People Who Live in Ice Houses
The Eskimo village elder looked around at the anxious faces looking back at him and he knew some of them probably already knew the story he was about to recount. Most of them in fact had probably heard at least some part of it before.
But this time would be different for this time, it was a part of their rite of passage and so even if the owners of the young faces had heard this story before, the village elder knew that this time would be different because he knew that this time, the young ones would really be listening to him.
“Gather round, children,” the old man said. “Gather round. There you go. Plenty of room for everyone. Gather around. Now, the story I am going to tell you is a very important story,” the old man began.
No one said a word.
His story went something like this:
This is the story of Kirima and Yoskolo, the old man began.
Kirima and Yoskolo grew up in an Eskimo village must like this one. Kirima was the daughter of one of the village elders, a vain man by the name of Tosc. Now Tosc was the son of a village elder and his father was the son of a village elder and Tosc had almost come to expect that his family was privileged and certainly, Kirima did little to dissuade him of that notion for his daughter was perhaps the most beautiful woman that the world had ever seen.
Kirima had long black hair that was softer than the softest furs and it was said that her hair shone like sun on new fallen snow. It was said that Kirima’s body was perfect in every way. Her eyes were dark and her lips were full and it was said that even if she was dressed from head to toe in furs and if one saw her from a distance, her beauty made her instantly recognizable from any other person.
And yet as beautiful as Kirima was, she was not given to the same vain pride that her father was because it was said that by all accounts, Kirima was a most level-headed and even modest young woman.
The same, unfortunately, could not be said for her father for Tosc had his mind set on the fact that only the best and the bravest and the most eligible of men in the village would be good enough for his daughter.
But perhaps Tosc should have asked his daughter what she wanted because the truth was she already had her sights set on one man.
Yoskolo was a young man a couple of years older than Kirima but he had none of the qualities that Tosc desired in a son-in-law. He was a hard worker. There was no doubting that but it was because he had to be. His family hardly had the wealth or prestige that Tosc wanted so Yoskolo worked because he had to.
But Kirima didn’t care about that. When there would be gatherings around the campfires, her eyes were always on him and he only had eyes for her.
But the two young lovers kept their love a secret because they knew how Tosc felt and perhaps that was the start of their undoing.
It was bound to come out. Their village, after all, wasn’t a large village, and people were bound to talk so maybe it was inevitable that Tosc was bound to find out his daughter and her lover and eventually, he did catch up with the two young lovers.
“Daddy,” the girl began.
“Don’t daddy me,” Tosc, said. “What are you doing with this boy?”
The girl stammered but as one might imagine, she found herself at a loss for words with her father facing her down.
And that’s when Yoskolo came to the poor girl’s defense. “Kirima and I are in love,” the young man said.
“What?”
“I said—” the young man started out but that was as far as he got before Tosc waved him aside.
“No, no,” Tosc told the young man. “I heard what you said. There’s no need to repeat your gibberish.”
“It’s not gibberish, Daddy.”
“Quiet,” the older man said. “You and I will talk about this later.”
“But daddy—”
“Don’t but daddy me,” Tosc said. “This man is no good for you. He’s just a fisherman and he won’t amount to anything else.”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes, but I do. Now, go home.”
“Daddy—”
“I said go home.”
Kirima looked at her lover but then she ducked her head. “I’ll go,” she said and with that, she turned and walked away.
“My daughter’s too good for you,” Tosc told the younger man. “So stay away from her.”
Tosc should have known better for lovers in love and especially young lovers in love rarely do what they’re told and the same was true with Yoskolo and Kirima and as much as they tried to hide what they were doing, they were bound to get caught again.
Tosc was supposed to meet with the elders from another tribe but a driving storm had forced him to turn back so maybe it was understandable that he was already in a foul mood when he returned home but when he found Kirima and Yoskolo together, he just lost it. He heaped insult after insult on the young man until finally the young man went out into the driving snow and after that day, he was never seen again by the people of his village.
There are some who say Yoskolo perished that night when he went out into the storm but most believe that he did not. While he might not have been the most eligible of bachelors, he certainly was a resourceful man and it was said that despite the elements, he survived.
Survived is perhaps all that can be said for what happened to him that night for the storm was a particularly fearsome storm and Yoskolo was rather unprepared but survive he did and when the storm was over, he was found by members of a rival village and he was brought back with them to their village.
