THE SHEPHERD

THE SHEPHERD

Aitor had decided to exercise more intensely. Mountain races had become one of his hobbies, not to run them but to watch them. He also liked going up into the mountains to walk; if the slope was tough, all the better.

One Saturday morning he decided to climb the mountain. He put on tights, a sports shirt, and his most worn sneakers to avoid chafing. He went up a path that was not too steep, which was supposed to lead to a kind of narrow gorge, from which another path began, steeper and harder, before climbing to some meadows and a forest from which one reached a plateau with several woods.

He was finishing the gorge and taking the last path when, at the edge of one of the woods, he saw a man sitting, leaning against a tree, carving a piece of wood. When he passed by him, he greeted him. He was a very old man, with a gray beard and quite a few wrinkles. He noticed that those ragged trousers hid a good bulge.

He continued climbing until he reached the plateau and the last summit. He rested for a while before getting ready to start descending, but he saw the fog beginning to roll in. He was afraid of crossing the gorge in the fog because, although the path was fairly wide, there was a stretch of about ten meters where it narrowed and there was a rather dangerous chasm on one side.

He turned shortly after starting to go down, entering the forest. He was somewhat lost because he knew that this was not the forest he had climbed through. When he realized that, he began to worry. He was in that state when suddenly a large clearing opened before him and he saw that there was a large hut in the middle of the clearing.

A hut was a building where shepherds who kept their flocks up high could spend the night and also shelter the flocks. At the door was the shepherd he had seen earlier. His skin was badly weathered by the sun and life outdoors. He approached and asked him if he could take shelter in the hut and, if the fog persisted, spend the night, and the shepherd agreed, but only if he did so in the stable, where there was a space with straw where he sometimes slept while watching the animals.

Aitor agreed and left his things in the stable where the shepherd told him. Then he sat on a stump outside the hut. The shepherd stood in front of him. They talked for a while. The shepherd noticed how, from time to time, the man looked at his package. He invited him to come inside the hut, where he said they would be more comfortable.

Aitor went in first, and the shepherd followed behind. Aitor heard the door close behind him. Aitor was startled and was about to turn around when a hand like a claw grabbed his shoulder and said in his ear:

“Relax, nothing will be done that you don’t want, but I think you’ll like what I do to you. You kept looking at my cock several times earlier, and you’ll have to check what it’s like.”

Aitor was as if hypnotized. The s...