A Treasure in El Dorado

So here is another story. I got my inspiration from the Dream Works movie "The Road to El Dorado" and I made it kind of weird. LOL!

I wanted to focus on love existing between two parts unable to communicate with each other. I think it's very important for a couple to know that they love each other without having to tell it every day. Otherwise it feels like the words lose their meaning. So I made the biggest culture shock you can ever imagine between the two love-birds in this story.

The story is about an explorer who finds the city of El Dorado, and he and his colleagues are invited to learn about the city. But there is a holy boy in the city who's not supposed to be talked to, look at and touch, and of course the hero of the story can't hold his hands in place. What will it become of this very unlikely couple?

I stood there in the middle of the jungle staring at a golden city in front of me with huge obelisks and pyramids. It was purely made of gold and jewels, and there were people running towards me. I didn't react on their screaming and dreadful spears and arrows. I just stared dumbfounded at what I knew was the amazing legendary city named El Dorado.

Hi, there! My name is Joseph, 26 years old, and my profession is archeology but I work as an explorer. My specialty is the "Lost City of Gold", or in other words as you may know it: El Dorado. I once heard this story while I still was in preschool. My teacher was reading the story about two thieves finding a city made of gold, and me and my classmates were enchanted by the story and played that we were explorers who found the ancient city of gold during the breaks between classes.

When I grew up I kind of forgot about the story until I heard about El Dorado again during my university class. I immediately changed my education by impulse and jumped in at the archeology education. And that's the story how I found myself bound with ropes in front of the chief in El Dorado with my colleagues.

The chief was very dark skinned and had a big crown made of pure gold on his head. He had black and sun kissed hair that went all the way down to his elbows and his face had these deep creases like old men usually had. But he seemed to be a kind person; his creases around his eyes showed proof that he smiled often.

My colleague and interpreter talked to the chief. The chief looked angry, but after a while he calmed down.

"He says that he's happy that we are not thieves," the interpreter Carlos said to me with his Spanish accent.

"Why's that?" I asked, and Carlos hesitated.

"Otherwise he would order his guards to chop our hands off and then toss us out into the nearby volcano." I swallowed hard. "But because we're researchers he promised us to let us go around in the city to explore it, and the chief will get us a guide too. He's impressed that we have found the city, and so he wants to grant us our wish to explore it. But only if we don't touch anything and won’t try to steal anything," Carlos then explained, and I nodded.

"Tell the chief that we will be very respectable and we won’t do anything that would disappoint him and his people." Carlos spoke to the chief and soon we were released from the ropes and showed to a big pyramid like building made of gold and rubies. There we got our own rooms and Carlos told me that this building was the royal headquarters, so we should be honored. And I truly was.

My bed was a queen-sized one, and on the golden floor laid a beautiful red carpet with patterns of majestic birds and trees. On the walls hung many tapestries with different animals and pictures of the El Dorado people's gods. It was truly a beautiful room.

Soon the door opened and a woman wrapped in a wine red dress came in and gave me some change of clothes. The clothes had a bright red color and a brown leather belt made of animal skin. The woman helped me change and soon I was fully dressed as the other people in the city. The woman urged me to follow her and I soon met with my colleagues in something that looked like a garden on top of a plateau with a view over a huge court. In the garden was already a fire prepared and a party seemed to take place there soon.

"This is a party in our honor. We should be very grateful and happy. The chief wants to display El Dorado's most talented artist and actors to show us their knowledge and skills," Carlos explained, and we were shown to our seats right next to the chief.

My hunch about the chief had been right. He truly was friendly and a happy person, and even I got even more happier when sitting next to him and listened to his laughs. People began gathering, and soon there were so many people greeting us that I lost the count of how many there actually was. And then the food was served; grilled meat and different kinds of fruits, and of course the alcohol. Then we were showed an amazing show that reminded me of the circus artists back home in the US. It was fun to watch and for a moment I really felt like I had been born in the city. It felt so hospitable and homelike that I even forgot why I actually was there.

Later that evening, when all the people had gotten a little too much to drink, I noticed a palanquin moving our way. It was carried by four strong men, and I could see a small figure inside it. But there were thin curtains covering all the four sides of the palanquin, so I didn't really see who it was. Another boy - he looked like an errand boy - ran up to the chief, bowed and then whispered something in his ear. The chief didn't look that pleased by what the boy told him, but he tried not to show it.

