Eye of Ra Read online

  Pleasure and excitement throbbed in those black eyes, almond- shaped, with a slight black edge, the corners tilted. Zachary wondered about the young man’s ancestry. Damn, where could he have put that resume? “I’d… of course,” Ira said.

  ***

  If he could have seen it above the thick veil of sand and wind, the sky would be an opaque white. The sun here filled the sky like a huge open eyeball, searing everything beneath it.

  Head down, handkerchief and hat covering almost his entire face, Zachary found his way toward the site by memory and ear. Voices and the sounds of movement; the wind rising along with the heat; the steady ching of metal on stone; the rhythm of the pulleys as the ropes passed through them.

  Suddenly, all was obscured again by the scream of the ever-increasing wind. Zachary stopped in his tracks, waiting for it to abate.

  Stupid goddamned wind. It’d been blowing ceaselessly since they’d arrived. An unseasonable wind, according to the local workers who looked over their shoulders, made the sign against the evil eye and spat whenever they mentioned it.

  ***

  Zachary should have spent most of his days in the pavilion near the dig, sorting through excavation notes and fragments. Updating their site map, rewriting grant requests, and generally applying his extensive education to unraveling the meaning of what they were finding here. But the same coil of tension that kept him up at night, kept the food from settling in his stomach and his dick a useless lump of limp flesh, drove him to the site instead. He’d stand at the edge, fidgeting, glaring down into the pit. Sometimes he’d call Seth over and direct excavation areas. Specific zones he felt needed more attention, tighter grids, the more experienced diggers. He knew Seth believed these instructions were informed. The truth was that the tightening in his gut was Zachary’s only direction. He just knew sector F16 needed to be unearthed, for example. He could feel it.

  He paced up and down above the left corner, the wind driving dirt and sand in stinging gusts across his skin, glaring down into the pit. A few white shirts, faces swathed in handkerchiefs and covered in the floppy brimmed, UV ray repellant hats, everything colored reddish brown. And then Zack saw Seth. You could spot Seth from fifty yards out here. Uncovered, seemingly immune to the elements, or in open defiance of them, his red hair blazed like a jet of fire, freckled skin tanned a ruddy hue. As if Zachary had called out to him, Seth paused in his movements and looked straight up the pit wall at him. He waved.

  A few moments later, Seth’s head appeared at the rim of the dig, he climbed the remaining rungs quickly and advanced on Zachary, excited. His eyes were an intense, almost unearthly, green - as if lit from within - his crooked grin was huge. “They uncovered the lower left corner last night.” He clapped Zachary hard on the shoulder. “You’re a genius, man.”

  “Was something found?”

  “Looks like an entrance, just like you said.”

  Zachary had to quell the new claustrophobia he felt as they descended the ladder and picked their way around the marked excavations zones, making their way to sector F16. Something about the sienna-colored walls and the dense smell of earth, an odor he had always enjoyed intensely, made him feel like he was choking.

  “What do you think?”

  The field worker had stepped back, her tools still carefully laid out in front of the tiny corner of exposed stone. He and Seth squatted in front of it. Zachary utilized one of the feathery soft camel’s hair brushes lying there and studied the faint hieroglyph it revealed.

  “The Eye of Ra,” he said. “Of course.” He ignored the sensations those words always engendered for him now. He feathered the brush expertly around the exposed stone. Beneath the emblem of the god was a square encasing a spiral. “Shit,” he said, and dropped the brush.

  Was it his imagination or had the wind just stopped? There seemed to be utter silence all around them.

  Seth’s scarred and freckled finger pointed and very gently traced the obvious curve of the chiseled opening around the markings. Oh. His sight seemed to have been almost obscured by the glyphs. Actually, as he tried to study the ruin, his sight became narrower, a kind of white tunnel closed around his vision, a roaring in his ears, dirt in his nostrils…

  “Zack?” Hands on him though he was sinking, the white going black… “Fuck,” he heard distantly. “Zack!”

  ***

  When he woke, the sun had set. He was lying in his tent again. The cool desert air flowed over him, clean and crisp and full of stars showing through the tiny window. Only when he turned on his cot, the surface below him didn’t give with the shifting of springs of his bed and the starry sky appeared over his head, as if the roof was missing.

  Zack sat up quickly, trying to get his bearings, his heart beating hard. He was in a room, but not his own. The sienna-colored walls, covered with glyphs, an oil torch on the wall revealed the interior of a burial chamber. The feeling of claustrophobia became intensely unbearable while he chanted “a dream a dream a dream” to himself.

  Then he saw the other figure lying nearby.

  “Fuck.” Zack almost fell off what he now saw was the slab of stone he had been stretched out on. He approached the figure lying nearby, already knowing what he’d find.

  Ira lay as he had last seen him, in the mortuary at the Meroe police facility. His slender young body blue and battered and laid out for identification. Zack couldn’t stop his hand from reaching to lightly touch the oxygen-deprived lips. Ira had been crushed, they told him; his ribs collapsing under the dirt that caved in upon him, but he had still suffocated. Lying under the earth for hours maybe, in probably terrible pain, until the scant air ran out.

