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Theoretically, Ix was next in line for the throne of the West. In practice, since his father had died five years ago, Zipacna – Ix’s maternal uncle, who had already ruled in the North – took over the duties of the Western King as well. It did not matter that the Northern and Western capitols were three days of travel away from each other; it did not matter Ix was no longer too young. Zipacna had become too used to his expanded power. He liked the doubled tributes, and he seemed not to care that the rituals a king was supposed to perform were performed only half as often – if that.
When Ix confronted him about it, he laughed. Wasn’t the rain falling when it should, he asked. Weren’t the crops growing? Wasn’t there enough maize to feed the populace, and enough sacrifices to please the gods? The rituals – bah! The rituals were the priests’ domain.
Ix had bitten his tongue before replying that a king was supposed to be the highest of priests. That the rest of the priests grumbled, seeing their ruler openly disrespect them. The people outside of the temple-palaces hadn’t yet picked up on the growing ferment, but it was a matter of time.
Soon, things were going to come to a head.
Where Ix would end up after was anyone’s guess.
He should be the first choice for the next ruler, having the blood. He was his father’s only surviving son. But he’d also been the youngest – first, against tradition, raised under the influence of his mother even after he stopped being a child, then fallen under his maternal uncle’s authority on the cusp of becoming a man. He had almost no supporters. Ah, he barely had any court! He was a figurehead, a tool necessary for his uncle to claim the West – he’d understood that long ago.
If he hadn’t been that, he probably would’ve died some mysterious death just as all his older brothers had.
He was painfully aware that his ineptitude was actually protecting him.
If only it weren’t so loathsome – watching as his uncle dismantled what Ix’s father and his father’s father had built and doing nothing.
If only the priests had backed him instead of discretely looking far and wide for another young aristocrat with royal blood who they could use to depose Zipacna while gritting their teeth and silently letting the king pretend at priesthood until they had better options.
Then a disaster struck.
The rain had stopped.
Of course, everyone had started desperately praying to the storm god. Zipacna, too – just like the kings in the East and South – performed ritual after ritual, but he did it in his temple-palace in the North. The western corner of the world stood abandoned. The priests begged, and even the other kings had noticed and sent runners – how could you appease a whole god if you were only praying to the three of his four incarnations – so finally Zipacna relented and traveled to the West.
He took the royal chambers, as he always did when he was here, and he dallied for another day before Votan, the head priest of the West, had dragged him to the sacrificial chamber.
Ix, who lived in a palace building across the plaza from the main temple, wouldn’t have even known anything had started if not for some random servants who whispered amongst each other, excited, where they thought he couldn’t hear them. No one had told him. No one asked him to sit among the priests in front of the sacrificial chamber’s doors to await the king’s reemergence.
He considered going anyway, but thought better of it at the last moment. No one would talk to him, and everyone would stare – it would be much better if he used the secret passages he’d discovered last summer.
It was high time he learned what those kingly rituals were, the ones no one would explain even when he asked. At first it had been, ‘You’re too young.’ Now they said, ‘You’re not king yet.’
At this rate, he’d never be king.
He at least wanted to know what he’d be missing.
That is, if he didn’t end up dead.
Sneaking out of his quarters had never been a problem – there was at least that advantage to being ignored. Coh and Tun – the old twin servants he’d inherited from his mother – had seen him, but them, he trusted. Even as a toddler, he’d spent more time with the pair than even with his own mother. They taught him everything he knew. Coh had taught him weaving and healing, and Tun to write and read, and to use a spear and a bow, both in a fight and while hunting. They both told him about the gods, about respecting the world, and about how to live safely in a place as treacherous as the temple-palace. They’d shown him all the passages they knew of, and taught him how to find more in places where the servants of the late king’s least favored wife weren’t allowed. It was thanks to them that Ix moved unseen and unchallenged.
He likely owed them his life.