The palanquin stopped right next to the chief on his right side (we were sitting at his left side) but the curtains didn't open. The chief told us something, and I waited for Carlos to translate it to us.

"He says that his youngest son is here. He's a holy boy so we shouldn't look directly at him. He has to be covered by the curtains so that the sun won’t burn him, and we are not allowed to talk to him directly. He should not even be touched because of the holy beliefs. The only ones that are allowed to touch him are the priests and a special nanny who takes care of him. He's also born mute - a sacrifice the gods took for themselves when the boy was born according to the priests," Carlos explained.

"That sounds lonely. Why is he so holy?" I asked, and Carlos asked the chief. Soon Carlos spoke to me again:

"The chief says that he was born with white skin and white air. His eyes are a little purple too. So the city believes that the boy was sent from the gods to protect this city. If he were to be touched he should immediately be executed so that the gods won’t get angry," he said, and I stared shocked at him.

"You mean the boy was born with albinism?" I asked, and Carlos nodded.

"It seems so."

I became immediately intrigued to see him. I had never seen a human born with albinism in real life before, and that the boy was holy made me even more curious. I wanted to see him, but at the same time I understood it would endanger both me and the boy.

But then again - when you are an explorer you really can't help your urges to explore just about anything that comes in your way...

Later that night I followed the palanquin to its quarters in form of a temple on top of a smaller pyramid. I hid myself behind a huge golden pillar, and then I watched the boy come out of the palanquin. I lost my breath at the sight of the boy. He was so white, beautiful and pure looking that my heart began pounding and my mouth became dry. He looked to be in his late teens even though he looked young, and he looked like he was a head shorter than me. He was probably a late child, because the chief was old enough to be the boy's grandfather.

I watched the boy enter his temple followed by four priests where he apparently lived alone, and when he had disappeared into the building I sneaked closer. I had already broken the taboo of looking at him directly, so I thought "What the hell!" and continued my stalking.

Because they didn't have any crime in El Dorado there weren’t even guards at the gates to the temple, so I could sneak in without anybody noticing it. I hid myself behind all the golden statues and behind all the other decorations, and I followed the steps from the boy deeper into the temple. I could see a big pool with white fluid in it. I felt the smell of fresh milk and honey in the air and understood the boy was about to take a bath.

I had read that many ancient cultures used milk and honey baths to get beautiful skin, so I thought maybe this was the same spa treatment I had read about.

The boy took off his beautiful red robe with golden embroideries of suns on it, and then he followed the golden wide stairs down into the pool. The pool was maybe one meter in depth and the water was steaming. At the same moment as I saw the boy’s snow white skin it felt like I dropped my jaw to the floor. He was so breathtakingly beautiful that it felt like I was watching a god. His skin was as white as the milk mixed water.

The boy ordered the priests away and had a sad expression on his face as he sat down in the bath, and I hid myself behind a huge pot so that I wouldn't be seen when the priests walked by to leave the temple. When the coast was clear I emerged from my hiding place and wanted to go closer. I managed to get really close to the boy when I suddenly took a too heavy step as I lost my balance, and the sound reached the boy's ears. The boy got startled and stood up from the milk and honey mixed water.

His beautiful body glistened by the drops which covered his beautiful white skin. The only thing I could do was to stare at him. I couldn't even blink or breathe. There was a heavy tension in the air, and then suddenly the boy hurried to grab his res robe laying on the floor right next to the bath, to hide behind it.

"It's okay! Don't worry," I said quietly and gently. "I won’t hurt you.”

I made gestures to try to calm the boy down and I was actually glad that the boy didn’t have a voice to call for help with. But the instant I got that thought in my head I felt bad too. He was really helpless and I could easily murder him without him being able to call for help. He would be dead without anyone knowing about it until someone found him.

But I wasn’t there to murder him – thank god! I squatted on the marble floor and gave the boy a smile. I knew he didn’t understand a word I said, but I had experience of this kind of language difficulties and knew what to do.

I pointed at myself and said “Joseph”. The boy seemed to calm down a bit but he still stared shocked at me. I supposed he was frightened by the thought of a foreigner seeing him. It was taboo to look at him directly, and here I was alone with him with him stark naked in front of me and staring right at him.

