Iarrived early, having walked for an hour along the track that led from the village up into the limestone hills. I had seen no one. Seen only buzzards circling lazily in the sky, their plaintive mewling following me in a faint trail of sorrow. Streams were rare up here, vanishing almost as soon as they began into pits and adits and hollows in the ground. Despite the rainfall and the lushness of the grass and the green vigour of the trees, it was a dry land. The sun was warm and sultry too, like an insistent lover enfolding me in cloying arms. I stopped frequently to drink from my water bottle, sometimes resting in the shade, sometimes standing in a sunlit clearing, gazing at the buzzards, like faraway black kites. A thin breeze rustled through the trees so that the woods were steeped in inpenetrable murmurs, like I was entering some abandoned cloister and hearing the phantom chants of long dead monks come padding round me.

I was here, alone, in the centre of stillness. The jagged crags, white and precipitous, were closing in upon me, great vaults of rock stretching up to the sky. On bleak impossible ledges, stunted trees scrabbled at the soil and clung to life. Here and there, in the distance, I could see streams pouring down the mountainside in great white cascades, exploding in a thunder of spray in dark, discreet pools, then losing themselves in a maze of gullies, before disappearing finally in that terrifying world of tunnels and chambers underground.

I was glad to be here in the sunlight. I pressed my feet into the soft loam, trying to feel the vibrations returning to me from that dark universe below me. Even in the warm sunlight, I shivered with a sudden cold fear - the fear of dying, of my soul parting from my body and wandering lost, forever, in that dreadful labyrinth underground.

Soon afterwards I found the little track, secluded, almost invisible, that led down into that darker valley. It twisted, like a vein, the rocks closing in on me, their crevices packed with turf, sprouting grass and sprays of flowers. A small bird fled, twittering, from rock to rock, imperceptibly downwards, into that great pool of gloom crowded with trees. As the land levelled out again, and I found myself on the fringe of the wood, so the little bird perched on a branch, watched me for a moment, flicked its head from side to side, chirruped into the unresponding darkness, as if to beckon me on, saying, "This way! This way!" This way into a darkness more comforting than the womb, more terrifying than death.

It was here, at the far end of that secret hollow in the heart of the mountains, I found where the cataract tumbled down the rocks and into a pool of crystal water, as cold as death. There was the endless splash and chatter of water and the drowned voices of birds, but, beyond all that, a silence more final than the tomb.

I stripped naked and clambered over the rocks, and eased myself, terrified of the coldness, yet thrilled by it all the same, into the water. I shrieked, like someone dying, someone who could feel the icy hands of death embracing his flesh. Ducked myself under. Re-emerged a moment later, and hauled myself onto the bank and lay there on the grass, panting and sobbing, crushing the flowers. The perfume of dying flowers rose to my nostrils and intoxicated me with their grief.

There would still be time before you came. If you came at all. This landscape, after all, had so many possibilities - so many deceptions, so many cunning delusions. You could wander all your life here, alone, and never free yourself from this wrinkled dreamworld of ravines, gullies and secret hollows. Perhaps, anyway, you would not come. Perhaps you would come and lose your way. No use calling out here in this perplexing maze. Not even the buzzards in the sky would hear you. They'd see you only as some nervous, frustrated dot in this patchwork of whiteness and greenness, confounded by possibilities. We could be separated only by some wall of rock, composed of crinoids and corals that had died millions of years ago. We could be calling out to each other and we would never know.

I strolled naked between the trees back up the slope, leaving my clothes behind me, finding again that little hollow dipping suddenly down, almost bereft of trees, an amphitheatre of rock with, at its centre a mat of greenness, soft loam budding with grass. The sun broke through and flecked the flowers and steeped them in liquid gold. This navel in the woods, this tiny paradise I called my own.

I lay in the shade of a single pine, and closed my eyes, the air soft and warm like silk upon my flesh. I dreamed of all the possibilities this landscape had to offer. Imagined you glancing at your map, wondering if it was at this tree or in this clearing or at this parting of the trails that you should turn. Gazing around you at the mountains, examining the sketches I had sent you, searching out this feature, that landmark, puzzled by the complexities of it all. My cock hardened to think of you drawing inexorably nearer.

