, still under the branches, they stopped to admire the vision.

Sunlight streamed down over the whole clearing, frying the ubiquitous maroon moss almost red. No sign of water glinted under the spiky ruby carpet, but everywhere, smooth, light purple domes of the Varlu puff-balls were big as fists, each one circled by two-foot pink stalks capped with swollen buds stretching upward from the moss. Carl stood in the shade, mesmerized by all the color, but Trask had to be in it, and hopped onto the causeway they had so painstakingly built over the usually soggy bog.

"Carl!" he exclaimed half-way across, "I think I see ...!" And the big man jumped down off the path and onto the moss.

"Wait", Carl warned, but it was too late. Trask had stepped on a land mine. A cloud of glittering purple spores squirted up around his wooly calves to the cuff of his rolled up pants and shimmered suspended, unaffected by gravity. As Trask stared in amazement at the sparkling dust, the entire clearing exploded around him. Triggered by flying spores, the fungi began to rupture, one after the other in an expanding ring all the way to the edge of the trees. Collapsing domes churned the air with a glistening cloud nearly ten feet high, radiant in the sunlight, burying Trask in swirling jets of purple and gold.

Carl immediately put his hand over his nose as a precaution, and yelled to Trask, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah", Trask slowly replied, wiping his eyes. "I think it's harmless, and it smells great!"

Carl lowered his hand to his rifle and sniffed cautiously. Trask was right. It was the most seductive floral fragrance ever. So sweet and light, yet complex and sensuously beautiful, he was tempted to fill his lungs with it. And, unable to resist, he did, savoring the pleasure like a botanist with a prize bloom. Again and again, he inhaled the extravagantly perfect perfume, deeper and deeper, and he could almost feel its radiance pierce his lungs and streak through his blood. Though still in the shade, it was as if the rare Varlu sunlight had slashed into his body and was lifting him off the ground. The pleasure was so intoxicating he closed his eyes, heard nothing, sensed nothing else. And when he opened his sky-blue eyes again, everything was slightly, unexplainably different.

He was standing by the bottom of a well of dark blue, interlocking fern trees, a well overflowing with golden light in which swarmed millions of tiny, weightless, purple sparks. A rocky elevated path directly before him bisected the well, and one step to the left of its exact center, knee-deep in a field of light pink stalks stood the creature whose magic realm this was. Trask seemed both king and subject of this swirling, shimmering place, in command of every leaf and spore while still the clearing's lowliest, most submissive slave. Eyes closed, burly arms outstretched, head back and mouth open, he was invaded by the sparks, the air and the light, and expelled them alive at the same time. Even his thick, hairy fingers were splayed, reaching out to every particle, every blade, every molecule, humbly reveling in the contact and yet the source of all that was happening. And he and the place and the moment were perfect.

Perfect as only Nature can be. Everything about Trask seemed like the pinnacle of Nature's creation. His size, his proportions, his bronze skin, the thousands of shiny black ringlets that cascaded from his head, down his chest, covered his forearms and massive legs, the extravagant curves of his biceps, thighs, calves, and his enormous hands and feet. All seemed like a culmination, a glorious achievement of an ideal. And the joy in his face, in every bone, hair and muscle shouted his awareness of the fact.

"Trask?" Carl whispered as if they were only inches apart.

And the Goliath's powerful body softened into that of a giant child as he lowered his arms, opened his eyes, and turned towards Carl.

Carl took one step out from under the trees and was drenched by sunlight and heat. Trask's jaw slowly drooped, but he just stood there, mouth open, saying nothing.

It was as if he had never seen his partner before. He had always pictured Carl as the nerdy mathematician, thin, pale, reedy and with an ego large enough to conquer any challenge no matter what it cost him. But the creature floating above him at the end of the path was something else entirely.