It was difficult to get out the boy’s name because of him being mute, and I didn’t know how to read the alphabet of the city (It was obviously not the same writing that I had studied in university). But I really wanted to know more about him, and I pointed at the door where the priests had disappeared out of, and made a waving motion against myself with my arms as if to ask “Will they come back?”. The boy seemed to be bright as he understood what I meant, and he shook his head. Then I pointed at myself and then at the bath as if to ask “May I bathe too?”, and the boy stared at me for a minute and then he nodded slowly.

He sat down into the water again and stared at me for a while as I took off my clothes and went into the bath too. Then I smiled again and showed him a magic trick that I used on children in villages. I pretended to sneeze into my hand, and then I held out a small red ball as if I had sneezed it out of my nose. (The little ball was something I always carried with me for these reasons.) The boy seemed to think it was funny and smiled brightly. I let the ball float in the water and pushed it to him, and he took it to examine it. Then he threw it back to me, and I threw it back to him. He clearly felt amused and I chuckled every time he didn’t catch it. Sometimes he lost his balance and fell into the milk and honey mixed water.

What I learned about him after this short time was that the boy was clearly depressed and lonely. He was happy by just throwing a ball around, and that made me feel sad. I love children and I want them to be happy and live a life as a child should: Play around with lots of friends and have fun. But I knew this boy hadn’t been allowed to do anything like that. He had been forced to shoulder the responsibility from the gods ever since he had been born.

I thought of him to be around 16 to 18 years old as most, but something about him told me that he actually was older than that. But he behaved like a child and it made me believe that he was just happy for me being there and keep him company. I wondered why he wasn’t shyer about being with me because he was the holy boy of this city and wasn’t allowed to be talked to, watched at and touched at. But he even came closer and soon he sat next to me and looked at me with curious eyes. I smiled and lifted my hand to ruffle through his hair, but he backed away a little. I stopped my hand and waited, and after a while I lowered it slowly at him so he had time to back away if he didn’t want to be touched.

But he didn’t move and lastly I touched his smooth hair and patted him with a friendly pat. His cheeks flushed and he got a smile on his face telling me that he enjoyed it. That too told me that he didn’t get any love in form of hugs and caresses from anybody.

“You’re a lonely kid, aren’t you?” I asked fully aware of him not understanding me. He just looked up at me with his bright smile on his face and I just wanted to hug him to show him what it felt like to be hugged. So I pulled him close and hugged him tightly, and first he seemed to be paralyzed of shock, but then he slowly and hesitantly put his arms around my neck and hugged me back. It turned out he didn’t want to let go, and I could feel a drop on my shoulder.

“Hey. Are you crying?” I asked and made a small distance between him and me to look at him. He was crying. He looked so sad and his purplish eyes looked so lonely that my heart ached. I gave him a comforting smile and caressed his cheeks to wipe the tears away, and after a while he smiled back again. “Don’t cry, okay?” I said, but he just stared confused at me.

We stayed in the bath for about half an hour more and just hugged each other, and when I gestured to him that I had to go back he looked saddened but nodded and pulled me up from the bath and showed me to a small waterfall right outside the bath in a little closed off garden. He pushed me into the waterfall and made a gesture to wash myself. Then he waved his hands in front of his nose, and I understood that he wanted me to wash the milk and honey smell off of my body to not give away our secret meeting. I nodded and we exchanged a smile again.

Before I was about to sneak out he tugged at my arm and pointed at me and waved his arms against himself as I did when I asked about the priests coming back. I nodded, because I knew he asked me to come back again. And I really wanted to.

The next morning I and my colleagues were taken on a tour in the city. Carlos was a superb interpreter and I learned a lot about the city during that day. The city had a hierarchy where the chief was on top of the totem pole, and then came his family. After that came the priests. But because the city didn’t have any crime there weren’t anything that resembled cops patrolling the streets, and there were no guards anywhere to be seen. It truly was a utopia. People seemed to be happy and I got to learn that the farmers had a high status because they were the ones who offered milk to the holy boy’s bath, and they were the source of any other form of food.

They didn’t have a system of currency and they didn’t even rely on barter exchange except when it came to bigger things that could have a big change of lifestyle. An example would be if a farmer wanted to add another cow to his farm he had to trade something valuable that would benefit the one he bought the cow from, like three sacks of corn from his own harvest. Other than that people lived by helping each other without any kind of barter involved and they served their chief and his family with a smile on their faces.

