by Alison Tyler
Jimbo laughed, plunking down on the bed to struggle off his pants. “I think it’s wasted here.”
She kneeled behind him, stroking his back and chest, thinking he was too drunk. “I’m very good at building appetites.”
Jimbo fell backward, crooning, “I only want to make my fortune and return to the arms of my love.”
Lorilei knew that loves often were forgotten when a man glimpsed her charms. “I’m sure she would not mind for you to gain some experience.”
“My love is no woman, but my adoring Richard.” Jimbo smiled goofily.
Lorilei rolled her eyes. Indeed, her charms would be wasted. How then to get the magic stick? She looked down at Jimbo as a snore erupted from him. After climbing over him, Lorilei pulled Jimbo’s legs onto the bed and covered him up. Then she found the worn leather pack and a plain brown stick about a foot long and an inch in diameter. She wasn’t fooled by its bland appearance and took both the stick and her clothes back to her room.
Standing beside her bed, she held the stick before her and said, “Stick, stick, show me your tricks.”
It warmed in her hand, slowly thickening, becoming a browny pink. The end rounded, taking on a bulbish appearance until Lorilei gasped. In her hand, she held a rather well-endowed, life-size phallus. Her muscles clenched from groin to stomach and a flush spread through her, giving a rosy glow to her skin. Then the phallus began to vibrate.
Experimentally, Lorilei turned the thrumming tip toward her pussy and touched it to her labia. The vibration sent a delicious thrill through her, wetting her with desire. Falling back on her bed, she moved the penis back and forth, rubbing it around her clit, deliciously spreading her wet lips. The thing leaped in her hands. “Oh,” she squeaked out as it pushed into her, just a bit, then withdrew. Her hips moved back and forth, following the building waves of pleasure.
Lorilei thought she didn’t guide the phallus, but of its own it pushed into her so that her muscular walls clamped down, drawing it farther in. Even when buried all the way in her cunt, there were still a good five inches to hang on to, but it sat for a moment, letting the thrum build through her body. Just as she thought she could stand no more, the phallus withdrew to all but the ridged knob. Then it proceeded to plunge in and out, building speed. The wooden penis gave her a good fucking until she cried out, tsunami pleasure squeezing, rolling, overlapping pulses. Five minutes went by when the toy jumped to life again and kept Lorilei heartily entertained for half the night before she gasped out, “Stick, stick, no more tricks,” and fell into an exhausted slumber.
The next morning, Lorilei dragged herself from her bed, putting on a simple russet gown. Before she left the room, she looked at the stick on her bed. If only she could find a man like that.
Three people, including Jimbo sat in the tavern. They drank mulled cider and chatted quietly. When Lorilei walked in, they smiled knowingly.
Lorilei hummed as she cooked up eggs and bacon and cut huge slabs of brown, seedy bread. How would she get the stick from Jimbo? For have it she must.
When she brought the food over and plunked it down on the sturdy oak table, everyone dug in. She sat down with a ceramic mug of cider across from the tall man who looked a tad hungover. “Your tales were of such charm and wit last night that I will not charge you for your lodgings.”
Jimbo smiled and said, “And you obviously have found a better use for that magic stick than I. Keep it as payment.”
Lorilei blushed but smiled and shook his hand.
A few months later, Jon wandered along. Though handsome, he had little grace, and no penchant for storytelling. Still, Lorilei asked enough questions as she served up carrots, stewed chicken and dumplings, and ample ale to find that Jon, in his training, had been given a magic riding crop by his master.
“I will see what becomes of that when I return home,” Jon said around a mouthful of dumpling. He said and drank little. Lorilei closed up the kitchen and larder and went up to her room and waited. She wanted to see what the magic crop did.
When an hour had passed since Jon had gone to bed, she crept to his room in just her nightgown. She quietly opened the door. A short candle flickered on his bedside dresser and Jon’s back was turned away. As Lorilei moved closer, she peered into the shadows, searching for the pack. She carefully pulled open a drawer, when Jon rolled over, his pale eyes open and watching her.
“Look what the mice have brought in.”
