But, it wasn't Akar at all! It was Darat! He smiled at me and nodded that the wound in my scalp was healing well. My head still hurt from the deep cut and my mind spun feverishly as I tried to remember the events of the recent past.

Where was my beloved Akar? How long had it been since I last saw him? Was it just this morning? Was it yesterday? From the freshness of my wound, it could not have been more than two days ago? How did I get here? Where exactly was … here? And, most importantly, where was Akar?

Darat patted my head softly as he wiped the wound with fresh water from his water pouch. He forced several mouthfuls of water into me. When I tried to speak, he simply covered my mouth with his powerful hand and a stated order of "Not now! Rest." Then the cloth was back on my forehead covering my blurred and weary eyes once again.

How could I rest? I needed to know where Akar was? I needed to remember what had happened. My brain fought with me as I struggled to recall the last few days. I forced my mind back. I concentrated my focus back on the time frame just before the Travelers arrived.

The day after the celebration of the wall completion where Darat spoke of the Traveler's pending arrival I was pretty much confined to Samut's hut while the others performed repair tasks within the village. The morning sun was still shrouded in the floating dust from the eruption in the western sea. Reports were that the lava flow into the air and the boiling churning of the water had finally ceased and the aftershock tremors were much milder now.

As I rose and stretched in the pre-dawn of that morning I witnessed a small contingent of Priests and Pickings pass by quietly through the narrow window opening in Samut's hut that faced the public pathway. I counted four priests and six Pickings. It wasn't until they were past our hut that I thought these included Akar. Pressing my head out of the opening, I could see that the backs of these Pickings were absolutely immense with honed muscle. None seemed smaller than I knew Akar to be when I had last seen him. But, on second glance, I could tell that they were not quite as large as my separated lover and that none of them were him.

Still, these men were absolutely enormous with muscle. Their naked bodies could not move without setting off an explosion of shifting and sharpening meat. Their triceps and lats were engaged in a tremendous battle for control of the space between them with each of these gargantuan swells of muscle carved hard and striated onto their churning bodies. Six sets of gluteus masses thundered provocatively as they strode proudly along the path to the gateway. Chiseled layers of stratified muscle flowed through their globed and dimpled ass cheeks and slid through their strongly flexing rear leg biceps and staggeringly sized calves.

My cock rose to anchored stiffness as it ached to feel their colossal muscles at work. They moved swiftly and deliberately as if in a controlled rush. The two Priests at the back of the line blocked my salivating view much too soon as the parade of the six stupendous men disappeared from my limited view.

Darat had already risen and gone. He was back with the dust-shaded first light of the day. My two sentries rose to greet him as he forced his muscular bulk through the doorway into the hut. Darat handed me my breakfast meal. As I consumed it I dreamed of the liquid cum-meal that Akar and I had shared every morning and longed for just one last chance to taste it – and to see him.

"Akar is well." Darat spoke as if reading my mind. "He sends his greeting to you."

"When may I see him?" I asked.

"We have spoken of this much too often." Darat said sternly. "You cannot see him now. He must remain focused on his preparation for elevation to Supreme Picking. No one, not even a Matching Partner, may interfere in that process. It is all about the great balance and to permit human weaknesses into the program now could upset that balance and the need to achieve it."

"I don't understand how my seeing Akar, even for just a few brief minutes can upset your `great balance'!" I pressed

"The Travelers come tomorrow and there is still no sign of your people and their ship." Darat sighed changing the subject. "This is not a good sign. We had hoped that your friends would be able to make it around to the southern beaches before the coming of the Travelers."

"What does this mean?" I inquired.

"It means that you will not be able to leave for some time now." Darat answered solemnly. "Once the Travelers have moved on to the lowlands, they will not permit us to cross their territory until they surrender it to us again at the next equinox."

"Why won't they permit it?" I asked. "Is it not to their benefit to let me go back to my people?"

"They are not like you think, Mortumee." Darat responded. "Their land is theirs when they occupy it. We do not disturb them and, other than when they pass by us, they do not disturb us. That is the way of the balance."