Carl had become, no, revealed himself to be a Prince of the forest, an enchanted higher being glowing with light who ruled plants and animals, the purple cloud and the sunbeams, with a delicate gesture of his oversized hands, who approved or forbade everything in the woods with an elegant nod of his too large head. His blond crown, falling straight to his shoulders, was an almost blinding source of light, and the long, lanky body Trask had always thought of as hairless, shimmered with yellow spider silk which channeled and reflected light almost as intensely as his hair. Trask marveled how Carl's bones were hardly smaller than his own, only sheathed elegantly in sleek, more sinewy muscles, and the map of enormous veins he had always thought of as totally unnecessary, flowed with power pulsing from Carl's heart and mind. The Hercules who easily dominated other men felt primitive and boorish in the presence of such graceful, golden aristocracy.

For a moment the two friends simply stared at each other.

"Trask?" Carl whispered again, no louder than the first time but far more in need of an answer. And with the slightest turn of his chiseled face, his hair rippled in gleaming slow-motion all the way down to his broad, yet delicate shoulders.

As the Satyr centered in the glowing well raised his hands to substitute for words he couldn't find, three things happened almost simultaneously. First, a light breeze flowed across the clearing from one end to the other, stirring purple fog into gently swaying branches. As if on cue, the silent forest exploded in wild cacophony, every form of bird, monkey, bear, every living animal howling, singing, barking, chattering and cheering at once. Monkeys shook trees, slinging flocks of startled birds into the sky, adding to the din. And all across the glade, bulging pink buds began to spin as they squirted long, slow streams of silver spores into the purple cloud, like children spitting water across a pool.

The friends' eyes popped wide and they burst out laughing, as much from delight as from relief.

"Too much!" Trask shouted and waved his hands over his head, clutching the air to grab some tangible proof of the experience. Carl was so dizzy with laughter he had to sit down on a log and clap as Trask hopped two-footed like a huge frog back onto the path.

"I think this stuff got me high", Trask chuckled, extending his hand to help his friend up.

"Me, too", Carl agreed, accepting the help.

And they stood for a moment smiling deeper into each other's eyes than men usually do unless they're drunk. But feeling the heat from the other man's body made both uncomfortable.

Breaking the spell, Trask scratched his chest and glanced around..

"I guess we could stand smoked bear one more time", he grinned.

"As long as we wash it down", Carl replied, and they laughed again in pure, uninhibited pleasure as they stumbled back down the path towards home.

That evening, they celebrated. Unable to sober up from the effects of the spores, especially their heightened senses, they dragged the table out of the sun baked cabin, overindulged in favorite foods, downed two bottles of homemade "Root" wine and left a third open between them. Checking their computer, Trask had discovered that all village businesses, even government, would be shut for the next two days. No explanation was given, but judging from the glorious weather and the extra work rampaging crops had forced on everyone for nearly two weeks, a holiday had definitely been earned.

While pointing out every vestigial nuance of a magnificent lava-colored sunset, another rare treat on their cloud plagued world, the men shared those personal secrets that wine, true friendship and a special occasion can sometimes make sweeter, less painful and more urgent. Their families, childhoods, home worlds, social classes (Carl was a wealthy politician's son while Trask had to struggle with the stigma of poverty, uneducated parents and a crushingly monotonous future), even the personal tragedies that had forced them to a distant, undeveloped colony, all were vastly different, and yet here they were together on Varlu. They both stared into their glasses unsure how to continue.

Then the monkeys returned. Silently, they slid down the smooth trunks, headfirst, shuffling for position behind the dominant female who strained every shadow for possible danger. When nearly thirty were lined up like a chorus, she stretched out a paw and clawed open one of the purple puff-balls. The entire troupe cringed, with one reflex, as a whisper of a high pitched whistle accompanied the geyser of sparkling, purple spores.

Suddenly, there was a stampede. The wall of waiting monkeys chased the leading edge of triggered fungi right across the moss field. They jumped over each other, yelping and barking, and licked the air as if trying to eat the spores.

Then they all fell quiet, looking at each other, and at nothing else. The alpha female, still on duty beside the trees, barked just once and disappeared up into the branches. All the other monkeys followed, muttering to themselves and taking pot-shots at each other.

"Did I just see what I think I saw?" Trask laughed.

"Even a monkey knows a good high when he gets one!" Carl agreed.