As said, being underestimated and overlooked had its advantages. It let him sneak through cold, dark, rarely used corridors, behind stone walls and past groups of unaware courtiers. He knew which square spirals to press for the mechanisms hidden inside the stone to move, and when to press them for the grinding, scrapping noise not to be noticed. He knew which shadow hid him best, and which sculpture of a god was large enough to obscure his entire – strategically dressed in a sandstone-colored tunic unfit for a prince – silhouette. He knew to sneak past the quarters of the priests, which were sure to be empty during such an important ritual, instead of those for the king and his guests – even during such a crisis, there were bound to be some entitled, lazy courtiers Zipacna had dragged with him from the North, who stayed behind, not caring about what the gods were owed.
With a beating heart, Ix pushed the last stone wall closed behind himself and got submerged in darkness.
He had to painstakingly feel his way forward – even the nights were only this dark deep in the forest before it rained – until a ray of light cut the black around him like an obsidian knife. He suspected it opened into the eye of the storm god, whose image must be carved and painted with vivid colors on the wall Ix was standing behind. He wasn’t sure, though; he’d never been inside.
At first, Ix had thought the bas-relief which hid the spyhole must be human-sized, but he’d quickly figured out the tunnel he’d sneaked into was higher than the floor of the chamber. Now, the bird’s view no longer surprised him. What did, though, was the intensity of the light – when he’d been here before, Zipacna had been out, the tall stone windows were covered, and there were but a few oil lamps, perfuming the air with the scent of holy herbs burning in fat.
Now, the west-facing windows were all open to the sky and letting in the full force of the angled but still scorching afternoon light. There were also oil lamps and torches all around – in case the king’s prayers lasted past sundown – and the resultant brilliance blinded Ix’s unaccustomed eye.
He flinched and had to blink away the tears before he tried looking again.
This time he was more careful and gave himself time to adjust. Soon, the indistinct shapes below turned into Zipacna, the head priest Votan, and Votan’s small entourage. Even from this far away, the king looked sullen when Votan’s acolytes pulled his large headpiece off and took away his many jade necklaces and bracelets. He huffed angrily when they took his skirt.
Ix made a face and fought the impulse to turn away.
It wasn’t the first time he’d seen a male body past its prime, but there was something disturbing in the layered, loose shape of Zipacna. The man had a drooping belly a warrior king should never have. When he turned, his buttocks were fat and dark, and Ix spoke a quick prayer to the four storms in his head, thanking them for not letting him see more than a glimpse of Zipacna’s thick, wrinkled penis.
Old male bodies did not freak him out; they did not! Tun was much older than Zipacna, and they lived together almost like a normal family, so Ix saw Tun naked many times and thought nothing of it. And while Tun’s body was not pretty, it was wiry and strong, reliable and safe. His leathery, dark skin spoke of a long life, of sun and hard work. Zipacna was just…soft – disgustingly so.
He had servants for every task, and during the very few duties he had to perform himself, he still scoffed.
He’d lived his whole life like that, and it showed.
Even Votan, who’d obviously had a good life that deposited thick layers of fat on his chest and around his belly and thighs, looked compact and energetic in contrast to Zipacna’s…flab. And Votan, aside from an official wife, had lovers who actually wanted to share his bed.
Ix heard Zipacna had to order people.
But that might’ve been a rumor.
You didn’t refuse a king even if he only politely asked.
Since Ix’s position was so peculiar, he’d quickly learned not to ask.
Coh said some older women, more secure in their standing and with less to lose if the political wind shifted against Ix would’ve had him – not the girls to be wed but the widows, and maybe even some second or third wives – and that she could arrange some of that, but Ix wasn’t keen on the girls not his age.
He wasn’t sure he was keen on girls at all.
Tun said that was hardly a problem. In fact, finding a young man of a lower standing who could satisfy Ix would be much easier than finding an appropriate woman. Much safer, too – Zipacna wouldn’t feel threatened by the relationship with zero chances of producing heirs. And Ix had tried that a few times. It was fun. It felt good. Having a hard body press against his; the tight slipperiness of another’s insides; so much skin – he couldn’t help but revel in it. There was only one issue.