When the night fell and the city got quiet I sneaked out of my room and headed for the temple where the holy boy lived. I hid myself in the shadows to not be discovered and managed to sneak into the temple. I followed the same path that I took during yesterdays rendezvous, and I stepped into the room with the huge bath. There I saw the boy sitting at the edge of the pool and stare at the small red ball. Then I realized that I had forgotten it. It was dangerous to leave any form of signs of me being here. It could endanger us both.

“Hi there!” I whispered, and the boy stood up and looked at me. He had the same robe on his white and delicate body. He smiled brightly and ran across the room and held out the red ball to me as if to give it back. I smiled and took the ball. “Thank you.” I’m sure he understood what I said even though he didn’t know English, because he gave me a nod as if to say “No problem.” Then he took a hold of my arm and pulled me along. We hurried through the temple and then we came to his private room. The whole room was decorated in golden statues and red draperies, and there was a huge canopy bed made of gold. The draperies were also red but they had the same sun embroidery on them as the robe the boy was wearing.

In the corner desk there was papyrus and ink with a feather as pencil. I could see a lot of papyrus sheets with drawings on them, and there was also something written on them. Maybe it was one of his ways to pass time. I got closer the desk and asked with a gesture if I could take a look at the drawings, and the boy happily nodded. I took one of the papyrus sheets and looked at the beautiful bird in flight. It was so detailed that it looked almost like the bird would fly out from the papyrus. I gave the boy an amazed look and he took out more sheets to show me more. There were every kind of animal in these sheets and I loved every one of them. And then the boy reached me a sheet with blushed cheeks and as I saw what he had drawn on it I felt joy. My heart fluttered as I saw a picture of me walking in the city during the day. He had drawn me so detailed that it looked like a black and white photograph of me.

“Thank you,” I said amazed, and he came closer and leaned his forehead on my shoulder. I hugged him with my arms and he let out a sigh. Then I got an idea and pushed him away a little to ask him about his name. I pointed at myself and said “Joseph”, and then I pointed at him and looked questioningly at him. He stared at me for a minute and thought of something, and then he took a sheet of papyrus and drew a small bird on it and then a sun next to it.

“Little bird of the sun?” I asked myself. I had no idea if it was the boy’s name, but it was at least a beginning to the mystery of finding out his true name. His name had something to do with a small bird and a sun. “Then I’ll call you ‘Little Bird’ for short, okay?” I said. I pointed at myself and said my name, and then I pointed at him saying “Little Bird.”

The boy accepted it with a smile and I was amazed over how clever he was because he understood almost every gesture I made. We spent a long time talking with gestures and drawings and after a while he “told” me that he wanted to run away from the city. He didn’t like being holy and he felt truly alone with no one to touch him with love. He also “told” me that he liked me and that he was happy about me being there with him. He thanked me with a bow, and I chuckled and “told” him that I loved to be there with him.

After a while I suddenly yawned and he made a gesture to ask if I was sleepy. I nodded and he stood up from the floor and walked up to the bed. He patted on the madras and pointed at me. I laughed and “said” that I had to go back, but he insisted and came up to me to pull me to the bed. I felt a little worried about being discovered there, and to sleep in such a dangerous place would be impossible. But Little Bird “told” me that the priests and nanny wouldn’t come in the room. They weren’t allowed in there. So it made me feel safer. And I and my colleagues had talked to the chief to walk around on our own the next day to discover things by ourselves, and it had been okay for him. So it wasn’t like anybody would come and try to wake me up in the morning and find an empty bed.

So I nodded and he pulled me down on it and helped taking my clothes off. I just laughed at him and pushed his hands away that tickled me, but he insisted on helping me to take them off. Then he threw is robe to the floor and lay down on the bed and waited for me to lie down next to him. When I did so he immediately cuddled next to me and pulled the red sheet over us. Then he stared at me with a look that made me wonder what kind of thoughts ran through his mind. He looked at me like he was thrilled.

What did I feel about it? I was confused at first and just watched him back. Then I changed my position and turned on my side to look at him. His purplish eyes were suddenly sparkling with happiness and it made me happy too. There was something about him that had definitely captured me and I wanted to touch him with romantic gestures. I wanted to show him everything there was to know about touching each other, and I wanted to also show him that there was love in the world.