By all accounts, when the young man finally came too, he knew he was in trouble. Not a hard thing for him to realize, you see for he was completely naked and if that wasn’t enough, the daughter of the tribal chieftain was there, too. Her name was Irina and unbeknownst to the young man, she’d struck an awful bargain with her tribe’s medicine man. He was a weak man who was besotted with the girl Irina so when Irina had come to him with a story about how they could unify the two tribes, the foolish man had fallen for the story hook, line and sinker.
“It’s about time you woke up,” Irina told the young man.
“Where am I?” Yoskolo asked.
“You’re in my house.”
“Your house.”
“Well my father’s house but you know, his house is my house.”
“I should be going.”
“Why? Irina asked.
“I shouldn’t be here,” the young man said.”
“Why?”
“I just shouldn’t.”
“I know why. You want to get back to her?”
“What?”
“You want to get back to her? You want to get back to Kirima.”
“I ... I—”
“You’re what? You know I’m just as good as her.”
“What?”
“You know I’m just as good as your Kirima.”
Yoskolo knew what the answer was supposed to be. The answer of course was supposed to be no but he couldn’t seem to make himself say the word.
Irina wrapped her hand around the man’s manhood and it was only then that Yoskolo realized that he was hard for the girl. “You know I’m better than her,” the girl cooed again.
Yoskolo was desperate now. He wanted to say no so badly and yet he could not.
“I’ll bet you want me to show you just how good I really am,” the girl said as her hand slowly squeezed and stroked the man’s cock.
No, he wanted to say. No.
“I can see someone likes this,” Irina said as she stroked the man a little harder.
It was getting harder for Yoskolo to tell himself what it was that he was supposed to be saying.
“Yeah, I can see what you like but I’ll bet we both know what you really want.”
“What?”
“You want this.”
The young man had actually groaned as the girl slid her mouth down onto his member.
Irina pulled her mouth free. “You want that, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” the young man groaned.
“Yeah,” the girl said and this time when she brought her mouth down, this time, she had no intention of stopping.
The young man just groaned as the girl used her mouth to pleasure him and the more she did it, the more he wanted it.
She kept going. He was so close and then suddenly, he was there. Suddenly, he was cumming in the girl’s mouth and her mouth was right there to drink it all down.
“Is that what you wanted?” Irina asked smugly when she was done.
The young man just sat there with his mouth hanging open and with his cum still on the young woman’s hand
“What’s the matter?” the girl asked. “Cat got your tongue, or maybe ... maybe you want something else and I think we both know what that is.”
Still, the young man sat there mutely as the young woman moved in front of him.
Yoskolo watched as Irina removed the outermost layer of her furs but she wasn’t stopping there. As the young man, the girl removed more and more of her clothing.
“Ooh,” she cooed as she finally bared her full, round breasts. “Would you look at that.
Yoskolo couldn’t do anything but look.
“I’ll bet you want to touch them,” Irina cooed. “I’ll bet you want to but not ... just ... yet.”
The young man almost seemed to vibrate with anticipation as he continued to look.
“Not just yet,” Irina said as she removed the last of her furs and then finally, she was just as naked as he was.
“Not just yet,” Irina said. “Not until you’d seen me like this.”
And still, the young man stared.
“Well what are you waiting for?” Irina demanded.
That was all it took to shake the young man out of his lethargy and suddenly, he was there between the girl’s legs.
“Oh yes,” the girl moaned as the young man finally sunk his shaft inside her. “Oh yes. That’s it. That’s it. That’s exactly what I wanted you to do.”
And so it seemed was that the same was true for the young man for Yoskolo was holding nothing back as he had his way with the young woman.
“More,” she pleaded. “More. I want more.”
And more it seemed was exactly what the young man was giving her because the more she begged for it, the harder he gave it to her and the harder he gave it to her, the more she begged him to give it to her even harder.
“Oh my God,” the girl gasped. “Oh my God.”
The young man wasn’t stopping.
“Oh my God. You’re going to make me ... to make me ... oh my God.”
And still, the young man kept coming at her and all the while, he hadn’t said a word.
“I want you to,” the woman cried out. “I want you to cum inside me.”
And the young man did exactly what Irina wanted him to do. He gave her exactly what she wanted and when they were done, the two of them fell asleep together.
It was some time later when Irina woke to find Yoskolo getting dressed. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
“I’ve got to go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“I’ve got to go back.”
Irina was suddenly wide awake. “What do you mean you’ve got to go back?” she asked.
“I’ve got to go back to Kirima.”
“What? Why? You can’t. You can’t go back. You were cast out. You can’t go back to her”
“I’ve got to go back. She needs me.”
“No, you can’t,” but as Irina soon realized, he very could much do whatever he wanted.