The ‘lower in status’ thing.
There were certain things you weren’t supposed to allow someone who was beneath you, no matter how much you wanted to try them, like tasting someone, or having someone inside. Besides, the inequality was starting to bother Ix.
Those men had said they wanted him – but how could he be sure?
No one had ever wanted him if they had a choice.
For this ritual, no blood was being spilled other than that of the king. Votan cut Zipacna’s palms himself while the king grimaced and hissed. Then Zipacna, holding his hands together like an offering cup, approached the rain god’s likeness carved in stone.
Approached Ix.
Ix fought the urge to jerk away. And better that he did not – a sudden movement behind the god’s eye would’ve garnered much more attention than his still presence.
Zipacna intoned a prayer – he had a pleasant voice, at least, rich and deep – and the priests behind him bowed and, still bowing, backed away.
The large door closed with a scrape and a thud.
Zipacna dropped all his gathered blood in one go on the altar and cursed.
He looked at the door, then with a strained grunt, he sat down on the steps to the altar, and only then resumed the prayers.
He sing-spoke of his need for rain, and of his willingness to sacrifice himself to the god if the god so wished. He spoke of drying things, and of the growth and the green the rain could bring. He begged for mercy, for his people to be spared both the drought and the storms, but that he’d welcome the storms if it was all the god was willing to bestow. It was all very pretty – Zipacna’s song.
It felt completely meaningless.
Halfway through it, Ix sat down in the darkness, hugged his knees – his fists clenched – and gnashed his teeth.
The people were counting on Zipacna, and all the man deigned to give them was pretense? True, maybe Ix didn’t have a voice like that, and maybe his father only cared enough to choose a name for him which could just as well had been given to a girl; maybe his mother had been far more preoccupied with the courtly affairs than with rearing her youngest son – but if it had been Ix’s job to spill his blood and sing those songs, he would’ve given it his all!
Zipacna didn’t even last until sunset! Soon, he banged at the door – Ix scrambled up to see – with his bloodied hands. Immediately, two of Votan’s men supported him on both sides – as if Zipacna had just performed some impossible feat which had sapped all his strength and not sat on some stairs while nursing two shallow cuts.
Ix snorted.
The head of one priest snapped up, and Ix crouched down, hand over his mouth.
With a beating heart, he waited. But soon the doors had again thudded shut.
He leaned his forehead against the wall and sighed with relief.
There was – by now familiar – grinding sound, and the stone…moved.
Ix rolled out of the wall – right into the god’s palm, then onto crossed stone knees.
He shook himself off, then looked up – the god’s mouth yawned open, and climbing back up would be difficult but not impossible. First, though… First…
Ix looked for a way down that wouldn’t involve stepping on the altar, but, unless he wanted to break bones, there was none. Cringing at the desecration, and keeping as far from the tiny pool of Zipacna’s drying blood as possible, he climbed down.
He twirled around, even more in awe now that he could see the chamber in all of its splendor. The sun was setting, so the light coming through the windows was warm and orange, and the shadows it created were long. The priests had put out most of the lamps, so those valleys of warm glow were almost all there was. The green glimmer of the jade ornaments, usually regal and cool, dimmed and warmed. They looked softer now, almost pliable – like they were alive.
Ix just stared for a while. Then he approached the altar, and with shaking hands, took out his small obsidian knife.
He cut across both of his palms the way you do when making a sacrifice. Quietly, like a wind who isn’t sure if he’s allowed to blow, he intoned the prayer-song he’d heard Zipacna sing.
He wasn’t a king, but—
He hoped this wasn’t blasphemy.
He sang of need, of willingness, and of wet things, and as he did, a slight breeze stirred around him. Ix was so focused he didn’t notice at first. But then it rose and rose, cool and a little damp with a suggestion of water, playing with his hair and wrapping his plain tunic around his body. It shifted against him, slid under hems and caressed bare skin.
Ix was so frightened he almost broke his chanting, but he persevered. Then he felt a presence behind him.
He inhaled, but the next words didn’t come.
