He heeds my words and treads, along with the horse, behind me in a perfect column, as I've instructed him. In the desert - in which heat rises from the sand like suffocating snakes and obscures sight and mind - we would seem to those farther away as one blurry figure, hardly worth an attack in a zone full of convoys and a surprise in our number and our option to flee quickly if someone did become desperate enough.

The man I'm guiding would fight any assailants as well as he fought my dead companion. With the passion of those who do not mind dying. No, he would not relinquish life of his own will, but he will not regret its loss either.

He feels hurt or guilt. Or is so hurt and guilty that he feels nothing at all. I know already that I will never hear about what it is that he lost.

The sun is slowly setting and I let my eyes tour the horizon for a sign of the abandoned hut to which I have been leading us. I see the burnt palm's top and hasten my steps as I signal for him to follow.

"There," I announce. "We shall spend the night there."

The evening has descended upon us and we sit at the bonfire we've lit with the dry wood I had previously hidden at the feet of the palm tree. From the small, secret stash of food beneath the wood, I have made us a humble dinner, already eaten and gone.

He stares at the fire and I bluntly stare at him. He shivers. Again, more violently this time. I signal for him to come nearer.

"Body heat warming?" he asks and I confirm with a nod.

"Your desert is most fickle," he says.

"All deserts are."

He rises and sits down again, beside me, body to body as he looks on at the fire. I gaze on as well, still roused by the perfection of his beauty and whatever it is that bustles underneath.

He looks back at me, as anyone would. There is no want in his eyes and their hollow bites my heart.

Yet, I see a tongue when a rift forms between his lips and he moves in to kiss me. He would any person who showed the smallest interest and many would.

I shove him back.

"Not here." I get up and walk over to the hut, to its center, where a wooden table is the only piece of furniture left unburnt.

"Bend over." He's obedient. Leans his hands against the table, stoops forward and spreads his legs. Waits for me to proceed.

I swear to myself I'll cause him pain.

I walk up behind him and, hands sent round to his front, I let his pants and chainmail drop to the floor. Allah knows; it is no wonder they lose more battles in the desert than they win with this too-heavy form of armor.

Combat thoughts flee in favor of the finger I now draw out of my mouth and push into his entrance. He does not gasp. I notice that on the table, he curls two of his digits into his own flesh.

He mustn't shout.

His digits dig deeper and the skin around them turns redder.

He will take me into his body and no further. He punishes himself, doubly so(,) by choosing the sort of self-flagellation he would despise most.

As my one finger pokes in random directions inside him, with moderate intermissions, my other hand joins its actions by rising to the side of his ribs, then rapidly grazing over them as deep as I can. He flinches a little, still silent, to the opposite direction where my first hand, no longer in him, finds a nipple and twists it hard.

He yelps and I do not hesitate, but grab onto him and sink my throbbing dagger into his soft flesh, retract and repeat my stabbing more forcibly, all the while giving the sensitive skin of his nipple no rest with that one hand and pulling the mane of his hair with the other.

He's yelling now, probably has been for a short, but I do not relent, I shove my weight further, deeper into him, grinding his erection into the coarse table and pinning him into it. Holding onto the same table, I bite his shoulder hard, drawing blood, pumping a few short strokes and releasing my seed into him.

I pull away and turn my attention to the state of his arousal. I cannot tell, as he will not stand up, his arms and torso splayed on the table top and his tear-stained face only vaguely visible in the dark.

I doubt that it was the right thing he was shedding his tears over. I believe even less that I have changed anything within him.

But I have promised myself that I would cause him pain and I have. When we will part, it will be with a smile, for he will be saying goodbye to a man who has granted him that which he needed, asking no questions.