I gasped. It had been so long, I had not remembered it feeling so good.
He stroked his member.
“Let us make love first,” I pleaded.
He shook his head. His smile was cruel.
I remembered… Thorp: doing much the same: looking much the same: while I was bound and helpless. I tore my gaze from Gaston and studied the tree tops pounded by the rain. “Do not,” I breathed. “I do not wish to associate one with the other.”
Gaston leaned down to hiss in my ear. “You already have. We are here to cure that.”
I groaned with frustration: not from unrequited lust; but that I should be such a tangled mess as to require this activity at all.
“You made me remember one night, my love,” Gaston whispered kindly. “And it was good that you did. I would have gone years without understanding.”
“But I understand,” I protested.
He snorted in my ear and caressed my face and neck sweetly.
I twisted beneath him: my still-hard cock enjoying the sensation of being pressed and held: my Horse enjoying the leather about my wrists and the bonds of the heart they represented. I sighed with resignation.
“He only raped me twice…” I began. I told my love of all that had occurred in as much detail as I could muster. I did not vomit. There was no cave. My cock retreated—as did Gaston’s. In the end, I lay there crying in his arms: my freed limbs wrapped tightly about him.
We lay twined together in silence for a long time. His hands at last began to quest, and his kisses became insistent. I was exhausted, but still anxious and pleased by his attentions. And then he reached my member and it remained stubbornly quiescent. I was filled with dismay.
“Hush,” my matelot murmured. “It will rise for me tomorrow. I will make it.”
Anxiety clutched at my head, but my Horse nickered and rubbed against him. “How?”
“I know those strings,” Gaston assured me with a warm and loving smile.
“I suppose you do,” I sighed. “Reins,” I corrected.
He chuckled against my neck. “Oui. And I have a fine quirt.”
“Do you?”
“Oui. I will not fuck you again until you rise for me.”
“Damn you,” I said with tired amusement. My Horse informed me this would not be a problem. I chuckled and snuggled against my matelot.
In the morning, it all seemed a dream: my captivity and Thorp’s depredations, and my telling Gaston of it. All memories prior to our arrival in this paradise seemed but a faint echo of a distant recollection of a thing that occurred in someone else’s life. I did not seek to make any of it clearer as I went about our morning routine. I sank happily back into my Horse’s timeless view of the here and now.
My matelot was apparently not so lulled by the need for forgetfulness. He beckoned me into the woods as the sun began to climb. I knew he had been about something: he had come and gone from our camp several times carrying our improvised tools. I followed him and found him grinning next to a fallen tree. I raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Strip,” he commanded.
I snorted with amusement even as my gut clenched with concern. I was quick to do as he ordered, though.
He pointed at the tree. “Lean over it.”
I saw the stakes he had set into the ground on the side of the trunk I faced. I understood. My Horse was delighted. I could not say I was dismayed. I did as he bade, and he quickly secured my ankles to the stakes and climbed over the log to do the same to my wrists. I lay as I had over the barrel in Collins’ prison.
I adjusted my weight, attempting to make it easier to breathe; but I was panting such that even without the pressure on my chest I would have found it difficult. My heart raced and I gripped the ropes affixing me to the stakes with sweaty palms.
Gaston knelt before me and pressed his cheek to mine. “How are we?” he murmured with great kindness.
I answered with a stunning truth. “I am as hard as an iron post.”
He chuckled against my neck. “Then you will receive your reward.”
He kissed me sweetly with mounting lust, and caressed my chest and nipples. I moaned and cried with pleasure even though my organ found little use for the hard tree bark that was all I had to thrust against. Then my matelot leapt the tree and came behind me. He slapped my arse playfully; and I was not minded of Thorp in the slightest: this was promise and not threat. And then my love was greased and in me. My cock proved it had no interest in games of suspense: it had been waiting long enough. I came with great force in a long continuous pumping of jism as if I had been storing pints of the substance for just this occasion. With a laugh, my matelot returned the jelly to the exterior of my member with a playful tickle before pleasuring himself in my arse. I hung my head with sated delight and even enjoyed the rhythmic scratch of the tree beneath me.
When he finished, he lay atop me for a time, kissing my back and shoulders before releasing me. We went to swim without a word. I floated in the cool water with the bright midday sun upon my chest and privates and felt it was the love of the Gods bestowed as light.
“Are you angry with your Horse now?” Gaston asked quietly as he floated nearby.
“I cannot remember anger,” I said honestly.
“Good.”
I recalled anger quite vividly that afternoon, though; when we cuddled in our bed as the rains pounded the trees yet again. My cock would not rise. Gaston did not seem surprised or even disappointed. I was furious until he tied me to the tree roots. I rose immediately.
Gaston poked my turgid member with a curious finger and grinned. “That is quite a knot.”
I groaned with frustration until he smothered it with a kiss and surprised me to emotional quiescence by impaling himself upon me. As always, he was incredibly tight. This new constriction drove me to heights of passion far greater than the bonds about my wrists, and I nearly fainted when I came. He was grinning like a fool when he pushed my legs up to take his pleasure. I laughed with him when he came.
