All of his life, simple farmer Tendzin Kha-Droma has looked to the star whose name he shares for hope, since he believes it lights the idyllic home-world of his people, a race currently in diaspora and nearing extinction.  When Tendzin is captured and sold to a brothel, he becomes a guiding light to the cynical prostitute Tamari.  Together the two young men save to buy their freedom and try to nurture the fragile love forming between them amidst an atmosphere of danger and degradation.  Through his clients, Tendzin becomes caught between the city’s elite aristocracy and the growing, rebellious middle class.  He finds himself in a unique position, able to gain and pass vital information.  With war looming, what side will he choose?  Will he and Tamari survive the conflict, and will they reach the distant star that symbolizes their aspirations before greed, betrayal, and darkness consume them?

Excerpt:

            As they passed through the long and twisting corridors of the Palace, in front of a door every few feet and a shuttered window now and then, Tamari talked almost constantly.  Tendzin trailed behind, listening and trying to remember and absorb all of the information.

            “And we can take baths whenever we want,” Tamari said.  “The water’s always clean.  The only time Miss Urlug complains is when we don’t wash often enough.”  He turned and grinned, and Tendzin nodded to prove he’d been listening to Tamari.  “I usually come down here before the start of the night, and then for a quick dip before bed.”

            Tamari slid open a pair of screen doors to reveal another large room.  Rather than a fountain, a round pool dominated the chamber.  Steam rose from the water in shimmering sheets.  Night had fallen, and a half a dozen lamps cast the room in a tawny glow.   Columns flanked the walls.  Towels hung from bars, and soaps and lotions sat on shelves.  In a curved alcove were three shower heads, and Tamari approached them, saying “I always rinse off first.  Keeps the bathwater from getting murky.”

            At the room’s entrance, just inside the door, Tendzin stood, overwhelmed and twisting the fine fabric of his shirt like he was wringing a wash cloth.  Normally he clutched his purple sash, but it no longer wound around his waist.  What had happened to it?  Lost, like everything else, somewhere between his home fields and this place.

            “Anything wrong?” Tamari asked.  He’d removed his diaphanous shirt, and held it in his left hand, the white-gold sleeve trailing on the blue tile floor.

            Now Tendzin tried to gaze at Tamari’s lovely body, his slender, smooth chest, the prominent muscles of his waist and stomach, and his lean but sculpted arms without being obvious.  Head down, his pastel eyes shot up every few seconds to steal a peek from between a gap in his tangled hair.

            “Do you want to ask me anything?” Tamari said, taking a few steps toward Tendzin.  “I guess I’ve been talking a lot, but I wasn’t trying to be rude.  Go ahead.  What do you want to know?”

            “My neck,” Tendzin said, rubbing the sore spot beneath his hair.  “What was that?”

            “Tracking chip,” Tamari answered.  “They put them in all of us.  So we can be tracked down by satellite if we escape.  Don’t think about trying to pick it out, either.  Disturb it at all and the Gummichs will be alerted.  They won’t like it, and neither will you.  Anything else?”

            “This place,” Tendzin said softly, “What do you do here?”

            At first Tamari laughed, but then, seeing Tendzin’s sincere confusion, he said, “This is a brothel.  I assume I don’t have to tell you what that is?”

            “No,” Tendzin whispered.

            “It’s not so bad,” Tamari said, dropping his shirt and resting a hand over Tendzin’s clutching fist.  “This is a classy place, and we’re expensive.  Keeps the riff-raff away.”

            “So,” Tendzin said, “the people who come here, do they get to choose who they want, who they want to—“

            “That’s right,” Tamari said.

            “And can we choose if we want to go with them?”

            “No,” Tamari said, a dash of resentment tarnishing his musical voice.  “We go where we’re told.”

            “Who gets the money?”

            “Mistress Urlug.”

            “Must we stand in a line while they look us over?” Tendzin asked, trying to imagine how it would feel.

            With another chuckle and a squeeze of Tendzin’s hand, Tamari said “No!  It’s not like the slave market!  And it’s not some five-note fuck hole either.  We sit in the salon.  We serve the guests wine and fruit.  We sing and dance to entertain them, and then, if they’re willing to pay, we take them to our rooms.  But not me, not tonight.  I have some time off, thanks to you.  What’s wrong now?  Are you crying?”  He cupped Tendzin’s chin and tilted his face upward.  His hands were soft, gentle and fragrant, and the concern in his eyes authentic.

            Sniffling, Tendzin tried to smile.  “How much?” he asked.

            “What?”

