Was it the naked part that bothered Darshan? The man had been slightly apprehensive the first time he had undressed in Hamish’s presence. “Do men nae bathe in front of each other in Udynea?” It seemed a little at odds with what he’d been told countless times in the past, but not everything about the empire had lived up to his expectation.
The question seemed to shake Darshan from his stupor. “No, there are several public baths within Minamist alone, not including the one within the palace. I just—” He huffed, frowning. Red bloomed in his cheeks. “I am not generally the self-conscious type, but it has occurred to me that all of your bits are uncut whilst I—”
“We’re just bathing,” Hamish said before Darshan could finish talking. Uncut? His lover was clearly the opposite. Did that mean they had actually put a blade down there? A shudder passed through him at the thought. “Nae one stares at another’s dick whilst they bathe.”
“I beg to differ. You turn up to any public bath in Minamist with that monster and you would garner nothing but stares.” He cocked his head, his brows twitching into a considering frown, before adding, “And perhaps a few proposals.”
Hamish laughed, heat flooding his cheeks. “Remind me to never visit a public bath during my next visit to Minamist.”
“Are you two joining us?” Gordon bellowed from the other side of the pond. “Or are you going to cluck at each other like two old chooks?”
The pit-sized lump at the fore of his lover’s throat bobbed. “All right,” Darshan grumbled. He flung his arms wide. “If you gentlemen would be so good as to turn around, I shall get in.”
“Get a load of Sir Modest, here,” Sean crowed. Submerged to his neck, his surfacing hand sprayed water everywhere as he jerked a thumb towards Darshan. “What are you going to show us that we dinnae already have?”
Darshan muttered something in response as he peeled off the layers of clothing. Although the words were just loud enough for Hamish to hear, they were also spoken in the Udynean tongue. He recalled a few words from his daily tutoring with his lover on the language, but not enough to string the sentence together.
Finally, Darshan divested himself of his smalls and tossed them atop his pile of clothing.
Hamish couldn’t help the appreciative sigh tightening his throat. His lover might not have been a solid man, nor was he as thickly carpeted as every other man Hamish had been with, but what was there was… Perfect. The priests said the Goddess had a hand in creating each being, if that were true, then she could’ve put Darshan forward as her masterpiece.
“Fecking hell,” Sean blurted, breaking Hamish’s quiet adoration. “You’ve had a good inch lopped off your pecker.”
Hamish groaned. Yes, the look of Darshan’s nether region was a little odd with the foreskin missing, but he couldn’t believe any of them would be crass enough to point it out.
Before anyone else could say a word, Gordon lazily swept his arm in a wide arc, splashing the guard. “Nae more than the inch of floppy skin you’ve got hanging there.”
“I’ll give you an inch,” Sean shot back.
Hamish faltered in the act of getting back into the pond, slithering into the water by way of inertia. Of all the words to come out of the man’s mouth, he hadn’t thought it would be those.
Gordon laughed, deep and hearty. “Just an inch? I ken you were small, but you didnae have to measure it for me.”
Snarling, the guard practically leapt across the pond like a surfacing fish. The man barrelled straight into Gordon, dragging the pair of them under. Water splashed everywhere.
“Come on, lads,” Hamish grumbled, fighting the urge to strangle the both of them. “Have a little restraint.”
“They are,” Zurron piped up from his new vantage point on Hamish’s left. “It’s a lot of restraint you want them to have, nae a little.”
“I really do not mind,” Darshan said. He had slipped into the pool whilst the two men continued to wrestle and splash each other, and now bobbed at Hamish’s right elbow. “Reminds me a little of home.”
Frowning, Zurron leant forward to address Darshan around Hamish. “Seeing two lumbering men fighting in water reminds you of home?”
“Naked wrestling has always been quite the popular sport in select circles. It is actually gaining a wider audience at present.”
“Two men actually wrestle naked?”
“Or two women. And yes.”
“Are they doing it… willingly?”
“You mean are the contestants slaves?” There was a grim edge to Darshan’s otherwise congenial smile. “Some of them might be—there are very few sports slaves are forbidden from competing in—but not the majority.”
“And what does the winner get?”
“The usual, I would suspect.” Darshan shrugged. “Money, women, men… prestige. It is all largely in good fun. Except for those betting on the wrong outcome, I guess.”
“I’m picking there are rules, then?”
“Rules for what?” Sean asked. The pair had surfaced and now gave them comically identical squints of confusion. “Loping a pecker off? I can tell you the first one: nae mine. Nae whilst I’m still breathing.”
Darshan’s expression soured.
“Actually,” Hamish said, diverting his lover’s attention. “Since Sean brought the topic up and all… I’ve been meaning to ask about…” He waggled a finger downwards whilst rubbing at the back of his neck. Deciding how to breach a clearly delicate topic was one of the reasons he hadn’t done so. What was the correct way to speak of it? “Why are you… cut?” He thought it might’ve been an unfortunate accident, but if it was common enough for a man such as himself to garner attention, then maybe that was the way in Minamist.
“We call it Khutani,” Darshan replied. “Both for the act and the coming of age practise where it is done.”
“You cut it off deliberately?” Sean mumbled, his cheeks losing their usual slightly golden tone.
Hamish glanced at the other two men, both Zurron and Gordon looked equally as sick