Lorilei decided truth was best. “I came to check that your candle was out and truth be told, I was curious to see your magic crop.”
Jon smiled, but it wasn’t friendly. “Oh, I can show you that, but first you must remove your gown.”
She eyed his bare chest and the sheet tucked around his frame. His body was sturdy and young and a man was what suited her best. She shrugged and pulled the gown over her head, her russet curls dancing as she shook her head.
Jon’s gaze moved from her slender neck, over her full breasts, to her waist and along the slope of her hips. Then he said, “Crop, crop, give a fine beating until I yell stop.”
The pack rustled and a long, slender brown crop wriggled loose. It shot into the air and then began to slap at Lorilei’s behind. She turned from it but it kept shooting around to smack her ever harder. Squealing at the mounting pain, she tried to dodge it and ran about the room. Once she hunkered down, but then it whacked her on the back or breasts, which was worse. Jon laughed, doubling over in his bed as she scooted left and right.
Angry and beginning to hurt a great deal, Lorilei gritted her teeth and decided to take the punishment standing still. But the blows increased and drove her to her knees. Her ass, stinging fiercely, hot as a furnace, had her gripping the edge of the bed where Jon peered down at her, smiling. Gasping from the searing pain, Lorilei groaned, “Please, make it stop.”
Jon gave the words and the crop stopped. Lorilei leaned her head against the bed frame, catching her breath. Then she arched back, gasping as Jon’s cool hand slid over her butt. The contrast was extreme with the heat of her ass, and her nerves flared at every touch. His fingers slid down her butt until they burrowed between her pussy lips. She moaned, realizing that she was oddly turned on. He stroked her, spreading her silky wetness, and then said, “I have something to help you.”
Lorilei looked up and saw him lying naked, his cock standing stiff and straight.
He smiled and said, “Take a ride on that.”
Shivers of pain raced through Lorilei’s body. The only way to tamp it down was to bring equal levels of pleasure. She crawled onto the bed and straddled Jon’s hips. He grinned at her arrogantly, and reached to squeeze one of her breasts. She hovered above Jon’s cock for a moment, but knew she’d derive as much from this as he would. Plunging down onto his cock, she felt a slight resistance before he filled her. His cool hands continued to caress her ass cheeks, squeezing and pulling them apart. She moved at her pace, up and down, as delicious tremors overtook her, not letting Jon speed up. As she reached her crescendo, she stretched out her hand and mercilessly tweaked his nipples. He shouted, arching up as she slammed down onto him, writhing and moaning.
He fell into a deep slumber, and Lorilei stole from his room, the crop in hand. In the morning, she charged him for his stay and he went on his way. Whether he knew the crop was missing or not, he did not say.
Weeks later, Eric jauntily approached the inn. His thread-bare, saffron tunic was clean and outlined his trim frame. Lorilei stopped washing in the wooden tub to stare, noticing his finely muscled legs. He was like spring leaves rustling through the reds and golds of fall. Her breath caught as the sun gilded the waves of his hair.
He stopped and looked a Lorilei, then bowed and asked, “Do you have space for the evening meal?”
“Yes, that and a room if you need.”
Eric shook his head, his emerald eyes flashing in the sun. “Ah, no, my lady. I have here a trusty cot, both magic and comfortable.” He patted the bundle of sticks and leather at his back.
Lorilei’s eyes grew wide. A magic cot. Now, what would that do? “Of course, my lord…”
“Eric. I heard told that my brothers, James and Jon, came this way and recommended your hospitality.” They had also mentioned her desire for their meager enchanted treasures. But Eric hoped to gain his own treasures.
Lorilei brought out her best ham, potatoes and squashes. She poured Eric spiced wine and sat with him, listening to his tales. But mostly she found she couldn’t help but stare into his eyes.
Eric for his part wanted to linger in her fiery radiance, soak in Lorilei’s natural joy. Eventually, he bade her good-night and repaired to the barn. Lorilei climbed to her bedroom, vowing that she would not trick this man, for she sensed his honest gaiety. Pacing her room from armoire to bed and back, she found she could not settle, and crept out to the barn. For just a look, that was all.