“And here you begged so prettily,” said a voice deep like thunder.
“Why stop?” Said the same voice from another direction.
Ix stood frozen.
A hand touched his back, then stroked down until it could squeeze his ass. “Hmm?” The person’s breath – smelling of earth after a storm – brushed against Ix’s ear. “Have they finally deigned to give me a worthy sacrifice?”
“Can’t you tell he’s the king?” said the other voice.
Ix heard steps – bare feet on stone – but he stared resolutely ahead. “I’m—” He swallowed. “I’m no king.”
A big, cool nose nudged the crook of his shoulder. “Hmm, now that you mention it. He does smell like a king.”
“I’m not—”
More steps, and suddenly a large, strong hand was gripping Ix’s jaw.
Ix stared at a not especially handsome – but oddly alluring – man.
His chin was square like that of the manliest of warriors, but it was a tad too wide. His nose was large, his lips red and full and wide, and his eyes – his eyes were the deep shade of greenish blue you could only see at the bottom of the deepest, cleanest cenotes.
“You deny having the blood?”
“What? Nnno!”
“Is there anyone else with the blood who has a better claim?”
“No?”
The man – the god – grinned.
His teeth were white, sharp, and he had fangs like a jaguar.
He let go of Ix’s chin and shifted his head to the side, looking over Ix’s shoulder.
Ix noticed his earrings – large, shaped like a reverse teardrop and obsidian black.
It matched his black feather skirt.
When the god took a step forward, whoever was behind Ix took a step back – pulling Ix back as well.
The god growled, “He is mine!”
“I am you. He is as mine as yours.”
“This is my temple. I noticed him first!”
“W-wait!”
“You had a decent king recently. Do you have any idea how long I had to do without a proper sacrifice?”
“Not my fault the one who took over the throne up North is a shit without the blood.”
The one behind Ix laughed. “Now he took over the West, too.”
The voice of the god in front was an insidious wisp of air. “Not for long.”
Ix swallowed. “Maybe we, ah, I don’t know, come to some sort of, I don’t know, compromise?”
The god in front looked into Ix’s eyes.
The one in the back let go.
Ix backed off from them both, hands raised. “I, ah.” He stared.
The other god was the exact twin of the first, except his earrings were made of polished bone, and his feather skirt was white. They were both barefoot and powerful – not only with their godly might, but also physically. They were built thickly, but not from fat, like Votan, but from bulging muscle. Their skin was bronze, a shade darker than Ix’s, like it truly knew sun. It was smooth – so smooth it shone in the warm, orange light as if oiled.
With a deep, sudden yearning, Ix wanted to know how it felt under his fingers.
“I, um, what do you want from me, exactly?”
The mirror rain gods looked at each other.
“No one had taught you?” asked the black one – the god of the West, Ix surmised, since black was his color.
“Taught me what?”
“What the king’s sacrifice is to be,” said the white god of the North.
“No?”
“Ah,” the black said, then they both grinned.
“It would be an interesting lesson, then.”
They both took a step towards him, and Ix had to do everything in his power not to step back.
The look in their eyes wasn’t malicious, but it was kind of…predatory.
The white god stepped behind and reached for the hem of Ix’s tunic while the black god took Ix’s face in both wide palms and fell on Ix’s lips.
Ix whined and flailed his hands, completely not expecting this!
The other god’s touch was warm as it slid up Ix’s skin.
The God of the West tasted of rain.
Ix’s head swam – his cock filled so fast.
“Oh, yes, that’s it,” said the God of the North, and kissed the small of Ix’s back. He reached to Ix’s front and pulled on his cock. “Very good.” He kissed down Ix’s spine – until he reached—
“A-aah!” Ix moaned as the God of the West broke the kiss. He pulled Ix’s tunic over his head, completely undressing him.
He then kissed him again.
The feathers of his black skirt tickled the tip of Ix’s cock whenever the other god’s hand wasn’t covering it.
The other god was…
He was—
Ix whined and almost lost his footing when a meaty tongue breached him further than a tongue should be able to breach.