Sometimes I wondered how long I would stay. Here. In this silent amphitheatre of dreams. Waiting for you. It was noon now. I would wait all afternoon and evening for you. I would sleep here all night, under the stars, in my sleeping bag. I had water. A little food. I would stay here until tomorrow, relishing the fear of your approach, wondering if each cry of startled bird, each cracking twig, each moment of sudden deeper silence was a token of your coming. Oh yes, and my stomach tingled with fear, and my limbs shook, and my prick was sweet with excitement at each tiny alert of earth and sky.

Then, towards evening, you came.

I was drifting off into a doze and was deceived by your approach. I only sensed you there, standing at the mouth of the amphitheatre. I looked up. Startled. Fearful. A sudden twisting inside my gut.

You were leaning on the rock face, naked, staring at me. I raised myself onto my elbows. Adrenaline rushed through my blood, my prick quivered, my bowels were sick with excitement and fear. I took in your muscular body, the tight thighs, the brawny arms. Took in your arrogant smile. The fierce, defiant cock. The cord around your waist from which dangled the leather sheath that contained your knife. I gasped, even then, not only at the vigorous length of your cock, but at the length of the knife at your side.

You laughed. A sneering, mocking laugh. As if deriding my naivety, my nudity, the simple-minded belief, perhaps, that you - of all people - would not find me. You unfastened the cord and looped it over a sapling that sprang in eternal hopefulness out of a fissure in the rock. Life was everywhere around us. In every crack. In every crevice. The discreet symbiosis of life and death. One embracing the other.

I rose nervously to my feet. I was giddy, trembling in every limb. My heartbeat raced and my blood flushed with the thousand possibilities of escape. I looked around me, my eyes jerking from side to side. I leaned back against the tree, unable to trust my legs. They shivered and jerked with terror. A small voice was ringing loud and strident in my skull: "This cannot be true! This cannot be true!"

I heard the bird chirruping again from the trees above me on the edge of the amphitheatre. A song of sad mockery. Taunting me.

You laughed again, but said nothing. You approached. Confidently. Jauntily. Relishing my fear. Tempting me to run like a coward. To scamper past you. Back down that twisting vein between the rocks to some kind of salvation. Taunting me to battle. Sneering at my fear, my terror, my cowardice. Knowing I would do neither. Would neither flee nor fight. But would succumb, passively, meekly, to whatever fate you ordained.

You sniggered. And gazed at my cock. Blowing tiny kisses at it. Shivering, I glanced downwards. I sobbed. With pride, perhaps. Or despair. For my prick jostled the air, hard and defiant, pointing to the sky in some terrible salute to death.

You stood facing me, staring into my eyes, wilting me with your gaze, forcing me into shameful surrender. Your cock rubbed against mine. Aggressive. Dominating. Like a spear. You pushed it into my belly and I sobbed and shrank away. You ran your fingers down my chest, skimming the nipples, making my skin shiver and flinch with a sudden intense excitement. You dipped your finger into my navel. Teased the whorl. Probed and pressed, pushing your nail deeper into my bellyflesh. I gasped with a sudden delicious pain, and shrank away again.

You laughed.

"Nice little belly button," you whisperd, your lips brushing my ear. "A sweet little innie. And a neat little belly too. So inviting. Bet your ass is just the same."

I closed my eyes. My breath was quick and hot. My chest was heaving. You fumbled at my bush and grabbed my prick and balls into your fist and drew me slowly, remorselessly, away from the tree that had been my only protection, and into the centre of the amphitheatre. The evening settled round us like the hush of death.

I sobbed as you drew me closer. You slid your arms around my waist, behind my back, clenching me close to you. I tried pushing you away. You laughed. And hugged me closer.

"You know you want it," you whispered, mocking me. Then you pressed your lips against mine and kissed me.

For a moment I relaxed, as your tongue searched out mine. My prick was once more sweet with unaccountable hope, my guts trembling with desire.

Then, suddenly, you grabbed me by the hair, tugged my head backwards, and laughed. A loud cry of triumph and desire. I reached up, trying to tear away your hand, but then, swinging in your grasp, with my body unprotected, you launched your attack, your right fist flashing into my belly. I shrieked as your knuckles churned into the soft, vulnerable bellymeat below the navel. My arms flopped by my side. I twisted, trying to free myself. Again, your fist scythed into my abdomen, squeezing the guts, forcing them up against the stomach, driving the air from my lungs, and scorching my throat. I writhed. Twisted. Convulsed in your grip. And still, methodically, the blows crunched into my guts, the intestines jerking upwards, shifting downwards, squeezing my bladder, my prostate, sending searing messages of pain and pleasure into my prick.