At the moment I didn’t really realize that I had fallen for him right from the first moment I saw him smile in the bath. I just thought that I made him a favor to touch him at that moment, and I couldn’t help myself to want to kiss his luscious and pink lips. He was so pale that I came to think of Snow White, and at some point I leaned closer and pressed my lips against his. He didn’t do anything to stop me. It was more like he welcomed the kiss, and after a few light kisses he put his arms around my neck and shoulders and pulled me into a deeper kiss. I lost my self-control at that moment and I pushed him down and thrust my tongue inside his mouth. It tingled in my body as I felt him cling to me and accept every touch and kiss that I had to give him. His breathing got ragged in no time and he got very excited and wanted more. And I gave him more.

As I pinched his nipple he made a gasping sound. Because he was mute he couldn’t produce any vocal sounds, but his breathing told me everything I needed to know. And I liked the little I heard. He accepted me so welcomingly on top of him that I felt how a burning passion awakened inside me and I began touching him everywhere. I hadn’t done it with another of the same sex before but I had my hunch of what to do. I reached down and touched his groin and massaged it carefully, and his breathing became so adorable that I wanted to touch more. Little Bird’s eyes were watery and his cheeks blushed to the point that even his ears got pink. I smiled and kissed his neck and collarbone, and then I kissed his right nipple and sucked on it. His breathing and silent moans became such a turn-on that I almost immediately let my tongue tickle his bellybutton and find its way down between his thighs. I felt two delicate hands in my hair and I took his hard member inside my mouth. It tasted sweet but salty, but it wasn’t bad in anyway. He tasted almost like a woman, but a little more salty.

I could tell that he was very greedy when it came to what we were doing. He didn’t hesitate and he moved his hips as I sucked on his now fully erect member. Having him in my mouth with his hips moving, feeling his hands in my hair and hearing his sweet breathing made my brain numb with desire. I wanted to know how he reacted when he came, and I sucked harder and licked it obscenely. I began probing with my fingers between his buttocks and I took some saliva and pushed a finger carefully inside him. He didn’t seem to feel hurt as he got paralyzed by my touch. His hips stopped moving but he kept his legs apart like he wanted to give me a better access to his sensitive parts.

As I pushed my fingers inside him, adding one more finger at every time I felt that he loosened up to be able to take in one more, I suddenly found that special spot inside him that made him arch his back and hold his breath. It sounded like he was about to suffocate, but he began moving his hips again in a way that pushed my fingers harder against that special spot. I got even more excited and attacked that spot with brutal force at the same time I sucked on his member, and soon I heard a silent cry and I felt how he released his fluids inside my mouth. I kept sucking him with slow movements as to give him pleasure along with the afterglow, and then I looked up at him and he held one of his hands over his eyes. He looked really exhausted, but I didn’t plan to stop there.

I climbed up and kissed his lips again and he answered my kisses. I placed myself between his thighs and lifted his knees to expose his entrance to my hard member. I pushed it against the opening and looked at him to be sure that he wanted it. But he didn’t resist at all and looked at me with a small and pleased look in his purplish eyes. So I pushed my way into him. He gasped for breath and buried his nails into my back. It felt really tight and hot inside him and I was worried that he was hurting, but he didn’t show any signs of wanting to stop, so I kept on pushing myself inside him as carefully as I could. Sweat ran down my back because it was so hot, and the boy had sweat drops on his white skin that glistened as diamonds. He was so beautiful that he blew my mind almost every time I looked at him.

He hugged me closer and let out his gasps next to my ear. It drove me insane of lust and I began pushing my way in and out of him. It felt like sweet poison and I couldn’t contain my voice. I had to let out small moans, but I was afraid that people outside would hear them. So I kept the volume down. But the moans seemed to make the boy even more excited as he reached out his hands to my cheeks and looked me deep into my eyes with such a sexy look that I had to kiss him hard as I moved my hips.



The morning came and I woke up with a start. There was a small opening in the roof covered by a piece of cloth so that the sun wouldn’t burn Little Bird’s sensitive skin, and I understood it was early morning by the angle of the rays from the sun. I looked next to me and I saw the kid sleeping soundly in my arms on his side with his face against me. He looked like an angel, and I caressed his cheek carefully. He let out a sigh and rolled over, and I chuckled at his cuteness.