"Just one problem, though", Trask drawled as he reached for the bottle. "We're downwind ..."

At that moment, the breeze, which had situated their table, blew the spore cloud over the lotus pond and straight towards them. Floating slowly forward, it triggered the rows of lotus stalks to expel their glassy blue sparks which refracted moonlight as powerfully as the fungal spores reflected it.

"Trask?" Carl probed.

"Well, if it's good as the stuff we had this afternoon", Trask reasoned.

"And tomorrow's a holiday", Carl added with a grin.

As the intense perfume began to relinquish puzzle-pieces of consciousness, and his body slowly returned to his awareness, Trask realized he was standing by the table. He recalled, deep in the past, vying with Carl to see who could fill his lungs with the most purple fog, and then only the sweet, hypnotic fragrance itself. And now, making up for the lapse, his senses slammed into acute awareness. Even the pink moonlight on his skin had the weight of a caress. And he clearly heard labored breathing.

Trask quickly swung to his left around the table and grabbed Carl by the shoulders, holding him up on his feet.

"Carl! Carl!" Trask barked as he shook his friend slowly.

"No problem", Carl mumbled, smiling before he was even half-conscious. He threw his arms up on top of Trask's to steady himself and was jolted awake by what he felt. All along the sensitive inside of his arms, all the way to his fingertips on his pal's shoulders he felt his friend. From the enormous hands clamped irresistibly onto his shoulders, past wide wooly forearms with metal muscles, mountainous biceps and surrounding valleys, to the hemispheres of his shoulders, he felt Trask intensely and was fascinated. And Trask knew it. It took him a moment, but his thick, black brows began to pinch into a frown, and abruptly stopped. Carl could see deep in Trask's eyes that a choice had been made. Trask had decided he could trust his friend. Without committing a visible sign of agreement, he shared Carl's sensations.

Perhaps they were waiting so tensely it just seemed simultaneous, but each man's fingers began to probe the other's shoulders, kneading, squeezing and learning, traveling slowly down biceps, elbows, forearms, wrists until they were exploring each other's hands. When their fingertips parted, they both looked down at the messy table and reached for their glasses.

Carl turned away, worried what Trask was thinking, wondering what Trask might do and trying to understand what he wanted from the big man. Because he wanted something.

Trask stood with the bottle in one hand and his glass in another, but couldn't take his shining eyes off Carl's amazingly long naked back. He had never thought of any man as beautiful until that afternoon in the clearing, but now Carl's every detail seemed chosen by a master sculptor, selected for visual pleasure and tuned together to convey a single musical thought, Carl's spirit. Trask admitted to himself a desire to conquer Carl, not to dominate him like in sports, but to charm him open and self-revealing like on a first date, to touch Carl intimately at least in a spiritual sense. And he had no problem with that.

Before he realized it, Trask had circled Carl the same way he would have stalked the hottest woman in a bar. But when his buddy turned to face him, he only wanted to stare silently past Carl's long blond lashes and penetrate his light blue eyes.

Carl raised his long, crab-leg fingers between them and tried to understand from Trask's muscled, stubbly face and unfamiliar vulnerability if he would let himself be touched again. There was so much heat coming off of Trask, and so much energy, that Carl stopped, unsure of their meaning. But Trask was much less questioning and gently placed his huge hand around the base of Carl's throat, thumb in the front and fingers savoring the softness of Carl's back. Slowly, he pulled Carl into his arms whispering, "Easy, easy," just like he had with so many hesitant women so many times before. The slightest shudder rippled through Trask as he realized how much he wanted to feel Carl against his skin.

Carl happily allowed himself to be buried in Trask's wooly chest and arms and his warm, acid smell, while Trask smiled with relief that the conquest was complete, but neither knew what to do next. Their foreheads touched and they rubbed their heads together tangling their hair as much as they could. When their cheeks met, Carl's smooth and Trask's perilously abrasive, they both flinched slightly, and Trask, long experienced in protecting soft skin, laced his thick, hairy fingers through Carl's blond silk, and gently pressed their faces together.