Then your hand snaked below my groin. You jerked upwards. Laughing. Levering me from the ground. I screamed. My legs waved desperately in the air, my hands pushing at your shoulders, trying to squirm away. For a moment you staggered around with me. Humiliating me. Then suddenly, with a heave and a cry, you tossed me backwards.

I landed, stunned , on the grass. I shook my head and groaned, then looked towards the knife in its sheath dangling from the sapling. You followed my gaze and gave a sardonic little laugh.

"Don't worry," you sneered. "I haven't forgotten. That pleasure will come. Trust me."

I sobbed. You stepped towards me. Pushed my legs apart with your feet. Gazed down at me. Taking in the prick, still hard and robust against my abdomen; the ballsac; the cluster of hair. You eased my bollocks upwards with your foot and gazed critically at my anus. Then you looked into my eyes. I lay, raised on my elbows, returning your gaze. My whole body was shivering with fear. My bellyskin gleamed in the evening light with the sweat from your blows.

Then you drove your heel into my balls. Twisted it round. Your tongue slid along your lips. Your nostrils flared. I shrieked. Collapsed onto my back. Jerked backwards. Squirming away in desperation. Your heel following. Twisting round. Squashing my balls. I screamed, begging you to stop. You laughed. And eased off. Then dug your toe into my anus, twisting my body over, so that my scorched balls now lay pressed against the cool balm of grass and earth. You rested your foot in a pastiche of gladiatorial triumph on my buttock.

"Like I said," you mocked. "You got a nice ass. Bet you don't bend down too often to pick up the soap in the public showers, now do you?"

Then you were kneeling down at my side. You turned me over. I lay at your mercy. Cock stiff; belly soft and vulnerable; the knife dangling from the branch of a sapling just a few feet away.

Gently, solicitously, as if fearing you had given me too much hurt, you glided your hand over my guts, tenderly caressing the smooth bellyflesh, purring contentedly. You lowered your head and lovingly kissed my navel, dipping the tongue inside, licking the moisture, lapping at the delicate, mysterious walls."Love your navel," you whispered, raising your head. "Some guys collect butterflies. I collect belly-buttons. Guess I'd like to add yours to my collection." You paused and laughed. Looked down at my bush. "And as for supper, how about fried balls? I can roast your prick and use it as a sauce dip too How does that grab you?" You sniggered. "Only joking," you said.

Then your fist once more ripped into my belly. I jerked up with the shock, my eyes bolting wide. You twisted the knuckles into my guts and held them there, squeezing the intestines as I rolled in agony and ecstasy on the grass.

"What you doing?" I gasped.

You laughed incredulously. "Stabbing your belly, of course," you said. "And judging from the hot state of your cock, I'd say you're really enjoying it!"

Then you seized my cock. Hard, muscular gristle craving some kind of desperate, inexpressible satisfaction. You jerked it upwards, squeezing the root, while my arms convulsed helplessly at my sides, and began thrashing it frantically against my belly. The amphitheatre seemed to resound with the hollow slapping of hard cock on soft flesh. With the shrill sound of my cries. And the harsh, pitiless sharpness of your laughter.

Then you dived onto my cock, sinking the shaft into your mouth, the lips moulding round the hard, muscular flesh, your tongue darting like a snake round the head. You gripped my balls. Squeezed them. Twisted them in your fist. Your other hand stroking my chest and belly. Twisting. Stroking. Till my cries were a cocktail of joy and pain. The intense keening of a soul on the verge of heaven and hell. Then I screamed in terror as you thrust your finger into my anus, probing me, humiliating me, my buttocks writhing with every sudden twist of that deadly finger.

But you wouldn't let me come. And I, of course, held it all back, my heels drumming on the ground, legs and arms flailing, my belly heaving with terror and desire. I was stretching it all out, this thin filament of pleasure and pain, into some deep, unexplored recess of my soul.

Then you rose, leaving me suspended hopelessly between joy and grief. I closed my eyes, my chest and belly heaving, my limbs slowly ceasing their convulsions. My prick was hard and moist, throbbing against my belly.

