This 300-word story won first place in the 2022 Queer Sci-Fi flash fiction contest. The rules were simple: 300 words or less; unmistakably queer protagonist; fantasy or science fiction; adheres to the theme (this year it was Clarity).
Ruti’s Prayer
by Lloyd A. Meeker
Again Arum had not visited, let alone answered. Ruti’s gift had been inadequate to attract the god as he passed by. Even though he was only an apprentice shaman, Ruti knew he’d felt Arum pass — the birds had stopped singing, and the breeze scampered through his wattle house as if the walls were made of bushes scrawny as his arms.
His prayer, that Tegon, the most beautiful warrior in the village, would return his love, love that made his whole body ache, remained unanswered. It seemed Arum required a finer gift than the smoke of sweetgrass rising on the song of his flute, but Ruti had nothing better to offer.
Tegon, whose teeth flashed when he smiled, whose glowing skin, streaked with sweat and dirt after wrestling made Ruti’s tongue swell and drip to lick him clean. Tegon, who used him, then ignored him. He put away his flute and left his house to bless the cooking fires.
At the fires, Tegon caught Ruti roughly by the arm. “Hold! Do you have a gift for me today? I give you my beautiful cock to suck, but you give me nothing.” He laughed, a sound with barbed edges. “Your flute has made your lips strong. If you really loved me you would give me your flute as a gift.”
In a blink, Ruti could see into the man laughing at him. Beneath the beautiful flesh a demon-shadow nestled around his heart, chewing. The god had answered his prayer with truth: Tegon would never love him — or anyone. Arum’s love called to him. Arum would respect Ruti’s love.
He smiled, a little sad but freed by the vision. “No,” Ruti said. “The flute is not mine to give. I just carry it, and its music belongs only to Arum.”