Carl had never experienced such an engine of power so intimately, so intentionally controlling itself for his sake, and his lips were drawn to the bulging veins on Trask's salty neck, but they were covered with dangerously bristling stubble. A few inches away, in the well of the giant's collarbone, was skin as soft as the inside of a woman's thigh. That spot just beyond where the hair on Trask's chest ended in curls that often looped over the collar of his t-shirts, Carl had to taste.

Eyes closed, Trask felt every millimeter of Carl's descent towards one of the most sensitive spots on his huge body, both hands bathing in his partner's mane. The steam from Carl's breath was painfully hot, and when the bee-stung lips spilled their moisture onto his skin, wider and more commanding than any mouth he had ever known, he surrendered, totally, to whatever might happen.

All inhibitions melted away, and the two men embraced passionately, palms and fingers greedy for arms, necks and naked backs. Everything was so new, different, impulsive. Unable to press close enough, feel enough of each other at any one time, they rubbed torsos and legs together as their hands explored.

Later that long night, they would kiss again and again, never satisfied, gazing into each other's eyes, but that first time, they could only watch each other's lips. Neither man had ever been assaulted and seduced by such a large, wet, aggressive mouth, lips so thick and rich, the space between them so vast, dark and insistent, pulling them deep inside and leaving their faces wet.

No further questions were asked, no unspoken ones answered. They spent the hours together as close as two human beings can.

Carl loved to sleep on the beach. The penetrating heat dissolved all tensions, doubts, impatience, regrets, worry and fear in his mind, melted them into a toxic lava which sank to the back of his skull, flowed down his spine and drained between his shoulder blades into the sand. But this beach was hard, he could vaguely feel a sheet over his nude body where sunlight should be, and he had to sadly admit the warmth in his head was more like a hangover. Pressing down with his palms on the surface beneath him, he recognized the slight give of the cabin's synthetic floor.

And then he remembered. He only had to expand his awareness slightly to feel Trask beside him. Focusing, Carl first heard his partner's breathing, then smelled him, then felt his heat under the covers. And he was very grateful Trask was asleep. He needed time to understand how he felt so he could figure out what to say.

Carefully, quietly, he climbed out of the jumble of pillows and sheets. They had left the table outside, opening their shared central space in a new way for their new, shared experience. Still foggy and stoned from the tenacious effects of the spores, Carl drifted through glowing sunlight and a sultry, tender breeze to their source, the open window above the sink. Outside, a few plump clouds sailed the sapphire sky, a gentle reminder that the weather would sooner or later change.

He could still smell Trask all over his body, on his face, in his hair, rising from his chest as the sun heated his newly bronzed skin. Raising his hand to touch the strange yet familiar tan, he felt a weight around his wrist, Trask's chronom. Odd. That was one moment he couldn't remember. He was honored by the privilege of wearing it and savored the smooth inner surface that lived in such intimate contact with another man's flesh and spirit. Then he slowly removed it and laid it on the counter.

Behind him, he heard the rustle of sheets and a slight creak of the floor as Trask stood up. After so much time together, Carl guessed that Trask had been awake and watching him. Without a word, the giant bear joined his blond friend at the window and, without hesitation, placed his powerful arm firmly around his buddy's shoulders. Carl couldn't help flinching almost imperceptibly, but he accepted the offer. Neither man spoke or looked at the other. Vulnerable and naked, bathed in warm, precious sunlight, they smiled silently at their farm and the glorious day.

Very softly, Trask rumbled, "We OK?"

Carl paused for a second to make sure he was being honest.

"Yeah," he decided, "We OK." Then he too raised his arm and laid his hand firmly on his friend's shoulder.

Trask exhaled deeply in an obvious sigh of relief. "Think we should bring in the table?" he asked.

"Nah," Carl replied. "Might as well enjoy the sun while it's here. Probably be a while before we see it again."

"No doubt," said Trask, nodding his head sadly. "Could be a long wait..."

"You never know," Carl added with a boyish grin.

And they both laughed out loud.

J. A. Zecca is a journalist who has spent many years writing for New York LGBT nightlife publications.  This is his first published work of fiction.