Elayond: The Tales of Elayond, #1

Enale was still on his blanket, the cold wind of Elayond ever so slightly fondling his skin, cozied up on the park’s swing as he watched the stars. He began thinking of stories long ago, stories he heard all too often—too often for him to ever forget. Tales of Elayond. The beautiful mesh of woods and grasslands had always been the one he called home. The people of Elayond, like him, had their fair share of secrets. A place shrouded in more mystery than all other towns in the county. Elayond was like its founding and its founders, a perversion of man, far greater than any of the transgressions Enale had acted out. He stood up as if to get a greater view, a greater sense of this town he called home, opening his hands to feel it.

To Enale, the space of the park felt different, much larger. The perversion of Elayond gave him comfort, a comfort that was much needed after all that Enale had been up to. The tales surrounding Elayond were known by a good bit of its people, but he knew more than most; there were many, but those which he had seen in the newspapers that sat on Hulin's dashboard, a man who worked with Enale at the town's tea shop prior to him going to social media management were the most interesting. After work, he’d always give Enale a ride home.

Hulin wasn’t that much of a talker, so with not much else to do, Enale had a look at the vintage newspapers, a section called ‘Tales.’ There was one tale that Enale felt to be more perverse than all the others; he had told many of the stories he saw to his acquaintances. But this story he’d told no one. When put beside it, what Enale had done seemed like a speck of sand to the mammoth pile of ‘nasty’ that tale represented. Enale wanted to be one with himself again, unsullied from the depravity that seemed all too normal for him. So a tale of Elayond begins, Enale retelling the story to himself once more as he ensconced himself in his blanket.

Udupa was a stubby man; he had a very big head, feet like that of a hippopotamus, and a wide mouth that gave the expression that he was always smirking. He wasn’t the most pleasant thing to look at, if not for the way he spoke, his demeanor, the way in which he carried himself. Udupa would have never gotten the attention of a woman. Never felt the warmth of a female's thigh wrapped around his own, the soft lips of a woman on his wide mouth, the scent of sweaty, steamy sex. But Udupa had done all these things; it was, to him, a common thing. More beautiful men, who had never done what Udupa could, grew jealous. The arrogance of the beautiful men grew similar to Udupa’s own. The upper ridgers, Udupa had once called them, a name they soon started calling themselves. The most handsome of men, all the good looks. Tall with sculpted faces, symmetric. All things the good townswomen wanted.

These men, however, lacked the character, the subtle ways of wooing. Sanithe, who was one of the upper ridge’s most prolific, was a very beautiful man to look at. A balanced face, strong eyes that had a kind feeling to them. The upper ridgers had once commented on his eyes in a rather beautiful fashion. Whoever looked into them saw through Sanithe. Sanithe, a man of such beauty, had an even harder time expressing himself when placed next to the other upper ridgers, especially when it came to talking to women.

The expression wasn’t even in the way of words; most of the upper ridgers had a good vocabulary, very good. They had a good way with the written word. When it came to expressing  words in the form of speech, the upper ridgers were tongue-tied. Sanithe, when approaching women, seemed to forget why he approached in the first place, like he did not know what he had really come for. Sanithe had forgotten what it was; sex, the delicacy he longed for, was still so far from his grasp. Still away from his rugged hands, he used to herd cattle at ‘Qest Farms.’

Him, like many of the upper ridgers who didn’t know sex, knew who it was that they should talk to if they really wanted to feel that excitement. But many of the beaus were blind, blinded by a hatred towards Udupa. The men were vehement in their criticism. To the uppers, Udupa was a man of petty trickery, whom the women humored. They were not men of such things, steadfast in their approach. But to Sanithe, this was unseemly. He had thought long and decided he would speak to Udupa. He’d have to help him. He would even pay if Udupa asked. Sanithe had found a woman so much to his liking that he’d face the wrath of the upper ridgers, the scrutiny of the beautiful and the supercilious, just for going to the unsightly Udupa. For Cathona, he’d do it.