The black god held him upright and chuckled. “How do you like my other self’s skills?” he said against Ix’s mouth. “Talented, isn’t he?” He licked Ix’s parted, sensitive lips. “He can unravel his tongue just like a frog does.”
“A-aah, please!”
The black god gripped Ix’s buttocks, pulling them further apart, then pushed Ix’s ass into the other god’s face. “You heard our new king.”
The Northern god obliged.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
The Western god pecked Ix on the cheek and also fell to his knees.
He swallowed Ix’s cock whole.
The only thing Ix could do was part his legs and try to stay standing – gripping the God of the West’s hard, thickly muscled shoulders for support.
Oh, gods – oh, gods! – what was happening? How could this be a sacrifice? No one had pleasured Ix like this in all his life! In every ceremony – wasn’t the petitioner the sacrificing one? Why would gods serve a mere human like him so? It was too much, too much!
“Aaah!” Ix shook between them like a leaf that a gale had trapped between branches. His belly was a churning furnace, his flesh a blazing trap for pleasure. His climax swam within that grip, faster and faster – swelling, swelling—
“Hnnn…!”
Ix slumped.
The Northern god’s tongue slipped out of him, and the Western god’s bottomless mouth lifted off his cock.
“Good,” said the black one, lowering Ix to the stone floor. “Now you’re relaxed enough.”
Ix blinked up at them both.
He made a questioning sound.
The white one behind him chuckled. “For us to take you, of course.” He reached between Ix’s buttocks and pushed two fingers inside.
Ix grunted, but his muscles were too lax to stiffen.
“Hey!” said the Western one. “I should be the first! He is mine!”
“It was I who stretched him! I should be the one!”
They glared at each other.
With great difficulty, Ix lifted a hand and put it on the black one’s thigh. “Don’t argue,” he said. “Can’t you, like, both, somehow…?”
What he meant was taking one in the ass, and the other in the mouth.
What they heard…
“Taking us both at once – an excellent idea!”
“Yes, certainly, we can do that!”
The black one frowned. “But can your body handle that?”
Ix didn’t understand.
“We are a god,” said the one from the North. “If he can’t, we can help him.”
He pushed one more finger inside.
The stretch burned, and Ix gasped and arched, but it also felt good, so he didn’t protest.
“See?” said the God of the North. “He is stretching just fine.” He pumped his fingers, and there was a pulse of blissful warmth.
Ix moaned and slumped.
Suddenly, his hole felt very loose.
It tingled.
“Already,” said the God of the North, “he could easily take one of us.”
The God of the West rubbed Ix’s splayed open thighs and his belly. “Just don’t make it too easy. It’s not often we can enjoy an untouched ass. Would be a shame to make it too loose.”
“Don’t worry, my other self.” The god touched some brilliant ache inside Ix and flicked it up and down. “We will all have fun.” He grinned at Ix, who now squirmed on his hand. “All three of us.”
He pulled his fingers out and lifted Ix back-first into his lap.
Ix could do nothing but straddle him – in those large hands, he felt like a rag doll. Feathers tickled his thighs and ass, then from between the feathers…
“Aaah!”
He was so full!
“Don’t whine yet, oh king of mine,” said the God of the North while nipping at his shoulder. “That’s but a tip – one tip at that.” He lay on his back, pulling Ix with him.
The God of the West crawled between their spread thighs. Grinning, he said, “You’ll have to take two entire shafts.”
The glans of another hot, slippery cock nudged at Ix’s already plenty full opening – only then did he understand.
“What?”
It popped in.
“Ah!”
Ix trembled, teetering on the edge of pleasure and pain.
“Shh,” said the white god under him. “We won’t hurt you. You can handle this.”
“I don’t think I—”
The black god pushed in.
“Oooh!”
“You’re fine, see?” He gripped Ix’s hips to aid both himself and the god below – who thrust up his hips.
For a moment, darkness stole Ix. Then he came to – and they were still both buried in!
Ix gasped and gasped.