I was conscious of your shadow passing over me, of your footsteps fading over the grass. My eyes blinked open, and through eyes wet with tears, I watched you approach the sapling. You paused, then turned. I could sense, even through the hot veil of my tears, your smile. A cruel, dispassionate smile. You eased the knife from the sheath. It was long - ten inches long - double-edged, with a point so fine and sharp it seemed to cut the very molecules of the air. The light was fading. Evening was dropping round us like a shawl, filling the amphitheatre with the soft silk of dreams. and from the moist warmth of those dreams, from the darkness within me, the same steel dagger gleamed, the talisman of destiny, potent with menace.

You strolled towards me, you the warrior carved from my fantasies, the knife hanging at your side, cold, cruel, irresistible, the smile of some terrible desire flirting on your lips. Fearful, desperate, I wriggled backwards, dragging my legs, feeling the numbness of my terror overwhelm them. You laugh; I beg for mercy, sobbing, crying, uttering the garbled, incomprehensible syllables of fear.

Suddenly, you are upon me, your foot on my belly, sliding under my cock. You flex and wrinkle your toes and jostle my rod. I can retreat no further. There is no escape. You gaze down at my body, running your eyes from my face to my prick. Then you raise your knife to the sky. You gaze round the rugged walls of the amphitheatre as if surveying some invisible audience. The stillness of the evening lies like ice in my belly. Your biceps ripple; your chest heaves with pride. Your phallus is huge and dangerous, like the sword of some terrible god. You laugh.

"Those that are about to kill, salute you, O gods of earth and forest and sky!" You pause and look down at me, your teeth bared in a carnivorous smile. "And those that are about to die merely tremble at my feet...."

You wedge my legs apart, then kneel down between my thighs, your knees pressing into my balls. My prick lies bloated and desperate against my abdomen, the head, damp and quivering, rubbing against my navel. You chuckle, slapping my cock from side to side with the palm of your hand.

"You sure gonna die with a hard-on!" you sneer. "Looks like you even wanna fuck your own belly-button!"

Your own cock is bobbing against my abdomen, rubbing against my prick, in some arrogant, lascivious dance. You begin massaging first yours, then mine, coaxing the hot, fertile juices to seep into my shaft, quelling my terror with sweetness.

Then you lower the knife to my belly, teasing the smooth skin just above the bush, prodding me. The steel tip tingles against my abdomen and sends a spasm of pleasure and fear shuddering through my guts.

"Just trying to locate the softest part," you say. "Where the blade will slip in so easily you'll hardly notice. Like gliding through butter."

I whimper, jerking backwards. I can no longer contain the rush of sperm bubbling up from the well of life in my balls. My whole body is juddering, legs writhing, belly churning.

And at the moment the first drops of milk spurt out, so you thrust the knife into my guts. Slowly. Remorselessly. Relishing the sudden shriek. The spasm of agony. The convulsions of my limbs. Concentrating on this, the ultimate penetration. Blood and spunk mingling.

You bury the blade in my guts. Up to the hilt. You cut through bladder and prostate, slicing upwards through my writhing intestines. I squirm beneath you, try to wriggle free, but you hold me fast to you, skewered on the point of your knife.

Then you lean over me, your stomach now pressing upon the hilt of the dagger, forcing the blade deeper inside me, the movement of the steel matching the rhythm of your breathing. I feel your lips searching for mine, feel your tongue squeezing into my mouth. Your tongue dances with mine in the frenzy of death.

You rise again. Ease the knife out. Gaze with pleasure at the blade dripping with blood. Then dip it into my button.

I give another terrified little gasp, and beg you not to. But you merely laugh, and prick my navel so that it is orbed with freckles of blood, then slide the knife downwards, cutting open the skin. Inside, my intestines revolt, churn upwards, The slit in my belly widens like the wake of a passing ship. I twist in terror and agony onto my side, feeling once again those desperate juices pulsing through my cock.

And then, through the gaping wound in my abdomen, in an ecstasy of liberation, my tripes surge out, with irresistible vitality, and spill onto the blood-rich grass. Through a cloud of disbelieving tears, I watch them curdle in front of my crotch, in a pool of blood, grease and shit. Feel your hand slither through the steaming pile of intestines to grasp my prick once more. As my body throbs in agony, and my belly empties of life, so you wrestle with my cock, driving me onwards to one last pathetic orgasm.

The End

Written by Tony [email protected]