Even gay sex that was rumored to have been engaged in by Udupa did nothing to deter him. The thought of ‘Ugly Udupa’ having sex with him was one he entertained. Sanithe just liked Cathona ‘so’ much that him being ostracized by the upper ridgers meant nothing. He stood outside his cottage, thinking back further than when he couldn’t understand why, with his beauty, he was still a virgin, why his looks hadn’t worked for him. Thoughts of when he told the uppers about Cathona.

Chapter Two -Upper Ridge

The day was hot and humid, brows of the upper ridgers sweaty. The beautiful met at the roadside, the road that brought you to the dairy farm. A good bit of the uppers worked there. Long lines of trees provided a bit of reflection from the sun's gaze. The people of Elayond were all vegan; the founders had made it law. Cattle and produce were the most profitable endeavors for people of a town like Elayond. But unlike the other towns, Elayond only produced milk, cheese, and fleece. Tafel, the most beautiful of the uppers, had talked about ass so often that some of the uppers began calling him that. Today was no exception. He had been talking about women, who he believed had the best asses in all of Elayond. There was a back and forth between them, Tafel and Hafe. The men had been rumbling for almost the entirety of the uppers' time at the roadside. Tafel went on about Fadole, the gorgeous daughter of the dairy farm's owner, one of the few women at the time to have owned a house and other amenities. Hafe, although making sure to acknowledge that she was beautiful, acknowledged something else. A real man, to Hafe, was supposed to be the provider of his household, the one who took the liberty of putting food on the table. He proposed that the best ass was the one of the local bookstore's bookkeeper (Githania); although she was an independent woman, she was much less so than Fadole. 

The other men just stood there and listened. They had nothing to say; both of the assessments Hafe and Tafel brought forward were great. The only argument that the uppers could make was one of personal preference. Fadole had a marvelous shape and practically always wore a dress, dresses that, if other women wore them, would make their ass less visible. Fadole’s ass was so splendid, firm, and upright. Like rubber, when stretched, it finds itself back in position. No wonder Fadole was so uptight. Quite regularly, the men of the uppers saw Fadole. On days when she came to the farm, the sophisticated uppers would not whistle at her or anything of that kind, but they took notice. The dresses Fadole wore were always lined into her buttocks. It seems that’s what got Tafel, like her ass so firmly in her camp, that and she sometimes pulled her dress up while the men watched, or the farm's monstrous winds would, showing off her panties. 

To those firmly in Tafel and Fadole's camp, that was all that was needed. A well-rounded, firm ass that stuck to its crevice. To others who wanted something more, however, something more spectacular still, they looked elsewhere. The bookkeeper. To the men of the upper ridge, there was no other but Cathona’s sister. They all called her the bookkeeper in colloquial fashion. Her real name, Githania, at the time, was known only to Sanithe, who got it from ‘Good Fellow.’ Uppers who chose the bookkeeper as having the best ass wanted something that was more than offered. The bookkeeper’s ass was so big that one would have to scoot over so as to not be squeezed by it. The tightly spaced shelves at the bookstore where Hafe frequently visited were more often than not a chance to get a feeling of what he and the others located in Githania's camp described as something softer than falling flakes of beauty.

Hafe began retelling the ‘story of Hafe.’  The time he first saw Githania.

It was a bright day, a workday, but Hafe had stayed home. An enthusiast of the science fiction genre, Hafe had gone to the bookstore to get a copy of the trilogy of his favorite book. He went in thinking that he’d just collect the book and go on about his day. As he looked around, however, he noticed that there were no copies of the book he’d come looking for. He walked up to Githania and pointed to the poster next to the library’s door. 

Howdy, miss. Any copies of the book? 

Hafe himself was not obtuse to the idea that he was playing a ‘character’; he often impersonated characters he liked. Bringing it to the scene, as he would always say. Githania had just came back from vacation, and Hafe, who had only used the previous bookstore on the other side of town before it merged with this one, did not really know