I moved closer and gave him a kiss on his exposed neck. That woke him up and as I put my arms around him again he answered by covering my hands with his. We entwined our fingers and stayed close to each other for something that felt like an eternity, and then I kissed his ear and licked his neck. I heard a silent giggle from him and then he turned his face against me and smiled a warm smile.

He had changed after the nights activities. He looked so much more mature and happier that I felt how my heart fluttered like a butterfly in my chest. It made me happy to see.

It felt so strange. In less than two days I had fallen hard for another of the same sex, and I had broken the biggest taboos in the city of El Dorado. And that I had fallen in love with someone that I couldn’t communicate normally with was something that overwhelmed me. I and Little Bird didn’t need any words between us. We could clearly understand each other’s feelings anyway, and that felt like something very precious.

I have to take the kid with me when we leave, I thought. The boy had expressed his yearning to run away from El Dorado, and I wanted to make his dream come true. I just had to make up a plan first.

Later that day I sat with my colleagues and ate dinner that consisted of different fruits and grilled meat on top of one of the huge pyramids. It tasted wonderful and we talked about what we had seen in the city while the breeze cooled us from the sun’s hot rays. At that moment I felt that I had to express my thought about the holy boy and his escape.

As I thought I got enormous protests but then I told them that I had met him personally. It looked like Carlos wanted to beat the hell out of me, but I kept my cool and told them everything about me and the boy. When I finished they stared at me like I was a demon that had sentenced them to Hell.

“Are you crazy?! Did you actually go to bed with him?!” Carlos yelled, and I smiled nervously.

“That’s right. But it was him who took the step and actually invited me to his bed,” I muttered, and Carlos took a hold of my shirt collar and shook me wildly. “Have you any idea what could happen to us if they find out that you have defiled their holy beliefs?”

“I’m sorry! I can’t explain it either. It just happened, and now he has to come with us.”

“No way! There’s no way that’ll ever succeed!”

Suddenly there was a commotion from bellow and we stopped our arguing to look down the long flight of stairs at what was happening. We saw a dozen of men run up the stairs against us with spears in their hands. I immediately understood what was going on, and as did the others behind me.

I have to admit I began cold sweating at that moment.

We were brought to the chief who sat on his throne on a big courtyard with the rest of the city’s people around us, and he looked really angrily at us. We were pushed down on our knees and held down. The chief said something, and Carlos’s voice shook as he translated:

“The chief says that someone of us has sullied the whole city and their gods by touching his youngest son who is the holy one of the city. And he wants the one responsible to admit it.”

I swallowed hard. I was just about to say to him to tell the chief that it was me. I couldn’t let my colleagues take the blow, so I had to come clean even though I was about to piss my pants at that moment. But I could hear a loud murmur through the crowd and as I looked up I saw Little Bird come running from the crowd with tears in his eyes. He ran up to his father and took a hold of his arm as to beg him for something. But his father shook him off with a violent movement and the boy lost his balance and fell into the arms of his nanny that had come running after him.

The chief said something again, and Carlos translated:

“He says that there’s proof on the boy’s body that someone has touched him. The priests noticed it when the boy was taking a bath and told the chief right away.”

“Tell him it was me, and tell him that I ask him to let you go. Tell him you didn’t know anything about it,” I said with a weak voice, and Carlos didn’t hesitate.

The chief seemed to order the men holding us down to let my colleagues go, and they were taken further back to leave me alone in front of the chief. But Carlos was allowed to stay to translate whatever the chief wanted to say. The chief took a hold of his son’s wrist and pulled down the beautiful red robe so that the boy’s collarbones were visible. A loud murmur echoed through the crowd again, and there I could see the mark of my possession.

Damn it!, I thought as I saw the hickey. I should have thought about not making any visible marks!

The chief shouted something and people in the crowd shrieked. Carlos translated with a scared voice:

“He says that you and the boy will be executed. He doesn’t want to anger the gods, and that’s the only way to beg for forgiveness for letting the boy be defiled. He also says that he no longer recognizes his son as his own and from today onward he will not admit that he was ever related to him.”

The boy seemed to lose all his strength and fell to his knees in front of his father and looked at him with his teary eyes. It was a heartbreaking sight. Then his father pulled him up on his legs and kicked him in the back so that the boy fell down the stone stairs, and I rushed up to my feet and caught the boy in my arms. I looked at him as he opened his eyes and looked saddened at me, and then he threw himself around my neck and sighed as be broke down into a silent cry.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered and hugged him close as the crowd protested loudly. “I’m really sorry.”