            “How much are you?”  Tamari was so beautiful, with his full lips the color of wet terracotta and his thick-lashed, black, black eyes.  The prostitute looked nothing like the mechanic Jax, the only man Tendzin had ever felt an attraction to, but his delicate, wispy features intrigued the Iha-Yulian as much as Jax’s rugged, dense muscle.

            The other man straightened, beaming with pride.  “I’m four hundred,” he said.

            “And, me?”

            “Up to the Mistress.  But probably at least three, as pretty as you are.  Maybe more, since Iha-Yulians are so scarce.  You’re the only one I’ve ever seen.”

            The fact that Tamari recognized Tendzin’s ancestry made less of an impression than the word ‘pretty,’ and the Iha-Yulian felt the stinging heat on the apples of his cheeks.

            “Shall we bathe now?” Tamari asked.

            “Yes, thank you,” Tendzin said.  “For showing me around.”

            “Don’t thank me.  It’s easier work than being on my knees, right?”

            “Right,” Tendzin agreed, though he couldn’t understand how Tamari could make jokes about being forced to pleasure anyone with a handful of notes.  He supposed he would soon find out, though the idea of kneeling down in front of a customer made him feel like he’d be sick.

            Oblivious to Tendzin’s internal distress, Tamari stepped out of his loose pants and turned on all three showers.  The streams converged at a point in the center, over a round drain.  Tamari stepped to that point and moaned with satisfaction as the hot water pelted his body.  A cloud of steam enveloped him as he lifted his arms to wash underneath them.

            Tendzin could only stare.  He’d never seen a man like Tamari, so well-proportioned, lithe but strong.  He watched Tamari’s muscles, enhanced by the water, stretch, contract, pull and play against one another as he reached, bent and twisted to wash.  Though the prostitute was impeccably groomed, from his shaped eyebrows to his hairless body, oiled calves and neatly-trimmed toenails, there was nothing feminine about him.  All of the men back home had been farmers: little concerned with primping, covered in bulging, rather than graceful, muscle, hairy and often dirty.  They’d shaped Tendzin’s notions of masculinity; he’d never imagined there could be such a dazzling paradox.

            Something else distinguished Tamari from others Tendzin had seen: a triangular patch of sepia, swirling markings extending from just below his belly button to his pubic bone.  The interlocking spirals and whorls reminded Tendzin of the decoration on the pages of very old books, those ancient relics still made from sheets of wood pulp.  The twirled ends of the marks stopped halfway down Tamari’s cock, which, Tendzin couldn’t help noting, was fine and long, but not too thick.  More scrollwork decorated Tamari’s inner thighs.  When he turned to rinse his face, Tendzin saw that it also meandered from his tailbone up his spine, fading to nothing at the base of his shoulder blades.  Tendzin didn’t think the marks could be tattoos; they looked too organic.

            “Come on,” Tamari called over the hiss and patter of the water.  “Hurry up.  We won’t have the place to ourselves for long.  And it gets horribly crowded with all of the girls trying to get ready.  Let’s get washed up while we don’t have to wrestle for a bottle of shampoo.”

            “What should I do with my clothes?” Tendzin asked.

            “Those rags?  Throw them away!”

            Reluctant to comply, Tendzin realized his hands still twisted around the hem of his shirt.  He let go and whisked the shirt over his head.  These garments were the only thing he had left of his former life, and though they were plain and dirty he didn’t want to give them up.  So he folded the shirt and set it on a shelf.  His shoes he placed against the wall, where they wouldn’t get wet.  Then, shaking, trying not to watch Tamari, who’d taken a break from scrubbing his golden-brown skin, Tendzin hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his pants, pulled them to his ankles, and stepped out.

            The angle of the water jets compelled Tendzin to stand very close to Tamari.  He could smell the other man’s moist skin and hair.  He tried not to face Tamari nor look at him, even in his peripheral vision.  Though he wanted to look, stare even, his upbringing had taught him that such a thing would be rude.  Also, Tendzin’s attraction to the prostitute frightened him.  He worried that his body might betray him and demonstrate his feelings in an undeniable way.  So new to this environment, he couldn’t know if this man he’d just met might be angry or offended.  Thus far, Tamari had been kind.  Tamari was the closest thing Tendzin had to a friend, and he didn’t want to shatter the at least amiable relationship.

