The Alehouse at the End of the World

by Stevan Allred

  The whale turned and faced the mouth of the inlet, and rolled itself completely over, washing the sand off its skin. It raised a flipper in a salute of gratitude, and then, with an undulate wave of its tail, pushed off to sea, pausing only to scoop up from the bottom of the inlet, as the Turropsi had instructed, the crow’s tool belt, and with it the magician’s glass that the fisherman had once claimed as his own. The last they saw of it were its flukes disappearing into the surf beyond the sandbar.

  “Do you not see,” said the goddess, “what miracles we can bring off when we work together?”

  There were murmurs of assent all around, although the crow was so besotted by the thought that he would enjoy the goddess’s favors before the day was out that he wasn’t listening. He leaned in to kiss her, forgetting that he had a beak rather than lips, and he poked her face so that she cried out in pain.

  “Restrain yourself, my love,” said the goddess, “the moment is not yet come.”

  The crow, though the goddess had spoken gently to him, felt rebuked, and grew angry. “Kiaww-aw-aw,” he said. “Where are my slats and rails?” he said, his crowish voice raspy and gruff. He strutted over to the fisherman and eyed him with one menacing black eye, as if he might peck his nose off if he didn’t like the answer to his question.

  “Are they done?” he said, “and if they are not done, why are you idling about here instead of working on them?”

  The fisherman, his hands forming fists, gave back to the crow his most baleful look, his eyes fierce, his teeth bared, and a low growl coming from his throat. The crow clack-clack-clacked his beak right in the fisherman’s face, so close the fisherman saw that the fine grooves along its length were marked with traces of blood. They were ready to have at it, the both of them, but the woman stepped in between.

  “Lord Crow,” she began, in her most soothing tone, and she curtsied before the King of the Dead, who turned away from the fisherman with one last clack.

  “My lord,” said she, “the slats and rails are indeed done. We were just about to bring them to you.” She bent her head down, humble servant to the crow, and bade the fisherman to fall back a step with a gentle wave of her hand.

  “Finished, you say?” said the crow. His gaze settled on the woman’s comely figure, and his ire cooled. “Well, that’s quite another shade of black.”

  “Yes, my lord,” said the woman. “May I take you to them, Lord Crow?”

  “Why, yes,” said the crow. “We should be delighted.”

  The woman offered the crow her arm as if she were a lady of the court, and the crow took it, each enjoying the other’s touch, although the woman was careful not to reveal her pleasure to the assembly about her, and most especially not to the fisherman. The crow, however, as they walked up the beach toward the house, cast a glance back at the fisherman, his beak parted in a sly grin. The fisherman was not amused. But the frigate bird put a wing on his arm and said, “Patience, friend, let the moment unfold.” The fisherman scowled, but he let the crow and his beloved go.

  The woman and the crow spoke of nothing but the bed as they walked up the beach. How beautifully carved were the bedposts, how striking were the linens. Where did milady think he should place the bed? Well back from the waters of the inlet, beyond the sacred fire, at the edge of the forest. He should consider the need for some privacy. Of course, of course, the goddess would want that. Perhaps he would banish everyone from the beach for the rest of the day.

  They arrived at the house, and stood in the open doorway. “You built this yourselves?” said the crow. He ran his hand along one of the planks that formed the walls.

  “Yes, my lord,” said the woman. “As you know, the fisherman is a carpenter of some considerable skill. He fashioned all of this.”

  They stepped inside. Light from the windows cast crisp shadows on the floor. The crow pointed at the mound of moss in the back of the room. “That is your nest?” said he.

  “Nest?” said the woman.

  “Yes,” said the crow. “The place where you sleep.”

  “Ah,” said the woman, “so it is.”

  “The two of you together,” said the crow.

  “Yes,” said the woman. “Together.” His round eyes were black on deeper black, and rimmed with delicate white dots, and in them she saw the glitter of his want for her. Her chest flushed, the heat rising from the tops of her breasts and spreading up her neck. Even in the shadowed space of the house he must be able to see it, for he touched her neck just where she felt the edge of the heat. His fingertips were teasing and feathery as they traced the line of her jaw. His breath smelled pleasantly of cloves. She closed her eyes, the better to feel his touch.