“I suppose I shall enjoy unknotting it,” I said when we lay together in the aftermath.
“I know I will,” he said with glee.
The next day he tied my ankles and wrists to a stick and hoisted me so that the small of my back rested upon the ground. The anxiety and fear was once again nearly overwhelming: and once again I was as hard as iron. He took me tenderly: I came with great force.
I did not rise when unbound later in the day. My cock did find interest in his cajoling when I was blindfolded, though.
And so it went. Piece by piece, Gaston emulated all that Thorp had done; including the use of a dildo and gag; but without the beatings, as they were not knotted in my soul—though there were times when I did yearn for the drug-like euphoria that followed his chastising me in that manner. I ceased railing at my Horse and cock and began to wonder at them. I ceased identifying any sexual act with Thorp. There was only Gaston. He had painted over every horror once again: leaving us a magnificent new canvas to scrawl our delights across.
And then one languid night when I was particularly sore from my matelot’s delightful ministrations, I looked across the fire and found him watching me with great love in his eyes and his great member in his hand; and the simple string was pulled again. My cock rose quietly with strength as if pulled to point directly at him. We grinned at the sight of it, and sat regarding one another for a time before he came to me and awarded it a very fine kiss for its efforts. I plundered his arse a moment later with relieved abandon.
I woke hard the next morning, and crowed my pleasure and gratefulness to the Gods. I appeared to be healed.
We continued our Horseplay anyway, because we enjoyed it. In all other ways we were a curious mix of our Men and Horses. I felt at peace in my soul.
The rhythm of our lives returned. We lived in paradise. There were days when I feared a snake would come, but I stomped upon such thoughts quickly.
Then one afternoon when I floated in the pool gazing up at the clear blu
e sky, a snake of a thought slithered past my defenses and bit me. It was late afternoon, and there was no rain. It seemed there had been no rain for several days. I knew that was important. The knowledge of it filled me with dread. It called to mind other things I had witnessed: the most important being Gaston’s strangely pensive behavior.
There was no helping it once the poison was in my heart. He could either help me suck it free, or tell me how long I had to live.
“Has it rained recently?” I called out.
“Non,” Gaston called back, and then he appeared at the edge of the pool—upside down from my perspective.
He appeared contemplative and guilty; but I could not be sure from the angle. I righted myself and swam to join him on the rocks. He did indeed appear guilty.
“The rains have stopped,” he said sadly.
“In what month do the rains usually cease? November? December?”
He smiled grimly and nodded.
Time—or at least the passage of it—swooped in and snatched my breath. “Six months? Five months? We have been here that long?”
He nodded. “And I have betrayed our pact,” he sighed. “I have been thinking.”
My recaptured breath left my lungs in a prolonged sigh. I knew that. I had seen it. I pulled myself from the water that seemed suddenly cold. “Go on,” I said sadly.
“We needed…” He paused and frowned. “I needed you to be well if we are to return. I cannot live amongst them without you. You are…” He chewed his lip and then met my gaze and smiled. “We are complementary and yet opposite. My Horse is a creature of anger. Your Horse is a creature of love. My Man is a creature of thoughtfulness and caring—at least I feel he is when I am at my best.”
“He is,” I assured him.
Gaston smiled anew. “Your Horse is much the same; and your Man is… cynical: a worldly creature well-suited to battling men.”
“I see, and I agree with that assessment,” I said with wonder as I considered it.
“In that we are opposites after a fashion, but we complete one another as centaurs: My Horse and your Man, and your Horse and my Man. One is perhaps the worst of us, but it is very strong; and the other is the best of us—and it is not as weak as we sometimes feel.”
I envisioned the curious image of my torso upon the powerful, black, horse body I had always ascribed to him, and his torso upon my sleeker, white horse: the former a warrior, and the latter a philosopher. “I see it,” I said.
“I need your Man to ride my Horse into battle if I have any chance of surviving them: the world out there. And I feel you need…”
I nodded. “My Horse very much needs your Man to guide and love Him. As much as He loves to run with your Horse…” I shrugged.
“We make a whole person as a team: a good person,” he said seriously. “One that places love above all else; but one that cannot be bullied.”
I grinned. “Oui. And now I am on my feet again: all of me. How are you?”
“I have been quite well for months now. We were here for you.”
His guilty mien had returned.
“And now you wish to return,” I said with resignation.
“For the children, Will: nothing else. We agreed that if we should have children, one of us should place them first. And… I do not feel I can be a man, a good man, if I do not take responsibility for what I have wrought.”
My heart ached. “I love you more than life itself,” I said. “And I do not think I would love you as much as I do if you were not a man who would make that choice.”
He sighed with relief and smiled. “Thank you.”
I allowed myself to think of the children. We did not know if our pickled baby was alive. Agnes would likely have delivered now—or Gods forbid—died trying. And then there was the other purported child. Christine would surely have delivered by now as well: she had become pregnant at the same time Agnes had—or…
Old ways of thinking returned. How many young ladies had I seen who were desperate to marry some fool because they had already lain with another and carried a seed badly sown?