"Can you not talk to them as they come by and ask them to let me pass?" I pressed.

"Oh, no, Mortumee!" Darat laughed. "We cannot talk to them any more than they can talk to us."

"Then how is it that they can elevate Pickings like Akar and Samut to Supreme Picking if you cannot talk together." I asked confused.

"We do not need to talk to know how to maintain the great balance." Darat continued. "By coming together, Akar, Samut, the other selected Pickings and the Travelers will achieve the balance and our selected men will be elevated in the process."

"And after they have met, will I be able to see Akar then?" I forced the subject.

"No, Mortumee!" Once a man has been taken by the Travelers and elevated there can be no more contact with him,"

"Then I must see Akar before he goes to meet with the Travelers?" I begged bringing the topic back to my main goal. "If you will not take me, I will find my own way to see him."

"No, Mortumee!" That would not be good for you or for him." Darat spoke sternly. "Akar knows his task and his charge. We cannot and should not do anything to disturb him as he prepares to maintain the great balance. This is a special honor and Akar must now find his own way for the benefit of our people."

"But if I have to remain here, I don't understand why I can't be with him; even if for just a moment." I pleaded. "If I must stay, then I will find a way to see him."

Darat did not respond immediately. Instead he turned and walked out as if deep in thought and trying to suppress an anger I had not seen in him before. As much as I may have wanted to retract my last words, they were also what I felt in my heart. Darat conversed with the two young sentries for a while and then returned to say that he had much to do today and that he had directed my guards not to let me leave the hut. Once Darat was gone the two massive bodies took turns filling the small doorway with their superior muscle mass. As much as I wanted to escape, I knew that, even with my enhanced muscularity from my stay here, I was no match for these huge, indigenous muscle- gods.

The day passed much too slowly for me. Men were busy scurrying about doing needed repairs throughout the village. I could tell that my sentries would have preferred to be actively involved in helping with the reparations rather than babysitting me. During the time we had spent serving as water boys for the wall workers, the three of us had formed a bit of a friendly bond. My guards were named Paro and Tawn. They had both come to the village of the Pickings at the same time about four years ago, which made them each about 24 years old. They were excited that, starting next year, they would be qualified for mating consideration and were devoting their studies and workout practices to help ensure securing their approvals as quickly thereafter as possible. From their anxiousness, I suspected that both were straight. Still, the lack of concern over sexual exposure in this society did not necessarily close them off from sharing contacts that we would consider more prone to gay men.

Paro was the larger of the two and was just about as big as Fon had been. Vast amounts of thick, rich muscle seemed to hang like finely tailored drapery from his amazingly broad shoulders. His waist span was so tight that his arms hung extremely far away from his trim hips. The broadness of his upper torso pulled his chest into wide wedges of dense meat from the depths of his stunning cleavage to their rolled intersection into the base of his shoulders just above the crisp valley etched between them and his upper biceps. His cock was never less than semi-hard and was a solid 3" across for almost its full length. Rather than expanding a lot when it shifted to full erection, it pretty much just raised its 15" bulk up and down like a thick, steel drawbridge. Paro loved his upper body size and spent a lot of time habitually flexing his lats, shoulders and pecs as if trying to keep them constantly pumped. I doubt that he was aware just how erotically exciting the dance he had created with his torso muscle motions was on the viewer.

What Tawn gave away to Paro in size (which wasn't all that much) he made up for in physical beauty. His face was nearly model-perfect and, unlike most of the members of his tribe, his jet-black hair was flowing and straight. He also had the most delicious large areola and nipples I had seen on any man here. The always-pointing nipples were as big around and as long as the head of my index finger to the first joint. The succulent brown islands of his circular areolas were only slightly smaller than a decent sized doorknob and rose like small convex hills above the rounded plain of his meloned lower pecs. Tawn's pec meat was much deeper than Paro's turning his cleavage into an ever-present muscle-walled canyon. His upper legs were also considerably more massive and etched with anatomical definition. Between his thighs hung a masterful piece of man-meat. When hard his cock was just as wide at the base as Paro's but tapered gracefully to about 2" across where it impacted into a bulbous mushroom cock head. It was also a good solid 16" long when pistoned to excited readiness.