            But as Tendzin scrubbed his back with the brush the other man handed him, as he soaped his body and washed his hair, his shoulders and elbows brushed Tamari’s skin, Tamari’s soft arms, the small of his back, even his ass.  He felt like wet silk.  Each time Tendzin muttered an apology and moved as far away as he could while still standing under the shower.  Moths fluttered again.  As he’d feared, the blood rushed to his cock and it hardened, bouncing with his hectic heartbeat.  Terror-stricken, he stepped out of the water, hoping a blast of cold might douse his erection.  But steam had filled the room with warm fog.  He tried to think of something else, but his mind returned to Tamari, wet and naked behind him, his imagination filling in the details that he denied his eyes.

            “Sorry, I’m so sorry,” he mumbled.

            “For what?” 

            To Tendzin’s horror, Tamari’s hand closed around his shoulder and urged him to turn.  He covered himself with his hands, but not in time.

            “Oh,” Tamari said, glancing down and smiling.  His hair hung in shiny black ribbons over his chest, and his bangs were wet fronds reaching to his eyelashes, dripping water down his cheeks, down his neck.  Rivulets ran over his body, following the dips and protrusions of his form, accentuating his slightest movement.  Head down, Tendzin’s eyes lit upon the markings below Tamari’s belly button.  He hadn’t noticed the gold ring in the other man’s navel, nor how complex and beautiful his ornate skin looked close-up.  Inevitably his gaze strayed lower.  Water dripped from the end of Tamari’s penis.  His shaved and speckled balls crowded close to his body, the raised pores and central seam prominent.

            Tamari took a step nearer, and Tendzin didn’t retreat.  Mere inches separated their flat bellies, separated Tendzin’s knuckles from Tamari’s darkened, half-erect shaft.  Leaning in with just his head, stretching his neck so his nose parted the hair over Tendzin’s ear, Tamari asked “Do you like me?”

            “I, I was just noticing those patterns on your skin,” Tendzin said, changing the subject.  “How were they made?”

            Looking down, tracing the paisley design with his fingertip, Tamari said, “I’m a K’Mer.”

            “I don’t know what that means, Tamari.”

            “It’s my race.  We all have these.”  He wiped his stomach with his hand, stretching the skin, pulling on his scrotum and cock. 

            Tendzin drew a halting breath.

            “If I were to go back home, one of the K’Mer priestesses could read these marks and tell me about my family generations back.  It’s kind of our history on our skin.  Some K’Mer say they tell one’s future destiny, but I think that’s just an old superstition.”  He looked up then, into Tendzin’s astonished eyes, and said “Do you like them?”

            Tendzin followed the lean lines of Tamari’s arms to where his hands, palms flat and thumbs outstretched, formed a triangular frame around his birth marks.  His clear nails grazed the base of his cock. 

            Nodding, Tendzin said “I like them.  They’re beautiful.”

            “Touch them,” Tamari said.

            When the Iha-Yulian hesitated, the K’Mer took his wrist.  Tamari guided Tendzin’s ivory hand to his embellished, brown stomach and pressed their skins together.  Tendzin felt the rhythmic swish of Tamari’s pulse.  He looked into Tamari’s dark eyes, shining from behind gaps in his fringe.  Tamari smiled, and Tendzin smiled back.  Each took a step forward and their bodies met with Tendzin’s hand trapped between.  Tamari reached to the side and turned the shower off.  So much moisture hung in the air that it weighed warm and heavy against them.

            “You haven’t had much experience, have you?” Tamari asked, petting Tendzin’s cheeks, smoothing away his silver hair.

            Self-conscious and unsure again, Tendzin said “I haven’t had any.  I’m sorry.”

            “Don’t be sorry.  I’ll teach you.”

            “All right.”

            “What have you done before?”

            “Nothing,” Tendzin said.  “Not even kissing.”

            “Then let’s start there.” 

            Tamari held his face in both hands and drew him close.  He nuzzled Tendzin’s nose with the tip of his own.  His soft lips, hue deepened to cinnamon with arousal, brushed Tendzin’s mouth.  Lightly Tamari pressed in, pressed his lips against Tendzin’s.  Then he opened his mouth a fraction and angled his head to the side, winding his fingers in Tendzin’s hair to pull their faces together.  Tendzin let his jaw relax and fall open, the tip of his tongue flickering out in search of Tamari’s tongue.  He found it, and it pulsed against his tongue.  Both men opened their mouths wider, thrust their tongues against each other with increasing passion.  Tendzin’s hands slipped around Tamari’s still damp waist to the curve just above his ass, where his spine dipped in.  He pulled Tamari closer, kissed him deeper.  No sound interrupted the dream-like moment but the soft trickle of the water draining away, and their breath, and their hearts.

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