I realized how little Gaston and I had discussed of the matter: nothing. We had read the letter; he had professed his intent to remain married to Agnes; we had learned of our friends’ troubles; and Thorp had struck.
“My love, do you count Christine’s babe among those you are responsible for?” I asked with my lip between my teeth.
My matelot nodded sadly.
“Because you feel it is yours, or because…”
“It is mine.” He frowned. “Do you think it is not?”
I shrugged. “It could explain her wish to marry.”
He shook his head. “She bled.”
“She could have lied about menstruating.”
“When I took her,” he said quietly. “And… I simply know: it is mine.”
I had known women to concoct a ruse to fool a man about their virginal bleed, but not while being raped. Of course, she could have set the stage by cutting her lips or some such thing before going to the stable to seduce him, but… Nay, I knew as surely as my matelot did. Whatever she bore was his. I had known it when I read his father’s letter.
I pushed it all away. I no longer wished to think my Man’s dark and cynical thoughts predicated by his dark and cynical experiences with life. My Horse’s faith was far more appealing. I was happier when I gave my animal His head, was I not? And I wanted to live as I had been living these last months: happy.
“Can we not return here with the children?” I asked lightly.
He brightened briefly. “I was envisioning that, but…” He sighed again. “There is always the matter of their mothers.”
“My Man says the Devil with their mothers. What says your Horse?” I teased.
He laughed. “Much the same.” He sobered. “But Will…”
“I know. We cannot have all we wish in order to have… all we wish.” I shrugged. “So when?”
He shrugged. “Whenever you are ready. I have been dreading this conversation for days.”
I considered remaining for a time, but as I looked about our paradise I knew the innocence was shattered. I did not wish to think of what we faced, but I could not return to my Horse’s happy mindlessness.
I stood and lunged atop him, toppling us into the water. “Tomorrow?” I asked as we surfaced.
He nodded before his grin turned feral and he dove atop me.
We wrestled like careless boys; for tomorrow we would be men again. I told the Gods we were ready, and asked for Their strength and guidance in our coming battles.
Eighty-Nine
Wherein We Return To Battle
Several days later, to my amazement, Gaston found the place we had secreted the canoe; and to his amazement, it was still there. With the joviality of young men embarking on a grand adventure, we put it in the water and paddled to Île de la Tortue. We did not speak of what we might find in Cayonne. We had decided on our journey down from the mountains that any conjecture was useless and we would not dwell upon anxious thoughts. We would act as the centaurs we were, and live in the moment and assess each event or opportunity that befell us as it came.
Cayonne appeared much as it had when last we visited two years ago: a jumble of small buildings at the foot of a small mountain overlooking a small bay that was presided over by a small fortress. It had been established by the earliest buccaneers at the turn of the century; making it about six times as old as Port Royal. And it had changed hands among the French, English, and Spanish several times in those years. Overall, it was much as if the section of Port Royal around the Chocolata Hole were put on a hill. Though there were small plantations on Île de la Tortue, her port was a place of pirates and traders: not planters and merchants. There was little English attempt at civilization here.
I heard the church bells of the Jesuit mission tolling our doom as we approached the port; and despite our pact not to fret, I could not help but wonder how we would deal with the Holy Roman Church.
When last we were here, I had said things to priests that would have had me hauled before the Inquisition or stoned by somber, black-caped Protestants if I had been anywhere in Christendom. And now, Gaston was a French lord, and the Church would play a very important role in whether or not he was allowed to inherit all that belonged to that title. And acquiring his children might require that he inherit. I would have felt less dread if we were approaching a Spanish colony—alone—to rob it. At least then I could shoot our enemies, or die trying. Here, my hands would be tied; and it was my Horse who liked to be helpless on occasion, not my Man.
There were very few vessels of any size in the harbor; and we recognized none of them.
“If it is December, they might have already gone roving,” Gaston remarked.
“Are we sure the port is still French?” I asked with amusement.
He pointed at the French flag flying over the little fortress.
I laughed.
We pushed the canoe ashore on a beach crowded with similar craft. They were all over-turned with the seaward end buried in sand in preparation of a long stay. It was an indication that the men who last used them had gone roving. We did the same with ours, and I bid it a silent farewell. When we left Cayonne, it would be on a larger vessel.
Since the Virgin Queen—or any other ship of our acquaintance —was not in the harbor, we walked uphill toward the church and the only place we knew: the huge house sitting next to the mission: Dominic Doucette’s. Though we knew not what state we might find Gaston’s former teacher, his house was where our people would have gone upon arriving in the summer, and where Gaston’s father would have sent any letters or other instructions.
Sarah’s house had been designed to match Doucette’s, but in form and concept, and not function and actuality: the two people who designed Sarah’s abode had never seen the Doucette home. More than half the ground floor of the big horseshoe of the physician’s house was a hospital; and several doors opened from these rooms onto the alley separating the house from the mission. They were the primary point of entry for all but the servants—who entered via the yard; while what might be considered the main door of the residence—the door in the short section of the horseshoe—opened onto the street proper but was never used.
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