The man stood up and left, and Taiga looked down into the water, feeling a strange sense of rejection and hurt. He sat in the bath and stared into the water and thought about what he was going to do next, trying to master his emotions and mind, which were fragmented and flighty and running in a thousand directions, careening into a canyon in the mountain passes.<br/><br/>The seconds crawled, and Taiga stayed perfectly still.<br/><br/>The door opened and the man re-entered, Taiga looking up at him in shock, somehow having convinced himself he'd been seen wanting as a partner and abandoned.<br/><br/>At his words, Taiga's eyes widened. "I find my mind hard to master at the moment," he admitted softly. "My heart is like wild horses. I cannot rein it in."<br/><br/>He looked at Eras, watching him enter. Watching him slide into the water, graceful around his masculine hips, his cock floating between his legs. They were so close, Taiga could touch him in just one small motion. Opening his mouth to say something, he was shocked to hear himself say, "When I was eight I pretended to be husband and wife with another boy. We were discovered in the midst of kissing, a veil on his head. My father was called. Previously he had been so kind to me, fair and loving, as he always was to my brothers. That day he whipped me bloody. From that day on, he seemed not at all interested in my life or growth into a man. That was over a decade ago, and in all that time I have never seen the boy I played with again, not once. When I was eleven one of my father's generals invited me out to test our new horses. We rode far away from the others, for hours until I was lost, and then when he stopped us for lunch he held me down and tore off my clothes and disgraced me. He did that many times, but he grew reckless and we were discovered by hunters. The general pretended I had bewitched him and tempted him from his wife, as sodomites are thought to do in our culture. We are thought to possess powers that turn men's heads. I was put on trial for bewitching him. Perhaps would have been stripped from the family line and banished, but my father had pity on me, and my mother implored him to be lenient. I was whipped publicly, and since then I have been considered officially a sodomite. There are sacred rituals I may not take part in. I have tried so hard to love women, the Gods know I have—"<br/><br/>He stopped, his mouth parted, his chest heaving and new sweat beading on his temples despite the cold water.<br/><br/>He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Eras', innocent and chaste, close-lipped. In the water he slid into Eras' laps, their bodies slick and sliding, Taiga moaning into the kiss. His cock was so hard it ached down into his balls as he'd never felt. He broke apart for only a moment before pressing his lips to Eras' again.<br/><br/>"I am afraid I don't know how," he stammered, closing his eyes to avoid looking at himself. His accent was stronger on those words.