The chief shouted something to the men behind me, and Carlos hurried to translate it as I and Little Bird were pulled up from the ground: “You’ll be executed tomorrow! But for the night you’ll be under observation!”

“Carlos! Hurry and get out of here before the chief’s going to execute you too!” And that was the last thing I saw of him before I lost sight of him in the crowd.

I and the boy were brought to a little grove and pushed down next to a huge tree. We were bound by our wrists behind our backs to the tree and then two men stayed behind to guard us over the night. I looked at the boy and moved closer. The boy was sitting on his knees and crying, and I sat down next to him and gave him a gentle kiss on his forehead.

“I’m sorry. I really am,” I whispered even though I knew the boy didn’t understand a word of what I said. But because he was so clever he seemed to understand what I meant and gave me a sad smile almost as if to say: “I’m okay.” I answered his smile and then I kissed him on his lips. The boy immediately answered the kiss and that was proof enough for me that the boy didn’t regret anything we had done. He loved me. He really did. Even though I was about to die I was happy with that simple knowledge. We kissed again and again, and I felt relieved that the guards didn’t even look at us or care about what we did. Maybe they still were afraid to look at the boy even though that rule didn’t apply anymore? Who knows?

We kept on kissing for a long while and soon the boy stopped crying. We sat down on the ground and resigned us to our fate; me leaning against the tree trunk and the boy leaning against me. He curled up into a ball next to me.

“I know you don’t understand a word I say, but I just want you to know how happy I am that I met you – and I love you the way I’ve never loved anyone else before.”

Then the night fell and it got dark.

The wind was calm and nice, and small animals made sounds deep inside the jungle. We sat there together unable to sleep. I can only speak for myself, but I wasn’t able to sleep mostly because I wanted to savor the last few hours I had together with the boy. Sure, I thought about the execution, but during all of my expeditions I had seen death into its eyes many times – so I was kind of used to it and wasn’t that afraid anymore.

Suddenly I heard a whisper behind me and I recognized the voice to be Carlos’s.

“Pretend that I’m not here and just listen carefully. Don’t make the guards notice that anything’s off, okay?” I nodded silently. “I’ll cut the ropes and then we’ll sneak away so that the guards won’t notice. I think they are pretty sleepy. Just follow me.” I nodded again.

Then I felt how he began cutting the ropes while he was hidden behind the big tree, and soon I was loose. I quickly pushed Little Bird on his shoulder to get his attention, and as he looked up at me I put my finger to my lips to ask him to stay quiet. He nodded and then jumped slightly as he felt Carlos begin cutting the ropes binding his wrists.

When we both were free we studied the guards, and as soon as one of them seemed to doze off I took a hold of the boy’s hand and pulled him along with me. We sneaked around the tree and I saw Carlos in the bushes just a few meters away. He waved at us to hurry, and I pulled the boy along with me. The guards hadn’t noticed anything and soon we got deep enough into the jungle to start running. I didn’t let the boy’s hand go, and he held my hand tightly as we ran. Carlos showed the way and we hurried through the thick jungle for I don’t know how long. But after something that felt like hours we got into our old camp, and from there we continued through the jungle.

When morning came I sat down into our small boat in the river and pulled the boy down next to me. Carlos went to get a cloth and pulled it over the boy to cover him from the sun, and then he sat down in front of us as the others started the engine to the boat and steered it down the stream.

“Do you have any idea how lucky you are, you son of a bitch?” he said with a smile on his face, and I laughed.

“I have good luck in these kind of situations. It’s not the first time I’ve been through something like this. Thank you, Carlos.”

“Maybe. But I still can’t believe what you did. You are crazy. And all that for a boy like him.”

I smiled and pulled the boy closer and patted him through his white hair. He looked up at me and smiled a tired smile.

“It was worth it. It really was,” I smiled, and Carlos sighed.

“But I guess we were lucky too to get out of there alive. The chief told us that we had disrespected the hospitality of the city and kicked us out without any punishment. We had the devils luck with us,” he said and rubbed his tired eyes. “I think I have to sleep for a while. I’m really tired.”

“Sure. But before you go, can you please tell this kid that I love him? I know that he knows I do love him, but I just want to make it clear to him.”

Carlos sighed again but this time with a smile on his face, and looked at the boy and translated those three words for him.