  It had taken them days to find him.

  “Ira…” Zack was on his knees next to the slab, his fingers clenching the cold stone. It was a dream, he told himself, only jumping a little when he felt the cool fingers touch his arm.

  He looked up, tears swimming in his vision. Ira’s eyes were open, that slight smile on his lips. He touched Zack again, his brows drawing into a worried grimace, his fingers tracing the damp on Zack’s cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, Ira…”

  But Ira shook his head, still smiling slightly, and pointed at the floor.

  Zack looked down instinctively. The floor was filthy and covered with pottery shards, damp excavation tools. He looked back at Ira. His face was no longer blue-ish, recovering its youthful glow and bronzed, healthy appearance. Ira pointed at the floor again.

  “What?” Zack looked desperately around himself. Ira’s finger pointed insistently and Zack focused on the tool he indicated. It was a crude wooden adze, he realized.

  He looked up at Ira again, propped up on one elbow, his entire body naked and beautiful in the starlight. He smiled and just touched his lips then pointed again at the adze.

  Zack stared. He stood as if entranced and picked up the tool.

  “This is a dream,” he told himself again, out loud, before touching the adze to Ira’s lips.

  Ira’s mouth opened and he took in a long, loud breath.

  “Ah, Gods, that feels good. Thank you, Zachary.”

  Zachary dropped the tool to the floor, feeling weak in the knees. Ira quickly scrambled off the pallet and Zachary felt hands under his arms, holding him steady. Ira’s hands were warm, strong - the calluses from years of field work still there.

  “Are you all right?” Ira smiled at him.

  “A dream,” said Zachary.

  “No, darling, not a dream. Not exactly.” And Ira kissed him lightly. His breath was sweet and fresh - just as heady a thing as the first time Zachary had stolen a kiss from him. From the innocent young man sitting alone in a field tent, classifying fragments late at night. “I needed you to open my mouth, love,” Ira said, sitting back on the pallet and drawing Zachary toward him.

  “Open… the ritual?” Zachary still felt wobbly on his feet, so he followed Ira, half sitting beside him, half leaning against him. Ira’s arm came around him and his mouth played at Zach
ary’s hairline. “A dream,” said Zachary desperately. “It's just a dream.”

  “I’ve missed you.” Ira's breath gusted across Zachary’s forehead. “So much.”

  Zachary gave into it all as he did every night and, sobbing with relief, captured Ira’s lips with his own, one hand behind Ira’s neck, feeling the short hairs there, the other sliding around the slim waist.

  Ira’s hands ran over his arms; his cock pressed into Zachary’s belly, already leaking. Zack’s fingers wrapped around the length of it and he felt Ira gasp into his mouth.

  “Want to taste you,” Zachary whispered, kissing his chin, his throat, his collarbone.

  “Zack.” Ira’s voice was hoarse and needy. The muscles of his abdomen were tight, his fingers traveling wildly across Zachary’s head as he helped him to his knees on the cool stone floor.

  Zachary licked the smooth head of Ira’s cock. White and slim like a stone lozenge, Ira’s dick looked more like the preserved dildos they had uncovered than any he’d ever seen. He let it rest in his mouth for a moment, savoring the sensation, before he began sucking hard, drawing it slowly into his mouth.

  Ira moaned, his thighs shaking under Zachary’s hands. This was how it had begun for them. Zachary kneeling before Ira, worshipping the youth and beauty of him, showing him how intense it could be, how wild sex between men could be. Ira had cried out with surprise and pleasure and, after many nights, his love.

  “Zack, oh Gods, Zack…”

  Zachary’s hand found his own cock, began pulling at it to match the rhythm he had established with Ira. Ira’s hands were eager but gentle, caressing his face, his voice telling Zack how good it was, how good he was until he began begging, little gasps of breath before he froze, a helpless noise and spurts of warm, salty come filled Zachary’s mouth.

  He held the softening cock in his mouth for a full minute before rising to pull Ira against him, caressing his head as he nuzzled Zack’s chest. “I love you,” Ira whispered, as he had so many times before.

  Zack took a deep breath, mouthing the words he was always so desperate to utter in these dreams. He clutched Ira a little tighter. “I…I’ve missed you…” was all he was able to say.

  But it seemed to be enough for Ira; he laid back, an affectionate smile on those lips, and rolled over.

  Zack barely had time to get himself wet, Ira pushing back at him urgently. Always so eager for him, always so easy. He pushed inside, the muscles clenching around him like a velvet fist.

  He would wake fucking his own mattress, he thought, clutching at a body that wasn't there, his mouth in Ira’s hair, trying so hard to say the words he had never uttered while Ira lived. “I’m sorry…” He could say that.

  Ira moaned. “I loved you, Zachary,” he said, arching. Zachary held Ira's arms, bones and muscle moving so realistically. He couldn’t bear to lose him again, couldn’t bear this every night. “Please,” he whispered into Ira’s hair, against the shell of his ear. “Please don’t leave me.”