I think both men sported upper arms about 30" or 31" around. When examined by themselves, it would have been hard to tell which flexed arm belonged to which man. The bronze coloring painted onto their vein-streaked biceps and triceps were almost identical and the fissured looks of their multi-split biceps when balled to rock-solid perfection were almost twin images of one another. The same was true for the monstrous horseshoe shapes and depths of their coiled triceps. The long head of Paro's triceps was probably a little fuller than Tawn's but the depth of the dimpled core of Tawn's triceps was a bit more richly defined. In either case, the raw visible power of their upper arms and forearms warned of dangerous potential.

Of the two, I found Tawn's ass to be the most inviting. The muscles of his glutes seemed to be perpetually flexed. It was as if cabled ropes of ass muscle had been rolled up tightly and packed under his finely stretched skin. When Tawn walked, very posterior movement was a sumptuous visual treat. When he bent forward to pick something up, the deep striations cut into his deeply dimpled butt cheeks spread the beauty of their voluminous muscle apart just enough to hint at the moist portal of anal entry. Several times I thought I caught both Darat's and Paro's sight locked onto Tawn's flexing ass and, from the glorious image it created, I could certainly understand why even if they were as straight as straight could be.

As the boredom of the morning passed into the afternoon, we all seemed to be becoming restless. I for my Akar and them just for something better or more exciting to do. We talked a bit about how well the repairs were going and learned a little more about each other. Paro and Tawn were not Matching Partners and missed their respective hut-mates. They were each proud of their growth gains during the first years of their apprenticeships but, somehow, both seemed to understand that they were not as physically blessed as a Samut or and Akar.

What mattered to me that afternoon was that my two sentries were bored to death and seemed very interested in their own physical development. Flexing my own rather substantial biceps at Paro and Tawn, I told them how pleased I was with the major increase in my muscle strength and definition in the very short time since I arrived. They nodded approvingly at my 25" vein-fortified arms. I pushed one chiseled bicep into each of their faces and encouraged them to feel the power of my pumped muscle. The innocent younger men each took hold of a handful of my flexed arm meat and, with my encouragement, squeezed gently but firmly.

The pain of their overpowering grasps shot through my pressured muscle but I dared not let them know of it. I flexed my arm harder in order to try to overcome their burdening clenches and forced a reassuring smile onto my face. Pushing my arms back down to my sides, I suggested that they show me the results of their years of arm and body training. Two pairs of giant 30" plus circumference biceps were soon quivering their mountain high peaks at me. I placed one longing hand on top of one of each of their shredded marble biceps spheres. Neither offered muscle caved in to the slightest of dimpling under my prying grasp.

Letting go of Paro's delicious arm-meat offering, I swung my free hand under Tawn's still-flexed arm locking the fingers of both of my hands over the top of his steely bicep. Then, without any forewarning, I dropped my entire 300 pound body under his stiffly locked arm and lifted my legs from the floor to hang with my full weight suspended from his monumental arm flex. Tawn's body listed slightly toward me as he forced himself to become rebalanced with me attached to his invincible arm mass. Both he and Paro laughed with youthful pride as Tawn raised and lower his flexing arm carrying me up and down playfully with it.

After a few lifts, Paro begged for his turn with me to which I willing agreed. He flexed his bicep as hard as he could. His hot anxious meat felt like carbon-reinforced steel as my interlocked hands road the huge ball of his upper bicep peak. I could feel the erotic sensations of his rope-thick vein mounted atop his colossal bicep beating with the blood surging through the massive meat-monster.

Paro hoisted my body up and down ten times before letting me bring my feet back down to the floor of the hut. By now all three of us were well on our way to full erections. As I watched Paro's drawbridge of a cock swing itself toward locked rigidity, an idea occurred to me. I told them of how Akar and I would exercise Akar's great cock using my body as the weight with which to work it. Both young men became instantly excited at the prospect of having a way to work on the power of their manhood-weapon.