  There came a thump from above. The crow’s hand fell away from her, and she stifled a moan. She fetched the rails and slats from where they were leaned up against the wall, moving quickly, and she turned to the doorway, and beckoned the crow to follow.

  The fisherman called out a “Hallo,” and from the roof the frigate bird did the same. The woman and the crow stepped into daylight as the fisherman rounded the corner of the house, ready to brandish the hoe in his hand. One glimpse of the crow and his beloved together drew a foul look to his face. The woman gave him a quick rise of her eyebrows, and the slightest shake of her head. No, she was telling him, the crow has taken no unwanted advantage of me. She gave him her broadest smile, and she went to him, and held out the boards. She put her cheek to his, the better to quietly instruct him. “Keep the peace,” she said, her voice not so much a sound as it was the shape of the words on her lips. “Give him the boards.”

  The fisherman took a breath, and, taking his time, let out the wind in his chest through pursed lips. This was no time to let himself be carried away with his hatred. He leaned his hoe against the house, and he took the boards from her. The frigate bird, perched above them at the end of the ridgeline, croaked his encouragement.

  “Your crow-ness,” said the fisherman, bowing his head. “Here are the boards I have promised you.”

  “We are grateful,” said the crow. “Will you be so kind as to carry them down the beach? We shall require some assistance in fitting the pieces together. Milady here has graciously offered to help me pick the site. Please follow us.”

  And so this small procession headed down the beach to the pyre, the crow and the woman in front, arm in arm, and the fisherman behind them in the catch-fart’s position, his arms full of boards. What kept the fisherman’s temper in check was the promise of their release, in less than a month’s time, from their sojourn here. He was ever a patient man, and he understood his beloved’s attention to the crow to be mere flattery, and nothing more, although he wished her to be a little less convincing.

  While the crow watched, the fisherman fit the tenons on the ends of the rails into the mortises he’d cut in the bedposts. The fit was tight, as it should be, and he bade the woman fetch his wooden beetle, which she did, and with it he tapped the pieces together until the whole frame was as stout and steady as a Portuguee caravel. They dropped the slats into place. They fetched the mattress from its wrapping of arum leaves, and set it on the slats.

  Now the goddess joined them, accompanied by the woman, the two of them carrying the bed linens up from the shore. They sent the crow and the fisherman away, the goddess explaining that it was bad luck for the crow to be present while the connubial bed was prepared. The woman helped the goddess make up the bed, and together they draped the whole thing in the ribald silks from the goddess’s own boudoir. The goddess produced perfumes and scented oils from a silk purse that had been sent along with the linens, and with these they anointed first themselves, and then the pillows. They scattered lotus blossoms and jasmine flowers on the bedding, and when all was ready, Dewi Sri and the woman took a moment to lie on the bed.

  “’Tis a canopy suited for the bawdiest of revels,” said the woman, looking up through the cornucopia of couplings woven into the silk.

  “So it is,” said the goddess. “A woman
needs a touch of the harlot in her, or else she’s a dry stick. We are here to bring as much joy as we can into the world.”

  The woman pointed at one of the couples above her head. “I’ve never thought of sitting on the Man Thomas in quite that way.”

  “Oh, that one’s lusty good fun,” said the goddess. “’Tis called Virsha, the Bull, and it makes you the queen of both your pleasures. Your man will see your lovely backside in all its glory, and he will want you all the more for the lusty motion of your hips.”

  “So have I seen,” said the woman. “The fisherman is most attentive when I am most lewd.”

  “Go to him,” said the goddess, “perfumed and oiled as you are, and show him this new way of coupling. It will make you happy, and when the queen’s happy, everybody’s happy.”

  “I am no queen,” said the woman, though she smiled at this bit of flattery from the goddess.

  “Of course you are,” said the goddess. “Every woman is the queen of her own home. Go on, go to him, and lead him to your shared throne. I have a pupil who awaits his lesson.”