Eric knew she couldn’t resist and lay waiting, having not yet used the magic words. He stared up at the loft, his arms tucked behind his head. The barn door creaked open and he smiled.
As Lorilei approached she was disappointed to see nothing more than a worn cot. But the man upon it warmed her heart. She blushed and said, “I just came to see your wondrous cot.”
“Just that?” asked Eric, laughing. He patted the cot for her to sit. And as she did, he said, “Bed, bed, show a fine spread.”
Lorilei laughed as the bed rumbled, doubling in size, the thin linen changing to sumptuous silks and a brocade coverlet in umber and peridot. Pillows appeared, as a canopy of fine blue muslin spread out from the posts sprouting at each corner. She clapped her hands. “Oh, what a delightful piece of magic.”
Eric watched her and reached out to touch her face. He began to kiss his way up her neck and nibble her ear. “You are a better piece of magic.”
Lorilei closed her eyes, sinking back as he kissed along her arm, gently sucking her fingers. He inched her gown up, kissing, licking, tasting along the way. Lorilei sighed and wriggled, grasping his hands or his face to lay delirious kisses along his flesh. He tasted of honey, wood smoke and cedar. She breathed him in as their bodies slid along each other.
It was much later, after Eric had sucked her rosy nipple, trailing his tongue from her navel to her clit, bringing her to an apex of orgasm, that he entered her, his cock melding with Lorilei so that they moved unconsciously, tempos changing, slowing, building until they came together, passion vibrating through them, clenching them closely.
In the morning, as the first radiant rays of sun slanted through the barn door, Lorilei and Eric lay entwined and the other travelers had to fend for themselves.
Lorilei drew in a deep breath, smelling the salty musk of their lovemaking. Never had she found a man like this and she now knew her need for magic had been fulfilled, for she had found the greatest treasure.
Two brothers returned home to the tailor’s house for a while. Eric only returned to invite them to the wedding.
The Broken Fiddle
Andrea Dale
“Erik, stop the car!” Phoebe shouted.
With a dramatic sigh, Erik slammed on the brakes. “Girlfriend,” he said once the car halted, “you are going to give me a heart attack.”
But Phoebe wasn’t listening. She was already out of the car, a few hundred yards back on the narrow tarmac road through the tiny Irish town of Arderra, staring up in rapture. When Erik joined her, she breathed, “Isn’t it magnificent?”
Erik grudgingly agreed that it was, although he grumbled that it wasn’t on the list and he didn’t even know what little Irish town they were in, anyway. She knew he wasn’t really angry; they’d been friends since before he’d figured out that he was gay, and she knew his dramatic ways.
Besides, he’d been just as enthusiastic about this trip as she, ignoring the warning of friends that they didn’t have a publishing contract and it would be a waste of money. He agreed with Phoebe: Even if they didn’t sell the book, they’d have had a glorious vacation in Ireland, right?
She hoped the book would fly. She believed it would. There were enough Anglophiles in the U.S. to appreciate a coffee-table book of gorgeous photos of unique pub signs, accompanied by the stories behind the signs. No prefab Saint George and the Dragons or the King’s Arms—no, they were going for local legends and exceptional original artwork.
Like this one. Phoebe shivered with excitement.
In the foreground was a fiddle, finely etched with Celtic knotwork. It was broken, however—the neckpiece split and lolling drunkenly, the snapped strings dangling so realistically that Phoebe thought she could hear their tortured death twang.
It wasn’t just the lifelike artwork that had caught her eye, though. In the upper corners, faded and half-seen like ghosts, were two women.
The one on the left was a redhead, with creamy skin and sad emerald eyes. The opposing woman had black-as-night hair that glittered with diamond-like drops of water. Between them stretched a night sky, clouded and wild, a bolt of lightning sundering the picture and forever separating the women.
Which, Phoebe supposed, was probably a good thing. Somehow, instinctively, she knew the women were rivals.
“Well,” Erik said, “it is getting late. We might as well stay here tonight, and you can pump someone for information about the sign.”
“Deal. I’ll get us checked in.”