Paro's can-thick pole was riveted into place first. They asked how Akar and I did this `exercise' and I was more than willing to demonstrate for them. First I warned them that this could be painful and elicited their promise to let me know if the pain got to be too much. They nodded their understanding. Following my directions, Paro spread his legs wide with his feet pointing outward to each side and stooped into a semi-squat. His massive balls swung free and round below his cantilevered 15" cock as I laid on the floor my back between his thunderously muscled legs.

Reaching up I locked my hands together over the top of Paro's columned cock about half way along the vein-thickened shaft just as I had done over the top of his glorious bicep. When ready, I directed Paro to begin to push his legs upright with me hanging from his frozen cock meat. Keeping my heels on the ground, Paro started to raise the rest of my stiffened body up with his rising torso. I could hear him groaning as more and more of my weight was transferred into the pole of his wonderful erection. From below I could see his huge pecs and carved glutes quaking under the strain. Slowly I walked my fingers further out along the shaft of his cock forcing greater torque into his cringing groin muscles.

To my amazement, Paro was able to almost fully lock out his legs before the weight and pressure of my body began to force him to lean forward as his cock started to be forced from its anchored position into his loins. Slowly and carefully he lowered himself back into a full squat depositing me back onto the floor gently. His body and face were covered in sweat as he stepped from over top of me. I verbally applauded his effort and assured Paro with a little white lie that he had actually done better than Akar had on his first try.

Tawn was anxious to prove that he could perform the exercise better than Paro. Pumping his hot 16" cock with his hands a few times to make sure it was as hard as it could possibly get, Tawn assumed the straddling position over me. The sight of his hemisphered pecs and paramount ass muscles splayed above me for my viewing pleasure drove my own cock to aching hardness. I grabbed Tawn's longer shaft with deliberate relish a bit more than halfway out between his groin and bulbous cock head.

Tawn's huge legs became images of pure rock as he began to push himself up from his squat. His beautifully tapered cock felt like silk-covered concrete to me and showed no interest in being ripped from its welded position into his muscle-girdled groin. As Tawn's legs straightened out, his massive inner thighs cut off my view of his excitingly striated ass muscles and threatened to interfere with the girth of my heavily muscled forearms. Tawn not only was able to lock out his legs, but he held my suspended body aloft for a full five count before giving in to the ripping demands of his cock to be set free. Several drops of Tawn's excited precum dripped onto my face before I was able to let go of my hold.

As he helped me up, Tawn apologized for my face wetting and I assured him that I considered it to be an honor to have given him such a sense of manly power to where his cock rewarded him, and me, with its excitement. I explained that Akar and I had worked on this movement for some months and that, as far as we both were concerned, that exercise alone had done more to help him become a more desirable selection for Supreme Picking consideration than anything he or we had done.

That was all I needed to say to Tawn and Paro. Both men were enthused and aroused and wanted to repeat the process almost immediately. I politely suggested to them that, Akar could only work with my limited body mass. They, however, had the chance to practice with each other's more potent amounts of body muscle. They loved the idea. Since Tawn had been the more successful of the two with me, I suggested that he try Paro's weight first. That way they could help each other to better understand their current limits.

Paro hit the floor quickly as Tawn got into position above him. I suggested that they start with their hands very close to the other person's groin and that, over time, they could move them further out to promote increased strengthening of their cock shafts. The sight of these two 400-pound creations of solid, beautiful muscle with one clasped firmly onto the immense cock of the other was too much for me to bear. Without even touching my cock, cum exploded in a great continuous arc sailing half way across the hut before splashing onto the floor not far from Tawn's left foot.

It was my turn to apologize for my inappropriate reaction. I blamed it on the long absence from my Matching Partner, which, thankfully, both men seemed to accept. In fact, Tawn admitted that his cock-lift with me had almost caused the same reaction in him. I let them know that Akar and I had experienced much the same condition and that we had discovered that the release actually helped to make his cock even stronger the next time.