  The crow was indeed pacing back and forth on the sand, muttering to himself, and casting glances full of desperate yearning at the canopied bed. The two women he fancied were dallying there, making him wait. When the woman parted the silks and looked out, he took the opportunity to go to her, offering his hand to help her step down.

  “Thank you, my lord,” she said. His hand was feverishly warm, and she let his touch linger before she strolled away, the sashay of her hips rolling side to side beneath her sarong.

  “Uff,” the crow said, his chest so full of heat and ardor that he thought he might explode. He passed a hand in front of his face and grew taller by a cubit, and in his thunderous voice he said “Ko ko ko! This beach is closed to all my subjects until further notice. Be gone from here, at once!”

  From down the beach the cormorant and the pelican were seen rising into the air and flying out to sea, while the frigate bird circled high overhead, riding the current of air above the inlet. The crow returned to his normal size, his blood thumping through his veins.

  “Lord Crow,” said the goddess, “present thyself.”

  The crow parted the silks with his neb and looked in. There she was, reclining on one elbow, her sarong tied low round her hips, the bounty of her breasts there for him to feast his eyes upon. Her coif was partly undone, and a coil of her shiny black hair draped fetchingly down the front of her shoulder. Her smoldering gaze was full of smoke and mystery, her lips were voluptuous and painted hibiscus red, her smile was slight and bespoke an inward amusement.

  The goddess took a long, slow breath, drawing in the scent of her inamorato, a scent of wind and sea, of smoke and roasted meat. “Enter, my darling, this chamber of passion,” said she, and she bade him enter with her finger, crooked and beckoning.

  And enter he did, crawling awkwardly across the bedding on his knees, his black eyes glistering with lust, his chest wide, his greedy hands at the ready, his loincloth tented ludicrously. The goddess rose to her knees and met him, clasping his hands with hers and thus corralling his grasping ardor.

  “Patience, Lord Crow,” said Dewi Sri, “for as long as we have waited for this moment, let us make the most of it.”

  The crow’s breath was ragged, as if his throat were sticky, and the air he pulled into his lungs caught on every fold and turn. The goddess brought the palms of his hands together in prayer position in front of his magnificent chest.

  “Close your eyes,” said she, and when he had done so, she untied the leather cord that held his loincloth on his hips and let it fall. There it was, his q’hram, rigid with blood and throbbing, and of a size befitting a god. The goddess smiled broadly in approval. She leaned down and blew her own hot breath on it, which made the crow moan and shudder, and then she put her hands on the crow’s chest. “Lie back,” she said, pushing him gently. His back was arched, and the goddess helped him free his legs one by one on either side of her, stretching them past her hips.

  The goddess then anointed the crow with scented oils, sandal wood, lavender, and anise, rubbing them into his temples, his third eye, his navel, and then reaching beneath him to anoint the top of his spine where it disappeared beneath his neck feathers, and his sacrum. Through all of this her bare breasts touched his bare skin, and Lord Crow trembled, his blood hot and churning.

  The goddess undid her sarong from her hips and tossed it aside. Her own ardor overtook her, and she straddled the crow’s hips, and she took his q’hram in her hands and stroked it.

  “Aw!” gasped the crow. “Aw aw aw aw aw!”

  “Oh yes,” said the goddess, “we are too, too ready.”

  There was no further room for delay, and the goddess guided Lord Crow’s arrow to her quiver. The crow babbled, “Humma-humma-kuruk-ma-ha-ha-ha-ka-kaw-kaw-kaw.” The string of his bow had been pulled taut for so long that the moment the head of his arrow touched her opening his shot was spent.

  “Aww!” said he, “Aw! Aw-Aw! Awwwwwwwww.”

  The goddess rolled her eyes and hid her smile. Her nether lips were slick with white ribbons of seed. A very great deal of seed, by the feel of it, and no surprise, given that he had waited a thousand times a thousand years for this moment. “There, there, my darling,” she cooed, “it is done. Thou art a man now.”

  “Humma-kuruk-ma-ha-ha-ha,” said the crow. His tongue lolled out the side of his beak, and he gazed up at her, muzzy eyed and depleted.