She asked the usual questions as she acquired rooms for them, but the desk clerk, a pretty young thing with a wild thatch of tangled black hair to her waist and a ring in her nose, said vaguely that it was about some sort of legend, and she should be asking Harry, the owner, tonight at the ceilidh. He’d be running the bar, see. They would be coming down for the ceilidh, wouldn’t they?
Phoebe assured her that they would.
It was a gloriously traditional pub, all dark red upholstery and wood so old and scarred it looked black beneath the loving polish. A sooty stone fireplace held a low, peaty fire.
They watched the band set up as they ate (prawn cocktail and steak-and-kidney pie for Phoebe, Camembert and fresh salmon for Erik, and apple-blackberry crumble with hot custard for both of them).
“Yes, he’s mighty fine,” Erik said, propping his chin on his hand.
“Who, what?”
“That delicious boy you’re ogling. I’d fight you for him, but I’m already sure he’s as straight as a road in Iowa.”
Phoebe knew it was useless to deny she’d been ogling. The young man across the room who was pulling a fiddle from its case was delicious. Hair as black as coal and curling silkily to his collar, eyes as blue as twilight eve. High, sharp cheekbones that looked as though they’d been chiseled out of marble. Pale skin that would have made Snow White blanch with envy. Slender but sturdy, wearing a pair of faded jeans so snug he must have had to use a shoehorn to get them on. She spooned another bite of crumble, laughing to herself. He was barely more than a boy, and at thirty-two she felt like a dirty old woman for contemplating his impressive bulge.
By the time they finished their meal the crowd was gathering for the ceilidh, and they managed to snag two chairs by the fire just in time.
The band played reels that left Phoebe breathless with melodies that leaped like cold, wild streams. Reels with boundless energy and a relentless beat that made her think of really great sex.
The fiddle player’s hands flew over the strings, made a blur of the bow. He played his instrument with passion, and she imagined that passion extended to other areas in his life.
That left her breathless for another reason altogether, and with her nipples tightening beneath her shirt. She shouldn’t, she told herself, be thinking about the young man’s lips and how they might feel on her skin. But she squirmed in her seat all the same.
During a break in the music, Phoebe went to the bar, waiting until the crush of people cleared so she could actually get a few words in to Harry, a slender, clean-cut man with graying hair and a calm demeanor in the face of the frenzy of Saturday night at the pub. A score of t
aps lined the bar, glasses hanging from racks overhead and stronger spirits in bottles on the wall behind. She ordered another pint of Guinness, watched approvingly as he poured it with a deft hand to create the outline of a shamrock on the foam, and slid her coins across the bar.
“My friend and I, we’re doing a book on unusual pub signs,” she said. “A coffee-table book. He takes the pictures, I write the text. You’ve got a gorgeous sign out front—what’s the story behind it?”
“A book, eh?” Harry swiped a towel across the gleaming wood between them, then leaned on the bar.
“We don’t have a publisher yet,” Phoebe admitted. “But I don’t think we’ll have a problem selling the project. It’ll be good publicity for you.”
Harry gazed fondly around the packed pub. “Ah, I don’t think I’ll be needing much of that—not that I’ll ever turn it away, mind you. I’ll tell you who can really spin the tale for you is Finn over there.”
She tried to follow his gaze. “Finn?”
Harry indicated her sweet fiddle player. Ah, Finn. It suited him.
“Will he be spinning me a tale, or telling me the history of the sign?” she asked.
Harry waggled his head in a yes-and-no motion. “A little of both, I’ll warrant. But he does know the tale of the sign better than any of us. He actually did the research on it, for a school project.”
“He’s something of a scholar, is he?”
“A little here, a little there,” Harry said. “I don’t think his time at uni was wasted.”
So he’d been to college. Maybe she wasn’t quite as dirty or as old as she’d thought.
Someone jostled up to the bar beside her.
“Two black-and-tans and a snakebite, Harry,” the man said without a glance at Phoebe.
Phoebe thanked Harry and retreated to her seat with her drink.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” she asked Erik again.
He shook his head. “I’m fine, darling. Except I’ve got a headache, and I’m afraid the music isn’t helping it. I’m going to abandon you for my bed and the very real possibility of a Black Adder rerun.”