He couldn’t speak.
The Western god stroked his cheek. “Is it too much?” He shifted, and first pain – then that pleasure, that expanding bliss pulsed within him again. “And now?” He thrust.
Ix moaned.
The god laughed. “Oh, now it’s good.”
Their cocks slid within Ix, pushed and pulled. There wasn’t even a real rhythm to it – just as there’s no rhythm to rain. Once they entered together – stretching him, oh, stretching him so damn wide – then they pushed and pulled alternately, all movement, constant shifting, rubbing and pressing everywhere within him. Then they swayed together again – making Ix cry, or scream, or beg – then they were back to their uneven dance.
Ix writhed between them as wildly as he was able. Which wasn’t much, as their bodies were big, and their muscles too powerful for Ix to overcome even if they were humans. They took him as they pleased, in ways that pleased them. And Ix wanted to participate more, but they knew better.
When he reached to stroke himself, too overwhelmed by the singular, unfamiliar sensations, the Western god gently batted his hand away. “You will cum when we want you to cum. This is your sacrifice for us, not the other way around.”
Except – it felt like it was the other way around! They were the ones taking him, but somehow Ix was sure he’d gotten the better end of the deal. Two gods inside him – could there be a higher honor, a more mind-melting bliss? Because the stretch hurt, oh, it did, and Ix would’ve cum five times over if there’d been any fucking rhythm to it, but Ix also had never felt this much for this long. He should be exhausted, done; he was going to be so sore – yet a part of him wanted this to never end. He wished there could be just this – then oblivion. He wanted to forever touch them, kiss them, fuck them, feel their cocks and preternaturally smooth skin.
Oh, so much skin. Their skirts had disappeared somewhere, or maybe they were never there, and Ix could feel so much of them under his palms and between his thighs. Their bodies undulated, slid. Like waves in the ocean at the height of summer – warm, larger than life, powerful, and wet. Ix could not touch enough. He also kissed and licked. And they pressed him between each other; pressed into him.
“Please, please, please!” Ix begged, but they only chuckled and fucked him.
Meanwhile, the shadows lengthened, then disappeared as the sun hid under the distant trees.
The moon didn’t come.
Rain did.
It droned slow and heavy at first, then the wind picked it up and, through the large window, whooshed it into the temple, wetting and cooling their overheated bodies.
Ix shivered as it touched him, but then the God of the North thrust really well, slipping past the cock of his counterpart, and Ix again could focus on nothing but his overstretched hole. He closed his eyes against the wind and the moisture – not dwelling on the plight of his kingdom at all.
Somewhere far away, thunder boomed. Then the next one boomed closer. Soon, lightning supplemented the meager glow of those few oil lamps that the priests had left burning. For moments upon moments, the temple got brighter than during the day.
The cold flashes sneaked under Ix’s eyelids – but at that point, Ix couldn’t tell which light was which.
Was it the storm without or within him?
He spasmed between his god’s two bodies.
They held him.
They filled him.
The rain filled the land.
When, in the aftermath, they lay on the floor, panting, the storm still raged.
Ix found his voice. “Isn’t that…too much?”
The God of the West kissed the sweaty crook of his neck. “This kingdom is very thirsty.”
The other god circled Ix’s tender rim with his thumb. “It can handle it. After all, its king did.”
“I’m not—”
“Oh, shush.” The God of the West bit where he was kissing. “Earlier, your head priest sneaked a peek in here. No way he’d let the usurper stand, now that he knows how we favor you.”
The very thought of what that meant made Ix’s mind churn and his body stiffen.
The gods had noticed.
“Enough talk of that now,” the Northern god said. “Those are matters for tomorrow morning.” He pushed his questing thumb into the ache inside. “Right now, it is still night.”
Another lightning brightened the chamber just so Ix could see both gods grin down at him.
“Come here, my king,” said the God of the West, sitting up and patting his lap.
“Oh, fuck,” Ix said. Then – his thirst, as it was turning out, not entirely quenched – he scrambled to obey.