  Such a man-child he was, but if he was quick to release, he would be quick to recover. And with his first time out of the way, she could begin his schooling in earnest. She cleaned his spewery from her loins with a bit of cloth she’d laid by for that very purpose. She knelt beside him, and she traced the trailing edge of her flight feathers down his chest, eliciting a low moan. She tizzled his whirligigs with her fingernails, and his moan grew louder. His q’hram, O happy day, began to stiffen. She anointed his root chakra with jasmine to give the crow greater longevity in the second act.

  “Pay heed,” said she, “to the way I touch thee, for it is just so that I wish to be touched.”

  The crow did pay heed, for her touch was not a thing to ignore, and set him aquivering with pleasure. “Touch,” said she, “is how the flesh knows the divine. When we touch each other so, we bring earth and heaven together.”

  “Aww,” said the crow.

  “Your turn,” said the goddess, “touch me.”

  “Where?” said the crow.

  “Wherever your hands are drawn,” said the goddess. His hand, as it happened, was drawn to the bounty of her breasts, and now it was her turn to moan.

  “Like this?” said the crow.

  “Just so,” said the goddess, “but keep your hand moving.”

  “Like so?” said the crow.

  “Oh, yes,” said the goddess, returning his caress with one of her own, “like that.”

  Then the goddess placed a pillow beneath his head, the better to arrange his beak to her purpose. His beak lay on his chest, perfectly shaped for her to polish her pearl along its hard and gleaming length. She crouched over his head facing his feet, and she took the lusty ride she had long been promising herself. His beak was well-formed for the task, as she knew it would be, and she slid herself back and forth on a slick of her own divine juices. Yes, here was a rare pleasure, a new and exotic way to bring forth the oldest of raptures. She spread her wings and threw her shoulders back, grinding her loins into the hard curve beneath her. “Krmfh,” croaked the crow, his beak held shut by her exertions. She grabbed the crow’s q’hram, churning his butter, like this, and this, and this, drawing the moment out, urging them both forward, her second chakra swelling, her loins rutting, just so, and so, and so, her hands urgent on the crow’s q’hram, all else falling away, like this, and so, and this, and so, and with her thousands of years of experience, she saw to it that they erupted together, the crow gibbering and thrusting, the goddess’s eyes rolled back, her breasts bouncing,
her juices flowing, their raptured cries loud and long, her loins grinding, her loins, her loins, her loins.

  Thus spent, the both of them collapsed, side by side and head to toe. Slowly they came back to the world of sense, god and goddess, the canopied bed, the sound of the sea. The goddess nuzzled the soles of the crow’s feet, and the crow nibbled at her toes with his neb, and then they both fell to giggling.

  “I had no idea,” said the crow.

  “I know,” said the goddess.

  The crow, looking up at the bawdy canopy, said “There is more to learn, yes?”

  “Oh, yes,” said the goddess, “much more.”

  “Teach me,” said the crow.

  “’Twill be my pleasure,” said the goddess. She was flushed, and deliciously sweaty, and she breathed in the sweet-and-sour funk of their coupling. She gave the crow her broadest smile.

  “I am to pleasure you as you pleasure me,” said the crow. “That is how it’s done?”

  “That is the first rule,” said the goddess. “To give as good as one gets, and then to give even better.”

  “And so we feed on each other’s delight.”

  “Just so.” The goddess sat up, her entire body humming with joy. “Remember this, Lord Crow,” said she. “When the goddess is happy, everyone is happy.”

  And so it was that the goddess schooled the crow in the art of love. They spent the rest of the day beneath the canopy, and the evening as well. Their cries of passion carried all the way to the fisherman’s home, where he and his beloved answered them, for they too were at school, the woman imparting to the fisherman some several new ways of coupling that she had learned from the goddess’s silks.

  When the canoe of the dead arrived at midnight, only the cormorant and the pelican were there to greet them, for the others were all fast asleep. They had to drag the crow out of bed to get him to sing his song, which he sang with little enthusiasm, although with just enough vigor to accomplish its task. Then he hurried off to the canopied bed, and while the dead piled onto the sacred fire, new cries of rapture came from within its covering. But the dead did not hear them, for without their souls, they had no ears for such bliss.