  Ira groaned and clenched around him. The sweat on his skin slick and gritty. He tasted of salt, of his need. Zachary thrust desperately, hanging on tight. But he could feel the insubstantiality beginning, Ira’s skin going rough, the muscles less defined. “No…” he sobbed, still thrusting, “no please, I … Ira, I lo…”

  Ira sighed and seemed to deflate. “The eye of Ra, Zack,” he groaned. “I need it. You have to…”

  “Yes, I will, I will….”

  “Promise me.”

  “I swear,” Zachary cried, lightning shooting from his balls through his body, “I swear”

  “Jesus Christ, man, keep it down…” Seth’s California accent came at his ear, disorienting and Zachary lashed out at the interloper. His hand was caught and he turned his head, startled, looking into glaring green eyes.

  “What?”

  “You fucking idiot, you were babbling about the Eye. Do you do that when you dream every night?"

  Zachary pushed himself up on his elbows, blinking with confusion. He was in the hospital tent, its sterile surfaces and glinting equipment flashing in his eyes. He covered his head, a familiar migraine immediately present. “I don’t know.”

  Seth glared at him for another minute, his eyes like green fire, then hopped up from the edge of the bed. “I think you should sleep in my rooms from now on.”

  “What?”

  “That fucking Marine is outside the door right now. I don’t mind telling you, his interest gives me the heebeegeebees.”

  Zachary sighed. “I don’t think he’s interested in me professionally, Seth.”

  Seth’s head jerked and he shrugged one shoulder as if to shake off this knowledge. “Really don’t wanna know, man. But if you’re yelling stuff about the Eye every night, I’m not comfortable that you’re entertaining some military cop.”

  Zachary’s mind went immediately to the previous morning, to Corporal Swenson's attentiveness. But he said, crisply, “I’m sure he hasn’t ever heard anything from his post outside my tent.”

  Seth appeared overly interested in a stele that lay labeled on a table. “Who knows what you say in your sleep?”

  The thought of having sex with anyone but Ira made Zachary’s stomach go sour. “I can assure you,” Zachary said dryly. “That neither Corporal Swenson nor any other person has been near me while I have been asleep.”

  “Yeah, well, in my experience you people can’t keep it in your pants for a week at a time.”

  “I’m too tired to be offended,” Zack said coolly, “but not all homosexuals are promiscuous, Seth.”

  Seth flinched visibly at the word. He picked up a reassembled vase and studied its base carefully. “Yeah, sure, whatever. I always said it didn’t matter to me, Zack, but if this thing becomes a liability…”

  “I’ve told you it won’t.”

  “That’s what you said before.”

  Zack flushed, his whole face becoming hot with a combination of rage and embarrassment and some other more confusing emotion. “How dare you…”

  Seth set down the vase he had been studying with a dangerous sounding thump. “A twenty-two year old boy? Geez.”

  They glared at each other from across the room. Here it was. The subject they hadn’t discussed in almost three years. Since the morning Seth had come into Zack’s tent and found he and his young intern entwined on a cot.

  Zack fought the emotion that threatened. “Ira…” his voice cracked on the word and he shook it off. “Ira and I were in love…”

  “God, that’s just sickening. How you can even call whatever you did to that kid love…”

  “Fuck you.” Zack said, his rage so wild the words were a hoarse whisper. Gathering himself together, he headed toward the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I can’t stay here. I can’t talk to you.”

  “Fine,” Seth spat at him, face bright red, eyes like green fire. “But if I hear anymore about the Eye, see anybody else nosing around…”

  Zachary stopped and stared. “Are you threatening me, Seth?”

  Seth’s eyes narrowed and his mouth pursed with some withheld statement. Then he looked down instead, brushing at a speck of dirt on his sleeve. “Of course not. But, Zachary, if you hadn’t … whatever, if that kid hadn’t been involved…”

  “I know.” Zach said heavily. He bit his lip, the grief and guilt rising in him again. “I know, and for whatever reason, this time I agree with you, Seth. You don’t need to worry.”

  Seth turned away from him again. “That’s all I need to hear.”

  “Good.”

  Nevertheless, when Zachary left Seth’s rooms, he saw Corporal Swenson across the way and bothered to give him a friendly nod. Brian looked surprised, but touched the rim of his helmet in a sketchy salute.

  It couldn’t hurt to have someone out there watching over him.

  ***

  “Zachary, we need to talk.” Ira was sitting in the big hammock, long legs swinging lazily back and forth, bare
feet toeing the earth like a boy on a hot summer evening.

  Zachary sat on the edge of the tomb, hands folded together between his knees and wondered, despairingly, how anyone so dead could look so alive. “Go ahead,” he said, feeling insane. “It's your nickel, I’m just sleeping here…”

  “This is not a dream,” Ira said again. “I’m quite serious about this, Zachary.”

  “Yes, you have said that repeatedly.”