The young woman was consumed by a jealous rage. At first, what had merely been a desire to get back at the beautiful Kirima by stealing her man was now changing into something entirely different. Yoskolo was hers, Irina reasoned and if she couldn’t have him, well then no one else would have him either.
So she went to the village shaman and she explained what she wanted and when she was done, the old man nodded. “Bring me something that he has touched recently,” he commanded. “Preferably something that he has worn on his body.”
“You mean besides me?” Irina asked.
The old man was unamused by Irina’s comment. “Yes,” he said. “I mean besides you.”
So Irina stormed back to her igloo and it wasn’t long before she brought back one of the furs that Yoskolo had been wearing but which had been conveniently left behind when he’d left in such a hurry. “How’s this?” she asked.
The shaman looked at the fur. “That will do fine,” he said.
“So what are you going to do?” Irina asked.
“You must leave.”
“Why?”
“Because I must prepare.”
“Prepare for what?”
The old man just looked at her.
“Fine,” Irina said. “I’ll go.”
It really wasn’t all that hard of a spell but the old man had wanted some time alone so that he could think. Still, it wasn’t long before he called Irina to him. “I am ready,” he said.
“What are you going to do?” the girl asked breathlessly.
“I’m going to create a spell of confusion.”
“A spell of confusion? What’s that?”
“He thinks he wants to go home to his true love—”
“She’s not his love,” Irina interrupted.
The old man stifled a cough. “Yes well, that’s what he thinks he wants to do, so we create a little confusion. As you know, the snow can be quite confusing even to someone who has lived here all their lives. Landmarks are hard to find and if you don’t know where you’re going or what you’re doing, it’s easy to get lost.”
“He knows his way around,” Irina said.
“He does now but he soon won’t.” The old man held out a knife which he handed to Irina. “I need some of your hair.”
“Why?”
“You want him to come back to you, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“So if he wants to find his way back to you, your hair will guide him home.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
That was good enough for Irina. She cut off a lock of her hair and she handed it to the shaman but the old man just shook his head and he pointed at Yoskolo’s fur lying there between them. “Put it there,” he said.
Irina did as she was told to do and then she watched as the village shaman began to chant.
The old shaman’s spell worked better than anyone had a reason to believe it would.
The first and most obvious effect was that Yoskolo was never seen again. There were some who said that they’d seen the young man wandering the icy wastelands but he was never close enough for anyone to call out to him and it almost seemed as if before anyone could approach him, he would invariably veer off in a different direction and would become lost once again.
But while that was the most obvious effect, it wasn’t the only effect of the old shaman’s spell for you see the fur that Yoskolo was wearing wasn’t his. On that night when Kirima’s father had come home and had caught the two lovers together, Yoskolo had rushed out of the house so quickly that he’d inadvertently grabbed one of Kirima’s furs and it was this fur that he had left behind with Irina.
It was said that from that time forth, there was a very beautiful woman who seemed always on the prowl for a very certain young man. During the day, she was the beautiful Kirima but when the sun went down, she claimed to be Irina and she was always looking for her man and it didn’t much matter which man she met. To her, every man was her Yoskolo and always, the response was the same. “Yoskolo,” she’d asked. “Is that you?”
It never mattered what a man would answer because to Irina, every man was Yoskolo. “It is you,” she’d say. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
A man might try and tell her that she was mistakened but the would-be Irina would have none of that.
“Yoskolo,” she’d say, “I’ve missed you so much and I know just what you need,” and then as if to make sure the man understood exactly what she meant, she’d stroke her hand below his waist. “You want me here,” she said.
She’d drop to her knees and then she’d take whatever man she’d come upon into her mouth and she’d pleasure him in the most intimate way until he came in her mouth and only after he was done with her mouth would she look back up at him.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she’d say and then, “you know what I need.”
Again, it didn’t much matter what the man said because one way or the other, she was going to seduce him and she was going to let him have her way with her.
The beautiful Kirima and the guileless Yoskolo were unwitting pawns in this tragic tale but they were betrayed by a man who was supposed to have been a leader in their community and they paid the ultimate price for that betrayal and now young ones, it’s time for the moral of the story. Does anyone know what that is?
The young adults all looked at the elder but none of them said a word for even if one of them had known what the moral was, it would have been impertinent for any of them to steal the moment from the elder.
The old man moved his old wizened eyes across his band of listeners and then he nodded. “Well,” he said finally, “the moral of the story is simply this. We are a community here. We live and we work and play together so the moral is simple. People who live in ice houses shouldn’t throw around words of fire.”