How to Kiss an Orc

Orcs are fiery, faithful and very physical lovers once you gain their trust and affection. They are, however, considered untrustful, unruly and uncivilised, although one can hardly blame them. Even in the current age of peace and cohabitation, some of the enmities of old shape our society. And, sadly, orcs are still believed to be violent savages by many and, subsequently, are often feared and marginalised. Most scholarly institutions refuse to accept even the most brilliant orcish individuals, they seldom are recruited into law enforcement and only exclusively orcish communities seem to have orcish civil leaders. They are, in short, second-class citizens in most of the realms.

However, I am living---in fact immortal---proof of their untapped potential for kindness and their unwavering loyalty towards those that care for them. I first  personally met an orc during the wars of old, while I was crossing the ruins of an ancient city. I wasn’t a warrior then, and I’m obviously no warrior now, but we were on opposite sides of a millenary conflict. Independently of our own feelings, beliefs or aspirations, our societies had made us mortal enemies. However, when I found the young orc lady rummaging through the rubble, despite our respective fears and prejudices, neither of us drew our weapons. We thought about it, surely, and I instinctively moved my hand towards the dagger on my belt, but before I could do something I would regret later, the stranger meekly greeted me.

I was startled and dropped my guard. I replied to her greeting and, although keeping a safe distance between us, we started to talk. At first we asked ourselves very short questions with what could be very pressing answers. Then, when it was crystal clear that none of us wanted to fight, we started to talk about really important things.

Suara introduced herself first, speaking a very basic and accented version of my native language. She was a fugitive, she explained, fleeing for the war. From both sides. Her father, a former interrogator, was a deserter. She only wanted to find a place to hide and spend her life in peace. I introduced myself: Woelius, elf historian, pacifist and coward extraordinaire. She laughed.

Orcish laughter is an acquired taste. It’s deep and coarse, like a growl, but, if you listen carefully, there is a musicality to it. A wild, untamed flair of unexpected joviality. Like diamond in the rough, its raw pure authenticity is as valuable as the sum of all its potential artificial cuts. I immediately liked Suara and she seemed at least ready to put up with me, so we decided to travel together. We were trying to avoid the same fatal, unfair and absurd fate, after all.

Suara was much younger than me, which was not particularly strange considering the proportional longevity of our species, but she was young for an adult orc nevertheless. She had been a babysitter, a woodcutter, a hunter and an apprentice interrogator before her father’s escape. My story, although much longer, was much easier to summarise. I was, am, and always will be, a nosy traveller and avid bookworm. Not serious enough to be a proper scholar, but too restless to stay many years on the same place.

We travelled together for months until we arrived at a small valley hidden between two mountains, too far from the roads and not big enough to house or fed an army. We decided to stay there and built us a small house. We hunted and gathered on the nearby forests, and with time we even managed to have a small vegetable garden. Well, to be completely sincere, Suara did most of the work, but I tried to help.

And, with time, friendship gave way to something else. It was a slow, gradual process of growing trust, shared experiences, joyful exploration and wonderful discoveries. Our species, so different in so many ways, shared an incredible amount of characteristics, once you ignored the most evident aesthetic differences. So many similar ways of experiencing and inducing pleasure. Thousands of small sensitive spots and rapturous activities, both obvious and unexpected. A whole world of marvelous similarities. And we often enjoyed the differences even more. The only possible exception, as the title may suggest, is the inherent difficulty of kissing an orc.

Well, to be more precise, the difficulty of either kissing them on the lips or their own hardships with using their own lips to kiss. Their oversized fangs and prominent lower jaws are well known features of orcish facial structures. Although more impressive on males, the size and disposition of these sharp canines are, nevertheless, an obvious obstacle to osculation even with the most modestly toothed orcish ladies. For what is worth, I quickly found out Saura was readily able to compensate that specific limitation with her dextrous hands and unexpectedly agile and long tongue.

I, on the other hand, decided to use the opportunity, and her merry willingness, to explore with my lips the magnificent remaining surface of her body, a particularly risqué and unelvish thing to do. I kissed every inch of her body, from the tips of her fingers, callous after years of hard work, to the soft vertices of her pointy ears. My lips made their way over the hills of muscle of her toned abdomen, past the fragrant forests of dark body hair, following the lines on her hands and the soles of her feet. I made her blush when I kissed the back of her knees and elbows, and made her moan when I slid my tongue on the silky skin of her thighs. I happily risked my life with my head trapped between her strong legs and my lips tightly sealed in a kiss with her precious perennial vertical smile. I kissed her to heaven and back, I kissed her with love, lust and longing.

And Suara kissed me back, as well as she could, much better than me or anyone else ever deserved. She kissed me with her whole body, grinding, embracing, entwining with mine, blurring the boundaries of our mortal coils. She massaged me with her strong hands and her deft fingers, learning where and how I liked to be petted, mapping with her touch each inch of my body with unmatched care and kindness. She caressed me with the delicate brush of her tongue, discovering hidden deposits of physical pleasure, tracing a world wet trails on the pale canvas of my skin, making me curl, moan and scream, overcome by bliss.

We kissed for decades, since before the first wrinkle appeared on her beautiful forehead, up to much after she had started to jokingly call herself a grandma. She let me go, almost pushed me away, when her pride would not allow her to show me---still looking as young as I did when we first met---what would surely be her last years of life. I refused at first, but I could see her suffer more with each passing day. Physically and emotionally she was in pain, and my presence there had turned from pleasant balm to excruciatingly stinging salve. One summer night I made love to her for the last time and we spent the night cuddling and laughing, like we often did during our years together. When she woke up, I was no longer there.

Our love could not biologically bear fruit, but no matter how many centuries pass, the memories of her are still my most prized treasure. I often felt the need to go back to that small remote valley, to come into our small hut and call her name, but I fight back the tears and force myself to kept honoring her wishes. So I decided to share my story, so that others may learn what I learnt. Because Suara taught me how to love, how to give myself wholly to someone else, how to not trust appearances, how to see past prejudices and, above all else, she taught me how to kiss an orc. And that still is the most sublime, enlightening and important thing I’ve ever learned.