King Perry by Edmond Manning Page B

informing him of my intent, so he leans the remaining quarter inch to meet me. With small shifts, I turn us clockwise, slow movements, junior high dance steps, our silent lips pressing softly and retreating. Only a hint of warm breath between us indicates when we’re apart.
    “It was bound to happen, and eventually it did. A few kings started wondering what lay outside the ancestral kingdom.”
    My voice shocks us both, a barely audible whisper, a butterfly flitting against his warm neck. In the absence of light, words become a living trail of undulating vowels and shiny, bronze consonants, a twisting coil of physical matter. When I rub his cock through his jeans, Perry gasps against my neck. The mere inhalation of breath is a tangible sound in this mausoleum.
    “Various explorer types, such as King Wesley the Wonderer and Diego the Tourist King may have been first to leave. Of course, DuRay the Best Friend King might have been eager to meet those beyond the kingdom. Or perhaps King Mai the Curious withdrew first. You couldn’t stop him. He was one of those Midwestern, corn-fed boys. A bubba.”
    We kiss. Perry’s okay with this part, the soft, luxurious kissing, each one a tiny breath of life.
    I lean in, pushing him slightly backward again. We have made two full rotations, if I am oriented correctly, which means that in minuscule movements, I guide us toward a wall neither of us sees, aiming us right next to the cell door.
    I think. I hope.
    I practiced this ten or eleven times, turning myself slowly, testing how many steps it would take, counting how many were necessary to find the correct wall. I have to get us into position for the next part.
    “They left the kingdom, one after another. They weren’t in hiding, these kings, or worried about protecting their borders. They were never in danger of attack because the tribe could only be found by other kings. Their very natures meant exploring was inevitable. Of course they left the kingdom. This was not the problem.”
    Perry shifts back another step, and his forehead presses against mine.
    “Their explorations of new worlds inspired greater courage, and wild tales were told of their exploits, but some lost touch with those qualities that made them kings. They forgot that they served a higher mission, lived in devotion to a kingdom where all men were necessary and equally blessed. Many became lost.”
    Perry exhales in surprise as he touches the wall behind him. I continue sliding him slowly along the wall, a foot or two to the right, and he follows my every subtle nudging with impressive sensitivity.
    I stroke his chest with my left-hand fingertips, graze his collarbone and neck as I trace his body. With my right hand, I trace the wall, searching for—ah, there, the seam of the door. Thank God. I would have been lost myself if I hadn’t found it.
    You tired of those rats yet?
    No. Concentrate.
    “Every king mattered: the one who made toast well, and the king who awarded college scholarships. King Derrick the Aged, a man so ancient he could not walk to his own front door, was equal in importance to King Tyrol, the man who ran the largest city. The loss of any man was devastating, because what would the kingdom do without its one true king?”
    “Wait,” Perry says as the words tease him, stroke him, as their small hands and spinning vowels caress him, tingle his skin.
    No, Perry, no stopping now.
    “Quite a few got lost, the Accounting King, the Turnip King and the King Who Loved Turtles. Kings who once maintained the golden orchards now worked at McDonald’s. More and more men disappeared, showing up in the terrible land of the Lost Kings. This is what the remaining kings called them, the Lost Kings or the Lost Ones. Men who forgot their gold, vanishing into a world that looked much like our own.”
    Perry inhales deeply and pushes his chest into mine. My hands slide over his body to cup his ass, and the sensation surprises him, surprises his whole