This information seemed to only drive Paro and Tawn to want to work harder at this amazing new exercise. Forcing a grimace of determination onto his near-perfect face, Tawn pushed his waving hair from his sweating brow and started to rise from his forced squat with Paro clinging to the pole of his mighty cock. The grimace soon turned to groaning as more and more of Paro's dense muscle-weight was absorbed by Tawn's glowing 16" organ shaft. Paro's huge arms and forearms writhed with immensely carved muscularity as his torso was lifted free from the floor. His pecs swelled into monstrous half- rounds of striated stone-like meat as his biceps force them harder and harder together. I feared that I could loose my entire hand into the crushing depth of his muscle-walled cleavage.

In spite of the obvious pain, Tawn was not about to surrender to the challenge. His gigantic thigh muscles and superlative ass were saturated with steel belted cables of brutally flexed muscle as they forced both his and Paro's torso higher and higher. Paro slid his thumbs to the underside of Tawn's astonishing cock to secure a better hold. That was enough to push Tawn's excitement to the brink. A flood of cum spewed from Tawn's anchored cock hitting me full and hard in the abs. Tawn screamed his combination of intense pleasure and proud success as he locked his legs into place just as the second volley of hot cream spilled its way onto me again.

Tawn's entire body turned to monumentally sculpted stone as the third wave of cum exited his super-charged cock. He held Paro locked in place until his cock's eruptions turned to the last pumping dribblings of cum which fell richly onto Paro's sweating face. Exhausted, Tawn let Paro's flexed body drop more harshly to the floor than any of us would have preferred. Paro was unaffected and sprung up as quickly as possible. Wiping Tawn's cum from his brow as if it was a mere inconvenience, Paro expressed his anxiousness to have his turn.

As much as I wanted to ingest Tawn's plentiful supply of cum running down my abdomen, I felt it best to simply wipe it off with a nearby cloth. Before Tawn could ask for forgiveness, I thanked him for the sharing of his man-milk and his willingness to be so comfortable around me. Tawn bowed his grateful acceptance. Paro and his thick 15" cock were already in position and quickly encouraged Tawn to get into place. Laughingly, I suggested that Paro might feel better if I was not in his way of fire. He laughed back as I stepped behind him with Tawn's feet pointing toward mine. Paro was much more careful about locking his immense musculature into readiness before he started his lift.

Neither man could see me from where I stood. Within seconds I was out the hut door and moving with cautious speed toward the Priest's square. I made it there with good speed. I was sure that Akar was somewhere in this area and, though I had no specific plan, I was determined to find him. I was sorry at how I had deceived my two sentries but all I cared about now was finding Akar. Eying the courtyard and remembering my several visits here with Akar, I selected the hut where we had done our cum-sharing with the Priests. It seemed like a logical place to begin. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkened room.

"Welcome, Mortumee." Darat pronounced flatly. "I half expected you might try to come here."

"I want to see Akar." I insisted. "I need to see Akar!"

"You need to learn respect and control." Darat stated pointedly.

"You can't stop me!" I protested. "I will find him."

Before Darat could respond two pairs of strong hands had me in their unflinching grasp. The two Priests held me tightly until I stopped struggling with them in exhaustion. Then they escorted me back to Samut's hut. Tawn and Paro received me red-faced and filled with self- anger. The Priest's sat me down in the far corner and directed my guards to make sure I did not escape again. Once the Priests left, neither Paro nor Tawn would speak to me. Both stood in the doorway to the hut with their massive arms folded across their hugely pumped chests; ready to pounce on me at my slightest move.

About half an hour later Darat arrived just as the sun was setting. He looked stern and disappointed at the same time. For several minutes he just sat across from me, staring at me and saying nothing. Finally he spoke.

"You must eat now and go immediately to sleep." He pronounced. "You will need your rest because we must be up and gone well before the sun rises tomorrow."

"But I thought we could not leave the village when the Travelers were present." I responded unapologetically. "And you had said that they would be here by tomorrow."

"That is true, Mortumee." Darat agreed. "But we will not be leaving. You are a determined man and I can see that the only way you will understand what is about to transpire with and for Akar is to show you."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You will eat, and you will sleep." Darat insisted as he stood up and came toward me. "Tomorrow you will see Akar." •